MICROSOFT BID FOR YAHOO
SWEEPS
SUPER BOWL XLII
SUPER TUESDAY
DIGITAL SUPER FUTURE
ANOTHER SIDE OF MEDIA CREDIBILITY
ANOTHER SIDE OF MEDIA IMPORTANCE
COCKTAIL CHATTER
MICROSOFT BID FOR YAHOO: This is just too big a story not to mention. So… consider it mentioned. Watch for the reverberations and recriminations to come. The New York Times in its business pages and its Week In Review section is already labeling it a ‘desperation move’, comparing Microsoft to I.B.M. in the 80’s, and calling the move another example of “creative destruction” – the concept that new, innovative companies and concepts destroy and replace older, established companies and concepts. Meanwhile Wired magazine’s Bryan Gardiner did an interesting number comparison which noted that, based on Nielsen numbers, the combined search market share of Yahoo and Microsoft would be 31.5%. The search market share of Google as of December, 2007, was 56.3%. But that the combined ranking of a Microsoft/Yahoo merger in terms of domain level traffic would be 70 Billion. And based on the $44.6 Billion bid, Microsoft is paying $1,200 for each Yahoo visitor.
SWEEPS: In a similar vein, I couldn’t write an MfM in February without at least mentioning the fact that we’re in sweeps. So… consider it mentioned.
SUPER BOWL XLII: Ditto. Although I would note that the BIG story today (Monday) for all stations will be the Super Bowl ads as viewers pick their best and worst. Both comScore and Nielsen in separate reports note the jump in Web traffic the day after the game. A survey by comScore shows that while half of the people watching say the game itself is their favorite part of the Super Bowl experience, a quarter say it’s the ads. (The rest cite family and friends gathering.) And consumer generated ads are expected to generate a lot of buzz. Meanwhile, Nielsen noted that last year’s 2007 Super Bowl attracted 93 Million viewers with a 41.1 rating among men but a more than respectable 32.2 rating among women viewers.
SUPER TUESDAY: Ditto the ditto. However, again, let me add a few more resources and thoughts for you to consider. First off, a repeat from last week, interest in this election is very high. Non-profit researchers, Resource Shelf, provides a wide list of resources including USA.gov; the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (http://www.eac.gov) created by the Help America Vote Act, and which also has the Voter Information Center; Project Vote Smart (http://www.vote-smart.org) which lists elections, candidates and issues for both journalists and candidates themselves; and the State Department’s foreign press center (http://www.fpc.state.gov) which, as the Resource Shelf people put it, offers a “cornucopia” of information.
DIGITAL SUPER FUTURE: The Internet has officially taken over as the most important source of information – at least among Internet users, according to a study by the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication. But even among Internet users, there is still a question of trust and reliability. With the number of hours spent online rising a full hour per week from 2006 to 2007 to an average of 15.3 hours per week, four out of five Internet users (80%) consider the Internet to be an important source of information for them. That’s up dramatically from 66% the year before and is significantly higher than television (68%), radio or newspapers (both 63%). Yet less than half (46%) say that ‘most or all’ of the information online is generally reliable, although the same people say their particular, favorite Web sites are reliable by a margin of 83% and almost the same number (80%) say the established media websites are reliable.
The study which is in its seventh year found that more than half of the Internet users (55%) who are members of an online community feel as strongly about their online communities as they do about their real-world communities. That’s an increase from 43% just a year ago. And membership in online communities has more than doubled in the past three years. Of course that’s only 15%. More than half of the online community members (56%) reported meeting their online counterparts in person, but they also said they have an average of 5.2 friends online whom they have never met in person. Despite this, Internet users report spending slightly more time per week socializing with friends and family in person. When they are online they are buying things, with 60% saying they have bought something (usually under $100) online, and that they make an average of 36 purchases a year online; and yes, they do say it comes at the expense of retail stores.
And in a sort of good news, bad news cliché, the good news is that three out of five Internet users (60%) report looking for news online. Of course that’s still lower than the percentage (71%) who say they are just surfing with no specific destination. The bad news, at least for my newspaper brethren, is that one in five (21%) report they have stopped a subscription for a newspaper or magazine because they can get it, or related content, online. Some consolation comes from a new question in the poll which showed that half (52%) said they would miss the offline edition of the newspaper if it was no longer available while a quarter (27%) said they would not. Another new question in the poll showed that somewhere between a quarter and a third (29%) of Internet users say they have time shifted their TV viewing, using either a VCR or DVR.
ANOTHER SIDE OF MEDIA CREDIBILITY: Despite the Digital Future survey which showed a greater trust in traditional media Websites, another survey, this one by Sacred Heart University in Connecticut, finds increasing skepticism towards the media. While a little more than half (55.3%) say they believe “some” media news reporting, nearly a quarter (23.9%) say they believe little or none of the reporting. And only one in five (19.6%) of those surveyed said they could believe “all or most” of the reporting – a significant drop from the 27.4% reported five years ago in 2003. On top of that, most Americans (87.6%) believe the news media tries to influence public opinion. Less than half (40.7%) gave the media a positive rating for quality of reporting, and a little more than a third (36.9%) for accuracy and right at a third (33.3%) for ‘keeping any personal bias out of stories.’ The director of the polling institute scolded the media saying that, “Americans know bias and imbalance when they see it and they don’t like it. Americans know it’s just not that hard to present both sides and keep personal bias at home.” He compared the 40% rating to the consumer satisfaction ratings that businesses strive for – of 80% to 90%. One of the contributing factors, according to another professor at the university, is that the availability of alternative viewpoints and news sources through the Internet contributes to the skepticism.
Fox News has replaced CNN as “most trusted” for accurate reporting with a 27% for Fox compared to a 14.6% for CNN. This is almost an exact reversal of the figures from five years ago when CNN had a 23.8% compared to Fox’s 14.6%. In third place in terms of trust was NBC News (10.9%), followed by ABC (7%). Local news (6.9%) actually beat CBS News (6.8%) MSNBC (4%), and PBS News (3%).
ANOTHER SIDE OF MEDIA IMPORTANCE: The average viewer/reader/listener/consumer is either eating (68.8%), doing housework (58.3%), doing the laundry (58%), cooking (57.7%), or talking on the phone (48.6%) while that all important newscast, or radio program or Internet video is playing. Kind of puts what you do in perspective, doesn’t it? Just kidding. The Simultaneous Media Usage report from BigResearch reinforces the point made in other research as well as previous MfM reports that people are multi-tasking to an incredible degree while using media. Most people are watching TV, listening to the radio or going online while reading a newspaper, for example. The report also showed that nearly half the audience (41.2%) channel surf during commercials while a third (33.5%) talk with other people either in the room or on the phone. Another nearly third (30.2%) say they just “mentally tune out” commercials while only 5.5% say they “fully attend” to commercials.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Nearly one in five (17.9%) of all U.S. adults are now retired, according to a report from The Media Audit. And four-fifths (83%) of those own their own homes. Proof that the Baby Boomer version of retirement is different: They travel a lot; 16% of all adults who stay in hotels are retired. They drink a lot; 13% of ‘frequent beer consumers’ are retirees. They go out a lot; 20% of all adults who frequently dine out are retirees.
Now this is one I didn’t see coming. When it comes to golf, only one place in Florida makes it to the top ten – Fort Myers-Naples where one-fifth of the population (19.7%) play golf three or more times a year. The top ranked place for golfers, according to The Media Audit… Minneapolis where 20.6% are frequent golfers, followed by Omaha (20.5%), Grand Rapids (19.4%), Albany, New York (18.6%), Detroit (18%), Akron (17.9%), Spokane (17.7%), and Ann Arbor (17.1%). The report notes that Minnesota and Nebraska are among the top five states for the number of golf courses per capita.
A FINAL NOTE: This is somewhere between a plug and a note of congratulations. Friends and consulting colleagues Cliff Abromats and Graeme Newell along with researcher extraordinaire Earle Jones have joined forces to create a new firm that focuses on emotional branding as a way to recruit new viewers to a station. The group argues that most television consulting and research focuses on “an unimaginative list (of) cookie cutter research that have homogenized our industry.” Instead, they say, the key is to make a “personal connection across all news platforms… to build the brand from the audience up, not the product down.”
SUBSCRIPTIONS: 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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line. 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.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Message From Michael -- January 28, 2008
SWEEPS – THE PAIN IN THE PATOOT
NEWS ‘WORKERS’ VERSUS NEWS DIRECTORS ON CONVERGENCE
MAKING DIGITAL NATIVES INTERESTABLE
FACTOID FODDER REPLACES 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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS: Here it is… the biggest pain-in-the-patoot sweeps period of the year – February. It starts Thursday. Those who have been reading the weekly MfM for any length of time will already know what I’m going to say next – Start early. You should have special reports airing before the sweeps start. Also, as a service to readers of MfM, a reminder of the big events in February: The Super Bowl on Fox on Sunday, February 3rd, Super Tuesday elections (which is generating more interest than normal) with primaries in two dozen states on Tuesday, February 5th, The Grammy Awards on CBS on Sunday, February 10th, and finally the writers-strike-plagued Academy Awards on Sunday, February 24th.
NEWS ‘WORKERS’ VERSUS NEWS DIRECTORS ON CONVERGENCE: A survey by three professors at the University of South Carolina finds “a fair amount of discontent exists in the newsroom regarding convergence work.” Not too surprisingly, reporters and producers were significantly more likely than news directors and general managers to believe that producing content for other media outlets (mainly the Web) was challenging. Despite this, nearly two thirds (60.8%) saw their stations overall experience with convergence to be ‘positive or very positive,’ according to the study published in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Even more interesting, more than half reported that they personally enjoyed working with other media outlets, but only a quarter of them believed their co-workers enjoyed the work. Curiously, the authors (Laura K. Smith, Andrea H. Tanner and Sonya Forte Duhe) found that reporters in medium-sized markets (DMA’s 51 – 100) had the most negative perceptions about the effects of convergence, in part it seems because they had bigger workloads than other markets. It should be noted that markets 50 and above were not surveyed because the reporters and producers were less likely to perform actual convergence duties, so the authors focused on markets 51 to 100, 101 – 150 and 151 – 200.
Even more interesting, not a single reporter or producer surveyed (out of nearly 300 surveyed) said he or she produced Internet-only stories. Most of the convergence work was either writing summary stories for the station Website (49.3%) or physically posting content (47.9%). Less than a third took part in question and air sessions with viewers (32.5%) while only one in five (21.6%) provided unaired video or soundbites for the Web. Even fewer (15.4%) provided links for viewers to find more information and fewer still (12.3%) provided streaming video of stories. Hardly any (4.5%) provided still pictures while even fewer (2.7%) of the reporters and producers created blogs or provided additional story facts or copy. Lastly, it should be noted, as the authors pointed out that almost invariably the television news managers “defined convergence in terms that mirrored the way their station already practiced it.”
MAKING DIGITAL NATIVES INTERESTABLE: Before anybody scolds me about using a weird word, I should say it comes from the Media Management Center at Northwestern University which has published a study of teen news habits which found, not surprisingly, that teenagers “aren’t much into following serious news online.” The qualitative study which examined the news habits of a diverse but limited (65) group of Chicago teenagers found that ALL of them have been “Digital Natives” going on-line for at least three years while half of them have been online for six years or more. The study authors argue that the news can be made “interestable” to teenagers and that news organizations can help teens develop a ‘news persona” by working with parents and teachers and by working with how they present their product. The report is titled “If It Catches My Eye” because the study authors say that was the constant refrain they heard from teenagers. They would watch the news or read a story if something about it caught their eye. Usually that meant videos, photos and motion, but it also included celebrity, sports, music and fashion news that lead them to other news stories or – the most popular – news of the weird. The teens also put a lot of emphasis on ‘new and current’ and that meant Websites that weren’t just updated daily but hourly.
Even so, the study says the problem is that not only do the teenagers find news “just not that interesting,” the teenagers also find that “news stresses them out.” It makes them feel unsafe. Not surprisingly teenagers didn’t differentiate between sites that aggregate news and sites that actually generate news; but somewhat surprisingly it was important to them that they get “information that I can trust” and that usually translated into major sites and major brands. Trust was one of the four driving factors for teens’ interest in news along with -- a website that is easy to use (they’re used to Websites with multiple elements); that gives them useful information (such as with their homework); and gives them things to talk about (they feel good when they are the knowledgeable one, the first to know.)
Unlike adults who often get their news during the work hours, most teenagers (60%) get their news from 6pm to 10pm. As noted earlier, it usually comes by happenstance while they’re visiting the major aggregator or video sharing sites. Local newspapers beat out local TV by a long shot when it come to the online news experience for teens with nearly half (43%) saying they visited a local newspaper website in the last week while only a quarter (27%) visited a television website in the last week. Even more telling, when asked to pick three websites they go to for news, one in ten (9%) cited the local newspaper website, but less than half of that (4%) cited the local television station website.
FACTOID FODDER: This is normally where Cocktail Chatter goes, but I found that facts and figures dominated so much of the CC this week that I decided to change the headline.
China’s ‘net population’ has soared from 137 Million at the end of 2006 to 210 Million by the end of 2007. English-speaking Asian-Americans are online more often than the rest of the Internet population with 74% online compared to 71.7% for whites, according to eMarketer. According to an analysis of Bureau of Labor statistics by Ad Age, employment in U.S. advertising and marketing sectors has hit a record 1.64 Million people, with online media growing the fastest at 24.2% year to year. Apple’s iTunes store has sold 4 Billion songs, 125 Million TV shows and 7 Million movies, according to data released by the company. Research firm AccuStream iMedia says viewings of user-generated video jumped to 22.4 Billion views in 2007, a 70% increase over 2006’s 13.2 Billion viewings. It also reports that 1.2 Million videos and 26.5 Million comments were published to user generated video sites in 2007. Sports website ESPN.com reported its users viewed a record 1.2 Billion videos on its site last year, a 54% increase over the previous year.
Okay, this one falls into the category of Cocktail Chatter: The top city in the U.S. when it comes to growth in podcast use is Chattanooga with a 644% increase over the previous year. Other cities in Wizzard Media’s podcasting top ten network are Tampa-St. Petersburg with a 380% increase; Kansas City (348%); Green Bay – Appleton (339%); Fresno-Visalia (173%); Toledo (106%); Houston (101%); Nashville (82%); Washington DC (72%) and San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose (68%).
Finally, this has been reported extensively already, but I find it so fascinating that I think it’s worth repeating. Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has beaten out fellow talk show host and media mogul Oprah Winfrey as the ‘most beloved’ TV personality, according to a new Harris Poll. Following Oprah is Jay Leno in the #3 spot, followed by Hugh Laurie (House) in #4; Jon Stewart #5; David Letterman and Stephen Colbert tied for #6; Bill O’Reilly #8; and Ray Romano and Homer Simpson tied for #9. Not surprisingly Republicans cite Bill O’Reilly as their favorite, but surprisingly, people who identify themselves as conservatives don’t pick O’Reilly. Instead they pick Jay Leno. Democrats and those identifying themselves as liberal cite Ellen DeGeneres.
A FINAL NOTE: One of LATimes.com’s web mavens has built a tagcloud (that’s those displays in which words are larger or smaller depending on how often they’re used) outlining the technical skills needed for online journalists by picking the words used in a series of online job descriptions. The number one word was ‘interactive’ followed by blogs and flash. You can see the tagcloud yourself by visiting Eric Ulken’s website at http://ulken.com/index.html.
A FINAL, FINAL NOTE: As long as I am pointing out websites, a really neat website is BigThink.com which features interviews with some of today’s leading “thinkers, movers and shakers” including politicians like Ted Kennedy and John McCain, businessmen like Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin Group and Patrick Byrne, founder and CEO of Overstock.com, academicians like Larry Summers, President of Harvard and Shirley Tilghman, President of Princeton University, journalists like Jon Meacham, Editor of Newsweek, and David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker. Okay, you get the idea. Anyway, some very cool stuff.
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.
NEWS ‘WORKERS’ VERSUS NEWS DIRECTORS ON CONVERGENCE
MAKING DIGITAL NATIVES INTERESTABLE
FACTOID FODDER REPLACES 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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS: Here it is… the biggest pain-in-the-patoot sweeps period of the year – February. It starts Thursday. Those who have been reading the weekly MfM for any length of time will already know what I’m going to say next – Start early. You should have special reports airing before the sweeps start. Also, as a service to readers of MfM, a reminder of the big events in February: The Super Bowl on Fox on Sunday, February 3rd, Super Tuesday elections (which is generating more interest than normal) with primaries in two dozen states on Tuesday, February 5th, The Grammy Awards on CBS on Sunday, February 10th, and finally the writers-strike-plagued Academy Awards on Sunday, February 24th.
NEWS ‘WORKERS’ VERSUS NEWS DIRECTORS ON CONVERGENCE: A survey by three professors at the University of South Carolina finds “a fair amount of discontent exists in the newsroom regarding convergence work.” Not too surprisingly, reporters and producers were significantly more likely than news directors and general managers to believe that producing content for other media outlets (mainly the Web) was challenging. Despite this, nearly two thirds (60.8%) saw their stations overall experience with convergence to be ‘positive or very positive,’ according to the study published in the Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media. Even more interesting, more than half reported that they personally enjoyed working with other media outlets, but only a quarter of them believed their co-workers enjoyed the work. Curiously, the authors (Laura K. Smith, Andrea H. Tanner and Sonya Forte Duhe) found that reporters in medium-sized markets (DMA’s 51 – 100) had the most negative perceptions about the effects of convergence, in part it seems because they had bigger workloads than other markets. It should be noted that markets 50 and above were not surveyed because the reporters and producers were less likely to perform actual convergence duties, so the authors focused on markets 51 to 100, 101 – 150 and 151 – 200.
Even more interesting, not a single reporter or producer surveyed (out of nearly 300 surveyed) said he or she produced Internet-only stories. Most of the convergence work was either writing summary stories for the station Website (49.3%) or physically posting content (47.9%). Less than a third took part in question and air sessions with viewers (32.5%) while only one in five (21.6%) provided unaired video or soundbites for the Web. Even fewer (15.4%) provided links for viewers to find more information and fewer still (12.3%) provided streaming video of stories. Hardly any (4.5%) provided still pictures while even fewer (2.7%) of the reporters and producers created blogs or provided additional story facts or copy. Lastly, it should be noted, as the authors pointed out that almost invariably the television news managers “defined convergence in terms that mirrored the way their station already practiced it.”
MAKING DIGITAL NATIVES INTERESTABLE: Before anybody scolds me about using a weird word, I should say it comes from the Media Management Center at Northwestern University which has published a study of teen news habits which found, not surprisingly, that teenagers “aren’t much into following serious news online.” The qualitative study which examined the news habits of a diverse but limited (65) group of Chicago teenagers found that ALL of them have been “Digital Natives” going on-line for at least three years while half of them have been online for six years or more. The study authors argue that the news can be made “interestable” to teenagers and that news organizations can help teens develop a ‘news persona” by working with parents and teachers and by working with how they present their product. The report is titled “If It Catches My Eye” because the study authors say that was the constant refrain they heard from teenagers. They would watch the news or read a story if something about it caught their eye. Usually that meant videos, photos and motion, but it also included celebrity, sports, music and fashion news that lead them to other news stories or – the most popular – news of the weird. The teens also put a lot of emphasis on ‘new and current’ and that meant Websites that weren’t just updated daily but hourly.
Even so, the study says the problem is that not only do the teenagers find news “just not that interesting,” the teenagers also find that “news stresses them out.” It makes them feel unsafe. Not surprisingly teenagers didn’t differentiate between sites that aggregate news and sites that actually generate news; but somewhat surprisingly it was important to them that they get “information that I can trust” and that usually translated into major sites and major brands. Trust was one of the four driving factors for teens’ interest in news along with -- a website that is easy to use (they’re used to Websites with multiple elements); that gives them useful information (such as with their homework); and gives them things to talk about (they feel good when they are the knowledgeable one, the first to know.)
Unlike adults who often get their news during the work hours, most teenagers (60%) get their news from 6pm to 10pm. As noted earlier, it usually comes by happenstance while they’re visiting the major aggregator or video sharing sites. Local newspapers beat out local TV by a long shot when it come to the online news experience for teens with nearly half (43%) saying they visited a local newspaper website in the last week while only a quarter (27%) visited a television website in the last week. Even more telling, when asked to pick three websites they go to for news, one in ten (9%) cited the local newspaper website, but less than half of that (4%) cited the local television station website.
FACTOID FODDER: This is normally where Cocktail Chatter goes, but I found that facts and figures dominated so much of the CC this week that I decided to change the headline.
China’s ‘net population’ has soared from 137 Million at the end of 2006 to 210 Million by the end of 2007. English-speaking Asian-Americans are online more often than the rest of the Internet population with 74% online compared to 71.7% for whites, according to eMarketer. According to an analysis of Bureau of Labor statistics by Ad Age, employment in U.S. advertising and marketing sectors has hit a record 1.64 Million people, with online media growing the fastest at 24.2% year to year. Apple’s iTunes store has sold 4 Billion songs, 125 Million TV shows and 7 Million movies, according to data released by the company. Research firm AccuStream iMedia says viewings of user-generated video jumped to 22.4 Billion views in 2007, a 70% increase over 2006’s 13.2 Billion viewings. It also reports that 1.2 Million videos and 26.5 Million comments were published to user generated video sites in 2007. Sports website ESPN.com reported its users viewed a record 1.2 Billion videos on its site last year, a 54% increase over the previous year.
Okay, this one falls into the category of Cocktail Chatter: The top city in the U.S. when it comes to growth in podcast use is Chattanooga with a 644% increase over the previous year. Other cities in Wizzard Media’s podcasting top ten network are Tampa-St. Petersburg with a 380% increase; Kansas City (348%); Green Bay – Appleton (339%); Fresno-Visalia (173%); Toledo (106%); Houston (101%); Nashville (82%); Washington DC (72%) and San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose (68%).
Finally, this has been reported extensively already, but I find it so fascinating that I think it’s worth repeating. Talk show host Ellen DeGeneres has beaten out fellow talk show host and media mogul Oprah Winfrey as the ‘most beloved’ TV personality, according to a new Harris Poll. Following Oprah is Jay Leno in the #3 spot, followed by Hugh Laurie (House) in #4; Jon Stewart #5; David Letterman and Stephen Colbert tied for #6; Bill O’Reilly #8; and Ray Romano and Homer Simpson tied for #9. Not surprisingly Republicans cite Bill O’Reilly as their favorite, but surprisingly, people who identify themselves as conservatives don’t pick O’Reilly. Instead they pick Jay Leno. Democrats and those identifying themselves as liberal cite Ellen DeGeneres.
A FINAL NOTE: One of LATimes.com’s web mavens has built a tagcloud (that’s those displays in which words are larger or smaller depending on how often they’re used) outlining the technical skills needed for online journalists by picking the words used in a series of online job descriptions. The number one word was ‘interactive’ followed by blogs and flash. You can see the tagcloud yourself by visiting Eric Ulken’s website at http://ulken.com/index.html.
A FINAL, FINAL NOTE: As long as I am pointing out websites, a really neat website is BigThink.com which features interviews with some of today’s leading “thinkers, movers and shakers” including politicians like Ted Kennedy and John McCain, businessmen like Sir Richard Branson of the Virgin Group and Patrick Byrne, founder and CEO of Overstock.com, academicians like Larry Summers, President of Harvard and Shirley Tilghman, President of Princeton University, journalists like Jon Meacham, Editor of Newsweek, and David Remnick, Editor of The New Yorker. Okay, you get the idea. Anyway, some very cool stuff.
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.
Message From Michael -- January 21, 2008
SHE LOVES ME; SHE LOVES ME NOT
THE ENGAGED CANNIBAL
SUPERBOWL – THE ULTIMATE TORTURE TEST
GIANT KILLER OR KILLER GIANT
COCKTAIL CHATTER – BLACK OWNED TV AND CHINESE ADULTERY
A FINAL SALUTE
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SHE LOVES ME; SHE LOVES ME NOT: Several recent reports seem to be sending the same mixed signals about the Internet and politics, just like the childhood game of plucking petals from a flower to find out if ‘she loves me’ sent me some mixed signals when I was young. If you pick the flower message from the Pew Research Center, the Internet is becoming a “major source” of campaign news, particularly for young people. The Pew study says a quarter (24%) of Americans say they regularly learn something about the campaigns from the Web, which is double the number (13%) in the 2004 campaign. But if you pick the flower message from Presidentialwtch08.com, the presidential candidates may need to rethink their Internet strategies because their sites have little or no impact on voters, according to an analysis by AdWeek’s Wendy Melillo. The website which provides a map of political conversations shows links between websites and it shows very few links between candidate’s websites and political websites and vice versa. Ah, ha, you say, the difference is the candidates’ website versus other political websites. I thought the same thing except MediaWeek reports that sites like WashingtonPost.com, Slate and Wall Street Journal online report little to no political ad activity so far. Even the candidates themselves say Web ads can only go so far building momentum for political campaigns, according to a report by The ClickZ Network. The explanation for the discrepancy may come in a line in the Pew Study which notes that more than half (52%) of the people getting political news on the Internet got it by accident, so to speak, because they came across it while surfing for something else. The Pew study says TV remains the main source of political news by a wide margin even though local TV and the network news’ share is down significantly while cable is basically flat, but that the Internet has beaten newspapers in the political news category. One analysis comes from a report by Mark Walsh at MediaPost which suggests alliances between old media and new media (such as the ones between CNN and YouTube, MTV and MySpace, and ABC News and Facebook) may be “the first steps toward the increasing convergence of TV and the Internet in shaping political coverage in the digital age.”
Several politically themed websites have been created, including Scripps’ RedBlueAmerica.com, Lin TV which has launched political sites in each of its 17 markets, and AOL’s Truveo. The two best – in my humble opinion – are the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg Schools’ FactCheck.org AND Votegopher.com, which was created by a Harvard grad who has done a remarkable job of outlining every issue and every candidate’s stance on the issue along with the latest polls, statements and news stories about the candidates.
THE ENGAGED CANNIBAL: If I were to headline this, ‘online video use is growing,’ you’d say, sarcastically, ‘oh, really, no kidding.’ However, some of the figures are pretty staggering. For example, technology research firm ABI says the number of video downloads will spike from 215 Million this year to more than 2.4 Billion in 2012, with rentals making up half the market. Our friends at the Pew Internet Project say nearly half (48%) of US Internet users (those already on the Internet) visited a video sharing site during 2007 and that 15% were either watching or posting video on a typical day. And that last number is double the figure of a year ago. Consulting firm Deloitte & Touche says more than a third (38%) of consumers watch TV shows online and that a fifth (20%) say they are viewing video content on their cell phones daily or almost daily. Research and consultancy firm Horowitz Associates says the figures are even higher for high-speed Internet users with six out of ten either watching or downloading video content at least once a week and nearly nine out of ten (86%) doing so on a monthly basis. And those figures are up dramatically from the year before.
The Horowitz study says that even though the number of people watching full episodes of TV shows online doubled from last year’s study to 16% of high-speed Internet users, ‘traditional’ TV remains the preferred platform. It also says handheld devices are becoming more popular, and that as broadband content gets better, more consumers are brought to the online platform. Despite this AdWeek quotes company president Howard Horowitz as saying that, “the data suggest that broadband video is not cannibalistic to linear video but rather an enhancement to consumers’ traditional TV experience.” A slightly different view comes from Experian Research Services’ Simmons group which found that consumers who watch TV online are ‘more engaged’ than consumers who watch TV programs on regular TV sets. And the firm says engagement equals ‘ad receptivity.’ In fact they say viewers are 47% more engaged with ADS shown during online TV programs than those shown on regular TV sets but ‘only’ 25% more engaged with the actual CONTENT of online shows compared to content on regular TV sets. The study says a similar higher level of engagement applies to online versions of magazines compared with print versions. However, it should be noted that the report says print, in general, enjoys higher levels of engagement than either TV or the Internet.
I also think it’s worth noting the six dimensions of engagement as defined by Simmons. The company says respondents identify with media they consume as either – inspirational, trustworthy, life-enhancing, social interaction, personal time-out, and ‘ad attention/ receptivity.’
I should also note the Horowitz study says the most ‘highly-viewed’ video content is news, followed by user-generated content, followed by movie previews, music videos and segments of television shows.
SUPERBOWL – THE ULTIMATE TORTURE TEST. And I’m not talking about the game. According to Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of strategic services for Nielsen Online, the Super Bowl is the ultimate torture test in marketing ROI with the ‘buzz factor’ often becoming “the final arbiter of success or failure of the advertising.” Nielsen is going to issue special reports, tracking messages across 70 million blogs and websites, and has its own blog – The Road to the Big Game. Blackshaw’s analysis of a successful Super Bowl ad is good advice for marketers: “Brands that wrap holistic, well-integrated marketing programs around the television advertising typically reap higher dividends.” In keeping with that holistic approach, Fox is leveraging MySpace as part of its advertising plan. Nielsen says that may explain, in part, why Fox has reported the earliest sell-out for in-game ad inventory in several years with movie companies and automakers leading the pack even though other reports note that former advertisers, including tech companies, are sitting on the sideline. Oh, by the way, did I say how much an ad is going for? -- $2.7 Million.
GIANT KILLER OR KILLER GIANT: That’s the question as Google and Wikipedia square off, by stepping into each other’s turf. Wikia co-founder Jimmy Wales has launched a user-based search engine because he says it’s necessary for the public to take control of search. Meanwhile Google has announced that it is launching a sort-of Wiki competitor, Knol, “to make information easier to find and more authoritative.”
COCKTAIL CHATTER: According to the group Free Press, as reported by FinalCall.com, black television station ownership has dropped 60% over the last year from 19 to 8, “making black ownership almost non-existent.” The animated film Ratatouille was the highest rated film of 2007 by the readers of The New York Times. The hot thing in the Chinese blogosphere is a video of the wife of a TV sports anchor commandeering the microphone at an Olympic media event to accuse her husband of adultery. The U.K. publication The People reports that the 81-year-old Queen Elizabeth II has become a Wii addict after getting hold of one of the video game consoles from grandson Prince William. According to the Census Bureau, as reported by FactCheck.org, one out of four (27%) of U.S. adults have a bachelor’s degree.
A FINAL NOTE: Allow me to make a personal salute to Karl Davis, General Manager of WECT-TV, Wilmington, North Carolina who died recently while motorcycling with friends. Karl was that unusual combination of manager and leader who had the even more unusual talent of being respected by the people who worked for him, not just because he was a good boss but because he was a good person. I had the honor of calling WECT a client station for many years; I had the greater honor of being able to call Karl a friend.
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.
THE ENGAGED CANNIBAL
SUPERBOWL – THE ULTIMATE TORTURE TEST
GIANT KILLER OR KILLER GIANT
COCKTAIL CHATTER – BLACK OWNED TV AND CHINESE ADULTERY
A FINAL SALUTE
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SHE LOVES ME; SHE LOVES ME NOT: Several recent reports seem to be sending the same mixed signals about the Internet and politics, just like the childhood game of plucking petals from a flower to find out if ‘she loves me’ sent me some mixed signals when I was young. If you pick the flower message from the Pew Research Center, the Internet is becoming a “major source” of campaign news, particularly for young people. The Pew study says a quarter (24%) of Americans say they regularly learn something about the campaigns from the Web, which is double the number (13%) in the 2004 campaign. But if you pick the flower message from Presidentialwtch08.com, the presidential candidates may need to rethink their Internet strategies because their sites have little or no impact on voters, according to an analysis by AdWeek’s Wendy Melillo. The website which provides a map of political conversations shows links between websites and it shows very few links between candidate’s websites and political websites and vice versa. Ah, ha, you say, the difference is the candidates’ website versus other political websites. I thought the same thing except MediaWeek reports that sites like WashingtonPost.com, Slate and Wall Street Journal online report little to no political ad activity so far. Even the candidates themselves say Web ads can only go so far building momentum for political campaigns, according to a report by The ClickZ Network. The explanation for the discrepancy may come in a line in the Pew Study which notes that more than half (52%) of the people getting political news on the Internet got it by accident, so to speak, because they came across it while surfing for something else. The Pew study says TV remains the main source of political news by a wide margin even though local TV and the network news’ share is down significantly while cable is basically flat, but that the Internet has beaten newspapers in the political news category. One analysis comes from a report by Mark Walsh at MediaPost which suggests alliances between old media and new media (such as the ones between CNN and YouTube, MTV and MySpace, and ABC News and Facebook) may be “the first steps toward the increasing convergence of TV and the Internet in shaping political coverage in the digital age.”
Several politically themed websites have been created, including Scripps’ RedBlueAmerica.com, Lin TV which has launched political sites in each of its 17 markets, and AOL’s Truveo. The two best – in my humble opinion – are the University of Pennsylvania Annenberg Schools’ FactCheck.org AND Votegopher.com, which was created by a Harvard grad who has done a remarkable job of outlining every issue and every candidate’s stance on the issue along with the latest polls, statements and news stories about the candidates.
THE ENGAGED CANNIBAL: If I were to headline this, ‘online video use is growing,’ you’d say, sarcastically, ‘oh, really, no kidding.’ However, some of the figures are pretty staggering. For example, technology research firm ABI says the number of video downloads will spike from 215 Million this year to more than 2.4 Billion in 2012, with rentals making up half the market. Our friends at the Pew Internet Project say nearly half (48%) of US Internet users (those already on the Internet) visited a video sharing site during 2007 and that 15% were either watching or posting video on a typical day. And that last number is double the figure of a year ago. Consulting firm Deloitte & Touche says more than a third (38%) of consumers watch TV shows online and that a fifth (20%) say they are viewing video content on their cell phones daily or almost daily. Research and consultancy firm Horowitz Associates says the figures are even higher for high-speed Internet users with six out of ten either watching or downloading video content at least once a week and nearly nine out of ten (86%) doing so on a monthly basis. And those figures are up dramatically from the year before.
The Horowitz study says that even though the number of people watching full episodes of TV shows online doubled from last year’s study to 16% of high-speed Internet users, ‘traditional’ TV remains the preferred platform. It also says handheld devices are becoming more popular, and that as broadband content gets better, more consumers are brought to the online platform. Despite this AdWeek quotes company president Howard Horowitz as saying that, “the data suggest that broadband video is not cannibalistic to linear video but rather an enhancement to consumers’ traditional TV experience.” A slightly different view comes from Experian Research Services’ Simmons group which found that consumers who watch TV online are ‘more engaged’ than consumers who watch TV programs on regular TV sets. And the firm says engagement equals ‘ad receptivity.’ In fact they say viewers are 47% more engaged with ADS shown during online TV programs than those shown on regular TV sets but ‘only’ 25% more engaged with the actual CONTENT of online shows compared to content on regular TV sets. The study says a similar higher level of engagement applies to online versions of magazines compared with print versions. However, it should be noted that the report says print, in general, enjoys higher levels of engagement than either TV or the Internet.
I also think it’s worth noting the six dimensions of engagement as defined by Simmons. The company says respondents identify with media they consume as either – inspirational, trustworthy, life-enhancing, social interaction, personal time-out, and ‘ad attention/ receptivity.’
I should also note the Horowitz study says the most ‘highly-viewed’ video content is news, followed by user-generated content, followed by movie previews, music videos and segments of television shows.
SUPERBOWL – THE ULTIMATE TORTURE TEST. And I’m not talking about the game. According to Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of strategic services for Nielsen Online, the Super Bowl is the ultimate torture test in marketing ROI with the ‘buzz factor’ often becoming “the final arbiter of success or failure of the advertising.” Nielsen is going to issue special reports, tracking messages across 70 million blogs and websites, and has its own blog – The Road to the Big Game. Blackshaw’s analysis of a successful Super Bowl ad is good advice for marketers: “Brands that wrap holistic, well-integrated marketing programs around the television advertising typically reap higher dividends.” In keeping with that holistic approach, Fox is leveraging MySpace as part of its advertising plan. Nielsen says that may explain, in part, why Fox has reported the earliest sell-out for in-game ad inventory in several years with movie companies and automakers leading the pack even though other reports note that former advertisers, including tech companies, are sitting on the sideline. Oh, by the way, did I say how much an ad is going for? -- $2.7 Million.
GIANT KILLER OR KILLER GIANT: That’s the question as Google and Wikipedia square off, by stepping into each other’s turf. Wikia co-founder Jimmy Wales has launched a user-based search engine because he says it’s necessary for the public to take control of search. Meanwhile Google has announced that it is launching a sort-of Wiki competitor, Knol, “to make information easier to find and more authoritative.”
COCKTAIL CHATTER: According to the group Free Press, as reported by FinalCall.com, black television station ownership has dropped 60% over the last year from 19 to 8, “making black ownership almost non-existent.” The animated film Ratatouille was the highest rated film of 2007 by the readers of The New York Times. The hot thing in the Chinese blogosphere is a video of the wife of a TV sports anchor commandeering the microphone at an Olympic media event to accuse her husband of adultery. The U.K. publication The People reports that the 81-year-old Queen Elizabeth II has become a Wii addict after getting hold of one of the video game consoles from grandson Prince William. According to the Census Bureau, as reported by FactCheck.org, one out of four (27%) of U.S. adults have a bachelor’s degree.
A FINAL NOTE: Allow me to make a personal salute to Karl Davis, General Manager of WECT-TV, Wilmington, North Carolina who died recently while motorcycling with friends. Karl was that unusual combination of manager and leader who had the even more unusual talent of being respected by the people who worked for him, not just because he was a good boss but because he was a good person. I had the honor of calling WECT a client station for many years; I had the greater honor of being able to call Karl a friend.
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.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Message From Michael -- Special Edition -- 2008 - Trends
THE NATPE OF NEW MEDIA
ONLINE OVERTAKES ON-AIR
IT’S THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID
NO, NO, IT’S ALL ABOUT BEING ONLINE
MONOLOGUE VERSUS DIALOGUE IN 2008
CULTURAL CHANGE NEED FOR 2008
CONSULTING ADVICE FOR 2008
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
TRENDS FOR 2008: Following up last week’s MfM on top trends of 2007, in this week’s edition we look at the projected top trends for 2008. But first there are a couple of developments we need to touch on first.
THE NATPE OF NEW MEDIA: In a way that’s what the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is. The New York Times calls it an “unabashed display of high technology gadgetry” and the “hope of the future.” TV Week in an editorial called it a “roadmap to the digital future.” Others call it the “Super Bowl” of electronic wonders. The Associated Press called it “a glitzy celebration of technology.” Here are some examples from the CES award winners:
The Yoggie, a key-sized device that plugs into your USB port and blocks Internet threats, hides your PC from hackers, and boosts your PC’s performance. The Zeppelin which converts your iPod into “an astonishingly capable yet highly compact” stereo system. A Waterproof hard drive which acts as an affordable security storage container for data. Sanyo has produced the world’s first waterproof camcorder, able to take video and still pictures above or below water. The Lightglove which is worn on the wrist like a watch but actually connects people to machines through light. SlingCatcher, which we’ve mentioned previously, lets you watch video from your PC or from virtually any video site on the Internet on your existing TV. Photoskins is a portable photo frame so thin it can fit in your wallet and can be connected to a computer to download widgets. Meanwhile Microsoft’s Bill Gates in his farewell speech to the convention talked about interfacing with computers through speech and screen touch, showed off a ‘mobile navigator’ that can be used to point at a person or place and get more information, and announced that Samsung will offer an adapter that lets flat-screen TVs act as Media Center extenders showing videos, pictures and music stored on a Vista PC.
However, in all that gadgetry, observers noted two things: the importance, still, of TV and the importance of content. Television Week’s Daisy Whitney writes that these days everyone is a partner, as advertisers and content providers “kick the tires” on a wide range of new media services. Technology companies are partnering with content companies, and vice versa, but all with the aim of ‘getting to the TV’ and the broadest reach possible. Writers for the New York Times also noted that TVs were ‘front and center’ at the convention and that while the show has always been a display for hardware, this year it was the software, information and entertainment content that ‘edged toward center stage.’
ONLINE OVERTAKES ON-AIR: But with a caveat – in the United Kingdom. Advertising giant WPP says Internet advertising is expected to hit 3.4 Billion English Pounds this year, just behind the 3.56 Billion English Pounds spent on TV advertising. By 2009, Britain is likely to become the world’s first major economy to, as The Independent newspaper put it, “witness the ascent of the Internet past one of its biggest rival mediums in the advertising arena.” The article points out the appeal of the Internet, especially to advertisers looking for pinpointed messages. The caveat, as pointed out in another article, is that the milestone comes in a country where the government-supported, non-advertiser-supported British Broadcasting Company is a dominant television player.
Okay, now back to the prognostications for 2008……
IT’S THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID: If there was one consistent message from the various prognosticators, it was the emphasis on the environment in 2008. Advertising giant J Walter Thompson (JWT) says blue will be the new color of the green movement as the dwindling supply of clean water becomes the ‘eco-debate’ of the new year. The company also sees a rise in what it calls “cooperative consumption” in which people share resources. The Wall Street Journal in its review of the best of ads and worst of ads says, “green is the new black” as in being cool. Reporter Suzanne Vranica provides a long list of companies who tried to jump on the “eco-friendly bandwagon” by giving their products and brand “an environmental tint.” BrandKeys president Robert Passikoff, writing for Chief Marketer, says companies will have to move from saying they’re “green” to actually being “Emerald City Green” meaning that they won’t be able to get away with just saying they are eco-friendly, they’ll have to prove it by being (as he steals a line from the Wizard of Oz) “morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably” green.
Side note: It’s too interesting not to note the other two big trends the JWT group sees for this year. The second (there were actually ten) was headlined ‘outwitting disease’ because aging baby boomers will find they can live longer with chronic diseases such as diabetes. The third, and what some call the most interesting, is “the world is local” which argues that as global companies make products that are ubiquitous and common, because no matter where they are made they can be sold everywhere, the desire for distinctively local products will grow.
NO, NO, IT’S ALL ABOUT BEING ONLINE: At least that seems to be the other major theme for 2008. Also, from the Wall Street Journal, the same reporter mentioned earlier says the emergence of the Web is forcing ad executives to ‘succumb’ to marketers’ demands that they re-invent how ads are created and “forgo their TV-centric approach.” Online market research firm eMarketer predicts that marketing executives will continue to gravitate to the Internet because the ad formats are more measurable, and that online ad spending will remain “resilient” even if the country slides into a recession. The company does say though that the surge in online video growth will slow (if that’s the right word) from 89% growth last year to 74% growth this year; and that social network usage and advertising will continue to grow at 70-plus percent rate. In a similar vein, TNS Media Intelligence forecasts a 4.2% growth in overall ad spending in the U.S. bolstered partly by the elections, partly by the Olympics but primarily because of growth in online ad spending which it says will grow 14.4% this year. Banker JP Morgan joined in, predicting a boost in online display ad revenues, in part because of an increase in CPM rates.
Meanwhile, Mark Simon, vice president at search engine marketing firm Didit, predicts in an article in SearchEngine that the online ad business will ‘heat up to white-hot levels’ after the Federal Trade Commission approved the Google-Double Click deal, which he likens to playing Monopoly, but with real money. He also predicts that more once-promising web properties will expire in 2008 just as many did in 2007, saying a certain level of “carnage” is normal and healthy on the Web. Simon also notes that online ads have reverted to their old intrusive formats with pop-unders and pop-overs, a level of intrusiveness that will only get worse with the growth of widgets.
MONOLOGUE VERSUS DIALOGUE IN 2008: It’s something of a “reading between the lines” but one of the other trends one sees in all the discussion is the interaction between advertisers and consumers, between content providers and content creators. As several experts put it, instead of having a one-sided monologue with your customers/ viewers/ readers/ listeners/ consumers, businesses or content providers or advertisers (take your choice) will have to have a two-sided dialogue, in order to be successful. Writing in Business Week, Johnny Vulkan of marketing communications agency Anomaly says one of the future trends is an old-time concept – that the product or service should be good. He argues the idea that you advertise “at” people is gone with the new technology because they can answer back. So, if your product or service isn’t good, the world will soon know about it. That same technology creates a kind of “bionic” consumer, according to Passikoff writing for Chief Marketer. That’s why, he argues, there will be an increasing emphasis on measuring engagement, because a brand will have to at least meet and preferably exceed the customers’ demands.
CULTURAL CHANGE NEED FOR 2008: A survey of news executives by Editor and Publisher columnist Steve Outing found that the number one thing they say was needed in 2008 was a culture change in their companies and in their newsrooms to accept new media initiatives. Although writing for newspapers, the findings could well apply to all mainstream media. Outing says many of those surveyed believe the staff is still skeptical about the new media initiatives. Part of that is because new media initiatives aren’t being staffed properly, says DenverPost.com senior developer Joe Murphy, who wins the quote of the day award, arguing that it would help if there was “more space between us and the grindstone.” Outing urges all news people to take part in the digital media world, whether it’s social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace or their own blog, so they can better understand it.
CONSULTING ADVICE FOR 2008: And it’s not even from me. I have to give plaudits to Doug Drew of 602 Communications and his resolutions for producers and reporters, featured in last week’s Shoptalk. Much of it falls under what I call basic blocking and tackling: write to the video, use more natural sound, avoid wallpaper video, write conversationally, avoid cute-clever writing, write with immediacy, pick soundbites that are emotional not factual. But as famed coach Vince Lombardi who coined the original quote said about football, it’s that ‘blocking and tackling’ that gets the job done, and frankly, not many stations get the basics right. Of course, Lombardi is the same guy who said, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” and “show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.” Although the better one from him was: “it’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”
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.
ONLINE OVERTAKES ON-AIR
IT’S THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID
NO, NO, IT’S ALL ABOUT BEING ONLINE
MONOLOGUE VERSUS DIALOGUE IN 2008
CULTURAL CHANGE NEED FOR 2008
CONSULTING ADVICE FOR 2008
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
TRENDS FOR 2008: Following up last week’s MfM on top trends of 2007, in this week’s edition we look at the projected top trends for 2008. But first there are a couple of developments we need to touch on first.
THE NATPE OF NEW MEDIA: In a way that’s what the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is. The New York Times calls it an “unabashed display of high technology gadgetry” and the “hope of the future.” TV Week in an editorial called it a “roadmap to the digital future.” Others call it the “Super Bowl” of electronic wonders. The Associated Press called it “a glitzy celebration of technology.” Here are some examples from the CES award winners:
The Yoggie, a key-sized device that plugs into your USB port and blocks Internet threats, hides your PC from hackers, and boosts your PC’s performance. The Zeppelin which converts your iPod into “an astonishingly capable yet highly compact” stereo system. A Waterproof hard drive which acts as an affordable security storage container for data. Sanyo has produced the world’s first waterproof camcorder, able to take video and still pictures above or below water. The Lightglove which is worn on the wrist like a watch but actually connects people to machines through light. SlingCatcher, which we’ve mentioned previously, lets you watch video from your PC or from virtually any video site on the Internet on your existing TV. Photoskins is a portable photo frame so thin it can fit in your wallet and can be connected to a computer to download widgets. Meanwhile Microsoft’s Bill Gates in his farewell speech to the convention talked about interfacing with computers through speech and screen touch, showed off a ‘mobile navigator’ that can be used to point at a person or place and get more information, and announced that Samsung will offer an adapter that lets flat-screen TVs act as Media Center extenders showing videos, pictures and music stored on a Vista PC.
However, in all that gadgetry, observers noted two things: the importance, still, of TV and the importance of content. Television Week’s Daisy Whitney writes that these days everyone is a partner, as advertisers and content providers “kick the tires” on a wide range of new media services. Technology companies are partnering with content companies, and vice versa, but all with the aim of ‘getting to the TV’ and the broadest reach possible. Writers for the New York Times also noted that TVs were ‘front and center’ at the convention and that while the show has always been a display for hardware, this year it was the software, information and entertainment content that ‘edged toward center stage.’
ONLINE OVERTAKES ON-AIR: But with a caveat – in the United Kingdom. Advertising giant WPP says Internet advertising is expected to hit 3.4 Billion English Pounds this year, just behind the 3.56 Billion English Pounds spent on TV advertising. By 2009, Britain is likely to become the world’s first major economy to, as The Independent newspaper put it, “witness the ascent of the Internet past one of its biggest rival mediums in the advertising arena.” The article points out the appeal of the Internet, especially to advertisers looking for pinpointed messages. The caveat, as pointed out in another article, is that the milestone comes in a country where the government-supported, non-advertiser-supported British Broadcasting Company is a dominant television player.
Okay, now back to the prognostications for 2008……
IT’S THE ENVIRONMENT, STUPID: If there was one consistent message from the various prognosticators, it was the emphasis on the environment in 2008. Advertising giant J Walter Thompson (JWT) says blue will be the new color of the green movement as the dwindling supply of clean water becomes the ‘eco-debate’ of the new year. The company also sees a rise in what it calls “cooperative consumption” in which people share resources. The Wall Street Journal in its review of the best of ads and worst of ads says, “green is the new black” as in being cool. Reporter Suzanne Vranica provides a long list of companies who tried to jump on the “eco-friendly bandwagon” by giving their products and brand “an environmental tint.” BrandKeys president Robert Passikoff, writing for Chief Marketer, says companies will have to move from saying they’re “green” to actually being “Emerald City Green” meaning that they won’t be able to get away with just saying they are eco-friendly, they’ll have to prove it by being (as he steals a line from the Wizard of Oz) “morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely, undeniably and reliably” green.
Side note: It’s too interesting not to note the other two big trends the JWT group sees for this year. The second (there were actually ten) was headlined ‘outwitting disease’ because aging baby boomers will find they can live longer with chronic diseases such as diabetes. The third, and what some call the most interesting, is “the world is local” which argues that as global companies make products that are ubiquitous and common, because no matter where they are made they can be sold everywhere, the desire for distinctively local products will grow.
NO, NO, IT’S ALL ABOUT BEING ONLINE: At least that seems to be the other major theme for 2008. Also, from the Wall Street Journal, the same reporter mentioned earlier says the emergence of the Web is forcing ad executives to ‘succumb’ to marketers’ demands that they re-invent how ads are created and “forgo their TV-centric approach.” Online market research firm eMarketer predicts that marketing executives will continue to gravitate to the Internet because the ad formats are more measurable, and that online ad spending will remain “resilient” even if the country slides into a recession. The company does say though that the surge in online video growth will slow (if that’s the right word) from 89% growth last year to 74% growth this year; and that social network usage and advertising will continue to grow at 70-plus percent rate. In a similar vein, TNS Media Intelligence forecasts a 4.2% growth in overall ad spending in the U.S. bolstered partly by the elections, partly by the Olympics but primarily because of growth in online ad spending which it says will grow 14.4% this year. Banker JP Morgan joined in, predicting a boost in online display ad revenues, in part because of an increase in CPM rates.
Meanwhile, Mark Simon, vice president at search engine marketing firm Didit, predicts in an article in SearchEngine that the online ad business will ‘heat up to white-hot levels’ after the Federal Trade Commission approved the Google-Double Click deal, which he likens to playing Monopoly, but with real money. He also predicts that more once-promising web properties will expire in 2008 just as many did in 2007, saying a certain level of “carnage” is normal and healthy on the Web. Simon also notes that online ads have reverted to their old intrusive formats with pop-unders and pop-overs, a level of intrusiveness that will only get worse with the growth of widgets.
MONOLOGUE VERSUS DIALOGUE IN 2008: It’s something of a “reading between the lines” but one of the other trends one sees in all the discussion is the interaction between advertisers and consumers, between content providers and content creators. As several experts put it, instead of having a one-sided monologue with your customers/ viewers/ readers/ listeners/ consumers, businesses or content providers or advertisers (take your choice) will have to have a two-sided dialogue, in order to be successful. Writing in Business Week, Johnny Vulkan of marketing communications agency Anomaly says one of the future trends is an old-time concept – that the product or service should be good. He argues the idea that you advertise “at” people is gone with the new technology because they can answer back. So, if your product or service isn’t good, the world will soon know about it. That same technology creates a kind of “bionic” consumer, according to Passikoff writing for Chief Marketer. That’s why, he argues, there will be an increasing emphasis on measuring engagement, because a brand will have to at least meet and preferably exceed the customers’ demands.
CULTURAL CHANGE NEED FOR 2008: A survey of news executives by Editor and Publisher columnist Steve Outing found that the number one thing they say was needed in 2008 was a culture change in their companies and in their newsrooms to accept new media initiatives. Although writing for newspapers, the findings could well apply to all mainstream media. Outing says many of those surveyed believe the staff is still skeptical about the new media initiatives. Part of that is because new media initiatives aren’t being staffed properly, says DenverPost.com senior developer Joe Murphy, who wins the quote of the day award, arguing that it would help if there was “more space between us and the grindstone.” Outing urges all news people to take part in the digital media world, whether it’s social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace or their own blog, so they can better understand it.
CONSULTING ADVICE FOR 2008: And it’s not even from me. I have to give plaudits to Doug Drew of 602 Communications and his resolutions for producers and reporters, featured in last week’s Shoptalk. Much of it falls under what I call basic blocking and tackling: write to the video, use more natural sound, avoid wallpaper video, write conversationally, avoid cute-clever writing, write with immediacy, pick soundbites that are emotional not factual. But as famed coach Vince Lombardi who coined the original quote said about football, it’s that ‘blocking and tackling’ that gets the job done, and frankly, not many stations get the basics right. Of course, Lombardi is the same guy who said, “winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing” and “show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser.” Although the better one from him was: “it’s not whether you get knocked down, it’s whether you get up.”
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.
Message From Michael -- Special Edition -- 2007, A Year In Review
THE YEAR THAT WAS: It was the year of the cell phone and the year of the iPhone. And if you were ‘cool,’ your ringtone was either T-Pain’s Buy U A Drink or Mims’ This Is Why I’m Hot, according to Nielsen Media’s most popular lists for 2007 OR if you believe Google it was a mosquito ringtone, the theme from 24 or The Office. It was the year of social media, the year of word of mouth, the year of consumer media, the digital year and the year of search engines. According to AOL’s list of searches, the number one topic for the year – WEATHER. Just what we consultants have been telling you. Anyway, we took a look at the top search engines to find a picture of what we’re all about. This is NOT a comprehensive, complete, review of 2007 but rather my own version of Schott’s Miscellany, a look at what the lists tell us about ourselves. In fact, this went so long and there was so much more that we will have an update in next week’s edition of MfM looking at trends in 2007 and expected trends in 2008.
THE ZEIGEIST – SPIRIT OF THE TIMES: That’s what Google calls its list of search requests from 2007. Topping the list both globally and in the U.S. was the iPhone. Bu after that it takes a distinctly different turn. For example, badoo, a social networking site for adults, comes in second in terms of ‘fastest rising’ interest globally while Webkinz, a social networking site for kids, comes in second in terms of ‘fastest growing’ website in the U.S. Another ‘kids’ social networking site, Club Penguin, scores on both sides with a 6th place in the U.S. and a 10th place globally. Oddly, Facebook comes in 3rd in global searches but 9th in U.S. searches. Other oddities: Second Life scores globally in the top ten (8) but doesn’t in the U.S.; on the global ‘fastest rising’ are dailymotion, ebuddy, and hi5 which don’t show up on the U.S. top ten. On the flip side of that, TMZ, Heroes and Anna Nicole Smith show up on the U.S. search, but don’t show up on the global search.
Yahoo didn’t have any cute title for its search compendium, but the site provided is own insight into our psyche, albeit a more traditional one. The iPhone made its top ten list but in sixth place, along with iTunes at 4 and the iPod at 5. Topping the list was YouTube followed by Wikipedia and Facebook. Games Nintendo Wii, Xbox and Playstation 3 made the list, with online video rock game Guitar Hero rounding out the top 10 list. What may say more is the Yahoo owned bookmarking site del.icio.us where the number one spot was DESIGN, as in web design and creativity. And in keeping with the tech-savvy nature of the site, the other unusual search item was ubuntu which is a Linux-based software application. The rest were pretty standard: HDTV, Games, Music, Web 2.0, Video, Travel, Photography and Mac.
GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER: That’s the headline for the environmental section which took center stage on Yahoo’s list of searches. Toping the list of such searches was Recycling, followed by Global Warming, Freecycle which is a movement in which you give away stuff you don’t want instead of trashing it, Earth, Pollution, Al Gore, the Environmental Protection Agency, Live Earth which is the program of concerts presented to raise awareness of environmental issues, hybrid cars and solar energy.
THE INTELLECTUAL LIST: Actually it’s not that. The New York Times list of top ten books from 2007 also gives us an insight into our collective psyche. For example, the top fiction book (as selected by the editors) was Man Gone Down, a novel exploring four desperate days in a black writer’s life while the top non-fiction book was Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a look at American governance in Iraq. After that, the other fiction books making the list were: Out Stealing Horses, a Norwegian novel about loneliness, The Savage Detectives, an autobiographical novel about a band of ‘literary guerillas’, Then We Came to the End, a novel about a white collar office in the wake of the dot-com bust, and Tree of Smoke, a novel about people in the Vietnam war. In the non-fiction area, second choice was Little Heathens, a memoir about life on an Iowa farm during the Great Depression, The Nine, a look at the world of the Supreme Court, The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh, tracking her travels and travails across the 18th Century, and The Rest is Noise, an examination of classical music of the last century.
JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: The top ten stories, according to a survey of U.S. editors and news directors by the Associated Press, in 2007 were the Virginia Tech killings, followed by the mortgage crisis, the Iraq war, Oil prices, Chinese exports, Global warming, the Minneapolis bridge collapse, the Presidential campaign, the Immigration debate and finally, Iran’s nuclear program. Time magazine’s top ten list added the protests in Thailand, the “goodbye” to Harry Potter, the stem cell research breakthrough, the Barry Bonds steroid scandal and the iPhone release.
For a different perspective, Yahoo’s list of the top ten stories of 2007 based on search interest found the Virginia Tech story at #10 instead of #1. At #1 was the cell phone footage of Saddam Hussein’s final moments which, even though it happened at the very end of 2006, “so rattled the web… that (it) dwarfed all other news queries in 2007.” Iran with its nuclear program and outspoken president came in #2, followed by Iraq, President George W. Bush in part because of Karl Rove’s departure, oil and gas prices at #5, followed by Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton (in that order). Then it was the San Diego fire at #8, Afghanistan and, finally, Virginia Tech. And, again, for a different perspective, AOL’s “news” search list adds Phentermine, the weight loss drug; the pet food recall; global warming; Juanita Bynum, the preacher whose preacher husband assaulted her; Immigration and Don Imus.
CELEBRITIES: Shock of shocks, Britney Spears was the top celebrity search on AOL, Yahoo and Google followed as usual by Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Not exactly shocking, but interesting, most of the search services played down the celebrity searches in their end of year summaries. For a different perspective, Ticketmaster’s list of most requested events in 2007 was topped by Wicked but just behind it was Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus, followed by The Police, Kenny Chesney, the New England Patriots, Dave Matthews Band, Chicago Bears, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Disney on Ice and rounding out the top ten – Celine Dion.
Marc Berman who produces The Programming Insider look at television’s daily machinations named Drew Carey as one of the winners of 2007 but had four losers in 2007 including Isaiah Washington who went from Grey’s Anatomy to Bionic Woman, Mandy Patinkin who left Chicago’s Hope, Viva Laughlin and Rosie O’Donnell. Just for a completely different perspective, management guru Tom Peters picked former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as one of his heroes of 2007 because although she was kicked out, it was her ideas (he says) that turned the company around; along with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who Peters called the CEO of California who turned the state around.
And when it comes to TV, another shock of shocks, the top show was American Idol, according to AOL as well as Nielsen Media. Interestingly both of them also saw Dancing With The Stars as the #2 show. Google also made a nod to the Idol phenomenon but when it came to ‘showbiz,’ the search results put NBC’s Heroes at the top of its list followed by Lost, House, 24 and Bones rounding out the top five.
A MOMENT OF LEVITY: This may say as much about us as anything else I’ve reported. Here are the top ten “extraordinarily peculiar EBay purchases,” according to unusual and fun website WebUpon.com. Topping the list was the grilled cheese sandwich that appeared to have the face of the Virgin Mary upon it. Price: $28,000. Then there’s the guy who sold a jar that he said he found around an old cemetery and that he claimed contained a ghost inside. An 18 year old British girl sold her virginity on eBay to pay her college tuition. The winning bidder gave her the money but didn’t take her up on the offer. A man sold his ex-wife’s wedding dress after posing in it and writing a ‘hilarious’ rant. In #5 was the Doritos cheese chip in the shape of the Pope’s hat, followed by “the meaning of life” depicted by a rainbow picture which sold for $3.26; a vampire killing kit and the window and frame from which John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Price: $3,001,501. After that was 26 real, honest-to-goodness shrunken heads from the Jibaro Indian tribe in Ecuador which only garnered $25, and finally, a Brazilian company sold a so-called UFO detector which would ‘flash and beep” whenever a UFO was around for $135.
A FINAL SOMBER STATISTIC: It wouldn’t be appropriate to end this 2007 year in review without noting a report by the International Federation of Journalists which reported that 171 journalists were killed in 2007. That is slightly less than the 177 killed the year before in 2006. The most deadly country was Iraq with 65 killed. All but one were Iraqi nationals. Eight journalists were killed in Somalia, seven in Pakistan, six in Mexico and in Sri Lanka and five in the Philippines. It should be noted that of that 171 number, 134 were actually killings while 37 media workers died accidentally on the job.
A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: The Telecommunications/ Broadcast News department of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication is doing a survey of media industry types (that means most of you) to find out what you are looking for in graduates and employees, what are the important skills needed. So I will be asking you to go on-line to fill out a short survey. Please take part. It will help us and it will help you. – Okay, commercial over.
THE ZEIGEIST – SPIRIT OF THE TIMES: That’s what Google calls its list of search requests from 2007. Topping the list both globally and in the U.S. was the iPhone. Bu after that it takes a distinctly different turn. For example, badoo, a social networking site for adults, comes in second in terms of ‘fastest rising’ interest globally while Webkinz, a social networking site for kids, comes in second in terms of ‘fastest growing’ website in the U.S. Another ‘kids’ social networking site, Club Penguin, scores on both sides with a 6th place in the U.S. and a 10th place globally. Oddly, Facebook comes in 3rd in global searches but 9th in U.S. searches. Other oddities: Second Life scores globally in the top ten (8) but doesn’t in the U.S.; on the global ‘fastest rising’ are dailymotion, ebuddy, and hi5 which don’t show up on the U.S. top ten. On the flip side of that, TMZ, Heroes and Anna Nicole Smith show up on the U.S. search, but don’t show up on the global search.
Yahoo didn’t have any cute title for its search compendium, but the site provided is own insight into our psyche, albeit a more traditional one. The iPhone made its top ten list but in sixth place, along with iTunes at 4 and the iPod at 5. Topping the list was YouTube followed by Wikipedia and Facebook. Games Nintendo Wii, Xbox and Playstation 3 made the list, with online video rock game Guitar Hero rounding out the top 10 list. What may say more is the Yahoo owned bookmarking site del.icio.us where the number one spot was DESIGN, as in web design and creativity. And in keeping with the tech-savvy nature of the site, the other unusual search item was ubuntu which is a Linux-based software application. The rest were pretty standard: HDTV, Games, Music, Web 2.0, Video, Travel, Photography and Mac.
GRASS IS ALWAYS GREENER: That’s the headline for the environmental section which took center stage on Yahoo’s list of searches. Toping the list of such searches was Recycling, followed by Global Warming, Freecycle which is a movement in which you give away stuff you don’t want instead of trashing it, Earth, Pollution, Al Gore, the Environmental Protection Agency, Live Earth which is the program of concerts presented to raise awareness of environmental issues, hybrid cars and solar energy.
THE INTELLECTUAL LIST: Actually it’s not that. The New York Times list of top ten books from 2007 also gives us an insight into our collective psyche. For example, the top fiction book (as selected by the editors) was Man Gone Down, a novel exploring four desperate days in a black writer’s life while the top non-fiction book was Imperial Life in the Emerald City, a look at American governance in Iraq. After that, the other fiction books making the list were: Out Stealing Horses, a Norwegian novel about loneliness, The Savage Detectives, an autobiographical novel about a band of ‘literary guerillas’, Then We Came to the End, a novel about a white collar office in the wake of the dot-com bust, and Tree of Smoke, a novel about people in the Vietnam war. In the non-fiction area, second choice was Little Heathens, a memoir about life on an Iowa farm during the Great Depression, The Nine, a look at the world of the Supreme Court, The Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh, tracking her travels and travails across the 18th Century, and The Rest is Noise, an examination of classical music of the last century.
JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: The top ten stories, according to a survey of U.S. editors and news directors by the Associated Press, in 2007 were the Virginia Tech killings, followed by the mortgage crisis, the Iraq war, Oil prices, Chinese exports, Global warming, the Minneapolis bridge collapse, the Presidential campaign, the Immigration debate and finally, Iran’s nuclear program. Time magazine’s top ten list added the protests in Thailand, the “goodbye” to Harry Potter, the stem cell research breakthrough, the Barry Bonds steroid scandal and the iPhone release.
For a different perspective, Yahoo’s list of the top ten stories of 2007 based on search interest found the Virginia Tech story at #10 instead of #1. At #1 was the cell phone footage of Saddam Hussein’s final moments which, even though it happened at the very end of 2006, “so rattled the web… that (it) dwarfed all other news queries in 2007.” Iran with its nuclear program and outspoken president came in #2, followed by Iraq, President George W. Bush in part because of Karl Rove’s departure, oil and gas prices at #5, followed by Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton (in that order). Then it was the San Diego fire at #8, Afghanistan and, finally, Virginia Tech. And, again, for a different perspective, AOL’s “news” search list adds Phentermine, the weight loss drug; the pet food recall; global warming; Juanita Bynum, the preacher whose preacher husband assaulted her; Immigration and Don Imus.
CELEBRITIES: Shock of shocks, Britney Spears was the top celebrity search on AOL, Yahoo and Google followed as usual by Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan. Not exactly shocking, but interesting, most of the search services played down the celebrity searches in their end of year summaries. For a different perspective, Ticketmaster’s list of most requested events in 2007 was topped by Wicked but just behind it was Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus, followed by The Police, Kenny Chesney, the New England Patriots, Dave Matthews Band, Chicago Bears, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, Disney on Ice and rounding out the top ten – Celine Dion.
Marc Berman who produces The Programming Insider look at television’s daily machinations named Drew Carey as one of the winners of 2007 but had four losers in 2007 including Isaiah Washington who went from Grey’s Anatomy to Bionic Woman, Mandy Patinkin who left Chicago’s Hope, Viva Laughlin and Rosie O’Donnell. Just for a completely different perspective, management guru Tom Peters picked former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina as one of his heroes of 2007 because although she was kicked out, it was her ideas (he says) that turned the company around; along with Arnold Schwarzenegger, who Peters called the CEO of California who turned the state around.
And when it comes to TV, another shock of shocks, the top show was American Idol, according to AOL as well as Nielsen Media. Interestingly both of them also saw Dancing With The Stars as the #2 show. Google also made a nod to the Idol phenomenon but when it came to ‘showbiz,’ the search results put NBC’s Heroes at the top of its list followed by Lost, House, 24 and Bones rounding out the top five.
A MOMENT OF LEVITY: This may say as much about us as anything else I’ve reported. Here are the top ten “extraordinarily peculiar EBay purchases,” according to unusual and fun website WebUpon.com. Topping the list was the grilled cheese sandwich that appeared to have the face of the Virgin Mary upon it. Price: $28,000. Then there’s the guy who sold a jar that he said he found around an old cemetery and that he claimed contained a ghost inside. An 18 year old British girl sold her virginity on eBay to pay her college tuition. The winning bidder gave her the money but didn’t take her up on the offer. A man sold his ex-wife’s wedding dress after posing in it and writing a ‘hilarious’ rant. In #5 was the Doritos cheese chip in the shape of the Pope’s hat, followed by “the meaning of life” depicted by a rainbow picture which sold for $3.26; a vampire killing kit and the window and frame from which John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Price: $3,001,501. After that was 26 real, honest-to-goodness shrunken heads from the Jibaro Indian tribe in Ecuador which only garnered $25, and finally, a Brazilian company sold a so-called UFO detector which would ‘flash and beep” whenever a UFO was around for $135.
A FINAL SOMBER STATISTIC: It wouldn’t be appropriate to end this 2007 year in review without noting a report by the International Federation of Journalists which reported that 171 journalists were killed in 2007. That is slightly less than the 177 killed the year before in 2006. The most deadly country was Iraq with 65 killed. All but one were Iraqi nationals. Eight journalists were killed in Somalia, seven in Pakistan, six in Mexico and in Sri Lanka and five in the Philippines. It should be noted that of that 171 number, 134 were actually killings while 37 media workers died accidentally on the job.
A WORD FROM OUR SPONSOR: The Telecommunications/ Broadcast News department of the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication is doing a survey of media industry types (that means most of you) to find out what you are looking for in graduates and employees, what are the important skills needed. So I will be asking you to go on-line to fill out a short survey. Please take part. It will help us and it will help you. – Okay, commercial over.
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
Message from Michael - December 20, 2007
SOCIAL MEDIA SEND-OFF
WIDGETS GONE WILD
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLOGGERS
NOT SO HAPPY BLOGGERS
BEST VIRAL VIDEO
COCKTAIL CHATTER – GRANDPARENTS AND W00T
AWARD CONGRATULATIONS
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SOCIAL MEDIA SEND-OFF: Next year may be the year of social media (that’s if 2007 wasn’t already), according to several recently released studies. The most prominent was by eMarketer which says spending on social networks will soar in 2008 from a ‘mere’ $920 Million this year to $1.6 Billion next – an increase of 74%. And in five years half (49%) of all Internet users in the U.S. will visit a social network site and four out of five (80%) of all teenagers will visit such a site. The American Marketing Association says that “social networking shopping” is one of the leading trends this holiday season (along with cause-related marketing) as consumers seek out recommendations about holiday gifts. Another report, this one by the Pew Internet Project found nearly two-thirds of online teenagers, aged 12 to 17, have engaged in some form of content creation, mainly through social network domains. A report by the Society for New Communications Research found that more than half (57%) of public relations and marketing professionals believe ‘social media tools’ are becoming more critical to their work and that more than a quarter (27%) say social media is a core part of their communications strategy. A slightly contrary point of view is offered by the Gartner group which warns that the “hype” around social network does not necessarily translate into good business strategy. It should also be noted that the survey by the Society for New Communications Research says more than half (51%) of those surveyed say it’s important to measure the impact of social networking by determining how it enhances their company’s reputation and their relationship with their audience.
And an article by Brian Morrissey writing for Mediaweek’s Digital Download argues that search, which initially drove the Internet, is falling behind social networking and he quotes Carat CEO Sara Fay as saying, “the way search has infiltrated our lives, social networking becomes the fabric of our lives.” Even further proof that social media has arrived is an article in The Washington Post that “now come the academics” to the field with several universities, including the Rochester Institute of Technology, Cornell University and the University of Michigan scoring grants and starting programs to study social networking. The report says the “high priestess of social networking” is what it calls “celebrademic” Dana Boyd, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California-Berkeley. There is even a “bookazine” now being published by Dennis Publishing that is titled “Facebook.” In actuality, the real indicator may come from moves by two of the leading social networking sites. Google is letting users tap into their social networks by integrating its Gmail address books into the social aspects of its other applications. Facebook is letting other social networking sites run applications developed for its sites. This is similar to Google’s OpenSocial initiative to create standard API’s (application programming interfaces.) I should also note a particularly interesting side development is Google’s creation of KNOL, which is being billed as a competitor to Wikipedia.
Finally, let me just put some numbers next to all this. The top social networking sites, according to Nielsen Online, in November were: MySpace (57 Million unique visitors), Facebook (22 Million), Classmates Online (11.5 Million), Windows Live Spaces (9.5 Million), AOL Hometown (7.6 Million), LinkedIn (5.4 Million from 1.6 Million a year ago), Club Penguin (4.4 Million), Reunion.com (4 Million), AOL Community (3.5 Million) and Flixster which has grown from less than a million users a year ago to 3.4 Million this November.
WIDGETS GONE WILD: That was the headline on an AdWeek article which reported on the other big development to watch next year. We reported on this phenomenon in an earlier MfM, but several recent reports only further reinforce the development. The article notes that the concept has arrived when there is a conference, WidgetCon 2007, about the applications which more marketers are using. Company Clearspring is creating a Widget Ad Network so media companies can create ad-embedded widgets on social networking sites.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLOGGERS: According to an article on the BBC News website, this week is the 10th anniversary of the term “weblog” being coined. On December 17th, 1997, John Barger, editor of Robot Wisdom, made a note that he was “logging” interesting “web” sites in his daily online journal. The term was shortened to “blog” two years later. The website article notes that numbers are hard to come by, but as much as anyone can figure, there were 23 “weblogs” in 1998. Now blog monitoring site Technorati keeps tabs on more than 70 Million blogs.
NOT SO HAPPY BLOGGERS: On a somewhat personal aside, colleague David Hazinski has learned that hell hath no fury like a blogger shorn. He wrote a commentary in the Atlanta Journal Constitution saying there should be standards for so-called ‘citizen journalists’ just as mainstream media adhere to certain ethical standards. Bloggers and talk radio hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, called him every name in the book and some even sent death threats. All of which probably own proves his point. (Disclaimer: IN MY OPINION)
BEST VIRAL VIDEO: Two different reports with two different sets of the top viral video’s of 2007. Video website Truveo.com list of the top ten viral video searches starts with Miss Teen South Carolina Answering Questions, followed by Leave Britney Alone and then Prison Inmates Performing “Thriller.” After that it’s Paris in Jail: The Music Video, The Landlord, Featuring Will Ferrell, Safari Animals Battle at Kruger, Chocolate Rain by Tay Zonday, I Got a Crush on Obama by Obama Girl, Karl Rove’s Rap Debut as MC Rove and the College Student Tazered at the Kerry Forum. Online marketing agency GoViral reports that the top five viral video advertisements are the Cadbury Gorilla Drummer, Smirnoff Green Tea Partay, Ray Ban Catch Sunglasses, Blendtec Will It Blend and Lynx/Axe Born chicka wah wah. You have to see these to believe them and you can at the Financial Times link: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1560d954-a81c-11dc-9485-0000779fd2ac.html. Maybe it’s me, but the Cadbury Gorilla is funnier than heck.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Website grandparents.com reports that grandparents spend an average of $1,700 per grandchild, that the 70 Million grandparents in the U.S. represent one of the largest and most powerful consumer segments in the country, and that by 2025 one in four Americans will be a grandparent. Merriam Webster has picked w00t, typically spelled with two zeros and defined as “an expression of joy coined by online gamers,” as its word of the year. The latest craze in Japan is keitai shousetus, mobile phone novels, written on a cell phone and distributed to other cell phones. A story about high school romance written by a nursery school teacher from Kokura in Japan’s south has written several, one of which has since sold 420,000 copies in hardcopy format. Japan also held what may be the first film festival featuring works shot on camera-equipped cell phones. OfficeMax has brought back its elfyourself.com website where you can add a face to a dancing elf.
AWARD CONGRATULATIONS: To my friends at my former station KMOV-TV in St. Louis for winning a DuPont Columbia silver baton for excellence in broadcast journalism. The station was one of three Belo stations (others were KHOU-TV and WFAA-TV) to win one of the 13 awards given. Even more impressive was the win by little KNOE-TV in Monroe, Louisiana, for its examination of the National Guard and the Katrina disaster. As a slight brag (okay, a big brag), we won a silver baton at KMOV when I was there as well.
FOOTNOTE: This is the last MfM for this year. As noted in last week’s newsletter, we will be going on a short hiatus over the holidays, unless of course something huge develops that I just have to report on. Happy Holidays!
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail 0 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.
WIDGETS GONE WILD
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLOGGERS
NOT SO HAPPY BLOGGERS
BEST VIRAL VIDEO
COCKTAIL CHATTER – GRANDPARENTS AND W00T
AWARD CONGRATULATIONS
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SOCIAL MEDIA SEND-OFF: Next year may be the year of social media (that’s if 2007 wasn’t already), according to several recently released studies. The most prominent was by eMarketer which says spending on social networks will soar in 2008 from a ‘mere’ $920 Million this year to $1.6 Billion next – an increase of 74%. And in five years half (49%) of all Internet users in the U.S. will visit a social network site and four out of five (80%) of all teenagers will visit such a site. The American Marketing Association says that “social networking shopping” is one of the leading trends this holiday season (along with cause-related marketing) as consumers seek out recommendations about holiday gifts. Another report, this one by the Pew Internet Project found nearly two-thirds of online teenagers, aged 12 to 17, have engaged in some form of content creation, mainly through social network domains. A report by the Society for New Communications Research found that more than half (57%) of public relations and marketing professionals believe ‘social media tools’ are becoming more critical to their work and that more than a quarter (27%) say social media is a core part of their communications strategy. A slightly contrary point of view is offered by the Gartner group which warns that the “hype” around social network does not necessarily translate into good business strategy. It should also be noted that the survey by the Society for New Communications Research says more than half (51%) of those surveyed say it’s important to measure the impact of social networking by determining how it enhances their company’s reputation and their relationship with their audience.
And an article by Brian Morrissey writing for Mediaweek’s Digital Download argues that search, which initially drove the Internet, is falling behind social networking and he quotes Carat CEO Sara Fay as saying, “the way search has infiltrated our lives, social networking becomes the fabric of our lives.” Even further proof that social media has arrived is an article in The Washington Post that “now come the academics” to the field with several universities, including the Rochester Institute of Technology, Cornell University and the University of Michigan scoring grants and starting programs to study social networking. The report says the “high priestess of social networking” is what it calls “celebrademic” Dana Boyd, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California-Berkeley. There is even a “bookazine” now being published by Dennis Publishing that is titled “Facebook.” In actuality, the real indicator may come from moves by two of the leading social networking sites. Google is letting users tap into their social networks by integrating its Gmail address books into the social aspects of its other applications. Facebook is letting other social networking sites run applications developed for its sites. This is similar to Google’s OpenSocial initiative to create standard API’s (application programming interfaces.) I should also note a particularly interesting side development is Google’s creation of KNOL, which is being billed as a competitor to Wikipedia.
Finally, let me just put some numbers next to all this. The top social networking sites, according to Nielsen Online, in November were: MySpace (57 Million unique visitors), Facebook (22 Million), Classmates Online (11.5 Million), Windows Live Spaces (9.5 Million), AOL Hometown (7.6 Million), LinkedIn (5.4 Million from 1.6 Million a year ago), Club Penguin (4.4 Million), Reunion.com (4 Million), AOL Community (3.5 Million) and Flixster which has grown from less than a million users a year ago to 3.4 Million this November.
WIDGETS GONE WILD: That was the headline on an AdWeek article which reported on the other big development to watch next year. We reported on this phenomenon in an earlier MfM, but several recent reports only further reinforce the development. The article notes that the concept has arrived when there is a conference, WidgetCon 2007, about the applications which more marketers are using. Company Clearspring is creating a Widget Ad Network so media companies can create ad-embedded widgets on social networking sites.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BLOGGERS: According to an article on the BBC News website, this week is the 10th anniversary of the term “weblog” being coined. On December 17th, 1997, John Barger, editor of Robot Wisdom, made a note that he was “logging” interesting “web” sites in his daily online journal. The term was shortened to “blog” two years later. The website article notes that numbers are hard to come by, but as much as anyone can figure, there were 23 “weblogs” in 1998. Now blog monitoring site Technorati keeps tabs on more than 70 Million blogs.
NOT SO HAPPY BLOGGERS: On a somewhat personal aside, colleague David Hazinski has learned that hell hath no fury like a blogger shorn. He wrote a commentary in the Atlanta Journal Constitution saying there should be standards for so-called ‘citizen journalists’ just as mainstream media adhere to certain ethical standards. Bloggers and talk radio hosts, including Rush Limbaugh, called him every name in the book and some even sent death threats. All of which probably own proves his point. (Disclaimer: IN MY OPINION)
BEST VIRAL VIDEO: Two different reports with two different sets of the top viral video’s of 2007. Video website Truveo.com list of the top ten viral video searches starts with Miss Teen South Carolina Answering Questions, followed by Leave Britney Alone and then Prison Inmates Performing “Thriller.” After that it’s Paris in Jail: The Music Video, The Landlord, Featuring Will Ferrell, Safari Animals Battle at Kruger, Chocolate Rain by Tay Zonday, I Got a Crush on Obama by Obama Girl, Karl Rove’s Rap Debut as MC Rove and the College Student Tazered at the Kerry Forum. Online marketing agency GoViral reports that the top five viral video advertisements are the Cadbury Gorilla Drummer, Smirnoff Green Tea Partay, Ray Ban Catch Sunglasses, Blendtec Will It Blend and Lynx/Axe Born chicka wah wah. You have to see these to believe them and you can at the Financial Times link: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1560d954-a81c-11dc-9485-0000779fd2ac.html. Maybe it’s me, but the Cadbury Gorilla is funnier than heck.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: Website grandparents.com reports that grandparents spend an average of $1,700 per grandchild, that the 70 Million grandparents in the U.S. represent one of the largest and most powerful consumer segments in the country, and that by 2025 one in four Americans will be a grandparent. Merriam Webster has picked w00t, typically spelled with two zeros and defined as “an expression of joy coined by online gamers,” as its word of the year. The latest craze in Japan is keitai shousetus, mobile phone novels, written on a cell phone and distributed to other cell phones. A story about high school romance written by a nursery school teacher from Kokura in Japan’s south has written several, one of which has since sold 420,000 copies in hardcopy format. Japan also held what may be the first film festival featuring works shot on camera-equipped cell phones. OfficeMax has brought back its elfyourself.com website where you can add a face to a dancing elf.
AWARD CONGRATULATIONS: To my friends at my former station KMOV-TV in St. Louis for winning a DuPont Columbia silver baton for excellence in broadcast journalism. The station was one of three Belo stations (others were KHOU-TV and WFAA-TV) to win one of the 13 awards given. Even more impressive was the win by little KNOE-TV in Monroe, Louisiana, for its examination of the National Guard and the Katrina disaster. As a slight brag (okay, a big brag), we won a silver baton at KMOV when I was there as well.
FOOTNOTE: This is the last MfM for this year. As noted in last week’s newsletter, we will be going on a short hiatus over the holidays, unless of course something huge develops that I just have to report on. Happy Holidays!
SUBSCRIPTIONS: If you wish to stop receiving this newsletter, e-mail 0 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.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Message From Michael -- December 10, 2007
FACTOIDS FORETELLING THE FUTURE
COMPUTERS DISAPPEARING INTO THE CLOUDS
HE KNOWS WHEN YOU’VE BEEN GOOD OR BEEN BAD
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT
THE COUNTERINTUITIVE CHINESE STUDY
STEPPING INTO THE POLITICAL WAYBACK MACHINE
ANOTHER MARKETING CONUNDRUM
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
FACTOIDS FORETELLING THE FUTURE: Two of them, actually. The number of multimedia mobile phones being shipped worldwide will pass the number of television sets being sold, with more than 300 Million units being shipped next year, according to the firm MultiMedia Intelligence which specializes in ‘delivering IP-based video to the nth screen.’ And buried in an Associated Press article about the UBS Media Conference was a statement by the head of Gannett’s newspaper division, Sue Clark-Johnson, that they had trained 600 print journalists how to make video for their websites. The second factoid is a message to my TV brethren and speaks to the growing battle over the Internet; and is also why I take a holistic approach to reporting on media in all its facets in MfM. The first factoid also speaks to that holistic approach and is indicative of the battle between new media and traditional media.
MultiMedia Intelligence defines a multimedia handset as one with an image sensor, MP3 audio support and video playback. Based on that definition, three out of five handsets today have multimedia functionality. However, in three years time, by 2011, the report says almost 9 out of 10 handsets would qualify. The report says the number of handsets with touch screens will reach 200 million by 2011.
COMPUTERS DISAPPEARING INTO THE CLOUDS: Several of the world’s largest Internet and computer companies are trying to get rid of the computer as we know it. It’s a system called “cloud computing” in which not only are the data and content (documents, spreadsheets, presentations and emails) stored online but so are the applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). Microsoft has Office Live; Google Calendar stores events; Google Docs stores spreadsheets and documents; Picasa stores pictures; and, of course, companies like Yahoo, Amazon and eBay have search, email, and e-commerce applications online. Google and I.B.M. are funding a major cloud computing research initiative to build large data centers that research universities can tap into in order to perform a kind of ‘supercomputing’ function – what they call ‘Internet-scale computing.’ The big concern, of course, is security. InformationWeek reports that the Sans Institute latest @Risk bulletin found 60 vulnerabilities in the online Web applications, compared to two for Windows, Internet Explorer and Mac OS, three for Linux, nine for third party Windows applications and 16 for cross-platform applications. However, the article points out the new Web applications are just that – new, while the other systems have been around for a long time and so they’ve been tried and tested more.
HE KNOWS WHEN YOU’VE BEEN GOOD OR BEEN BAD: And, no, I’m not talking about Santa Claus sitting around at the North Pole. Instead I’m talking about the CEO of a phone company in Monroe, Louisiana. The company, CenturyTel Inc., is using software called ‘deep packet inspection boxes’ that can track EVERY – repeat, EVERY – website you visit. Up to now, such tracking has been limited to cookies that are stored on your hard drive after you visit a website. Now, with the deep packet system, the tracking is done at the Internet Service Provider site so that your online travels are noted at the start. An article in the Wall Street Journal notes that the software developed by several companies including NebuAd, FrontPorch and Phorm is raising all kinds of privacy concerns. A lengthy article carried by the Associated Press raises similar concerns about what is called “behavioral targeting.” The AP report cites as an example how, based on weather reports and restaurant listings you check out online, Yahoo, for example, has a good idea where you live; then based on searches you have made online, the web portal also knows where you want to go. The result – next time you go online there’s an advertisement from United Airlines for flights between these two places.
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT: Readers who are old enough will remember seeing a sign saying that behind the counter at the Country Store or Five and Ten store. Well, apparently it’s coming back, except that now it’s called “consumer generated reviews.” Two separate studies tout the importance and advantages of such reviews. Nielsen-owned comScore and ‘research and strategic analysis’ firm The Kelsey Group found that one in four Internet users rely on consumer generated reviews to make a decision; and of that group; three quarters said the review had a major impact on their decision to buy and nearly ALL of them say they found the reviews to be accurate. Not only that but the consumers surveyed said they were willing to pay more for products or services that got good ratings. In a similar vein, a study by social commerce site BazaarVoice and word of mouth research and consulting firm Keller Fay Group found that, despite the belief that the Internet caters to people with a gripe, more than half of such reviews are positive. Nine out of ten such reviewers said they were only trying to help other consumers make better decisions. The Internet Retailers Association says nearly a quarter of the Internet businesses have started customer reviews for this holiday buying season.
THE COUNTERINTUITIVE CHINESE STUDY: A study by interactive conglomerate IAC and advertising agency JWT finds that five times as many Chinese as American respondents (61% vs. 13%) say they have a parallel life online; Chinese youth are twice as likely as young Americans (25% vs. 12%) to say they would NOT feel okay going without Internet access for more than a day; More than twice as many Chinese youth admitted they sometimes feel ‘addicted’ to living online (42% vs. 18%); Chinese respondents were four times as likely as Americans to agree that things ONLINE feel more intense than things OFFLINE (48% vs. 12%); More than three quarters (77%) of the Chinese sample agreed that computer/console games are more fun when played online compared with a third of the Americans. And lastly, the folks at the two companies say the Chinese Internet is buzzing with “virtual pheromones – cybermones, if you will” with three times as many Chinese as Americans (32% vs. 11%) willing to admit that the Internet has broadened their sex life. As a side note to this, one of the hottest blogging sensations in China was a sex blog by a young woman who goes by the name Mu Zimei.
FOOTNOTE: Security software vendor MacAfee says that China accounts for four out of five major cyber attacks on governments. In a report carried by the Associated Press, the company says there were more attacks on ‘critical’ governmental infrastructures in 2007 than ever before. The company says 120 countries are developing “cyber attack strategies”, that there is a brewing “cyber cold war” and that the attacks could erupt into a worldwide conflict. China, almost needless to say, denies such involvement.
ADVERTISING REPORT FOLLOW-UP: In an earlier MfM, we reported on ZenithOptimedia’s worldwide projections for advertising in 2008. Another interesting factoid I found in the report: Between now and 2010, the ten fastest growing advertising markets will be Kazakhstan in first place, followed by Belarus, Serbia, Egypt, Russia, Moldova, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and what the agency refers to as “Pan Arab.”
STEPPING INTO THE POLITICAL WAYBACK MACHINE: The ‘most memorable’ political moment in American radio/television history, according to a survey of scholars, politicians and analysts by the Museum of Broadcast Communications, was the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the subsequent funeral coverage. The attack on the World Trade Center was second in the list of 125 moments, followed by the first Kennedy-Nixon Debate in 1960, Franklin Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor speech in 1941, Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, Franklin Roosevelt, again, for his first inaugural address in 1933, Richard Nixon’s Checkers speech, Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech in 1963 and Richard Nixon, again, for his farewell speech in 1974. Ronald Reagan leads in terms of mentions with 14 moments listed, followed by Richard Nixon with 12, John F. Kennedy with 10 and Franklin Roosevelt with 9. President George W. Bush gets five mentions, the same as his father and Bill Clinton and Lyndon Johnson, but one more than Jimmy Carter. The assassination of Robert Kennedy came in at 46 and the assassination of Martin Luther King came in at 50. You can view the full list at the museum’s website http://www.museum.tv.
ANOTHER MARKETING CONUNDRUM: Following a previous week’s MC (marketing conundrum) in MfM, I have another. Explain to me why the liquor store next to the Publix supermarket across the street from me carries $40 to $80 bottles of wine when they have surly 20-something clerks whose knowledge of wine is limited to ‘reds’ and ‘whites.’
FOOTNOTE/ DISCLAIMER: The weekly Message From Michael will be sent out on an intermittent basis over the holidays. As we find new research or studies that we find interesting and that haven’t been beaten to death in other media, we’ll bring them to you.
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.
COMPUTERS DISAPPEARING INTO THE CLOUDS
HE KNOWS WHEN YOU’VE BEEN GOOD OR BEEN BAD
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT
THE COUNTERINTUITIVE CHINESE STUDY
STEPPING INTO THE POLITICAL WAYBACK MACHINE
ANOTHER MARKETING CONUNDRUM
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
FACTOIDS FORETELLING THE FUTURE: Two of them, actually. The number of multimedia mobile phones being shipped worldwide will pass the number of television sets being sold, with more than 300 Million units being shipped next year, according to the firm MultiMedia Intelligence which specializes in ‘delivering IP-based video to the nth screen.’ And buried in an Associated Press article about the UBS Media Conference was a statement by the head of Gannett’s newspaper division, Sue Clark-Johnson, that they had trained 600 print journalists how to make video for their websites. The second factoid is a message to my TV brethren and speaks to the growing battle over the Internet; and is also why I take a holistic approach to reporting on media in all its facets in MfM. The first factoid also speaks to that holistic approach and is indicative of the battle between new media and traditional media.
MultiMedia Intelligence defines a multimedia handset as one with an image sensor, MP3 audio support and video playback. Based on that definition, three out of five handsets today have multimedia functionality. However, in three years time, by 2011, the report says almost 9 out of 10 handsets would qualify. The report says the number of handsets with touch screens will reach 200 million by 2011.
COMPUTERS DISAPPEARING INTO THE CLOUDS: Several of the world’s largest Internet and computer companies are trying to get rid of the computer as we know it. It’s a system called “cloud computing” in which not only are the data and content (documents, spreadsheets, presentations and emails) stored online but so are the applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). Microsoft has Office Live; Google Calendar stores events; Google Docs stores spreadsheets and documents; Picasa stores pictures; and, of course, companies like Yahoo, Amazon and eBay have search, email, and e-commerce applications online. Google and I.B.M. are funding a major cloud computing research initiative to build large data centers that research universities can tap into in order to perform a kind of ‘supercomputing’ function – what they call ‘Internet-scale computing.’ The big concern, of course, is security. InformationWeek reports that the Sans Institute latest @Risk bulletin found 60 vulnerabilities in the online Web applications, compared to two for Windows, Internet Explorer and Mac OS, three for Linux, nine for third party Windows applications and 16 for cross-platform applications. However, the article points out the new Web applications are just that – new, while the other systems have been around for a long time and so they’ve been tried and tested more.
HE KNOWS WHEN YOU’VE BEEN GOOD OR BEEN BAD: And, no, I’m not talking about Santa Claus sitting around at the North Pole. Instead I’m talking about the CEO of a phone company in Monroe, Louisiana. The company, CenturyTel Inc., is using software called ‘deep packet inspection boxes’ that can track EVERY – repeat, EVERY – website you visit. Up to now, such tracking has been limited to cookies that are stored on your hard drive after you visit a website. Now, with the deep packet system, the tracking is done at the Internet Service Provider site so that your online travels are noted at the start. An article in the Wall Street Journal notes that the software developed by several companies including NebuAd, FrontPorch and Phorm is raising all kinds of privacy concerns. A lengthy article carried by the Associated Press raises similar concerns about what is called “behavioral targeting.” The AP report cites as an example how, based on weather reports and restaurant listings you check out online, Yahoo, for example, has a good idea where you live; then based on searches you have made online, the web portal also knows where you want to go. The result – next time you go online there’s an advertisement from United Airlines for flights between these two places.
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT: Readers who are old enough will remember seeing a sign saying that behind the counter at the Country Store or Five and Ten store. Well, apparently it’s coming back, except that now it’s called “consumer generated reviews.” Two separate studies tout the importance and advantages of such reviews. Nielsen-owned comScore and ‘research and strategic analysis’ firm The Kelsey Group found that one in four Internet users rely on consumer generated reviews to make a decision; and of that group; three quarters said the review had a major impact on their decision to buy and nearly ALL of them say they found the reviews to be accurate. Not only that but the consumers surveyed said they were willing to pay more for products or services that got good ratings. In a similar vein, a study by social commerce site BazaarVoice and word of mouth research and consulting firm Keller Fay Group found that, despite the belief that the Internet caters to people with a gripe, more than half of such reviews are positive. Nine out of ten such reviewers said they were only trying to help other consumers make better decisions. The Internet Retailers Association says nearly a quarter of the Internet businesses have started customer reviews for this holiday buying season.
THE COUNTERINTUITIVE CHINESE STUDY: A study by interactive conglomerate IAC and advertising agency JWT finds that five times as many Chinese as American respondents (61% vs. 13%) say they have a parallel life online; Chinese youth are twice as likely as young Americans (25% vs. 12%) to say they would NOT feel okay going without Internet access for more than a day; More than twice as many Chinese youth admitted they sometimes feel ‘addicted’ to living online (42% vs. 18%); Chinese respondents were four times as likely as Americans to agree that things ONLINE feel more intense than things OFFLINE (48% vs. 12%); More than three quarters (77%) of the Chinese sample agreed that computer/console games are more fun when played online compared with a third of the Americans. And lastly, the folks at the two companies say the Chinese Internet is buzzing with “virtual pheromones – cybermones, if you will” with three times as many Chinese as Americans (32% vs. 11%) willing to admit that the Internet has broadened their sex life. As a side note to this, one of the hottest blogging sensations in China was a sex blog by a young woman who goes by the name Mu Zimei.
FOOTNOTE: Security software vendor MacAfee says that China accounts for four out of five major cyber attacks on governments. In a report carried by the Associated Press, the company says there were more attacks on ‘critical’ governmental infrastructures in 2007 than ever before. The company says 120 countries are developing “cyber attack strategies”, that there is a brewing “cyber cold war” and that the attacks could erupt into a worldwide conflict. China, almost needless to say, denies such involvement.
ADVERTISING REPORT FOLLOW-UP: In an earlier MfM, we reported on ZenithOptimedia’s worldwide projections for advertising in 2008. Another interesting factoid I found in the report: Between now and 2010, the ten fastest growing advertising markets will be Kazakhstan in first place, followed by Belarus, Serbia, Egypt, Russia, Moldova, Indonesia, the United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, and what the agency refers to as “Pan Arab.”
STEPPING INTO THE POLITICAL WAYBACK MACHINE: The ‘most memorable’ political moment in American radio/television history, according to a survey of scholars, politicians and analysts by the Museum of Broadcast Communications, was the assassination of John F. Kennedy and the subsequent funeral coverage. The attack on the World Trade Center was second in the list of 125 moments, followed by the first Kennedy-Nixon Debate in 1960, Franklin Roosevelt’s Pearl Harbor speech in 1941, Neil Armstrong walking on the moon in 1969, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, Franklin Roosevelt, again, for his first inaugural address in 1933, Richard Nixon’s Checkers speech, Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech in 1963 and Richard Nixon, again, for his farewell speech in 1974. Ronald Reagan leads in terms of mentions with 14 moments listed, followed by Richard Nixon with 12, John F. Kennedy with 10 and Franklin Roosevelt with 9. President George W. Bush gets five mentions, the same as his father and Bill Clinton and Lyndon Johnson, but one more than Jimmy Carter. The assassination of Robert Kennedy came in at 46 and the assassination of Martin Luther King came in at 50. You can view the full list at the museum’s website http://www.museum.tv.
ANOTHER MARKETING CONUNDRUM: Following a previous week’s MC (marketing conundrum) in MfM, I have another. Explain to me why the liquor store next to the Publix supermarket across the street from me carries $40 to $80 bottles of wine when they have surly 20-something clerks whose knowledge of wine is limited to ‘reds’ and ‘whites.’
FOOTNOTE/ DISCLAIMER: The weekly Message From Michael will be sent out on an intermittent basis over the holidays. As we find new research or studies that we find interesting and that haven’t been beaten to death in other media, we’ll bring them to you.
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.
Message From Michael -- December 3, 2007
SWEEPS AFTERMATH
SWEEPS BY THE NUMBERS
REPORTS OF TV’S DEATH ARE
READING REPORT FOLO
HEY, BIG SPENDER, SPEND A LITTLE
COCKTAIL CHATTER – CHINA AND RUSSIA
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS AFTERMATH: Only one of the five networks, Fox, showed any improvement year-to-year in the November ratings. Or, put another way, every network but Fox dropped year to year, according to Nielsen and reported by The Programming Insider. Fox claimed the #1 spot in the Adults 18-34 demo, but more importantly, as I say, it was the only network that was up year to year. CBS won the race for households and for total viewers, and tied in the Adult 25-54 demographic, although it was down 7% year to year. ABC claimed the title in the key Adults 18-49 demographic, although it, too, was down 7% year to year. NBC… well, the Peacock Network really didn’t have anything to crow about, dropping anywhere from 10% to 20% in the various categories. Its only consolation was that the CW was worse, dropping a staggering 21% to 25% year to year.
SWEEPS BY THE NUMBERS: A “record.” A “new zenith.” These are two references, also from The Programming Insider, about cable programming ratings in November. The ‘record’ was a reference to the male-driven G4 program which had 96,000 viewers. The ‘new zenith’ was a reference to Style which had 101,000 viewers. Just to put that in perspective, the number one station, WABC-TV, this November in the number one market, New York, had 281,000 viewers. And just to provide perspective on the perspective, the number one station, Belo8, in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, which is #5 in the country, had 248,431 viewers for its 10pm newscast. Okay, some more perspective (and, yes, that means more numbers). New York has 7,391,940 TV households. Dallas-Fort Worth has 2,435,600 TV households. The difference in the TV stations is that while a rating point is worth 73,920 households in New York City, WABC won with a 3.8 rating; while in Dallas-Fort Worth, even though a rating point is ‘only’ worth 24,350 households, Belo8 had a 10.2 rating.
Okay, one last set of numbers and then I promise I’ll quit. Nielsen Media puts the total number of TV homes in 2008 at 112,798,170. The Census Bureau puts the total U.S. population as of today (December 2nd) at 303,505,856. Lastly, total viewers for the network evening news put NBC on top with 9.91 Million viewers for the week of November 19th, followed by ABC with 9.03 Million and CBS with 6.94 Million. I should also note that there are cable channels pulling substantial numbers – like ABC Family (1.1 Million), SciFi (1.14 Million), and USA (1.98 Million). Also, many of you will note that NBC’s Brian Williams took back the number one spot from ABC’s Charlie Gibson after Williams appeared on Saturday Night Live.
REPORTS OF TV’S DEATH ARE: You know, the rest of the quote – Greatly Exaggerated. Two recent reports confirm that TV is here for some time. The first, a survey by researcher Jack Myers and commissioned by ‘global intelligence service’ Teletrax found that nearly half of media industry executives believe that Television will account for the majority (60%) of the video being delivered with the Internet accounting for the rest by the year 2012. Another fifth believe that Television will account for 80% of the video delivery. Of course, on the flip side of that, one in ten executives believe that the Internet will account for 80% of the video delivery system and two in ten believe the Internet will account for 60% of the video by 2012. Not surprisingly, the younger the age group the higher the usage of video on the Internet or other mobile sources. There is much less equivocation in a report released by consultancy firm Bain and Co. which says it will be five years or more before Internet video becomes a viable alternative to broadcast, cable or satellite. Even more telling, the Bain report says that by 2012, U.S. viewers will spend on average two hours MORE per week watching television but that Internet use ‘outside of the office’ will only rise by half an hour per week. The head of Bain’s ‘global media practice’, David Sanderson, is quoted in a Reuters’ report as saying the technology isn’t quite there and neither is the business model for Internet video.
Disclaimer: The Teletrax/ Myers report is focused on ‘selling’ the concept of video watermarking, which is one of Teletrax’s services. Video watermarking is a system of embedding a mark into video and/or audio so that it can’t be picked up by the ear or eye but can be tracked by downstream recognition devices. The other form of tracking content use is video fingerprinting which ‘recognizes’ the different sound, motion and patterns of the video.
Footnotes: Regular readers of MfM will recall previous studies reported here that despite the proliferation of user-generated content, most video users still gravitate to professionally produced content. And add to the long list of things I didn’t know: Former Massachusetts governor and Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was once CEO of the Bain and Co. management consulting firm.
READING REPORT FOLO: There was so much info in the National Endowment for the Arts’ Reading Report, profiled in last week’s MfM, that I had to do a brief follow-up. One of the other fascinating facts in the report confirms previous studies about media multi-tasking. More than a quarter of 7th to 12th graders (28%) say they are using other media ‘most of the time’ while reading while nearly another third (30%) say they are using other media ‘some of the time’ while reading. And the two top ‘other’ activities are watching television (11%) and listening to music (10%). The report cites U.S. Department of Labor statistics that indicate 15 to 24 year olds spend an average of 7 minutes each day ‘reading for pleasure’ (remember, that’s the key). The same age group spends two to 2 ½ hours a day watching television. And before any of you ‘oldies’ start tsk-tsking, the report says the 45-54 age group spends 17 minutes a day reading something other than what’s required for work, while the 55-64 group spends 30 minutes and the over 65 group spends 50 minutes a day ‘reading for pleasure.’
HEY, BIG SPENDER, SPEND A LITTLE: Or, if you’re Proctor and Gamble, spend a lot. The consumer products and advertising behemoth retains the title of the world’s largest advertiser, spending a whopping, unbelievable, incredible, amazing $8.52 Billion worldwide in the last year surveyed. In its annual Global Marketers report, Advertising Age says the top 100 marketers spend $97.8 Billion in the 90 countries surveyed, with nearly half (47.1% or $46.02 Billion) being spent in the U.S. alone. In part, of course, that’s because 46 of the top 100 marketers are U.S. based. Europe accounted for the next largest amount (31.8%) followed by the Asia/ Pacific region (15.3%). The London/Rotterdam based Unilever came in second worldwide at $4.54 Billion, beating out General Motors which actually lowered its advertising by 17.4% to $3.35 Billion, followed by Clichy, France, based L’Oreal at $3.12 Billion, and Toyota at $3.1 Billion.
Media companies making the list include Time Warner at #7 with $2.14 Billion worldwide spending; Walt Disney Co at #13 spending $1.75 Billion; General Electric which sort of qualifies as a media company at #23 with $1.25 Billion; News Corp at #25 with $1.1 Billion; and Viacom at #41 with $735 Million. The report available at http://adage.com/images/random/datacenter/2007/globalmarketing2007.pdf gives you country by country breakouts from Australia to Azerbaijan and from Italy to India.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: As a side note of sorts to the P&G spending, the company has launched a website, along with NBC Universal Digital Media, aimed at pet owners, called petside.com. Another website, midomi.com, allows you to search for songs or artists by singing or humming a few bars of the song you are looking for. And just in time for the holiday season the Mall of America joined with Phillips Electronics to implement a cell phone text parking system in which you can put in your car location and a text message will be sent back to remind you where you parked. Trendwatching website Springwise.com says the latest PC video game to make the rounds is Arabian Lords which is a bilingual strategy game inspired by the rise of Islam between the 7th and 13th centuries and targeted specifically at Middle Eastern players. According to Blognation Russia (which, BTW, is a great site for reading about the former Soviet Union), Russia has its first Billion dollar Internet company – Mail.ru, a free web mail service which South African media and Internet group Naspers paid $26 Million to get a 2.6% stake. China-based (and Yahoo invested) search engine Alibaba is launching an online ad service to compete with the other Chinese ad service Baidu, named – no, joke – Alimama.
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: Social networking giant Facebook has had to roll back its controversial advertising program Beacon (featured or ‘warned about’ in an MfM last month) which sent alerts about what people were buying to their friends, after a rebellion by members and privacy groups. However, it still retains the extremely targeted behavioral/contextual advertising program. And 60 Minutes did a profile piece last night on the One Laptop Per Child program featured in MfM several times over the last year.
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.
SWEEPS BY THE NUMBERS
REPORTS OF TV’S DEATH ARE
READING REPORT FOLO
HEY, BIG SPENDER, SPEND A LITTLE
COCKTAIL CHATTER – CHINA AND RUSSIA
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS AFTERMATH: Only one of the five networks, Fox, showed any improvement year-to-year in the November ratings. Or, put another way, every network but Fox dropped year to year, according to Nielsen and reported by The Programming Insider. Fox claimed the #1 spot in the Adults 18-34 demo, but more importantly, as I say, it was the only network that was up year to year. CBS won the race for households and for total viewers, and tied in the Adult 25-54 demographic, although it was down 7% year to year. ABC claimed the title in the key Adults 18-49 demographic, although it, too, was down 7% year to year. NBC… well, the Peacock Network really didn’t have anything to crow about, dropping anywhere from 10% to 20% in the various categories. Its only consolation was that the CW was worse, dropping a staggering 21% to 25% year to year.
SWEEPS BY THE NUMBERS: A “record.” A “new zenith.” These are two references, also from The Programming Insider, about cable programming ratings in November. The ‘record’ was a reference to the male-driven G4 program which had 96,000 viewers. The ‘new zenith’ was a reference to Style which had 101,000 viewers. Just to put that in perspective, the number one station, WABC-TV, this November in the number one market, New York, had 281,000 viewers. And just to provide perspective on the perspective, the number one station, Belo8, in the Dallas-Fort Worth market, which is #5 in the country, had 248,431 viewers for its 10pm newscast. Okay, some more perspective (and, yes, that means more numbers). New York has 7,391,940 TV households. Dallas-Fort Worth has 2,435,600 TV households. The difference in the TV stations is that while a rating point is worth 73,920 households in New York City, WABC won with a 3.8 rating; while in Dallas-Fort Worth, even though a rating point is ‘only’ worth 24,350 households, Belo8 had a 10.2 rating.
Okay, one last set of numbers and then I promise I’ll quit. Nielsen Media puts the total number of TV homes in 2008 at 112,798,170. The Census Bureau puts the total U.S. population as of today (December 2nd) at 303,505,856. Lastly, total viewers for the network evening news put NBC on top with 9.91 Million viewers for the week of November 19th, followed by ABC with 9.03 Million and CBS with 6.94 Million. I should also note that there are cable channels pulling substantial numbers – like ABC Family (1.1 Million), SciFi (1.14 Million), and USA (1.98 Million). Also, many of you will note that NBC’s Brian Williams took back the number one spot from ABC’s Charlie Gibson after Williams appeared on Saturday Night Live.
REPORTS OF TV’S DEATH ARE: You know, the rest of the quote – Greatly Exaggerated. Two recent reports confirm that TV is here for some time. The first, a survey by researcher Jack Myers and commissioned by ‘global intelligence service’ Teletrax found that nearly half of media industry executives believe that Television will account for the majority (60%) of the video being delivered with the Internet accounting for the rest by the year 2012. Another fifth believe that Television will account for 80% of the video delivery. Of course, on the flip side of that, one in ten executives believe that the Internet will account for 80% of the video delivery system and two in ten believe the Internet will account for 60% of the video by 2012. Not surprisingly, the younger the age group the higher the usage of video on the Internet or other mobile sources. There is much less equivocation in a report released by consultancy firm Bain and Co. which says it will be five years or more before Internet video becomes a viable alternative to broadcast, cable or satellite. Even more telling, the Bain report says that by 2012, U.S. viewers will spend on average two hours MORE per week watching television but that Internet use ‘outside of the office’ will only rise by half an hour per week. The head of Bain’s ‘global media practice’, David Sanderson, is quoted in a Reuters’ report as saying the technology isn’t quite there and neither is the business model for Internet video.
Disclaimer: The Teletrax/ Myers report is focused on ‘selling’ the concept of video watermarking, which is one of Teletrax’s services. Video watermarking is a system of embedding a mark into video and/or audio so that it can’t be picked up by the ear or eye but can be tracked by downstream recognition devices. The other form of tracking content use is video fingerprinting which ‘recognizes’ the different sound, motion and patterns of the video.
Footnotes: Regular readers of MfM will recall previous studies reported here that despite the proliferation of user-generated content, most video users still gravitate to professionally produced content. And add to the long list of things I didn’t know: Former Massachusetts governor and Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney was once CEO of the Bain and Co. management consulting firm.
READING REPORT FOLO: There was so much info in the National Endowment for the Arts’ Reading Report, profiled in last week’s MfM, that I had to do a brief follow-up. One of the other fascinating facts in the report confirms previous studies about media multi-tasking. More than a quarter of 7th to 12th graders (28%) say they are using other media ‘most of the time’ while reading while nearly another third (30%) say they are using other media ‘some of the time’ while reading. And the two top ‘other’ activities are watching television (11%) and listening to music (10%). The report cites U.S. Department of Labor statistics that indicate 15 to 24 year olds spend an average of 7 minutes each day ‘reading for pleasure’ (remember, that’s the key). The same age group spends two to 2 ½ hours a day watching television. And before any of you ‘oldies’ start tsk-tsking, the report says the 45-54 age group spends 17 minutes a day reading something other than what’s required for work, while the 55-64 group spends 30 minutes and the over 65 group spends 50 minutes a day ‘reading for pleasure.’
HEY, BIG SPENDER, SPEND A LITTLE: Or, if you’re Proctor and Gamble, spend a lot. The consumer products and advertising behemoth retains the title of the world’s largest advertiser, spending a whopping, unbelievable, incredible, amazing $8.52 Billion worldwide in the last year surveyed. In its annual Global Marketers report, Advertising Age says the top 100 marketers spend $97.8 Billion in the 90 countries surveyed, with nearly half (47.1% or $46.02 Billion) being spent in the U.S. alone. In part, of course, that’s because 46 of the top 100 marketers are U.S. based. Europe accounted for the next largest amount (31.8%) followed by the Asia/ Pacific region (15.3%). The London/Rotterdam based Unilever came in second worldwide at $4.54 Billion, beating out General Motors which actually lowered its advertising by 17.4% to $3.35 Billion, followed by Clichy, France, based L’Oreal at $3.12 Billion, and Toyota at $3.1 Billion.
Media companies making the list include Time Warner at #7 with $2.14 Billion worldwide spending; Walt Disney Co at #13 spending $1.75 Billion; General Electric which sort of qualifies as a media company at #23 with $1.25 Billion; News Corp at #25 with $1.1 Billion; and Viacom at #41 with $735 Million. The report available at http://adage.com/images/random/datacenter/2007/globalmarketing2007.pdf gives you country by country breakouts from Australia to Azerbaijan and from Italy to India.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: As a side note of sorts to the P&G spending, the company has launched a website, along with NBC Universal Digital Media, aimed at pet owners, called petside.com. Another website, midomi.com, allows you to search for songs or artists by singing or humming a few bars of the song you are looking for. And just in time for the holiday season the Mall of America joined with Phillips Electronics to implement a cell phone text parking system in which you can put in your car location and a text message will be sent back to remind you where you parked. Trendwatching website Springwise.com says the latest PC video game to make the rounds is Arabian Lords which is a bilingual strategy game inspired by the rise of Islam between the 7th and 13th centuries and targeted specifically at Middle Eastern players. According to Blognation Russia (which, BTW, is a great site for reading about the former Soviet Union), Russia has its first Billion dollar Internet company – Mail.ru, a free web mail service which South African media and Internet group Naspers paid $26 Million to get a 2.6% stake. China-based (and Yahoo invested) search engine Alibaba is launching an online ad service to compete with the other Chinese ad service Baidu, named – no, joke – Alimama.
YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: Social networking giant Facebook has had to roll back its controversial advertising program Beacon (featured or ‘warned about’ in an MfM last month) which sent alerts about what people were buying to their friends, after a rebellion by members and privacy groups. However, it still retains the extremely targeted behavioral/contextual advertising program. And 60 Minutes did a profile piece last night on the One Laptop Per Child program featured in MfM several times over the last year.
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.
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Message From Michael -- November 26, 2007
SWEEPS
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN
TO READ OR NOT TO READ
LOCAL TV NEWS VIEWING
RADIO LISTENING
NEWSPAPER READING
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS: Three days left. Okay, now, who knows what’s wrong with that statement? All of my diary clients do, of course. That’s because we always preach that you have to maintain a marketing and news push AFTER the official end of sweeps because nobody fills out their diary the day of. It’s always a day or two later, and that’s why it’s important to remind them who they were watching.
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN: Based on a survey by Harris Interactive, you might find the picture of the ‘average’ American to be a little different than you would expect. Americans spend much more time reading (29%) than watching television (18%) and almost as much time going to the movies (7%) AND even fishing (7%) as they do on the computer (9%). Family is still important to them, but they don’t spend nearly as much time with family and kids (14%) as they do reading or watching TV. And they’re more likely to garden (6%), go walking (6%), or playing team sports (6%) as going to church (5%), although they’re equally likely to exercise (5%) or golf (5%) as go to church. That’s how we split the 20 median hours of leisure time we have each week. The Harris Poll of 1,052 Americans shows we’re also spending less time working (with a median of 45 hours a week) than we did three years ago (when it was 50 hours).
The poll makes a point of showing the differences between now (2007) and then (2004) or even way back then (1995). For example, not surprisingly, the amount of time spent on computer activities has risen steadily from 2% in 1995 to the present 9% and watching sporting events has risen four points since 2004 along with exercise (up three points) and crafts (up three points). But when you average out the time spent (as OCD me did) on various activities since 1995, you find that while there has been a great deal of fluctuation year to year, the average time is pretty consistent. For example, reading averaged 28.6% while TV watching averaged 20.1% and family time averaged 13.7%; and that’s true for most of the activities (except fishing which at 7% this year is down from the average of 9.9%).
TO READ OR NOT TO READ: The Harris Interactive survey runs contrary, to a degree, to a report issued this month by the National Endowment for the Arts which found that Americans are spending less time reading, that reading comprehension skills are eroding and that “those declines have serious civic, social, cultural and economic implications.” The report particularly decries the drop in reading (for pleasure, that’s the key) by young people, noting that nearly half of all Americans aged 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure. Or put another way, the percentage of young Americans who read a book “not required for work or school” has declined significantly in the last ten years, although I should note the percentage is still over half for all age groups. The report makes the point that employers now rank reading and writing as the top deficiencies in new hires. It cites a report by The Conference Board which found that employers ranked four out of five (81%) job applicants with a high school degree deficient in written communication skills and more than one out of four (28%) college graduate deficient in such skills.
LOCAL TV NEWS VIEWING: According to a survey by The Media Audit, viewers in the South and Midwest are heavier local TV news viewers than those in the West and Northeast. In a survey of 11 news time periods in 88 markets, the research firm found that adults in the Midwest (defined as the West Coast through Colorado and New Mexico) are most likely to view a late evening LOCAL news program on NBC (36% more likely than the average U.S. adult) followed by prime time LOCAL news on Fox (25% more likely) and early morning LOCAL news on Fox (25%). Adults in the South (defined as Texas and Oklahoma across to West Virginia and Virginia) indexed above the national average in all 11 measured local news programs with the most popular being CBS early morning LOCAL news (32% more likely than the average U.S. adult to watch), followed by CBS late evening LOCAL news (28%) and early morning LOCAL news on Fox (24%).
RADIO LISTENING: The same group, The Media Audit, says the radio format with the greatest overall reach in adults 25-54 is Country with 13.3% of those listeners, followed by Contemporary Hit Radio AND News Talk (both with 12.2%) followed by Classic Rock (11%) and Public Radio (10.3%). If you’re looking to reach households with children living at home, Contemporary Christian formatted radio ranks number one (70.1%) even though it only ranked #16 out of 30 in Adults 25-54. The second most popular format in those households is Contemporary Hit Radio (66.4%) followed by Dance CHR (64.5%), Hot Adult Contemporary (64.4%) and Country (64.4%).
As a side note to this, MfM reader and radio consultant Jimmy Risk argues in a recent article that radio has always been a social network “of sorts” to generations of listeners and he says radio could build a digital ‘community’ using its dial position and website address and “reclaim the hipness factor.” It’s an argument I have made for local television. As he puts it, “local ratings and revenue are there for the taking by leveraging a parallel universe of digital bodies under an umbrella known as a social network.”
NEWSPAPER READING AND REVENUES: They’re both up… sort of. Actually it’s the Online versions that are up. According to The Media Audit (Again), the top 25 newspaper websites increased 15.4% in terms of average unique monthly visitors while the combined print and online audience increased 5.9% (indicating, therefore, a drop in the print version). Meanwhile, trade industry publication Editor and Publisher cites a study commissioned by the World Association of Newspapers which says 2006 was “a turning point” in the newspaper Web business model for many of the world’s newspapers. The study reports that “mature online operations” are generating 40% and higher profits for newspapers whose print operating profits have fallen to 23%. Of course, at this point, Internet operations make up less than 10% of a newspaper company’s revenues in the U.S. and only about 5% outside the U.S. The study says it is unlikely Online income will make up for the lost print income any time soon. The report also warns that ‘Internet pure play” businesses such as Google and Yahoo “now threaten local newspaper online advertising to an alarming degree.” That may explain why so many newspaper groups have partnered with Yahoo and other such players. The Associated Press reports that the Columbus Dispatch and 16 regional newspapers owned by The New York Times Company have joined the Yahoo consortium, bringing its total number to about 415 dailies and 140 weeklies. Interestingly, neither the New York Times nor the co-owned Boston Globe has joined the consortium. Nor have Gannett or Tribune, the #1 and #2 newspaper publishers by circulation.
As a side note to all this, I found it interesting when an executive with Morris Publishing visiting the Grady College made the point that one of the drawbacks of partnering with groups like Yahoo is that the pure play businesses do not require registration for people to view the various ads and articles. That means the local newspaper does not have a way of measuring this part of its Online viewing so that it can put together a total picture of audience reach. This brings me back to that Media Audit report. The analysis lists out the Top 10 Daily Newspaper Websites, starting with The New York Times which averages 3,146,900 monthly unique visitors, giving it a combined total (Print & Web) of 4,972,600. It’s followed by Newsday.com (1,798,400 and 3,017,000), ChicagoTribune.com, WashingtonPost.com, NYdailynews.com, LATimes.com, NYpost.com, SFGate.com and The Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s AJC.com. BUT of those sites, only two make it to the Top 10 Newspaper Websites based on percent of market reached: The Washington Post website which reaches 44.9% of the local market and the AJC website which reaches 35% of the local market. The top newspaper website in terms of local market penetration is the Times-Picayune out of New Orleans which reaches 47.4% of the local market. Even more interesting is that when the Print and Web versions are combined, the New Orleans newspaper has an unduplicated 18+ reach of 86%. The Buffalo News comes in second with 84.6% reach of the market, followed by the Omaha World Herald (83.7%) and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (81.8%)
As a side note to the side note, and to partially explain why I spent so much time on the LOCAL reach of the combined Print and Web products, Harry A. Jessell writes on the TVNewsday.com website, “with the possible exception of the daily newspaper, TV stations dominate local media today. To continue to do so, they must operate and promote the best local Web sites and mobile services. If they don’t, others will.” The article (brought to my attention by Peabody director Horace Newcomb) notes two companies have changed their names: Morgan Murphy Stations became Morgan Murphy Media and NBC Universal Television Stations has become NBC Local Media Division. He notes the analogy with passenger railroads failing in the 50’s and 60’s because, say analysts, they saw themselves as being in the railroad business when they were actually in the transportation business.
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.
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN
TO READ OR NOT TO READ
LOCAL TV NEWS VIEWING
RADIO LISTENING
NEWSPAPER READING
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS: Three days left. Okay, now, who knows what’s wrong with that statement? All of my diary clients do, of course. That’s because we always preach that you have to maintain a marketing and news push AFTER the official end of sweeps because nobody fills out their diary the day of. It’s always a day or two later, and that’s why it’s important to remind them who they were watching.
THE AVERAGE AMERICAN: Based on a survey by Harris Interactive, you might find the picture of the ‘average’ American to be a little different than you would expect. Americans spend much more time reading (29%) than watching television (18%) and almost as much time going to the movies (7%) AND even fishing (7%) as they do on the computer (9%). Family is still important to them, but they don’t spend nearly as much time with family and kids (14%) as they do reading or watching TV. And they’re more likely to garden (6%), go walking (6%), or playing team sports (6%) as going to church (5%), although they’re equally likely to exercise (5%) or golf (5%) as go to church. That’s how we split the 20 median hours of leisure time we have each week. The Harris Poll of 1,052 Americans shows we’re also spending less time working (with a median of 45 hours a week) than we did three years ago (when it was 50 hours).
The poll makes a point of showing the differences between now (2007) and then (2004) or even way back then (1995). For example, not surprisingly, the amount of time spent on computer activities has risen steadily from 2% in 1995 to the present 9% and watching sporting events has risen four points since 2004 along with exercise (up three points) and crafts (up three points). But when you average out the time spent (as OCD me did) on various activities since 1995, you find that while there has been a great deal of fluctuation year to year, the average time is pretty consistent. For example, reading averaged 28.6% while TV watching averaged 20.1% and family time averaged 13.7%; and that’s true for most of the activities (except fishing which at 7% this year is down from the average of 9.9%).
TO READ OR NOT TO READ: The Harris Interactive survey runs contrary, to a degree, to a report issued this month by the National Endowment for the Arts which found that Americans are spending less time reading, that reading comprehension skills are eroding and that “those declines have serious civic, social, cultural and economic implications.” The report particularly decries the drop in reading (for pleasure, that’s the key) by young people, noting that nearly half of all Americans aged 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure. Or put another way, the percentage of young Americans who read a book “not required for work or school” has declined significantly in the last ten years, although I should note the percentage is still over half for all age groups. The report makes the point that employers now rank reading and writing as the top deficiencies in new hires. It cites a report by The Conference Board which found that employers ranked four out of five (81%) job applicants with a high school degree deficient in written communication skills and more than one out of four (28%) college graduate deficient in such skills.
LOCAL TV NEWS VIEWING: According to a survey by The Media Audit, viewers in the South and Midwest are heavier local TV news viewers than those in the West and Northeast. In a survey of 11 news time periods in 88 markets, the research firm found that adults in the Midwest (defined as the West Coast through Colorado and New Mexico) are most likely to view a late evening LOCAL news program on NBC (36% more likely than the average U.S. adult) followed by prime time LOCAL news on Fox (25% more likely) and early morning LOCAL news on Fox (25%). Adults in the South (defined as Texas and Oklahoma across to West Virginia and Virginia) indexed above the national average in all 11 measured local news programs with the most popular being CBS early morning LOCAL news (32% more likely than the average U.S. adult to watch), followed by CBS late evening LOCAL news (28%) and early morning LOCAL news on Fox (24%).
RADIO LISTENING: The same group, The Media Audit, says the radio format with the greatest overall reach in adults 25-54 is Country with 13.3% of those listeners, followed by Contemporary Hit Radio AND News Talk (both with 12.2%) followed by Classic Rock (11%) and Public Radio (10.3%). If you’re looking to reach households with children living at home, Contemporary Christian formatted radio ranks number one (70.1%) even though it only ranked #16 out of 30 in Adults 25-54. The second most popular format in those households is Contemporary Hit Radio (66.4%) followed by Dance CHR (64.5%), Hot Adult Contemporary (64.4%) and Country (64.4%).
As a side note to this, MfM reader and radio consultant Jimmy Risk argues in a recent article that radio has always been a social network “of sorts” to generations of listeners and he says radio could build a digital ‘community’ using its dial position and website address and “reclaim the hipness factor.” It’s an argument I have made for local television. As he puts it, “local ratings and revenue are there for the taking by leveraging a parallel universe of digital bodies under an umbrella known as a social network.”
NEWSPAPER READING AND REVENUES: They’re both up… sort of. Actually it’s the Online versions that are up. According to The Media Audit (Again), the top 25 newspaper websites increased 15.4% in terms of average unique monthly visitors while the combined print and online audience increased 5.9% (indicating, therefore, a drop in the print version). Meanwhile, trade industry publication Editor and Publisher cites a study commissioned by the World Association of Newspapers which says 2006 was “a turning point” in the newspaper Web business model for many of the world’s newspapers. The study reports that “mature online operations” are generating 40% and higher profits for newspapers whose print operating profits have fallen to 23%. Of course, at this point, Internet operations make up less than 10% of a newspaper company’s revenues in the U.S. and only about 5% outside the U.S. The study says it is unlikely Online income will make up for the lost print income any time soon. The report also warns that ‘Internet pure play” businesses such as Google and Yahoo “now threaten local newspaper online advertising to an alarming degree.” That may explain why so many newspaper groups have partnered with Yahoo and other such players. The Associated Press reports that the Columbus Dispatch and 16 regional newspapers owned by The New York Times Company have joined the Yahoo consortium, bringing its total number to about 415 dailies and 140 weeklies. Interestingly, neither the New York Times nor the co-owned Boston Globe has joined the consortium. Nor have Gannett or Tribune, the #1 and #2 newspaper publishers by circulation.
As a side note to all this, I found it interesting when an executive with Morris Publishing visiting the Grady College made the point that one of the drawbacks of partnering with groups like Yahoo is that the pure play businesses do not require registration for people to view the various ads and articles. That means the local newspaper does not have a way of measuring this part of its Online viewing so that it can put together a total picture of audience reach. This brings me back to that Media Audit report. The analysis lists out the Top 10 Daily Newspaper Websites, starting with The New York Times which averages 3,146,900 monthly unique visitors, giving it a combined total (Print & Web) of 4,972,600. It’s followed by Newsday.com (1,798,400 and 3,017,000), ChicagoTribune.com, WashingtonPost.com, NYdailynews.com, LATimes.com, NYpost.com, SFGate.com and The Atlanta Journal and Constitution’s AJC.com. BUT of those sites, only two make it to the Top 10 Newspaper Websites based on percent of market reached: The Washington Post website which reaches 44.9% of the local market and the AJC website which reaches 35% of the local market. The top newspaper website in terms of local market penetration is the Times-Picayune out of New Orleans which reaches 47.4% of the local market. Even more interesting is that when the Print and Web versions are combined, the New Orleans newspaper has an unduplicated 18+ reach of 86%. The Buffalo News comes in second with 84.6% reach of the market, followed by the Omaha World Herald (83.7%) and the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (81.8%)
As a side note to the side note, and to partially explain why I spent so much time on the LOCAL reach of the combined Print and Web products, Harry A. Jessell writes on the TVNewsday.com website, “with the possible exception of the daily newspaper, TV stations dominate local media today. To continue to do so, they must operate and promote the best local Web sites and mobile services. If they don’t, others will.” The article (brought to my attention by Peabody director Horace Newcomb) notes two companies have changed their names: Morgan Murphy Stations became Morgan Murphy Media and NBC Universal Television Stations has become NBC Local Media Division. He notes the analogy with passenger railroads failing in the 50’s and 60’s because, say analysts, they saw themselves as being in the railroad business when they were actually in the transportation business.
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.
Message From Michael -- November 19, 2007
SWEEPS – IN OR OUT
THE 51ST STATE
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER
BILLIONS AND BILLIONS
COCKTAIL CHATTER – VIRTUAL BEAUTY AND FAST COMPUTERS
A MARKETING CONUNDRUM
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS – IN OR OUT: The Thanksgiving holiday (and Black Friday) falls in the sweeps period this year. So, do you keep it in or take it out? Most stations re-title the newscasts and take them out of the sweeps because viewership is so erratic and low. Just a heads up – something you should think about.
THE 51ST STATE: And no, I’m not talking about Puerto Rico. That’s what SEARCHER, the magazine for database professionals, calls the Internet in this upcoming election and says the Internet is ‘breathing down the neck of mainstream media’ when it comes to the elections and that 2008 will be the first true “Internet election.” Citing another study by iCrossing, the report says the Internet is the number two source for election information, after television, and tied with newspapers. However, before my mainstream media friends commit hara-kiri, the study notes that voters are not going to the candidates websites or to the candidates MySpace pages for information, but rather are turning to Web search engines and the online versions of the traditional media. However, political blogs like the dailykos.com, huffingtonpost.com and talkingpointsmemo.com are becoming increasingly influential. The report also notes that all of the candidates (except, for some reason, Rudolph Giuliani) have adopted social networking tools on their websites. By the 2012 election, the report says, the Internet will be so essential and mainstream to presidential politics that “it probably won’t even warrant an article like this.”
As a side note, the Democrats have two thirds of the Online Internet traffic. And of them, Barack Obama has the most Facebook contacts – 122,00 which is more than twice the combined total of all the Republican candidates combined. And John Edwards has the most social networking links – 23. And if you want to keep up with the presidential race online, the report recommends three sites: http://www.memeorandum.com, http://www.politicalwire.com, http://www.realclearpolitics.com.
And as a foot note, you may have heard or seen the study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania which shows that the number of poltical “adwatch” stories run by the media has more than tripled from the 2000 election cycle to the 2006 election cycle. The head of the center, which by the way sends out a weekly newsletter (mentioned in previous MfM’s) examining political claims, says it is now a matter of “Caveat mendax – let the liar beware.”
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER: Half of those between the ages of 18 and 34 are watching less TV than they did a year ago, according to a survey by advertising rep agency Burst Media. And a ‘plurality’ of all respondents (42.4%) say they are watching less. The decline is even more noticeable among women, with nearly half (48.3%) of those 25-34 and almost the same number (46.7%) of those in the age group 35-44 saying they are watching less. Those figures are part of a survey released by the company showing that four out of five (82.4%) Internet users are doing something else – multitasking – while they’re online. The most common activity – watch television. Three-fourths (75.6%) of those watching television while online say they go to websites related to the programming. Jarvis Coffin, the CEO of Burst Media, says the “short attention span of consumers poses a challenge to marketers,” but he says the solution is to deliver ‘coordinated messages’ across different platforms to get the consumer’s attention.
On the flip side of that, a survey by The Conference Board and TNS Media Intelligence finds that even though three-quarters of ONLINE households report watching entertainment on the Internet every day, four-fifths of them say web viewing has NOT cut into their traditional TV viewing. As noted before, TV shows have replaced news as the most widely viewed content online. And as a further side note, a study by the Wharton School of Business found that YouTube use may actually increase TV viewing because the clips act as a tease to get the viewers to watch more. And as a side note to the side note, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen says the service may start providing higher quality videos, using a system that detects the speed capability of the user’s net connection.
And as a footnote, New York Times tech guru Stuart Elliott says fewer viewers are watching the new fall television series and raises the question that it may be because of online video opportunities. Most of the online videos are much shorter than TV programming and, curiously, he quotes the head of one advertising agency who also talks about “short attention span” of online viewers. Elliott also raises the question whether the writers strike will fuel the growth of online video.
BILLIONS AND BILLIONS: If you’re old enough, you probably re-played those words in your mind with a heavy accent reminiscent of Carl Sagan. The United Nations annual Internet Governance Forum says it’s official – there are 1 Billion Internet users worldwide. One Billion out of a total world population of 6 Billion. The question is how does the next Billion get online. The head of the U.N. forum says that the next Billion users will be decidedly poorer than the first Billion. Internet use is growing in what the forum organizers call the “less well off” nations that comprise three quarters of the world’s population. The forum debate focused on whether the Internet access should be government mandated, as a public service, or left to private enterprise. In areas like Africa where fewer than 4% have Internet access and basic electricity is an issue, the organizers say mobile phones may be the answer. This is also where the One Laptop Per Child program comes in to play.
As a side note, I should remind readers that a Harris Interactive poll found that four out of five people now access the Internet in the U.S. That’s up dramatically since 2000 when three out of five (57%) went online and even more dramatic is when you consider that eleven years ago in 1995 only 9% of the population went online. Equally interesting is the fact that the survey says the Online population now reflects more of the general population demographics.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: MTV has announced a super model contest with a difference. The network, along with Ford Models and Elizabeth Arden, is looking for the best looking avatar, a virtual world supermodel. The fastest computer in the world is IBM’s Blue Gene/L at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, with the ability to perform 478 Trillion calculations per second – what computer geeks would call 487 teraflops. The second fastest computer is IBM’s Blue Gene/P sister computer in Germany. The winner of the most awards for creative director in the Gunn Report which ranks advertising around the world was somebody you probably never heard of -- Thanonchai Sornsrivichai, based in Thailand. A survey by Clarity and The EAR Foundation found that senior citizens fear loss of independence (26%) and moving into a nursing home (13%) more than they fear death (3%). For those of you who rent cars all the time, a little item in FreePint which deals with research matters great and small says you can tell which side the gas cap is on by looking at which side the filler hose is on the icon on your dashboard. (Although for some reason, this applies to all cars but Japanese cars.)
A MARKETING CONUNDRUM: So, explain to me, dear readers, how four auto parts stores within 500 yards of each other can survive. Driving through Abbeville, South Carolina, there were two local auto parts stores, Logans and Sonny’s, almost side by side and less than a hundred yards further down was an Advanced Auto Parts store and across from it was an O’Reilly’s auto part store. And just to prove that it isn’t a South Carolina thing only (although it may be a southern thing), there were three auto parts stores within four blocks of each other in Elberton, Georgia. (I know, you’re jealous of all the cool places I travel to.)
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.
THE 51ST STATE
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER
BILLIONS AND BILLIONS
COCKTAIL CHATTER – VIRTUAL BEAUTY AND FAST COMPUTERS
A MARKETING CONUNDRUM
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 Michael@MediaConsultant.tv with the word “subscribe-MM” in the subject line.
SWEEPS – IN OR OUT: The Thanksgiving holiday (and Black Friday) falls in the sweeps period this year. So, do you keep it in or take it out? Most stations re-title the newscasts and take them out of the sweeps because viewership is so erratic and low. Just a heads up – something you should think about.
THE 51ST STATE: And no, I’m not talking about Puerto Rico. That’s what SEARCHER, the magazine for database professionals, calls the Internet in this upcoming election and says the Internet is ‘breathing down the neck of mainstream media’ when it comes to the elections and that 2008 will be the first true “Internet election.” Citing another study by iCrossing, the report says the Internet is the number two source for election information, after television, and tied with newspapers. However, before my mainstream media friends commit hara-kiri, the study notes that voters are not going to the candidates websites or to the candidates MySpace pages for information, but rather are turning to Web search engines and the online versions of the traditional media. However, political blogs like the dailykos.com, huffingtonpost.com and talkingpointsmemo.com are becoming increasingly influential. The report also notes that all of the candidates (except, for some reason, Rudolph Giuliani) have adopted social networking tools on their websites. By the 2012 election, the report says, the Internet will be so essential and mainstream to presidential politics that “it probably won’t even warrant an article like this.”
As a side note, the Democrats have two thirds of the Online Internet traffic. And of them, Barack Obama has the most Facebook contacts – 122,00 which is more than twice the combined total of all the Republican candidates combined. And John Edwards has the most social networking links – 23. And if you want to keep up with the presidential race online, the report recommends three sites: http://www.memeorandum.com, http://www.politicalwire.com, http://www.realclearpolitics.com.
And as a foot note, you may have heard or seen the study by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania which shows that the number of poltical “adwatch” stories run by the media has more than tripled from the 2000 election cycle to the 2006 election cycle. The head of the center, which by the way sends out a weekly newsletter (mentioned in previous MfM’s) examining political claims, says it is now a matter of “Caveat mendax – let the liar beware.”
SHORT ATTENTION SPAN THEATER: Half of those between the ages of 18 and 34 are watching less TV than they did a year ago, according to a survey by advertising rep agency Burst Media. And a ‘plurality’ of all respondents (42.4%) say they are watching less. The decline is even more noticeable among women, with nearly half (48.3%) of those 25-34 and almost the same number (46.7%) of those in the age group 35-44 saying they are watching less. Those figures are part of a survey released by the company showing that four out of five (82.4%) Internet users are doing something else – multitasking – while they’re online. The most common activity – watch television. Three-fourths (75.6%) of those watching television while online say they go to websites related to the programming. Jarvis Coffin, the CEO of Burst Media, says the “short attention span of consumers poses a challenge to marketers,” but he says the solution is to deliver ‘coordinated messages’ across different platforms to get the consumer’s attention.
On the flip side of that, a survey by The Conference Board and TNS Media Intelligence finds that even though three-quarters of ONLINE households report watching entertainment on the Internet every day, four-fifths of them say web viewing has NOT cut into their traditional TV viewing. As noted before, TV shows have replaced news as the most widely viewed content online. And as a further side note, a study by the Wharton School of Business found that YouTube use may actually increase TV viewing because the clips act as a tease to get the viewers to watch more. And as a side note to the side note, YouTube co-founder Steve Chen says the service may start providing higher quality videos, using a system that detects the speed capability of the user’s net connection.
And as a footnote, New York Times tech guru Stuart Elliott says fewer viewers are watching the new fall television series and raises the question that it may be because of online video opportunities. Most of the online videos are much shorter than TV programming and, curiously, he quotes the head of one advertising agency who also talks about “short attention span” of online viewers. Elliott also raises the question whether the writers strike will fuel the growth of online video.
BILLIONS AND BILLIONS: If you’re old enough, you probably re-played those words in your mind with a heavy accent reminiscent of Carl Sagan. The United Nations annual Internet Governance Forum says it’s official – there are 1 Billion Internet users worldwide. One Billion out of a total world population of 6 Billion. The question is how does the next Billion get online. The head of the U.N. forum says that the next Billion users will be decidedly poorer than the first Billion. Internet use is growing in what the forum organizers call the “less well off” nations that comprise three quarters of the world’s population. The forum debate focused on whether the Internet access should be government mandated, as a public service, or left to private enterprise. In areas like Africa where fewer than 4% have Internet access and basic electricity is an issue, the organizers say mobile phones may be the answer. This is also where the One Laptop Per Child program comes in to play.
As a side note, I should remind readers that a Harris Interactive poll found that four out of five people now access the Internet in the U.S. That’s up dramatically since 2000 when three out of five (57%) went online and even more dramatic is when you consider that eleven years ago in 1995 only 9% of the population went online. Equally interesting is the fact that the survey says the Online population now reflects more of the general population demographics.
COCKTAIL CHATTER: MTV has announced a super model contest with a difference. The network, along with Ford Models and Elizabeth Arden, is looking for the best looking avatar, a virtual world supermodel. The fastest computer in the world is IBM’s Blue Gene/L at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, with the ability to perform 478 Trillion calculations per second – what computer geeks would call 487 teraflops. The second fastest computer is IBM’s Blue Gene/P sister computer in Germany. The winner of the most awards for creative director in the Gunn Report which ranks advertising around the world was somebody you probably never heard of -- Thanonchai Sornsrivichai, based in Thailand. A survey by Clarity and The EAR Foundation found that senior citizens fear loss of independence (26%) and moving into a nursing home (13%) more than they fear death (3%). For those of you who rent cars all the time, a little item in FreePint which deals with research matters great and small says you can tell which side the gas cap is on by looking at which side the filler hose is on the icon on your dashboard. (Although for some reason, this applies to all cars but Japanese cars.)
A MARKETING CONUNDRUM: So, explain to me, dear readers, how four auto parts stores within 500 yards of each other can survive. Driving through Abbeville, South Carolina, there were two local auto parts stores, Logans and Sonny’s, almost side by side and less than a hundred yards further down was an Advanced Auto Parts store and across from it was an O’Reilly’s auto part store. And just to prove that it isn’t a South Carolina thing only (although it may be a southern thing), there were three auto parts stores within four blocks of each other in Elberton, Georgia. (I know, you’re jealous of all the cool places I travel to.)
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.
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