THE INTERNET AND TV
OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM
COCKTAIL CHATTER – PUZZLES AND BEAUTY AND GAMING
THE AWARD WINNERS DINNER
NOTEWORTHY EVENTS TODAY
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THE INTERNET AND TV: A study by networking giant Cisco Systems (the company that makes the routers used to connect computers) predicts that monthly Internet traffic in North America will increase 264% by 2011 to more than 7.8 Million Terabytes – again, MONTHLY. Just to remind you, a terabyte is a Million Megabytes or a Thousand Gigabytes. Much of that, of course, is coming in the form of video. Okay, I’m still wrestling with the fact that YouTube alone accounts for as much bandwidth today as the entire Internet did in 2000, according to Federal Communications Commissioner Robert McDowell. That was from a Wall Street Journal commentary. Now, another article from WSJ quotes Larry Roberts, the original creator of ARPAnet, the precursor to the Internet, as saying the Internet is ‘last-generation technology.’ In what may be one of the great quotes of the day, he says, “the Internet wasn’t designed for television… I know because I designed it.” He and former Cisco chief technology officer Len Bosack are trying to re-design the infrastructure of the Internet to cope with that 264% increase. One-time pirating website BitTorrent is doing the same thing, designing what it calls DNA (Delivery Network Accelerator) for your PC.
And they better work, because several recent studies indicate that, as one study put it, online video has gone mainstream. Microsoft’s digital agency Avenue A/ Razorfish reports that two-thirds of what it calls ‘connected customers’ (meaning people with broadband access) say they regularly watch video on YouTube and that nearly all of them (95%) report that they have watched an online video in the past three months. Further indication of the growing interest in online video comes from a study by Frank N. Magid and Associates which found that only a quarter (23%) of Millennial would rather watch video on TV instead of the Internet. More than a third (36%) of the 18-24 crowd say that the PC is “competing” for their entertainment time. Meanwhile Wayne Karrfalt reports on TVNewsday.com that most of the major TV groups now have a C-level executive dedicated to developing and monetizing online activities even though online activities only represent about 5% of the revenue pie for them.
And they’re not alone; BrightCove announced that it has launched a new service providing what it calls “broadcast quality online TV shows” using the BitTorrent technology mentioned above. Joost, as you will recall from last week’s MfM, has moved out of the beta stage and gone public. Vuze ‘Open Entertainment Platform’ which also promises high resolution video has opened up its platform to independent producers. Add to the expanding list Comcast’s Ziddio.com which focuses on consumer generated content. And, reportedly, today newly minted Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore is supposed to announce a major development to the CurrentTV site. Read Cynopsis and you will seek a weekly, but often daily, listing of new television series being released on either iTunes or UnBox.
And for good reason. The Interactive Advertising Bureau reports that Internet advertising in the second quarter of this year passed the $5 Billion mark for the first time. That’s the highest quarterly revenue reporting since 1996 and a 26% increase over the previous year. The first half of 2007 is more than $10 Billion with the yearly revenue expected to hit $21 Billion. The report tracks Internet advertising revenue starting in 1999 when the total for the year was $4.6 Billion. It nearly doubled the next year, 2000, but then declined for several years before starting its phenomenal growth in 2004. On the flip side (there’s always a flip side), a survey by Nielsen of 26,000 consumers in 47 markets worldwide found that advertising in old media scored much higher than advertising in new media. Nearly two thirds (63%) say they trust newspapers ads and more than half (56%) say they trust TV spots and magazine placements. But only a quarter (26%) trust banner ads and only a third (34%) trust search ads.
Indicative of the power of peer recommendations, the same study found the most trusted form of ‘advertising’ came from other consumer recommendations with more than three-quarters (78%) expressing confidence. And a warning to marketers everywhere, the Nielsen survey noted that some word-of-mouth experts report that bad experiences outnumber good ones by as many as five to one.
Just as an only semi-related side note, Raymond Kurzwell, the author of The Age of Intelligent Machines and The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, estimates that a human being’s functional memory is about 1.25 Terabytes.
OPPOSITE ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM: Two recent reports contain some interesting observations about Millennials and Baby Boomers. News Director Stacy Woefel of the University of Missouri’s KOMU-TV station writes about Millennials in the recent Radio Television News Directors’ Association magazine, The Communicator. In part, the story says Millennials want financial security, strong mentors and a feeling of being someone special. There is also a sense of entitlement along with unrealistic expectations. On the other end, a report by Mediamark Research Inc., found Baby Boomers are optimistic with four in ten (39%) saying they think their ‘households” will be better off financially a year from now and 90% of them saying they ‘themselves’ will be better off a year from now. More than half of Baby Boomers (55%) reported vote in an election, with a third (31%) undertaking a home remodeling project and less than half (41%) playing the lottery.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: U.S. consumers have lost more than $7 Billion to viruses, spyware and phishing, according to a survey by Consumer Reports. A group of M-I-T grads have designed a folding-wing plane, the Terrafugia, that they say will eventually be the prototype of a hybrid car-plane that would make George Jetson jealous. Makers of a puzzle called Eternity II, being sold at Toys R Us for $49.95, are offering $2 Million to someone who solves the puzzle which has 256 geometric shapes (sort of a successor to Rubic’s Cube) by December 31, 2007. And a study by researchers at the University of Toronto found that the “spatial gap” (the ability to process visual information from a wide variety of sources) between men and women can be closed if women spent time playing video games. According to Virtual Worlds Management (Yes, strange as it may seem, there is an organization aimed at managing virtual worlds), venture capital, technology and media firms have invested more than $1 Billion in 35 virtual worlds.
Okay, this one isn’t cocktail chatter, although it is, but it isn’t. Anyway, MfM readers who remember the Dove “Evolution” spot will want to see the newest one – Onslaught, which is a one-minute visual warning to mothers to “talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does.” You can find it on YouTube or the official website, campaignforrealbeauty.com.
THE AWARD WINNERS DINNER: It’s tonight in New York, when the national Edward R. Murrow award winners will be honored. I just wanted to add my own Mazel Tov to the friends and winners at WKYT/ Lexington (Continuing Coverage); KEYE/ Austin (News Series); WSLS/ Roanoke (Newscast); WTVQ/ Lexington (Spot News); WAFF/ Huntsville (Website); and news director Frank Volpicella at KVUE/ Austin which won for Overall Excellence.
ALSO OF NOTE TODAY: Media Mogul Rupert Murdoch launches the company’s new business channel today. And today is blog action day when bloggers around the world are supposed to join in solidarity for the environment. You can visit the website blogactionday.com.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at my website MediaConsultant.tv.
Showing posts with label streaming video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label streaming video. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Message From Michael -- September 24, 2007
WHO’S ON FIRST
AMERICANS’ NEWS IQ
NEWS IS FOR THE ADULT DIAPER CROWD
THE INTERNET INNOVATORS
A COMMUNICATIONS MILESTONE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
WHO’S ON FIRST: The answer, when it comes to network programming, is EVERYBODY. ABC programming is on iTunes and AOL. NBC isn’t on iTunes, but it is on Amazon’s answer to iTunes, unBox, and NBC is creating its own video delivery system called NBC Direct. Fox programming is on iTunes and Unbox. And CBS is on all of the above including its own streaming video site Innertube because, says CBS Interactive chief Quincy Smith, the network is “all about open, nonexclusive, multiple partnerships.” In fact, iTunes carries ABC, CBS, MTV, ESPN, the Sci Fi Channel, Comedy Central, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Showtime and the list goes on and on. The same goes for AOL which also has A&E, The Biography Channel, CMT, Comedy Central, and again the list goes on and on. And as for Unbox, add in Adult Swim, Animal Planet, the BBC, Biography Channel, Bravo, Fuel TV, MTV, and again the list goes on and on. Then add Yahoo, Google, and of course YouTube to the plethora of online video outlets. And, of course, the networks all provide their own streaming versions of their programs. The point is that the networks are trying to get their shows in front of viewers any way they can, even if they are on sites that don’t add to the ratings. As reporter Dawn Chmielewski notes in the Los Angeles Times, network websites like CBS.com get 6 Million visitors while sites like Yahoo get 135 Million visitors.
Sidenote: I became fascinated with the number of TV shows being streamed at various sites after I looked up the newest Fox TV show, Back To You, which stars Kelsey Grammer, Fred Willard and Patricia Heaton and revolves around life in a television newsroom. No, it’s not realistic; after all, it’s a comedy, but it is funny and there are some zingers that other news people will recognize. My favorite is the 26 ½ year old News Director.
Footnote: A very good overview of the Fall 2007 Primetime TV programs can be found through MediaWeek. Marc Berman who produces the daily Programming Insider is featured on a webcast outlining ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ this season. Just to make life easier for you, I will even provide the link: http://www.nielsencast.com/ws/content_display/event/e3i700d8a6e85cce5080bf54fd95cd91fe5. And, as a side note to the footnote, you can actually try your hand at network programming on a website, tvbigshot.com, which is running a contest to test people’s programming skills.
AMERICAN NEWS IQ: A quiz created by the folks at the Pew Research Center showed that most Americans are familiar with key facts in the news about politics and Iraq. Only 6% of those surveyed could answer all 12 of the questions, but a quarter (26%) could answer 10 out of the 12 questions. Men (7.6 correct answers) scored better than women (6.3). College grads (8.2) not surprisingly scored better than high school grads (5.5). Interestingly there was a clear ascending scale in news knowledge that correlated with age with 18-29 year olds scoring the lowest (5.5 correct answers); followed by 30-49 (7.1); 50-64 (7.4) and 65+ (7.6). Now, in case you’re wondering why I’m not telling you some of the details, it’s because you can take the quiz yourself. You can check your own news IQ and then compare yourself to others by going to http://pewresearch.org/pubs/601/political-knowledge-update. (PS: I scored 12 out of 12.)
NEWS IS FOR THE ADULT DIAPER CROWD: That’s the lament of Newser.com’s Michael Wolff writing in Vanity Fair magazine. He makes the point that all those pushing news ventures online are ‘old’ – Barry Diller (65); Rupert Murdoch (76); Ariana Huffington (57); Jeff Jarvis (53); and the list goes on. Where are the 20-somethings like Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, he asks. He argues that some how, some way, some one will find the “Holy Grail” of news in this new media world using some kind of algorithm that defines the news process because “every advance in technology has seen the invention of a new form of news.” One of the problems is how do you do that in this multi-multi world when, for example, The New York Times makes $2 Billion a year with its paper version that reaches 1.1 Million daily readers, but only makes $250 Million on its online version that reaches 40 Million readers a month; AND while its newsgathering process costs $300 Million; AND then turns around and charges $600 a year for a subscription for material that is provided free online. In the end, he says, “news is, for better or worse, a card trick… (and) holding people’s attention is the trick.” Yet he still believes that news is meaningful and has a public purpose; that’s why he’s doing newser.com.
THE INTERNET INNOVATORS: It probably says something, although I’m not sure what, that half of the M-I-T Technology Review’s list of leading young innovators deal with computers and the Internet. The TR35 lists the 35 leading innovators under the age of 35. On the list are Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, (no explanation needed); Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon (which is a toolbar which will link you to odd websites that you have a special interest in, based on recommendations from other people who have ‘stumbled upon’ the sites), and Kevin Rose of Digg (which mixes blogging, social networking and crowdsourcing to create an online newspaper of ‘stories selected by the masses’). By the way, their respective ages are 23, 28 and 30. But even more interesting are people like the University of Washington’s Tapan Parikh, named TR35’s humanitarian of the year, for helping fishermen in Indian improve their profits by using cell phones; and TR35’s innovator of the year David Berry who, at the age of 29, is a Venture Capitalist helping to develop renewable petroleum from microbes. My favorite though may be Ivan Krstic, and not just because he is developing a system to make antivirus software unnecessary, but because, apparently, at the age of 21, it seems he has yet to finish his degree at Harvard because he keeps taking leaves to… write software interpreting data for a neuroscientist, build a patient management computer system for a hospital, scale up Facebook’s software architecture and develop security architecture for the One Laptop Per Child program, building inexpensive laptops for Third World children.
A COMMUNICATIONS MILESTONE: According to MediaMark Research, the United States has passed a telecommunications milestone with cell-phone only households for the first time out-numbering landline-only households. The landline-only population has been larger than the cell-phone only population ever year since 2000 when the company first began measuring this. But in the latest survey, the cell-only population reached 14% compared to the 12.3% for the landline-only population. The researchers say the percentage of the population with at least one cell phone (86.2%) also passes the percentage of people who have a landline in their home (84.5%).
COCKTAIL CHATTER: A survey by the Pew Research Center found Americans evenly split on the belief that the country is divided along economic lines. Nearly half (48%) say we’re a country of “have’s and have not’s” while the same number (48%) say we are not. This is a dramatic increase from nine years ago when only a quarter of the American public (26%) believed we are a country of have’s and have not’s. Even more interesting, the number of Americans who see themselves as ‘have not’s’ has doubled in that time from 17% to 34%. Another survey by the folks at Pew, this one by Pew Global Research, finds that nearly as many countries (17) consider the United States to be an enemy as consider the country to be an ally (19). Internet giant Google has put up a prize of $30 Million to the first private enterprise that that can land a rover on the moon and beam back a gig of high definition images. A father-son research team has released a report that shows studying improves grades. I know this sounds like a Homer Simpson “doh” but apparently no-one has quantified the issue before. In an article published in the National Journal of Economic Research, they found that studying an hour a day increases student GPA’s by an average 0.36 points while playing video games for an hour each day led to a 0.24 drop in GPA for males and a 0.13 drop for females.
CONGRATULATIONS: To MfM friend and CBS Anchor Russ Mitchell, being named one of the ten outstanding leaders in the field of journalism and being award the University of Missouri’s Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.
AMERICANS’ NEWS IQ
NEWS IS FOR THE ADULT DIAPER CROWD
THE INTERNET INNOVATORS
A COMMUNICATIONS MILESTONE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
WHO’S ON FIRST: The answer, when it comes to network programming, is EVERYBODY. ABC programming is on iTunes and AOL. NBC isn’t on iTunes, but it is on Amazon’s answer to iTunes, unBox, and NBC is creating its own video delivery system called NBC Direct. Fox programming is on iTunes and Unbox. And CBS is on all of the above including its own streaming video site Innertube because, says CBS Interactive chief Quincy Smith, the network is “all about open, nonexclusive, multiple partnerships.” In fact, iTunes carries ABC, CBS, MTV, ESPN, the Sci Fi Channel, Comedy Central, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Showtime and the list goes on and on. The same goes for AOL which also has A&E, The Biography Channel, CMT, Comedy Central, and again the list goes on and on. And as for Unbox, add in Adult Swim, Animal Planet, the BBC, Biography Channel, Bravo, Fuel TV, MTV, and again the list goes on and on. Then add Yahoo, Google, and of course YouTube to the plethora of online video outlets. And, of course, the networks all provide their own streaming versions of their programs. The point is that the networks are trying to get their shows in front of viewers any way they can, even if they are on sites that don’t add to the ratings. As reporter Dawn Chmielewski notes in the Los Angeles Times, network websites like CBS.com get 6 Million visitors while sites like Yahoo get 135 Million visitors.
Sidenote: I became fascinated with the number of TV shows being streamed at various sites after I looked up the newest Fox TV show, Back To You, which stars Kelsey Grammer, Fred Willard and Patricia Heaton and revolves around life in a television newsroom. No, it’s not realistic; after all, it’s a comedy, but it is funny and there are some zingers that other news people will recognize. My favorite is the 26 ½ year old News Director.
Footnote: A very good overview of the Fall 2007 Primetime TV programs can be found through MediaWeek. Marc Berman who produces the daily Programming Insider is featured on a webcast outlining ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ this season. Just to make life easier for you, I will even provide the link: http://www.nielsencast.com/ws/content_display/event/e3i700d8a6e85cce5080bf54fd95cd91fe5. And, as a side note to the footnote, you can actually try your hand at network programming on a website, tvbigshot.com, which is running a contest to test people’s programming skills.
AMERICAN NEWS IQ: A quiz created by the folks at the Pew Research Center showed that most Americans are familiar with key facts in the news about politics and Iraq. Only 6% of those surveyed could answer all 12 of the questions, but a quarter (26%) could answer 10 out of the 12 questions. Men (7.6 correct answers) scored better than women (6.3). College grads (8.2) not surprisingly scored better than high school grads (5.5). Interestingly there was a clear ascending scale in news knowledge that correlated with age with 18-29 year olds scoring the lowest (5.5 correct answers); followed by 30-49 (7.1); 50-64 (7.4) and 65+ (7.6). Now, in case you’re wondering why I’m not telling you some of the details, it’s because you can take the quiz yourself. You can check your own news IQ and then compare yourself to others by going to http://pewresearch.org/pubs/601/political-knowledge-update. (PS: I scored 12 out of 12.)
NEWS IS FOR THE ADULT DIAPER CROWD: That’s the lament of Newser.com’s Michael Wolff writing in Vanity Fair magazine. He makes the point that all those pushing news ventures online are ‘old’ – Barry Diller (65); Rupert Murdoch (76); Ariana Huffington (57); Jeff Jarvis (53); and the list goes on. Where are the 20-somethings like Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, he asks. He argues that some how, some way, some one will find the “Holy Grail” of news in this new media world using some kind of algorithm that defines the news process because “every advance in technology has seen the invention of a new form of news.” One of the problems is how do you do that in this multi-multi world when, for example, The New York Times makes $2 Billion a year with its paper version that reaches 1.1 Million daily readers, but only makes $250 Million on its online version that reaches 40 Million readers a month; AND while its newsgathering process costs $300 Million; AND then turns around and charges $600 a year for a subscription for material that is provided free online. In the end, he says, “news is, for better or worse, a card trick… (and) holding people’s attention is the trick.” Yet he still believes that news is meaningful and has a public purpose; that’s why he’s doing newser.com.
THE INTERNET INNOVATORS: It probably says something, although I’m not sure what, that half of the M-I-T Technology Review’s list of leading young innovators deal with computers and the Internet. The TR35 lists the 35 leading innovators under the age of 35. On the list are Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, (no explanation needed); Garrett Camp of StumbleUpon (which is a toolbar which will link you to odd websites that you have a special interest in, based on recommendations from other people who have ‘stumbled upon’ the sites), and Kevin Rose of Digg (which mixes blogging, social networking and crowdsourcing to create an online newspaper of ‘stories selected by the masses’). By the way, their respective ages are 23, 28 and 30. But even more interesting are people like the University of Washington’s Tapan Parikh, named TR35’s humanitarian of the year, for helping fishermen in Indian improve their profits by using cell phones; and TR35’s innovator of the year David Berry who, at the age of 29, is a Venture Capitalist helping to develop renewable petroleum from microbes. My favorite though may be Ivan Krstic, and not just because he is developing a system to make antivirus software unnecessary, but because, apparently, at the age of 21, it seems he has yet to finish his degree at Harvard because he keeps taking leaves to… write software interpreting data for a neuroscientist, build a patient management computer system for a hospital, scale up Facebook’s software architecture and develop security architecture for the One Laptop Per Child program, building inexpensive laptops for Third World children.
A COMMUNICATIONS MILESTONE: According to MediaMark Research, the United States has passed a telecommunications milestone with cell-phone only households for the first time out-numbering landline-only households. The landline-only population has been larger than the cell-phone only population ever year since 2000 when the company first began measuring this. But in the latest survey, the cell-only population reached 14% compared to the 12.3% for the landline-only population. The researchers say the percentage of the population with at least one cell phone (86.2%) also passes the percentage of people who have a landline in their home (84.5%).
COCKTAIL CHATTER: A survey by the Pew Research Center found Americans evenly split on the belief that the country is divided along economic lines. Nearly half (48%) say we’re a country of “have’s and have not’s” while the same number (48%) say we are not. This is a dramatic increase from nine years ago when only a quarter of the American public (26%) believed we are a country of have’s and have not’s. Even more interesting, the number of Americans who see themselves as ‘have not’s’ has doubled in that time from 17% to 34%. Another survey by the folks at Pew, this one by Pew Global Research, finds that nearly as many countries (17) consider the United States to be an enemy as consider the country to be an ally (19). Internet giant Google has put up a prize of $30 Million to the first private enterprise that that can land a rover on the moon and beam back a gig of high definition images. A father-son research team has released a report that shows studying improves grades. I know this sounds like a Homer Simpson “doh” but apparently no-one has quantified the issue before. In an article published in the National Journal of Economic Research, they found that studying an hour a day increases student GPA’s by an average 0.36 points while playing video games for an hour each day led to a 0.24 drop in GPA for males and a 0.13 drop for females.
CONGRATULATIONS: To MfM friend and CBS Anchor Russ Mitchell, being named one of the ten outstanding leaders in the field of journalism and being award the University of Missouri’s Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism.
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Message From Michael -- April 9, 2007
SWEEPS AND SOPRANOS
NOW YOU SEE IT
THE POWER OF AJAX
THE RACE IS ON
THE WORD IS EXCELLENCE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
We encourage people to pass on copies of Message from Michael. But if you would like to get your own copy, you can subscribe by sending an e-mail to newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS AND SOPRANOS: They have nothing to do with each other, but I thought it sounded like a good headline. The two big headlines for this week’s MfM – the critical May sweeps is fast approaching and the critically acclaimed Sopranos debuted its final season last night.
NOW YOU SEE IT: And now you see it again… and again… and again. At least, according to a series of reports about streaming video online, you are. Four different reports from four different groups have come dealing with streaming video. International research firm Ipsos, Online research firm comScore/ Video Metrix, marketing research firm eMarketer and one that you may never have heard of, online tracking firm Vidmeter.com. Ipsos reports that just under half (44%) of ALL Americans have streamed some form of video content online with six out of ten (58%) of those Americans with Internet access streaming video. Not surprisingly the numbers are higher for young people. Three in four of all teens 12 to 17 and young adults 18-24 having streamed video last year in 2006. And figures released by ComScore seem to indicate that the number is growing. While the Ipsos report was for 2006, comScore reported that in January of this year ‘unique streamers and downloaders’ totaled nearly 123 Million people or 70% of the total U.S. Internet audience. The comScore figures seem to verify the Ipsos finding that few people (roughly one in seven – 14%) watched full-length TV shows online. The comScore data shows that ‘streamers’ averaged 58.9 streams a month, averaging 151 minutes of online video watching but that meant they were only watching about 2.6 minutes each time. The most popular form of online video stream is news, commentary and sports clips, according to Ipsos, with more than half (51%) having streamed such videos in the past 30 days. Almost as popular are movie and TV trailers with nearly half (48%) streaming them and an almost equally large number (46%) watching amateur or homemade video clips. That last figure is particularly interesting in light of the study by vidmeter.com which says that despite all the hullabaloo about copyright issues on such sites as YouTube, those videos removed because of copyright questions accounted for only six percent of total video views on the site.
Ipsos Executive Vice President Brian Cruikshank says we could be witnessing a “tipping point” in the evolution of digital video offerings online with young people eschewing (I’m sorry, it’s the word that the press release used) more traditional ways to view and acquire video content and turning to digital video on their PC or portable device. Meanwhile, eMarketer reports far fewer women watch video online compared to men, but the numbers are still substantial. The report says ‘only’ two-thirds (66%) of female Internet users watch video online compared to three-quarters (78%) of male Internet users. The executive vice president for comScore, Erin Hunter, argues that marketers could double their primetime viewing by adopting a multi-channel strategy because while ‘primetime’ TV viewing is traditionally between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., the ‘primetime’ viewing of online video occurs during the preceding block of time between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. (Okay, I know I spent a lot of time on this, but there were, after all, four studies involved.)
On a related note, online video distributor Azureus has launched a video-on-demand site in competition to Joost (mentioned in a previous MfM) utilizing peer-to-peer downloading technology to deliver high definition video from content partners A&E, Starz, BBC and Showtime. And on a further related note, if you ever wondered how to download those videos from YouTube and others, there is a website Keepvid.com which provides a technique to do that.
THE POWER OF AJAX: And I’m not referring to the Greek warrior or to the bleaching cleanser, but to a new Internet publishing technology which threatens or promises (your choice) to change Internet viewing. Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and is a technique in which a web page or even e-mail can be updated automatically without requiring users to do anything. Publication Mediaweek argues that since the content is updated automatically, there will be less reason to go to other web pages, so therefore there will be fewer page views which is equated (rightfully or wrongfully) with ad impressions. The publication notes that Nielsen/ Net Ratings plans to publish a new “total time spent” metric which will place less emphasis on page views and more on how long is spent viewing. Well, comScore Media Metrix has already adopted a system to measure not only the total visits, but the average minutes per visit and the average visits per visitor. For example, popular website Facebook doesn’t even make it to the top ten when it comes to counting the number of ‘unique visitors.’ Yahoo with 128 Million, Time Warner Network with 118 Million and Google sites with 115 Million are the top three. But when you calculate the average number of visits by each visitor, Facebook jumps into the number two spot with 23.6 visits by each visitor, behind Yahoo with 28.6 visits. In fact the entire top ten list gets restructured with, for example, Weatherbug, which is 48th in terms of unique visitors ranking fifth when it comes to number of visits. I know this all may seem confusing, but the point goes back to an issue raised in previous MfM’s and even the State of the News Media report – measurement. Not just whether a consumer sees a report or advertisement but whether they actually become engaged with, and remember, the report or advertisement.
THE RACE IS ON: The U.S. is ahead, but China is running right behind in one race, but Canada leads in the other race, followed by Israel, South Korea and the United States in fourth place. The first race is the measurement of Internet penetration, arrived at by counting the number of unique visitors aged 15-plus. In this area, according to comScore World Metrix, the U.S. has an astounding 153 Million unique visitors. Think about that. Considering there are ‘only’ 300 Million people in the U.S., that means more than half have visited the Internet. China, which, at 1.3 Billion, has more than four times the population of the U.S., came in second by this measure with nearly 87 Million unique visitors. But there is little doubt the Chinese Internet population will surpass the American Internet population shortly with an annual growth of 20% a year compared to the U.S.’s 2%. The other population behemoth, India, which has a total population of just over One Billion, presently ranks eighth with 21 Million Internet users. India’s total population is growing much faster than China, and its Internet population is growing 33% a year. The next fastest growing Internet population is the Russian federation with just under 13 Million Internet users but with a growth rate of 21% a year. The other race is in average Monthly Hours spent online. Canadians are online 39.6 hours a month compared to Israel’s 37.4 hours, South Korea’s 34 hours and the United States’ 31.6 hours. The world Internet population, measuring those aged 15-plus, in January of this year was 747 Million, up 10% from a year ago.
ANOTHER RACE IS ON: This time between the Internet and other media. According to forecaster ZenithOptimedia, the Internet will overtake radio in terms of ad dollars worldwide by next year. Right now, according to their figures, the Internet is right behind with $31.3 Billion compared to radio’s $36.3 Billion. TV is the big kid on the advertising block with $167.8 Billion in ad spending compared to newspapers’ $126.2 Billion and magazines $56.4 Billion. The agency says the good news for TV is that demand has picked up and instead of its first-ever sustained period of market share loss, TV expenditure globally is forecast to go up. The even better news for the Internet, according to the report summarized in Advertising Age, is that the Internet will account for nearly 9% of global ad spending by 2009 and should reach double digits in the next decade.
THE WORD IS EXCELLENCE: No doubt you’ve heard about the Peabody Award winners, but I just wanted to send my compliments on to the local TV stations cited: WTNH in New Haven, KMOV in St. Louis and the unusual citation for two stations in the same market – WTHR and WISH in Indianapolis. I am proud to have been associated with two of the stations – KMOV where I worked and where I still have friends and WTHR, a former consulting client. The Peabody is awarded under the auspices of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication which I am also proud to be associated with. And for what it’s worth, I would encourage other local TV stations to submit. The criteria is both simple and profound, and can be summed up in one word – Excellence.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
NOW YOU SEE IT
THE POWER OF AJAX
THE RACE IS ON
THE WORD IS EXCELLENCE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
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SWEEPS AND SOPRANOS: They have nothing to do with each other, but I thought it sounded like a good headline. The two big headlines for this week’s MfM – the critical May sweeps is fast approaching and the critically acclaimed Sopranos debuted its final season last night.
NOW YOU SEE IT: And now you see it again… and again… and again. At least, according to a series of reports about streaming video online, you are. Four different reports from four different groups have come dealing with streaming video. International research firm Ipsos, Online research firm comScore/ Video Metrix, marketing research firm eMarketer and one that you may never have heard of, online tracking firm Vidmeter.com. Ipsos reports that just under half (44%) of ALL Americans have streamed some form of video content online with six out of ten (58%) of those Americans with Internet access streaming video. Not surprisingly the numbers are higher for young people. Three in four of all teens 12 to 17 and young adults 18-24 having streamed video last year in 2006. And figures released by ComScore seem to indicate that the number is growing. While the Ipsos report was for 2006, comScore reported that in January of this year ‘unique streamers and downloaders’ totaled nearly 123 Million people or 70% of the total U.S. Internet audience. The comScore figures seem to verify the Ipsos finding that few people (roughly one in seven – 14%) watched full-length TV shows online. The comScore data shows that ‘streamers’ averaged 58.9 streams a month, averaging 151 minutes of online video watching but that meant they were only watching about 2.6 minutes each time. The most popular form of online video stream is news, commentary and sports clips, according to Ipsos, with more than half (51%) having streamed such videos in the past 30 days. Almost as popular are movie and TV trailers with nearly half (48%) streaming them and an almost equally large number (46%) watching amateur or homemade video clips. That last figure is particularly interesting in light of the study by vidmeter.com which says that despite all the hullabaloo about copyright issues on such sites as YouTube, those videos removed because of copyright questions accounted for only six percent of total video views on the site.
Ipsos Executive Vice President Brian Cruikshank says we could be witnessing a “tipping point” in the evolution of digital video offerings online with young people eschewing (I’m sorry, it’s the word that the press release used) more traditional ways to view and acquire video content and turning to digital video on their PC or portable device. Meanwhile, eMarketer reports far fewer women watch video online compared to men, but the numbers are still substantial. The report says ‘only’ two-thirds (66%) of female Internet users watch video online compared to three-quarters (78%) of male Internet users. The executive vice president for comScore, Erin Hunter, argues that marketers could double their primetime viewing by adopting a multi-channel strategy because while ‘primetime’ TV viewing is traditionally between the hours of 8:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., the ‘primetime’ viewing of online video occurs during the preceding block of time between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. (Okay, I know I spent a lot of time on this, but there were, after all, four studies involved.)
On a related note, online video distributor Azureus has launched a video-on-demand site in competition to Joost (mentioned in a previous MfM) utilizing peer-to-peer downloading technology to deliver high definition video from content partners A&E, Starz, BBC and Showtime. And on a further related note, if you ever wondered how to download those videos from YouTube and others, there is a website Keepvid.com which provides a technique to do that.
THE POWER OF AJAX: And I’m not referring to the Greek warrior or to the bleaching cleanser, but to a new Internet publishing technology which threatens or promises (your choice) to change Internet viewing. Ajax stands for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML and is a technique in which a web page or even e-mail can be updated automatically without requiring users to do anything. Publication Mediaweek argues that since the content is updated automatically, there will be less reason to go to other web pages, so therefore there will be fewer page views which is equated (rightfully or wrongfully) with ad impressions. The publication notes that Nielsen/ Net Ratings plans to publish a new “total time spent” metric which will place less emphasis on page views and more on how long is spent viewing. Well, comScore Media Metrix has already adopted a system to measure not only the total visits, but the average minutes per visit and the average visits per visitor. For example, popular website Facebook doesn’t even make it to the top ten when it comes to counting the number of ‘unique visitors.’ Yahoo with 128 Million, Time Warner Network with 118 Million and Google sites with 115 Million are the top three. But when you calculate the average number of visits by each visitor, Facebook jumps into the number two spot with 23.6 visits by each visitor, behind Yahoo with 28.6 visits. In fact the entire top ten list gets restructured with, for example, Weatherbug, which is 48th in terms of unique visitors ranking fifth when it comes to number of visits. I know this all may seem confusing, but the point goes back to an issue raised in previous MfM’s and even the State of the News Media report – measurement. Not just whether a consumer sees a report or advertisement but whether they actually become engaged with, and remember, the report or advertisement.
THE RACE IS ON: The U.S. is ahead, but China is running right behind in one race, but Canada leads in the other race, followed by Israel, South Korea and the United States in fourth place. The first race is the measurement of Internet penetration, arrived at by counting the number of unique visitors aged 15-plus. In this area, according to comScore World Metrix, the U.S. has an astounding 153 Million unique visitors. Think about that. Considering there are ‘only’ 300 Million people in the U.S., that means more than half have visited the Internet. China, which, at 1.3 Billion, has more than four times the population of the U.S., came in second by this measure with nearly 87 Million unique visitors. But there is little doubt the Chinese Internet population will surpass the American Internet population shortly with an annual growth of 20% a year compared to the U.S.’s 2%. The other population behemoth, India, which has a total population of just over One Billion, presently ranks eighth with 21 Million Internet users. India’s total population is growing much faster than China, and its Internet population is growing 33% a year. The next fastest growing Internet population is the Russian federation with just under 13 Million Internet users but with a growth rate of 21% a year. The other race is in average Monthly Hours spent online. Canadians are online 39.6 hours a month compared to Israel’s 37.4 hours, South Korea’s 34 hours and the United States’ 31.6 hours. The world Internet population, measuring those aged 15-plus, in January of this year was 747 Million, up 10% from a year ago.
ANOTHER RACE IS ON: This time between the Internet and other media. According to forecaster ZenithOptimedia, the Internet will overtake radio in terms of ad dollars worldwide by next year. Right now, according to their figures, the Internet is right behind with $31.3 Billion compared to radio’s $36.3 Billion. TV is the big kid on the advertising block with $167.8 Billion in ad spending compared to newspapers’ $126.2 Billion and magazines $56.4 Billion. The agency says the good news for TV is that demand has picked up and instead of its first-ever sustained period of market share loss, TV expenditure globally is forecast to go up. The even better news for the Internet, according to the report summarized in Advertising Age, is that the Internet will account for nearly 9% of global ad spending by 2009 and should reach double digits in the next decade.
THE WORD IS EXCELLENCE: No doubt you’ve heard about the Peabody Award winners, but I just wanted to send my compliments on to the local TV stations cited: WTNH in New Haven, KMOV in St. Louis and the unusual citation for two stations in the same market – WTHR and WISH in Indianapolis. I am proud to have been associated with two of the stations – KMOV where I worked and where I still have friends and WTHR, a former consulting client. The Peabody is awarded under the auspices of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication which I am also proud to be associated with. And for what it’s worth, I would encourage other local TV stations to submit. The criteria is both simple and profound, and can be summed up in one word – Excellence.
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail newsconsultant@aol.com with the word “unsubscribe-MM” in the subject line. Also, back issues of MfM are available at the website, media-consultant.blogspot.com. You can reach me directly at Michael@MediaConsultant.tv.
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