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ARCHIVED 2009
DIGITAL NEWS...
Digital media business
models are improving for big, traditional media companies as they
learn to adapt, but they are still nowhere near the
golden days of analog media, and may never be again, Jeff Zucker,
CEO of NBC Universal said Monday during an annual briefing to Wall
Street analysts and journalists. "I think we're making progress,"
Zucker said during Monday's session of UBS' Media Week conference in
New York, amending what was perhaps his most famous quote of the
past couple of years: that new digital media models are converting
"analog dollars into digital dimes" for companies like NBC U.
Zucker said it's unlikely that big, legacy media companies such
as NBC U would ever approach the kind of revenues they derived from
analog media models, but he said they are improving their digital
media models, and continuing to "experiment with windows" of
distribution to find ones that are more profitable. Dec 2009
====================================Buffalo's Photos
Facebook has crossed the 100-million-user mark in the
U.S. a week after announcing it had surpassed 350 million members
worldwide. That's a nice round audience figure to present to
advertisers in the market representing the bulk of its revenue.
The social network today hit 100.5 million U.S. users Monday --
up from 98.1 million a week ago, and has averaged a few million new
domestic users over most of the last year, according to Inside
Facebook. That makes the U.S. the first country to reach the 100
million threshold, although 70% of Facebook's monthly active users
live elsewhere.
Last month, comScore estimated Facebook's U.S. audience in
October at 97.4 million unique visitors -- well ahead of the 82.9
million for Fox Interactive Media, whose chief property is MySpace. Facebook eclipsed its social networking rival in U.S. traffic in
May, according to comScore.
====================================
Ad spending in the U.S. media measured by
TNS Media Intelligence declined 14.7% during the first nine months
of 2009, and the most recent data -- a 15.3% decline during the
third quarter -- suggests that Madison Avenue has yet to pull itself
out of recession. According to TNS MI's estimates, the third quarter
of 2009 marks the sixth consecutive quarter of year-over-year ad
spending declines.
Among the major media, Internet display advertising continues to
be among the only ones showing positive momentum. Online display ad
spending expanded 7.0% during the first nine months, which along
with newspaper FSIs (+3.9%) were the only media to show any
increases this year.
Mediapost.com
December 2009
====================================Buffalo's Photos Anita
Bezjak: There has been a marked increase in demand for factual
programming but I think that's mainly because 'factual' has
broadened beyond just meaning documentaries. Today genres such as
lifestyle, infotainment, docusoap and game shows all sit under the
fact-ent banner and there's an increasing appetite for programming
where the information or value add is embedded organically. Strong
characters and story lines, authentic scenarios and access all
continue to dominate broadcaster wish lists.
Has the potential for multi-platform distribution of a title
impacted storylines, budgets, etc. in a considerable way? Are you
thinking more of titles that can be spread across platforms or is it
a case of, 'It's nice if it happens, but...'?
Richard Shaw: 360 isn't a passing phenomenon, it's real
and it's going to become more and more important in the future in
the UK. For companies like Lion who have a highly developed digital
component it's central to our development thinking because of who we
work with. We're also regularly handling the digital elements of
commissions where the linear telly is being made by our competitors.
Plus web-native projects are going to blossom in the next few years.
If you don't have multi-channel, multi-platform content at the heart
of your development in the UK you're going to be left behind when it
comes to standing out from the crowd and grabbing a commissioner's
attention. This means web-original content and yes, sometimes it
even impacts what's on screen.
===================================Buffalo's Photos
Web 2.0
Attracts Much More Venture Capital Than Any Other Industry
Martes, 20 octubre 2009
M. AMIGOT, IBLNEWS
Venture capital investing
might be bouncing back, but the latest numbers from Dow
Jones Venture Source are
a bit disappointing. VC invested $5.1 billion in 616 deals
during Q3. That's down 38 percent from the $8.2 billion invested
during the same period last year, a drop anyone would expect.
Looking closer at the numbers, a
good news for our Internet industry. IT, or information
technology, is the top spot when attracting
money. Last year it was overshadowed by health care, but
now leads the VC attention.
And within that IT umbrella, Web 2.0 investments not only are
continuing but in fact they beat traditional software
investments for the first time. VentursSource says Web 2.0 deals
improved 11 percent from last year, for a total of $627 million
in 86 deals.
========================================
No Rest for the Dreary: Newspaper Revs Fall 28%
The economy may have rallied in the
third quarter, but the newspaper industry did not, as total
advertising revenues -- including print and online -- tumbled
28%, from roughly $10.1 billion in the third quarter of 2008 to
about $6.4 billion this year. The third-quarter loss is on par
with first and second-quarter declines of 28.3% and 29%,
respectively.
As in previous quarters, losses were spread evenly across all
the main newspaper advertising categories -- including national,
down 29.8%, retail, down 24%, and classifieds, down 37.9%.
National advertising in particular reached a discouraging
milestone in the third quarter, with total revenues falling
below $1 billion (to $956 million). That's the first time since
the third quarter of 1995.
====================================
YouTube just offered to share their revenues with the user who
generates content that goes viral and receives a high number of views.
This decision (which is in addition to the formal agreements they
have with high volume providers) is an interesting move for a
company under attack for not generating enough revenue to offer to
share their revenues with more people–and more independent content
creators at that. As the first distributor of the viral content,
does YouTube have a future as a rights owner rather than a
non-exclusive platform? Or can the company get their own advertisers
to buy into paying a premium to appear alongside whatever happens to
be the latest novelty recommendation?
This high-profile story is just the latest in a series related to
managing the rights of digital assets in a multi-platform, digital
environment. Remember Radiohead? In October 2007, the popular band
hit the headlines when it let its fans decide what to pay for its
latest album In
Rainbows.
-------------------------------------------------------
After complaints about American dominance of the internet and
growing disquiet in some parts of the world, Washington has said it
will relinquish some control over the way the network is run and
allow foreign governments more of a say in the future of the system.
Icann – the official body that ultimately controls the development
of the internet thanks to its oversight of web addresses such as
.com, .net and .org – said today that it was ending its agreement
with the US government.
The deal, part of a contract negotiated with the US department of
commerce, effectively pushes California-based Icann towards a new
status as an international body with greater representation from
companies and governments around the globe.
guardian.co.uk
----------------------------------------------------
Zucker Wants To Reinvent NBC
Its cable portfolio has propelled growth at the company lately. But
NBCU remains focused on upgrading the part of the conglomerate
formerly known as the National Broadcasting Company.
Operators, in turn, are experimenting with systems that give
people access to the shows on the Web if an authentication process
ensures they also pay for TV service. Zucker said NBCU is
participating in a "TV Everywhere" trial in New York involving its
Syfy channel.
"If authentication can serve as the model" to keep lucrative
affiliate fees coming, "we'll continue to support it," he says. But
Zucker notes it's unclear whether "TV Everywhere" could further lead
to new business models.
Zucker said NBCU continues to pursue a profitable digital
business, notably via its stake in Hulu.com. He said NBCU has made
"incremental steps," but has not found an economic model that would
be a "panacea." He added that he expects Hulu to continue to pursue
an ad-supported model and there are no plans to explore charging for
content. nbc.com
----------------------------------------------
WARNER BROS MUSIC BACK ON
YOUTUBE
YouTube has just held a conference call to announce that it has
negotiated a deal with Warner
Music Group, the major record label that pulled off the
world’s most popular video portal after feeling shortchanged by the
revenue its videos were driving. Many details of the deal have ben
rumored or the last few days, and were confirmed accurate: WMG
will be putting its full catalog back on YouTube and will have the
ability to sell its own advertising against both its premium music
videos as well as user
generated content that
features a WMG song. Revenue will be shared with YouTube but most
will be going to WMG. The deal also includes rights to Warner’s Chappell
Music publishing arm.
---------------------------------------------
Camera phones have
been around for years now and the thing that most of them
have in common is that the camera tends to be a tacked on
feature rather than something really designed to work well. Samsung
has changed that with a new device called the
SCH-W880.
The device is more like a camera with a phone tossed in as an added
feature. The camera sensor has 12-megapixel resolution and a lens
with 3x optical zoom . Engadget has
posted a leaked
marketing image of
the camera that gives a few of the specifications away, even if they
are hard to make out.
What we can tell is that the camera will be able to record HD video,
likely at 720p resolution. The device also has a WVGA AMOLED rear
screen that is 3.3-inches wide. The camera phone supports HSDPA data
and has GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth,
DMB TV
tuner, and a microSD
card slot. DMB support likely means the handset will never
leave Korea unfortunately.
--------------------------------------------
OPA Study: Content Is Still King
A bigger proportion of Internet users are spending more time on
content sites than they were six years ago, according to a new
analysis by the Online Publishers Association. But that growth has
come at the expense of communication and commerce sites.The study
showed that people in 2009 on average spent 42% of their time online
on content sites compared to 34% in 2003, when the OPA launched its
Internet Activity Index, which tracks monthly Internet use across
five categories: commerce, communications, community, content and
search. The actual amount of time spent on content sites has
nearly doubled since 2003, increasing from an average of three
hours, 42 minutes to 6:58.
mediapost.com
------------------------------------------
by Laurie Sullivan
Adobe Systems reported
Tuesday that it has entered into an agreement to acquire
analytics giant Omniture for $1.8 billion. The acquisition will
combine the world's largest provider of design and content
creation tools with the leading measurement and analytics
company.
--------------------------------------------
To me, most importantly it's a tool for filmmakers, it's a way to
enhance their ability to tell their stories. If you look over the
last 30 years or so, filmmakers that have embraced and utilized new
technology as it has come along, George
Lucas, Steven Spielberg,
Bob Zemeckis, Jim Cameron, Peter
Jackson, Michael
Bay...they are the filmmakers who've seen technology as an asset.
They have seen over the horizon.
Jeffery Katzenberg
----------------------------------------
by Erik Sass
Wal-Mart is
poised to begin reducing the amount of aisle space devoted to
magazine sales displays. Coming close on the heels of Wal-Mart's
decision to move magazine
racks to the
back of the store, the move to cut the racks themselves is an
ominous sign. The nation's largest retailer has knocked
magazines several rungs down on its hierarchy of sales
priorities.
------------------------------------------------------
Nasdaq alerted Sirius XM Radio Inc. that it received notice on Sept.
15, that its common stock had closed below $1.00 per share for 30
consecutive business days and is therefore not in compliance with
the Nasdaq Marketplace Rule 5450(a)(1). In accordance with such
rules, Sirius XM may regain compliance if by March 15, 2010 its
common stock closes at or above $1.00 for 10 consecutive business
days. The radio satellite company intends to maintain the listing of
its common stock on Nasdaq. yahoo.com sept
09
---------------------------------------------------
by Joe Mandese
U.S. ad spending declined for the fifth consecutive quarter
during the second quarter of 2009, and while the rate of erosion
moderated slightly from the previous quarter, a top industry
economist says it still isn't clear whether demand for
advertising is actually improving. "While it's tempting to
interpret this as a positive indicator that things aren't
getting worse, the fact remains that the market has been
steadily tracking at around 14% declines for several consecutive
months and this represents billions of lost revenue," Jon
Swallen, senior vice president-research at TNS Media
Intelligence stated as part of the ad tracking and forecasting
firm's second quarter data release this morning. ...
--------------------------------------
European digital screen base grows by 70% in 2008
Digital cinema is
gaining ground in Europe. According to recent figures provided by
MEDIA Salles, the number of digital screens equipped with DLP Cinema
or Sony 4K technology increased during 2008 by 70% to 1 529
digital screens as of 1 January 2009. The European Audiovisual
Observatory estimates that between 4 and 5% of all European screens
had been converted to digital by the end of 2008. The number of
theatres equipped with at least one digital screen grew to 815
sites, up 48% from 2007.
By the end of
2008 each European digital theatre operated on average 1.9 digital
screens, compared to 1.6 in the previous year. This indicates that
exhibitors are increasingly opting to convert more than one screen
to digital in their theatres in order to enable digital screening
along a film’s commercial life cycle and to guarantee the
flexibility to react to changes in demand.
MEDIA Salles also
reports 3D as a major driver stimulating conversion to digital. This
would appear to be particularly true for Italy where, according to
the local trade press, Journey to the Centre of the Earth opened on
just 42 3D screens in January while Monsters and Aliens was released
on a total of 102 3D screens in April 2009.
--------------------------------------
A new research report from The
Diffusion Group estimates
that over-the-top (OTT) video revenues will grow nearly sixfold over
the next five years, from $1
billion in 2009 to
$5.7 billion in 2014.
According to TDG's report entitled "Broadband-Enabled
TV: Rise of the OTT Provider," the rapid
increase in online video sales will mostly be driven by the
proliferation of broadband-connected devices in the home.
By the end of 2009, TDG estimates that there will be nearly 127
million households with a broadband-enabled TV set. But that number
is expected to more than double over the next five years, to more
than 358 million households with a connected TV in 2014.
North America, which will have 54 million broadband-enabled
TVs, will lead the world with a little less than half of all
broadband-enabled TVs by the end of 2009, compared to 37 million in Europe and
22.5 million in Asia. But explosive growth in China and India should
propel Asia to have the greatest number of broadband-enabled TVs by
2014, with 117 million, compared to 89.6 million in Europe and 87.4
million in North America.
-----------------------------------
The decline in newspaper ad revenues
-- now several years old -- will continue for at least another year,
according to Fitch Ratings, which issued the gloomy prediction in an
overview of the media business released earlier this week.
According to Fitch's "Credit Encylo-Media," newspapers will not
share in the recovery forecast for some other media in 2010, thanks
to continuing downward trends in all three traditional mainstays of
newspaper advertising: classifieds, local, and national ads.
Fitch also expects continued declines in overall circulation
revenues as print readership contracts, despite moves by some big
publishers, like the New York Times Co. and Tribune, to bolster
circulation revenues by raising newsstand prices.
mediapost.com 09
-----------------------------------------------------
Newspaper revenues fell by almost one-third in the second quarter of
2009 compared to the same
period in 2008, from $10.1 billion to $6.8 billion, according to the Newspaper
Association of America.
The losses cut across every major advertising category. 9-09
----------------------------------------------------
Report: Consumers Making More Time For Video
Consumers continue to make more room in
their busy lives for online video, according to new Nielsen Online
VideoCensus data. In May, the time U.S. consumers spent watching the
stuff was up a full 48.9% year-over-year, which translates to 188.7
minutes spent.
By comparison, the average American watched approximately 153
hours of TV every month at home, according to recent first-quarter
analysis from Nielsen's A2/M2 "Anywhere Anytime Media Measurement"
initiative. Year-over-year, according to VideoCensus, total online
video streams were up 34.8%, which amounts to a whopping
10,043,049,000 streams in May.
Monthly streams per viewer, meanwhile, increased 19.6% over the
past year to about 75, while the number of unique viewers was up
12.8% to 133,797,000. In April, Hulu recorded 373.3 million streams
-- up 490% year-over-year -- which solidified its status as the
fastest-growing premium video brand online.
------------------------------------------
Entertainment Tops Mobile Ad Spending Sectors
When it comes to mobile ad
spending, the entertainment sector led the way in the second quarter
followed by telecommunications, Web portals, dating, and retail.
That's according to the latest metrics report from mobile ad network
Millennial Media, which says it reaches nearly three quarters of
U.S. mobile Internet users, or 44 million people.
Within entertainment, movie studios accounted for nearly
two-thirds of spending, followed by games (16%), TV (9%), other (7%)
and music (4%). The big summer movie season clearly helped drive the
studios' mobile advertising, with Millennial handling 17 campaigns
for new movie releases such as "Star Trek" and "Transformers:
Revenge of the Fallen" during the quarter.
Over the last year, the company says entertainment advertising
has increasingly shifted from placements for endemic products like
ringtones to more campaigns for more traditional media like movies
and TV shows. The company didn't provide actual ad spending figures
or share of spending by industry sector.
------------------------------------------
After months of controversy surrounding wireless companies, the
Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously on Thursday to
launch a wide-ranging probe of the wireless industry.
"We are transitioning from a voice-centric world to a world of
ubiquitous, mobile Internet access," said FCC Chairman Julius
Genachowski. "This transition promises to increase the pace of
innovation and investment, but only if we have an open and
competitive marketplace that gives every great idea a chance to make
its way to consumers so that the best products or services win."
The investigation, which could pave the way for new regulations,
will encompass a variety of matters, including spectrum
availability, wireless networks, devices, applications, and business
practices. In addition, the FCC said it's seeking comments about
"how the public has used wireless services and technology to solve
real-world problems in areas such as health care, energy, education,
and public safety." yahoo news
August of 09
------------------------------------------
The
percentage of people accessing the Internet for leisure time
entertainment is growing
rapidly. ABI
Research suggests that the total consumer base for Internet video
will be nearly
one billion
people by 2012, resulting in a total online video market—both pay
and adsupported—
of $15.6
billion.
According to
Cisco’s June 2008 Visual Networking Index:
Internet
video will account for 50 percent of all consumer Internet traffic
in
2012.
Internet video-to-PC will make up
the majority of Internet video at 40 percent of total
Internet
traffic, but Internet video-to-TV will grow rapidly to 10 percent of
the total in 2012.
Non-Internet
IP video will increase more rapidly than consumer Internet.
The
twin trends
of on-demand viewing and high-definition video are generating very
rapid
growth in
cable video and IPTV traffic transported over IP in the metro.
Consumer IPTV and
CATV traffic
will grow at a 68 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) between
2007 and 2012, compared
to a CAGR of 43 percent for consumer Internet traffic.ii
-----------------------------------------
14.5M consumers thinking of
buying Web-enabled TV in next 12 months
Demand for Internet-enabled televisions is growing rapidly,
according to a new study by CEA. The study -- "Net-Enabled Video:
Early Adopters Only?" -- found that about half of prospective TV
buyers say they are likely to purchase an Internet-connected TV. The
study also found that most adults are already online while watching
TV. Almost a third of online adults say they always or usually surf
the Internet while watching television and another third say they
sometimes do.
irvm.com
---------------------------------
TV Everywhere survey should have cable industry clicking
their heels - I wasn't at all surprised to read results
of a new Solutions Research Group survey fielded to 500
Comcast and
Time Warner Cable subscribers giving the concept of TV
Everywhere positive reviews.
As Multichannel
News reported, in the overall survey 28% of respondents
said the idea was "excellent" and 45% said it was "good."
Digging in further though, among those 18-49 the "excellent"
score surged to 80%, while 87% of
Hulu and
Fancast users approved of the idea. Unprompted, respondents
cited benefits like convenience,
remote viewing, getting better value from their cable
subscriptions, watching on PCs in rooms without TVs and catching
up on missed programs. My take: consumers "get" what TV
Everywhere is all about and already have positive initial
reactions, meaning there's very significant upside for the cable
industry. irvm.com
Paid video forecast to surpass free - A
Strategy Analytics
forecast that got attention this week says that the global
paid online video market will be worth $3.8B in 2009, exceeding the
global free online video segment which will total $3.5B. I haven't
seen the details of the forecast, but I'm very curious what's being
included in each of these numbers as both seem way too high to me.
The firm forecasts the two segments to grow at comparable rates (37%
and 39%), suggesting that their size will remain relatively even. I
suspect we're going to be seeing a lot of other research suggesting
the paid market is going to be far larger than the ad-supported
market as sentiment seems to be shifting toward subscriptions and
paid downloads. irvm.com
By
VideoNuze, Will Richmond Friday July 17th
Kudos to
Broadcasting & Cable which has been ahead on this
story
from the start. CBS confirmed this morning it will be the first
broadcast network to join the online TV service
initiative and provide content. "Comcast’s online TV offering is
starting to look like a real competitor to Hulu," B&C
reported. CBS has not yet said which content will be available
to the trial which is expected to start next month in 5,000
homes in Comcast's footprint, but there'll be a range of current
and library content. Yesterday,
Time Warner said
HBO and Cinemax would also join the line-up, and last
week Liberty Media's
Starz properties signed up. CBS's Showtime pay TV is not
yet on board but likely to be. The move, which B&C
predicted last month, underscores why CBS stayed out of Hulu:
because of Hulu's desire to control the online content
exclusively. "This move demonstrates CBS's willingness to become
partners in online ventures when the deal terms are right. CBS
owns its own online destination
TV.com,
which is a rival to Hulu and has long stated its desire to make
its online distribution strategy about open access," B&C
writes.
-----------------------------------
Nielsen's study on the state of teen media usage find that teens
actually spend less time online than mature adults. However, while
teens spend 35% less time watching online video than adults
-----------------------------------------
Recession Fuels Use Of Internet, Other Media
Recessions may be bad for the
media economy, but they appear to be improving the health of the
media ecology. Faced with tough economic times, consumers are
consuming more media, not less of it, especially electronic media
like the Internet and TV. In fact, the recession is actually fueling
Internet usage among people looking for advice and information to
deal with troubling economic times, according to results of new
research released Wednesday by the Pew Internet & American Life
Project.
The study finds that nearly a third (31%) of online users are
utilizing the Internet more often to get information about the
economy in the past year vs. only 10% who said they are going online
less often.
Other recent data from TV ratings researchers Nielsen Co., and
from the Nielsen-funded Council for Research Excellence, have shown
that the amount of time Americans spend watching TV actually is
growing, not declining. One reason for the boon in time spent with
electronic media could be that some Americans have more time on
their hands. Another is that they may be seeking cheaper or free
entertainment options. But the new Pew study reveals that the need
for economic information and advice has been a primary factor too.
"More than two-thirds of Americans - 69% - have used the Internet
to help them with personal economic issues that have arisen in the
recession and to gather information about the origins and solutions
to national economic problems," the Pew report noted, adding, "That
amounts to 88% of the adult Internet users in the country."
------------------------------------------
REAL TIME REVOLUTION
The Real Time Web gives us two new tools that we actually don’t
physiologically know how to use; the ability to communicate
many-to-one as well as many-to-many.
The only people I know of who have any experience dealing with
real time many-to-one communication are kindergarten teachers. They
routinely stand in the middle of 20 screaming kids who have not yet
learned how to raise their hands and, magically, kindergarten
teachers seem to be able to triage the communicative needs of their
charges in real time.
Most unfortunately, there is no human experience that allows for
the processing of many-to-many communication. To do this, and to
practically deal with many-to-one, we need tools.
Twitter (and the other social network news feeds) are one part of
the first generation of this tool set. A real time search, sentiment
and zeitgeist engine like
PeopleBrowsr.com
is the next step. Then we will all need some practice.
--------------------------------------------------
Microsoft is set to broaden its battle with Google
this week as it pushes ahead with online versions of some of
its core software, including final plans for a “cloud”
operating system designed to extend Windows to the internet.
The news comes days after Google took aim at Microsoft with
the announcement of a PC operating system of its own, dubbed
Chrome OS. The rival moves point to an intensification of
the battle between the technology giants, with Google trying
to extend its internet platform to PCs, and Microsoft moving
in the opposite direction. While Google’s PC operating
system is not due to appear in new computers until the
second half of 2010, Microsoft’s cloud operating system will
be launched formally this year.
Stephen Elop, head of Microsoft’s Office business, reiterated
that the company’s aim was to extend the ways it offers its software
to customers. Most analysts believe a free, stripped-down version of
Office online to rival the free Google Apps service would do little
to hurt Microsoft’s revenues, since it would only appeal to
relatively small numbers. Microsoft is also set to spell out pricing
and launch plans for its internet-based operating system, called
Azure. This will see it leapfrog Google in the business of selling
computing resources over the internet, allowing developers to buy
capacity to run their applications based on the amount of storage,
bandwidth or other resources they use.
Amazon has taken the early lead in this market, selling access to
the computer network it built up for its online retail operations.
However, the large base of developers who already rely on
Microsoft’s technology, and the company’s ability to use its massive
scale to undercut on price, are likely to make it a significant
force in the market.
--------------------------------------
Two cable powerhouses announced an ambitious pilot program
Wednesday that aims to convince their customers that, actually, TV
on the web should not be free.
With a service called TV Everywhere, Comcast and Time Warner will
give cable subscribers access “premium” television content via
broadband, and later cellphone connections. To begin with, 5,000
Comcast subscribers will begin testing the system next month, giving
them access to Time Warner’s TBS and TNT channels on their
computers, and the same channels’ video-on-demand catalogs on their
cable boxes.
If you made peace long ago with the idea of paying a monthly
cable bill, this probably sounds great. It means watching your
existing subscription on new screens without paying additional fees
or buying more hardware. (Of course, as consumers adopt TV
Everywhere, they can probably expect price increases.)
But if you prefer to watch your television for free on
ad-supported sites like Hulu while paying only for the internet
connection that delivers it, you could be in for a rude awakening.
TV Everywhere represents an alternative — and possible threat — to
the popular Hulu model.
-------------------------------------------
HP this week announced the impending release of a groundbreaking
new printer that the company bills the first-ever home printer that
prints from the Web. The HP Photosmart Premium with TouchSmart Web
is set to become available in the U.S. this fall, at a suggested
retail price of $399.
The printer, which features HP's TouchSmart technology, will also
access several applications, including some from Google, Fandango,
Coupons.com, USA Today, WeatherNews and more. Users can create their
own apps as well.
“By giving people access to the content they want at the touch of a
finger, the ability to customize their printing experience and
create their own apps, and enabling easy ’one touch’ wireless setup,
we are driving a significant shift in how people will be printing in
the future," HP's executive vice president, Imaging and Printing,
Vyomesh Joshi, said as part of the announcement.
====================
A mobile Internet device buoyed by some pre-sales
buzz is slated to go on sale July 6. Will consumers notice?
Mobile Internet devices, or MIDs, have been around for a while but
never triggered anything near the buying frenzy of Apple's iPhone or
the Palm Pre.
On July 6, the Viliv X70, based on the Atom Z520 processor, will
go on sale in the U.S. from reseller Dynamism. This could prove to
be another litmus test for this tweener category of devices.
MIDs look a lot like the iPhone but aren't phones. They're mini
PCs. The screens are bigger (a 1024 x 600, 7-inch display in the
case of the X70, about twice the size of the iPhone's) and they are
designed to offer everything a buyer would expect in a PC: that is,
Windows running on Intel processors. Like PCs, traditionally, MIDs
have connected to the Internet via Wi-Fi only.
=================================
Helios: iPhone App for Filmmakers
Jun 15, 2009
Helios, the first iPhone/iTouch app from the trio, who form
Chemical Wedding, graphically predicts the path of the sun from dusk
to dawn, on any given day, in any given place. That’s not only
useful to cinematographers and still photographers but also to
grips, gaffers, production designers, 1st assistant directors–as
well as architects, artists, landscape designers, surveyors and
anyone else who needs to know exactly where the sun will be at
specific times.
--------------------------------------------
Columbia Pictures is in advanced talks with David Fincher to direct
"The Social Network," the Aaron Sorkin-scripted film for Columbia
Pictures about the formation of Facebook.The film will focus on
the evolution of Facebook from its 2004 creation on the Harvard
campus by sophomore Mark Zuckerberg to a juggernaut with more than
200 million members.Scott Rudin and Michael De Luca are producing
with Trigger Street's Kevin Spacey and Dana Brunetti.The aim is to
begin production later this year. Fincher last directed "The Curious
Case of Benjamin Button."
-------------------------------------------
Time Warner and
Comcast announced today that they have partnered to offer "The
Closer," "My Boys" and other TNT and
TBS programs
online for free, but only to people who already subscribe to Comcast
video.
The program, often referred to as "TV Everywhere," will require
users to authenticate that they're paying customers. Initially, the
companies will roll out the initiative to 5,000 users.
The move is widely seen as the cable companies' answer to
cord-cutting -- or canceling subscriptions in favor of watching
video for free. But whether the initiative will clear potential
legal and regulatory hurdles isn't clear yet.
On one hand, content owners have every right to decide whether to
post their programs online or not. And there's no current law that
would prevent companies from charging people to view TV episodes.
Indeed, many already do so at
iTunes, Amazon
and other sites.
----------------------------------
Viewers 35+ Drive Long-Form Video Streaming
According to
Nielsen Online,
YouTube
continued to rank as the No. 1 video Web brand with 5.5 billion
total streams in April. Meanwhile, Hulu continued its explosive
growth, increasing 490 percent in total streams year-over-year,
from 63.2 million in April 2008 to 373.3 million in April 2009,
making it the fastest growing brand among the top 10
Jon Gibs, vice president, media & analytics, Nielsen Online,
said "Historically short form, clip-length video has ruled
streaming on the Web... Hulu, along with pure-play providers...
have spent the past two years trying to convince consumers that
the Internet can be a good place to watch full length
programming... April's strong showings... suggest that
consumers are beginning to listen."
------------------------------------------------
Prototype Nokia phone recharges without wires
Pardon the cliche, but it's one of the holiest of Holy Grails of
technology: Wireless power. And while early lab experiments have
been able to "beam" electricity a few feet to power a light bulb,
the day when our laptops and cell phones can charge without having
to plug them in to a wall socket still seems decades in the future.
Nokia, however, has taken another baby step in that direction
with the invention of a cell phone that recharges itself using a
unique system: It harvests ambient radio waves from the air, and
turns that energy into usable power. Enough, at least, to keep a
cell phone from running out of juice. yahoo.com
June 09
----------------------------------------------
Americans are spending a lot of time watching videos
on their computers.
ComScore,
a Va.-based company that keeps track of the digital world, found
that U.S. Internet users
viewed 16.8 billion online videos in April, that’s up 16 percent
from March.
Google
sites ranked as the top site for videos, with 6.8 billion videos
viewed.
Fox Interactive Media ranked second, with 513 million videos,
followed by Hulu,
with 397 million, and
Yahoo,
with 355 million.
Among other findings:
- 78.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed
online video.
- The average online video viewer watched 385 minutes, or 6.4
hours, of video.
- 107.1 million viewers watched 6.8 billion videos on
YouTube.com
(63.5 videos per viewer).
- 49 million viewers watched 387 million videos on
MySpace.com
(7.9 videos per viewer).
- Hulu accounted for 2.4 percent of videos viewed, but 4.2
percent of all minutes spent watching online video.
- The duration of the average online video was 3.5 minutes.
-----------------------------------------------
YouTube Loses a Little 'You,' Adds Some 'Tube'
YouTube has redesigned its user interface,
removing the "social" tools from the site to make it easier for
people to view consumer-generated videos on the "big screen." No,
not gigantic theatrical screens, but home televisions that connect
to devices with a Web browser, such as a PC, Sony PlayStation 3 or
Nintendo Wii.
YouTube XL moves user-generated content into your living room.
The latest feature aims to enhance viewing in high definition (HD),
when available, on any large screen. Backend technology pulls the
clips uploaded by users from a unique content stream, filtering out
"commercially produced" videos from partners such as Warner Bros.
For now, Google will not integrate AdSense for Video with Content
ID, which allows media companies on YouTube.com to generate revenue
from copyrighted video content that users create and upload to
YouTube.
-------------------------------------------
Texting Talks For Teens and Twenties
Results from the second annual Vlingo Consumer Mobile
Messaging Habits Report show that, this year, nearly 60% of
mobile phone owners use their phones to text, with 94% of
teens the largest user group, and 20-somethings at 87%. Among
those in their 40s, usage jumped from 56% in 2008 to 64% this
year, and for those in their 50s it jumped from 38% to 46%.
Texting is also gaining on sending/receiving calls as the
primary use of mobile phones, with 35% of all respondents using
their phones for texting more than for phone calls. Almost half
of respondents do both in equal numbers. The volume of
text messages has gone up as well across all age groups,
although the 13 to 19 age group remains the most active, sending
more than 500 texts per month on average. Despite the popularity
of mobile data services, of those surveyed:
-------------------------------------
Revenue from streamed music and full-track
downloads on mobile phones will grow from $2.5 billion to $5.5
billion worldwide in the next five years as increased applications,
all-you-can-eat data plans and more user-friendly services combine
to drive up sales, according to a new forecast by Juniper Research.
Windsor Holden, an analyst at the U.K.-based mobile research
firm, points to a widening array of mobile music initiatives from
music streaming service Pandora, with 2 million mobile users, to
T-Mobile's Mobile Jukebox to Samsung's Beat DJ, as evidence of
increased consumer uptake.
"These are just snippets, but they are not isolated cases," he
wrote in a
blog post. Holden went on to argue that wireless operators are
increasingly convinced that not only are customers willing to use
their mobile phones for accessing music, but that a significant
proportion view music as a key component of their mobile service.
--------------------------------------
News Corp. Goes Deep Into Red With $6.4 Billion Net Loss
by Wayne Friedman
News Corp. has followed the conga line of media companies
recently taking sharp financial quarterly losses. On the heels
of an $8.4 billion write down of assets, the company stumbled
across the financial reporting line with $6.4 billion lost for
its fiscal second quarter.
====================================
Best Buy, the largest US consumer electronics
retailer, will launch an investment fund managed by former
and current News Corp internet veterans that will focus on
digital media as it seeks to expand beyond brick and mortar
stores. The retailer, which invested $2.1bn to launch a
joint venture with the UK’s Carphone Warehouse last year,
purchased the Napster online music subscription service in
2008 for $121m and aims to invest deeper into the music,
video, games and “personal media management” businesses.
“Best Buy has connectivity to hardware and software
manufacturers, (Hollywood) studios, DVDs and cell phones,”
said Ross Levinsohn, a partner at Velocity Interactive
Group, the venture capital firm that will help manage the
new fund.“When you think about the breadth in how they touch
consumers, their interest in digital media makes sense,” Mr
Levinsohn said.
----------------------------------------------------
|
According to Nielsen we started
watching more TV -- 4 hours, 34 minutes a day in
2006-07. Not bad for the producers, network, cable
operators, advertisers. Nielsen found:
100% of
US cable operators offer
HDTV
165.3 mil LCD TVs to sell in 2011
Americans choose smaller 1080p TV over a larger 720p
80% of
TiVo owners and 82% of other DVR owners likely to skip
commercials
85% of US households aware of
digital TV transition
More than 80% of US households have digital TVs
15% of Americans have 2+
HDTVs
US HDTV sales to top $65 bln by 2009
1080p LCD TV to generate $75.4 bln in 2011
Japanese and Americans watched 4.5 hours of TV a day in 2006
Digital television
reached 64% of US households last year
52% of urban males do not get enough international content on TV
94% of Americans have HDTVs
Then a
viewing paradigm took place.
Internet
Viewing
The Internet
became ubiquitous and pipes got bigger.
People
started watching stuff online. |
|
----------------------------------------------------------
Hulu Eyes More Live Content
Dave Matthews concert to stream live on June 1
NEW YORK Hulu, home to a growing library of on-demand TV
programming, is seeking to add more live content to its menu.
The site, a joint venture between News Corp, NBC Universal and
Disney, will on June 1 stream a live Dave Mathews Band concert
from the Beacon Theatre in New York from 9:00 -11:30 p.m. EST.
The live-on-the-Web concert is being timed to promote the band’s
upcoming new album Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, which is
scheduled to be released June 2.
The live event represents something of a departure for Hulu,
which primarily offers full episodes of current and classic
network TV shows, along with full-length movies. (The site did
stream President Barack Obama’s inauguration live in January.)
Besides the concert, Hulu will begin offering various Dave
Matthews videos on May 28, as well as the documentary Scenes
from Big Whiskey, which chronicles the making of the band’s new
album. The June 1 concert will also be available to viewers on
demand following the live show.
----------------------------------------------
NEWSPAPERS REVISIT CHARGING FOR ONLINE CONTENTIn
case it wasn't obvious that newspapers are struggling, a new report
by the
Newspaper Association of America shows just how dire the
situation has become.
In the first quarter of this year, ad revenues plummeted to $6.62
billion, marking a 28% drop from last year, according to the NAA.
And it wasn't only print ad revenue that fell. Web ad revenue also
dropped 13%, to $696 million.
While all ad categories suffered declines, classifieds fell the
furthest. First quarter classified revenue came to just $1.46
billion, marking a 42% drop from last year's $2.5 billion and a 67%
decline from the historical first-quarter high of $4.39 billion in
2000.
----------------------------------
NEW YORK, May 20 (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc is
looking to buy companies that will allow it to become a bigger
player in social networking and revamp its family of products, Chief
Technology Officer Ari Balogh said on Wednesday.
Yahoo has had conversations with companies about partnerships and
"more interesting" possibilities, said Balogh, who is executive vice
president of products at Yahoo.
"I can guarantee you there will be some acquisitions, and we will
do some stuff in house," said Balogh, speaking by videolink to the
Reuters Global Technology Summit in New York.
---------------------------------------------
Can the iPhone save Sirius XM?
Here’s a first look at Sirius XM’s forthcoming iPhone app,
culled from a PowerPoint stack published in SEC documents today.
CEO Mel Karmazin presented the slides to investors at
Wednesday’s shareholder meeting. Can this app help Sirius
XM repay its half-billion-dollar loan from Liberty Media? The
app doesn’t look much different from iTunes at first glance.
That’s good. It’s not weird or ugly. The bad news is the app
requires users to sign up for a Sirius XM subscription. No doubt
the company thoroughly researched and tested its pricing to come
up with the odd monthly fee of $12.95. But in my own experience,
streaming music from an AT&T iPhone fails far more often than
satellite radio does.
yahoo.com news
------------------------------------------
Digital video and audio
cables, similar to the ones that already connect TVs to
DVD players, cable boxes and receivers,
will soon come with a new capability: connecting those devices to
the Internet.
Manufacturers said Thursday that version 1.4 of the HDMI
standard, for High-Definition Multimedia Interface, includes a data
networking feature. That means that a set-top box that connects to
the Internet could share its connection with other devices in the
entertainment center, for easier access to Web video, e-mail and
news, says Steve Venuti, president and CEO of HDMI Licensing.
Devices with HDMI 1.4 ports could show up in small numbers before
the holidays, and in larger volumes early next year, the group said.
New cables will be needed to take advantage of the networking
feature.
-----------------------------------------------
News Corp. chairman
Rupert Murdoch said on Thursday that the future of newspapers is
digitalMurdoch, in an interview with the N ews
Corp.-owned Fox Business Network, also said that newspapers, faced
with eroding print advertising revenue and circulation, are going to
have to start charging readers on the Web. The News Corp. chief said
newspapers in the future will continue to make money "from our
readers, from our advertisers (but) the newspapers may look very
different.
"Instead of an analog paper printed on paper you may get it on a
panel which would be mobile, which will receive the whole newspaper
over the air, (and) be updated every hour or two," he said. "You'll
be able to get the guts or the main headlines and alerts and
everything on your Blackberry, on your
Palm or whatever, all day long.
--------------------------------------
RAB: Ad Revenues Fall 24% In 1Q
Total radio advertising revenue
declined 24% in the first quarter of 2009 compared to the same
period in 2008, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau, which
released the figures Thursday afternoon. Total revenues amounted to
just over $3.4 billion -- a drop of over $1 billion from the first
quarter of last year, when they amounted to about $4.5 billion.
The precipitous drop suggests that further declines are on the
way, as the radio business reels from the same recessionary trends
that are affecting most other parts of the media.
On the positive side, radio's digital revenues are still growing,
increasing 13% in the first quarter to $101 million. But clearly,
digital is still a very small part of radio's bottom line,
representing just 3% of total quarterly revenues.
-----------------------------------------------------
Limelight Networks® Acquires Mobility and
Monetization Innovator Kiptronic, Inc.
Tempe, AZ – 21 May 2009 – Limelight Networks, Inc. today
announced the acquisition of Kiptronic, Inc., a privately-held
provider of dynamic solutions for device-optimized content delivery
and monetization.
“A sweeping change in consumer behavior is driving a migration of
media consumption from the PC to a wider variety of
Internet-connected and mobile devices. Today, the distribution and
monetization of content on these devices is complex and difficult to
implement in a scalable fashion. The combination of Limelight
Networks’ distributed computing and delivery platform with
Kiptronic’s device-targeting and dynamic ad insertion technologies
will allow us to provide the world’s largest media and entertainment
companies a streamlined and scalable solution to this problem,” said
Jeff Lunsford, chairman and chief executive officer, Limelight
Networks, Inc. “We look forward to working with the talented
Kiptronic team to bring to market additional innovative solutions
for mobile and connected devices that will benefit our customers and
our ecosystem partners.”
----------------------------------------------------
I Want My Web TV, Customers Say
Internet-enabled TV may be only now coming into its own as a
technology, but customers are already showing a great deal of
interest in such products. That's the conclusion of a study released
this week by the Consumer Electronics Association.
According to the study, titled "Net-Enabled Video: Early Adopters
Only?," 14.5 million consumers are considering purchasing an
Internet-capable TV in the next 12 months. This amounts to "about
half" of the potential audience. "As we saw at the 2009
International CES, Internet-enabled devices are taking the consumer
technology experience to the next level, and nowhere is this more
pronounced than with television," CEA's economist and director of
research, Shawn DuBravac, said as part of the announcement.
"Consumers want more from their TV experience and marrying
traditional television with Internet access is providing the next
frontier of the television experience."
myCEA.CE.org
--------------------------------------------------------
Google challenged by new rival with all the answers - Wolfram Alpha
A revolutionary new search engine that computes answers rather
than pointing to websites will be launched officially today amid
heated talk that it could challenge the might of Google.
Wolfram Alpha, named after Stephen Wolfram, the British-born
computer scientist and inventor behind the project, takes a query
and uses computational power to crunch through huge databases.
The service can compute the distance between two cities, the
population of a country at a specific date and the position of the
Space Shuttle at a given moment. The user does not have to search
through links provided by the engine; the answer comes immediately
and, if appropriate, is accompanied by charts or graphs. What it
does that Google, at the moment, cannot do is provide answers to
questions that have not been answered already.
=========================================
The Sorry State Of Broadband
In 2000, the U.S. ranked 5th worldwide in broadband penetration,
with 2.5 broadband lines per 100 residents. At the time, the No. 1
country was
South Korea, with 8.4% penetration. By 2007, however,
the U.S. had slipped to 22nd place, with 21.5 broadband lines per
100 residents, lagging behind countries such as
Bermuda (36.7), South Korea (30.6) and
Japan (22.5).
Those stats were compiled by Free Press for its new 123-page
report
examining the current state of broadband in the U.S.
Not only do penetration rates lag, but service in America is also
more expensive and slower than in many other countries. The average
U.S. price is $53 per month -- more expensive than in 21 other
countries -- while average advertised download speed is 8.9 Mbps,
slower than 13 others. By comparison,
Finland offers
the cheapest service at $31 a month (with advertised
download speeds of 13 Mbps), while the fastest country is
Japan, with an average advertised downstream of 93.7 Mbps (for $34 a
month).
What accounts for this situation? Free Press says "massive policy
failures" of the last eight years are to blame.
Among others, the broadband advocacy group points to a decision by
regulators (later upheld by the
U.S. Supreme Court)
to classify broadband as an "information service" rather than a
communications service. That move meant that
ISPs no longer had to offer wholesale broadband to
competitors -- which dealt "an immediate blow to third-party ISPs
like Earthlink that relied on reasonable wholesale rates" and
"ensured that U.S. consumers would be at the mercy of a duopoly
marketplace," the report states.
------------------------------------------------------
Social Networking Generates Leads, Closes Sales for
Marketers
According to a social media study by Michael Stelzner for the
Social Media Success Summit 2009, 88% of marketers in a recent
survey say they are now using some form of social media to
market their business, though 72% of those using it say they
have only been at it a few months or less.
| Marketer's Use of
Social Media Tools |
| Social Media |
% Respondents Using |
|
Twitter |
86% |
| Blogs |
79 |
|
Linkedin |
78 |
|
Facebook |
77 |
|
YouTube
or other video |
41 |
| Social bookmark sites |
38 |
| Forums |
38 |
|
StumbleUpon |
28 |
|
Digg,
Reddit or similar |
26 |
| FriendFeed |
18 |
| Source: Social
Media
Marketing Industry Report, March 2009 |
Amazon Posts Profit Gains as Offline Rivals Struggle
Amazon.com has joined Apple among the ranks of technology firms
that are still growing robustly despite a shrinking economy.
Amazon, the online retailer based in Seattle, posted
stronger-than-expected earnings during the slow winter months,
attracting cost-conscious consumers with offers of free shipping
and competitive prices for its wide variety of products.
Amazon’s net profit rose 24 percent, to $177 million, or 41
cents a share, in the quarter ending March 31, up from $143
million, or 34 cents a share, in the same quarter a year
earlier. The company’s first-quarter revenue climbed 18 percent,
to $4.89 billion, slightly surpassing Wall Street’s
expectations. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters on average had
expected $4.76 billion in revenue.
Some analysts say Amazon has benefited from the downturn,
with struggles at the Borders book chain, the bankruptcy of
Circuit City and turbulence at a rival, eBay, all driving
traffic to Amazon.com. The company said its electronics and
general merchandise sales were up 38 percent, while media sales
rose 7 percent.
“Brick-and-mortar companies are going bankrupt and going out
of business altogether and that is helping Amazon gain market
share,” said Imran Khan, an analyst at JPMorgan.
------------------------------------------
Recession forces new focus
in e-commerce marketing
AP RETAIL WRITER
NEW YORK -- Online retailers are
shifting their marketing from traditional advertising to less
expensive tools like Facebook.com and Twitter and e-mail as they
seek market share or just work to retain customers, according to
an industry study being released Tuesday. Conducted by
Internet analysis firm Forrester Research for Shop.org - the
online arm of the trade group National Retail Federation - the
survey found that merchants believe online business is better
suited to withstand an economic downturn than physical stores or
catalogs, though they acknowledge challenges for both. The
study involved 117 online retailers polled between Feb. 18 and
April 1.
The companies, which Shop.org didn't name, reported scaling
back hiring and their increasingly expensive search marketing
programs, which include paying for top billing in the results
consumers see for their Web searches. Online merchants whose
business is beating expectations will likely fuel much of the
e-commerce investments in the coming months, the survey found.
"Online retailers want ... to be more efficient in getting a
bigger bang for the buck," said Scott Silverman, executive
director of Shop.org. Developing social media marketing requires
some investment in personnel, he said, but many merchants see
big opportunities to spread a positive message about their brand
for relatively low cost.
-----------------------------------------
More People Are
Using PCs to Time-Shift TV, Skip Ads
Mike Vorhaus on
Digital Communications
Published: May 04, 2009
Despite the level of buzz around ad skipping, not everyone owns a
DVR. Our research shows about one-third of online households have a
DVR (or think they do). But almost everyone owns a PC, and most of
those folks are online. So, actually, they do own a DVR, as a PC
with online video serves that purpose for many people.
In our most recent Magid Media Futures online national study,
completed in April, we surveyed a national sample of U.S. consumers
and identified a sizable population that watches full-length TV
shows online.
The No. 1 reason these people watched TV shows online was to
catch up on shows and shift viewing to a more convenient time. The
only demographic groups that didn't care that much about catching
missed shows were the younger males -- all the other demographic
groups are mostly using online video to catch up or time shift.
Interestingly, another major reason consumers like watching shows
online is that there are fewer and shorter ads. We have confirmed
this in focus groups: Consumers think watching shows online is a
"good deal" in terms of fewer ads.
---------------------------------------------
Disney Buys Into Hulu
Count Disney in. The
Walt Disney Co.
is joining NBC Universal, News Corp. and
Providence Equity Partners as a
joint venture
partner and equity owner of the popular online video
aggregator Hulu.
The agreement is still subject to regulatory review, but once it
closes Disney will have three seats on the Hulu board.
-------------------------------------
MySpace And Fox Launch UReport
News Corp. brethren Fox News and MySpace on Monday co-launched a
citizen journalism platform named uReport through which MySpace
members can upload photos and videos to Fox News from a computer or
mobile device.
With the service, MySpace members can share content with other
members and become "uReporters" by uploading video and photos tagged
by specific categories, including news, entertainment, and politics.
The initiative is designed to create a larger and more engaged
audience for Fox and MySpace, according to Jeff Misenti, Fox News
vice president of digital. "The MySpace uReport community presents
an extraordinary opportunity to expand our network," he said.
Fox plans to feature select content in programming on Fox News
Channel and FoxNews.com, while its editors have full control of the
MySpace-uReport page.
-----------------------------------------
Online Video To Grow 32% In '09
Despite the economic downturn and its
inevitable strains on overall advertising expenditures, online video
is clearly holding up as a beacon of change and growth, according to
an online video forecast released Monday by Magna.
Magna -- a unit of Interpublic's Mediabrands division --
forecasts that the U.S. market for online video will grow by 32%
this year, rising from $531 million in 2008 to $699 million in 2009.
"While these figures represent downward revisions from our
forecast for the sector in the middle of last year -- prior to the
subsequent escalation of the recession -- these gains will likely
outpace growth rates for most other emerging media platforms," said
Brian Wieser, global director of forecasting for Magna, and author
of the report.
In total, by 2011, Magna expects online video to generate
slightly more than $1 billion in net advertising revenues for video
content. This represents a compounded annual growth rate of 36% for
each year between 2006 and 2011.
----------------------------------------
Facebook Now Twice The Size Of MySpace
Facebook is now nearly twice as big as its
closest rival, News Corp.'s MySpace, Michael Arrington reports. In
December, the social networking leader drew 222 million unique
users, according to comScore, at a 10.8% month over month gain. More
than 1 in 5 people who accessed the Internet in December went to
Facebook.
Arrington points out that Facebook now has nearly 100 million more
worldwide users than MySpace, which after adding 4 million new users
in December had 125 million members total. Facebook also had twice
the number of page views in December: 80 billion versus 43 billion
for MySpace. Arrington notes that only six months ago, the companies
were neck-in-neck.
----------------------------------- 
MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe will step down
as chief executive officer of the social- networking Web
site after falling behind rival Facebook Inc. A replacement
wasn’t named. DeWolfe will remain an adviser, Jonathan Miller, the
top digital officer for parent News Corp., said today in a
statement. MySpace President Tom Anderson is in talks with Miller
about a new role.
DeWolfe co-founded MySpace with Anderson in 2003 and ran the
ad-supported company for almost four years under Rupert Murdoch’s
News Corp. Former Facebook Chief Operating Officer Owen Van Natta is
likely to replace DeWolfe, the Wall Street Journal’s All Things D
Web site reported today. Facebook passed MySpace as the top
social-networking site last year.
“I don’t think advertising growth has reached their initial
expectations,” said Michael Morris, a New York-based analyst with
UBS AG. He rates News Corp. stock “neutral” and doesn’t own it. “The
initial hopes of the business probably haven’t been realized.”
April 22 (Bloomberg)
----------------------------------
NBC Universal witnessed
revenue and profitability declines in the first quarter.
Net profits sank 45% to $391 million in the first quarter ending
March 31, from $712 million in the previous period. Revenues slipped
2% to $3.52 billion, from $3.58 billion.
One bright spot: cable revenues at its networks -- USA, SyFy,
CNBC, and MSNBC -- continue to grow at a healthy rate.
"While cable continued to deliver double-digit growth, NBC
Universal had a tougher performance overall, due to a soft
advertising market and fewer major DVD releases compared to a year
ago," said chairman/ CEO Jeff Immelt of General Electric, NBC
Universal's owner, in a release.
------------------------------------
Yahoo has decided to shutter its free
GeoCities Web site hosting service later this year, the company
announced Thursday.
"We have decided to discontinue the process of allowing new
customers to sign up for GeoCities accounts as we focus on helping
our customers explore and build new relationships online in other
ways," Yahoo said in a statement posted on its help page.
The GeoCities help page advises current account users that they
can continue to use the service until the summer. "We'll provide
more details about closing GeoCities and how to save your site data
this summer, and we will update the help center with more details at
that time," the help page states. yahoo.com
--------------------------------------
OPEN MOBIL VIDEO
Today the Open Mobile Video Coalition announced that Washington
D.C. will be the showcase market for the ATSC-M/H mobile TV
standard. ATSC-M/H is a version of the current ATSC digital
television standard used in
North America
that will allow for mobile-formatted digital TV broadcasts to be
made in parallel with existing DTV transmissions, which are set to
take over for analog transmissions in the USA as of June 12, 2009.
Unlike some other parts of the world that already have
established mobile DTV standards like DMB and DVB-H
, North America's ATSC is still developing a mobile DTV
technology that would provide users with a way to access
digital television
broadcasts without the need to pay a subscription fee, such
as those required by Verizon and
AT&T's MediaFLO
based TV systems. In December of last year, the ATSC promoted its
ATSC-M/H proposal to "Candidate Standard" status, which allows for
its use in the testing announced today by the OMVC.
In addition to the Washington D.C. launch,
four TV stations in Atlanta and Seattle are set to become
model ATSC-M/H stations for R&D and testing purposes. In related
news, the OMVC announced that
Dell will be joining Samsung, LG, and Kenwood in providing
prototype devices for testing with the new ATSC-M/H proposed
standard in the form of the Inspiron
Mini 10 netbook.
-----------------------------------
Online video continues to
expand -- now up 40% versus the same levels a year ago.
Nielsen Online says March's 9.6 billion streams and 130 million
Web users are a 38.8% hike over March 2008. Total streams for
viewers during March were at an average 74.4 with the total time per
viewer, in terms of minutes, at over three hours per month -- 190.7
minutes.
Nielsen says the total time per viewer in March -- which includes
progressive downloads but excludes video advertising -- was up a big
12.6% versus February. This seems to suggest -- as other research
has found -- that users are watching longer-length videos. YouTube,
the big Internet video site, continues to dwarf the competition in
two big key areas -- 5.5 billion streams and 89.4 million unique
viewers.
Among streams, the next-biggest site after YouTube is hulu.com at
348.5 million. Yahoo comes after that at 231.8 million; Fox
Interaction Media (which includes MySpace)is 207.5 million;
Nickelodeon, 196.1 million; ABC.com, 176.9 million; MSN/Windows
Live, 168.9 million; Turner Sports/Entertainment, 137.6 million;
MTV, 123.8 million; and CNN, 103.5 million.
Among the unique viewers, Yahoo came in second at 24.8 million,
followed by Fox Interactive Media (which includes MySpace) at 14.7
million, and MSN/Windows Live at 12 million. CNN was next at 9.0
million; hulu.com, 8.9 million; ABC.com, 6.9 million; Nickelodeon,
6.4 million; MTV Networks, 6.3 million; and Turner
Sports/Entertainment at 5.8 million.
---------------------------------
HERE GOES BLOCKBUSTER...
Blockbuster Inc.'s auditors believe the Dallas-based movie
rental company might not be generating enough cash to fund its
operations, again raising the possibility Blockbuster might have to
file for bankruptcy reorganization.
In the PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP assessment released as part of
a financial filing, the auditors wrote that Blockbuster's financial
situation raises "substantial doubt about the Company's ability to
continue as a going concern" or viable business. The company had
warned investors last month that auditors were likely to raise those
concerns.
-----------------------------------
Everyone On The Planet Tweeting?
Last week we noted that Twitter was going crazy and that we hadn't
even seen March's stats yet. Well now we have. Twitter
more than doubled its US unique visitors in March.
That's right. Think back to four long weeks ago when you thought
that Twitter might have peaked and that everyone you knew had jumped
on the bandwagon. Well, now there are twice as many of those people.
9.3 million, in fact.
That means Twitter's growth has accelerated from 33% in January, to
55% in February and now 131% in March. At a growth rate of 131% a
month, literally every single person alive on the planet
will have a Twitter account by the end of this year.
----------------------------------
SOME APRIL 7TH BILLBOARD MAGAZINE
HEADLINES...
Keith Urban Soars To No. 1 On
Billboard 200
Keith Urban celebrates his first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 as his
Capitol Nashville set "Defying Gravity" arrives with 171,000.
German Publishers Back GEMA Over
YouTube Row
German music publishers are backing the German collection society
GEMA in its dispute with YouTube.
Criticism, Doubts Over iTunes
Price Changes
Though the online world tends to give Steve Jobs and Apple the
benefit of the doubt, there has been an incredible amount of
second-guessing about iTunes' decision to allow a three-tiered
pricing system.
Rascal Flatts On Track To Score No. 1
On Billboard 200
Rascal Flatts' new album "Unstoppable" looks like it'll live up to
its name, as it's on course to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200
chart next week. Industry prognosticators project the Lyric Street
set will sell more than 300,000 copies in its first week, and
suggest that the number could grow even higher.
-----------------------------------
INTERNATIONAL
CTIA WIRELESS 2009® KEYNOTE REMARKS FROM
AL GORE
IDENTIFY WIRELESS AS THE SOLUTION TO KEY CHALLENGES FACED BY THE
CLIMATE, ECONOMY AND GLOBAL SECURITY
WASHINGTON, D.C., April 6, 2009 — International CTIA WIRELESS
2009® closed on Friday after a riveting keynote address by former
Vice President Al Gore,
who emphasized that the wireless industry is “one of the great
success stories in the American economy.” The continued development
of wireless infrastructure is a key indicator fueling the
communications revolution.
==========================
Yahoo Monday announced an
initiative that will draw on music services and content from
partners including Amazon.com, Apple and YouTube in a new section on
Yahoo Music called Artist Pages.
In addition to offering tour dates, music downloads and streaming
music, the new platform eventually will allow users to create their
own custom pages as Yahoo opens it up to any musician or record
label looking for wider exposure.
"With Yahoo Music's Artist Pages, we're creating a truly open and
indispensable music destination that will drive music fans to Yahoo!
first on their path to music discovery, experience and purchase,"
said Jeff Dossett, senior vice president of Yahoo's North American
Audience Group, in a statement.
The move is part of Yahoo's broader strategy to open up the Web
portal to a wider range of third-party and user-generated content to
better compete with social networks such as MySpace and Facebook.
Music has long been a strength of MySpace, from its start as hub for
indie bands to the launch of MySpace Music in partnership with the
four major labels last year.
mediapost.com
-------------------------------
The era of one-price-fits-all-songs on
iTunes came to an end Tuesday as
Apple Inc., the Internet's dominant
digital music retailer, began selling some
of its most-downloaded songs for $1.29
apiece.
Apple said in January that it would
end its practice of selling all individual
songs for 99 cents each and begin offering
three tiers: 69 cents, 99 cents and $1.29.
Recording companies pick the prices, much
as they did for CDs sold in stores and
online. On day one, songs including "Jai Ho"
from the "Slumdog Millionaire" soundtrack,
"Single Ladies" by Beyonce and "Chicken
Fried" by the Zac Brown Band were bumped up
to $1.29. The main iTunes page advertised
collections of 69-cent songs that included "London
Calling" by
The Clash and "Monkey" by
George Michael.
Other songs from the same albums and
artists remained at 99 cents.
yahoonews.com
============================
Twilight' takes lead in '09 video sales
With sales hitting 5.6 million units at the end of this weekend,
Summit Home Entertainment's "Twilight" is now the top-selling
home entertainment release of the year, according to Home Media
Magazine's market research department.
The film narrowly surpassed the previous top seller,
Paramount/DreamWorks' "Madgascar: Escape 2 Africa," which has
sold an estimated 5.3 million units since its Feb. 6 release,
according to Home Media research. "Twilight," like the
"Madagascar" sequel, wasn't released on the traditional Tuesday
street date. Rather, the film arrived on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on
Saturday, March 21 ("Madagascar" came out on a Friday).
The release sold 3 million units its first day in stores, Summit
says, enough to send it to the top of the weekly Nielsen
VideoScan First Alert sales chart even though it was only on
sale a single day. As of the end of the day Friday, Summit
Home Entertainment president Steve Nickerson reports, the film
had sold 5.4 million copies, with the total shooting to 5.6
million over the weekend.
March 30, 2009 Mediapost.com
==========================
With Twitter becoming the
way information spreads fastest on the Web, who's benefiting
from traffic driven by the micro-blogging service? Mostly social
networking, search, email and entertainment sites, according to a
new analysis by Hitwise.The Web measurement firm found that
Twitter sent nearly one in five visits to social networks and the
same proportion to entertainment sites in February. Google ranked as
the top visited after Twitter, followed by Facebook, Twitpic (a
photo-sharing service for Twitter), MySpace and Twitter Search.
The top entertainment sites besides Twitpic were YouTube and Flickr.
Other sites among the top 20 destinations from Twitter included
Yahoo, MSN, Wikipedia and Gmail.
The data also showed that Twitter has more in common with social
networks than search engines. "It appears that Twitter is being used
as a social network and means of distributing content," wrote
Heather Hopkins, a senior online analyst at Hitwise, on the company
blog. "This is by no means the only way it is being used -- just one
standout trend. Twitter.com's clickstream profile is much closer to
a social network than to search engines or email services."
She pointed out that, unlike search engines, Twitter refers
relatively little traffic to retail sites. (As more retailers tap
Twitter as a marketing tool that could change over time.) And unlike
email services, it drives less traffic to dating and business and
finance sites.
============================
It Was A Very Bad Year: Old
Media Suffers Long-Term Declines
The fixes are in for 2009, and
it's looking pretty bad for traditional media in America.
Various forecasts have ad revenues for radio, magazines, and
newspapers dropping by double digits across the board, compounding
alarming declines for all three media in 2008.The economic
downturn was a popular culprit during fourth-quarter conference
calls, and the bogeyman will doubtless make another appearance when
first-quarter earnings results are announced. But don't believe the
hype: The general downward trend was in evidence well before the
recession began, reflecting fundamental secular shifts in media
consumption and advertising. If anything, the economic downturn is
merely accelerating this process.
There's no question that the falling fortunes of radio, magazines
and newspapers are coinciding with recessionary trends. In the
fourth quarter of 2008, as the economy went into freefall, radio
revenues fell 11%, according to the Radio Advertising Bureaul;
magazine revenues declined 14% according to the Publishers
Information Bureau; and newspaper revenues dropped 20%, according to
the Newspaper Association of America.
============================
Network television took the biggest advertising hit
in the fourth quarter of 2008 as compared to other broadcast
platforms.
According to the Television Bureau of Advertising (TVB), network
television sank almost 10% in the period versus the fourth quarter
2007 to $6.4 billion. TVB's data was released from TNS Media
Intelligence.
Local broadcast, which had a traumatic 2008 overall, was down
3.4% in the fourth quarter (to $4.6 billion), and 2.4% for the year
(to $16.5 billion). In typical political and Olympic years, local
broadcast would see low double-digit percent gains in advertising
revenues.
Syndication TV programming continues to be surprisingly resilient
versus other broadcast platforms. Ad sales were flat in the fourth
quarter to $1.1 billion, and up 6.5% for the year at $4.4 billion.
Overall, fourth-quarter revenues for broadcast were down 6.3% to
$12.0 billion and virtually flat for the year -- down 0.4% -- to
$46.4 billion.
As with most media businesses, network television had a better
first three-quarters of the year. It ended at $25.4 billion,
virtually flat versus the year before, and down 0.1%.
mediapost.com April 09
=============================
Disney Media Networks has joined the ranks of
other major media companies by striking an agreement with YouTube
for short-form content.
The ad-supported channels will start up mid-April for ESPN and
early May for the Disney/ABC Television Group channels. This
includes ABC Entertainment, ABC News, ABC Family and SOAPnet.
In somewhat of a first, Disney/ABC and ESPN will also be able to
test pre-roll advertising on short-form content. Disney Media
Networks will have the option to sell their own advertising
inventory within the Disney/ABC and ESPN channels.
As part of the agreement, ESPN Video Player will be integrated
into ESPN's channel on YouTube. Reports suggested that Disney
has been also considering an Internet streaming video deal with Hulu.
Other YouTube partners include CBS, NBA, Sony Entertainment
Television, and Universal Music.
=============================
Average Online Video Viewer Watches 5 Hours A Month
The February 2009 comScore Video Metrix data shows that U.S.
Internet users viewed 13.1 billion online videos during
the month of February, representing a decline of 12% versus
January due mainly to three fewer days in the month.
Google sites comprised the largest share, accounting for
41% of online videos viewed and just under 100 million unique
viewers.
Google Sites continue to rank as the top U.S. video property,
with YouTube.com
accounting for more than 99 percent of all videos viewed at the
property.
Fox Interactive Media ranked second, followed by
Yahoo! Sites,
Hulu and
Microsoft Sites. Hulu climbed two positions in the
ranking to #4, after experiencing a 33-percent jump in video
views on the heels of its
Super Bowl
commercial at the outset of the month.
---------------------------------
Wall Street Journal
Crashes, Slashes Edit Staff
In a staff announcement late Thursday, News Corp.'s
Dow Jones & Co. unit said it was reducing the number of
journalists working for
The Wall Street Journal by 14 positions, which follow
11 journalists lost through "attrition" over the past couple of
months. yahoo.com news
=================================
Disney, YouTube strike video partnership
Disney, looking to extend its presence in the online video
space, has announced a deal with YouTube that will put a wide
range of its content on the popular Web site best known for
user-generated videos. The deal includes ESPN sports highlights,
ABC News updates and snippets from ABC- and Disney-produced
shows. Los
Angeles Times
=================================
Study:
HD home-entertainment products set to grow
High-definition products for the home-entertainment market are
poised to triple by 2012 compared with 2008 numbers. "The
high-tech industry's efforts to provide HD service to every home
now are finally coming to fruition. This has resulted in an
explosion of shipments of consumer-electronics devices that
support HD video, from new Blu-ray DVD players to ultrathin LCD
HD Televisions (HDTVs) -- and even some portable media players,"
said Randy Lawson, senior analyst for iSuppli
------------------------------------
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - MySpace officials
say about 90,000
sex offenders have been identified and removed from its huge
online social networking Web site.
North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said Tuesday the new
figure is nearly double what MySpace officials originally
acknowledged last year when detailing who had used their site.
Cooper and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal have
led the charge seeking efforts to make social networking Web sites
safer. MySpace officials sent the numbers to Blumenthal's office
Tuesday. Last year, the attorneys general received agreements from MySpace
and rival online networking site Facebook to push toward making
their sites safer for young users. Both implemented dozens of
safeguards, including limiting how older users can search members
under 18.
mediapost.com April 09
----------------------------------------------
NEW YORK (AP) - AOL has named former
Yahoo executive Gregory Coleman as head of its online advertising
unit, making him the third person in that role in 17 months.
Coleman, Yahoo Inc.'s former executive vice president for global
sales, replaces Lynda Clarizio, who took the position last March.
Clarizio, in turn, had replaced Curt Viebranz, who was named to that
role when AOL started consolidating its advertising operations into
Platform-A in September 2007.
In a statement AOL Chief Executive Randy Falco said Coleman was
chosen as someone who understand that "online brand building is the
next frontier in digital advertising."
AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc., has been looking to transform
itself into an advertising-based company and shed its roots as an
Internet access provider, a role it pioneered in the 1990s before
steadily losing customers to faster connections. It created
Platform-A as a unit to integrate $1 billion worth of
advertising-related acquisitions.
Clarizio had been tasked improving the integration, but the
effort appears to have run into headwinds as the recession crimps
advertising budgets. AOL's third-quarter ad revenue dropped 6
percent, the company reported in November. And AOL said last week it
is cutting 700 jobs, or 10 percent of its work force.
In his statement Tuesday, Falco said, "We are enormously grateful
for (Clarizio's) work and success."
AOL did not say where Clarizio will be headed and a company
spokesman did not immediately return a call for comment.
----------------------------------------
As studios and exhibitors quake under the advance of increasingly
sophisticated home entertainment systems and internet piracy,
anything that emphasizes the unique experience of cinema is to be
prized. At the moment, that USP is 3-D, and the big boys are
circling.
Twentieth Century Fox is pinning its hopes on Avatar, a
$200 million (£145 million) 3-D fantasy epic that will be James
Cameron’s first directorial gig since Titanic a dozen years
ago. Disney, meanwhile, has bet big on the format, lining up Tim
Burton to direct Alice in Wonderland with Johnny Depp as the
Mad Hatter, hiring Robert Zemeckis to make A Christmas Carol
with Jim Carey as Scrooge and, next week, releasing the
Oscar-nominated Bolt, a 3-D animated film about a canine movie star,
voiced by John Travolta and with Pixar’s John Lasseter as executive
producer.
-----------------------------------------
Report: Live Nation, Ticketmaster Close
To Merger
Ticketmaster Entertainment and Live Nation -- two of the most
powerful companies in the music business -- could be merging as soon
as next week, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The announcement arrives on the heels of Live Nation, the world's
largest concert promoter, launching its own ticketing company last
month.
The boards of each company have not yet approved a deal and a merger
would require review by antitrust authorities, according to the
paper, which cited unnamed people familiar with the situation.
It was not clear which company would be acquiring the other, but the
new company would be reportedly be called Live Nation Ticketmaster.
The deal would not involve any cash transfer.
------------------------------------------------
iTunes Sales Lift Three Acts To The
Billboard 200
February 03, 2009 -
Digital and Mobile
The first three sales weeks of January yielded a striking trend on
the Billboard 200: Each week, an emerging act's new album charted
based solely on digital sales.
Thanks to favorable home-page exposure at the iTunes Music Store,
free downloads, attractive pricing and a traditionally slow sales
period, up-and-coming acts Erin McCarley, Company of Thieves and the
Boxer Rebellion each debuted on the big chart.
-----------------------------------------
Prime-Time TV Commercial Prices Plummet,
CBS Faces Biggest Drop
by Joe Mandese
The cost of an average prime-time price plummeted 15% during the
fourth quarter of 2008, and
CBS led the
decline with a whopping 22% decline, according to an analysis
released this morning by independent media services agency
TargetCast tcm. TargetCast estimates the price of a prime-time
network TV commercial fell to $122,133, down 15% from the fourth
quarter of 2007. While CBS experienced the steepest decline, all
of the major networks saw significant pricing rollbacks,
including NBC
(down 13%), ABC (down 10%), and Fox (down 6%).
-----------------------
"The level of excitement on the CES show
floor was at an all-time high with groundbreaking technologies such
as the Palm Pre, Sony's flexible OLED display, 3-D HDTV, Yahoo!'s TV
Widget, LG's Watch Phone and a one-third-inch-thin, energy-efficient
Plasma HDTV from Panasonic," said Karen Chupka, senior vice
president, events and conferences, CEA, in a statement.
Content shined at the 2009 installment of CES. With Sony taping
several live episodes of "Jeopardy!" and for the first time CES had
an official broadcast partner, NBC Universal. These, among many
other announcements at CES, not only showcased a variety of content,
but also highlighted the role technology is playing in how audiences
view and interact with programming.
This year's version of the CES also featured a distinctly green
hue, with exhibit space for the Greener Gadgets Tech Zone ballooning
from 520 square feet last year to 3,000 square feet in 2009. In case
you missed this year's CES or just need a refresher, CEA SmartBrief
has put together this wrap-up special report. Even though this
year's show has just wrapped up, CEA is already gearing up for the
2010 International CES, which will be held Jan. 7 to 10 in Las
Vegas. ces.org jan 2009
--------------------------------------
Music sales worldwide fall by 7 percent
The trend is hastening the industry's push to develop new
business models for digital music, some of which emulate the
consumers prefer to acquire music - that is, free of charge.
-------------------------------------------------
Online and Interactive Video Advertising Hot for 2009
According to a recent survey of more than 400 senior-level
decision makers, conducted by PermissionTV, online video is the
top priority for
digital marketing budgets, along with a strong preference
among marketers for increased sophistication and interactivity
in online video capabilities to promote their brands.
Matt Kaplan, VP of Solutions and Chief Strategy Officer of
PermissionTV, said "... online video will play an increasingly
critical role in all interactive campaigns... survey results
demonstrate the strategic importance of online video in the
overall marketing mix... as well as more sophisticated video
experiences."
The study finds that more than two-thirds of respondents
identified online video as a primary focus of their 2009
digital marketing campaigns, as respondents consider
interactive video experiences to be the next evolution for
online video. 62 percent believe that non-linear,
interactive
storytelling will become the most effective medium for
marketers.
yahoo.com news Jan 09
---------------------------------------
Although NBC remains in last
place among traditional TV viewers, in 2008, the network says its
Internet viewing skyrocketed. It also earned the best average
monthly unique visitors of all the networks.
Unique visitors--roughly akin to viewers in traditional
television--averaged 8.3 million last year, more than any other
network. NBC also noted that it was tops in seven of 12 months when
it came to unique visitors. All data comes from Internet measurers
Omniture, comScore and NetRatings.
---------------------------------------
Warner Bros. Plans Job Cuts
Across All Divisions
Warner Bros. continued the run of large media companies
reacting to the economic climate by cutting jobs, saying it
would eliminate about 7.5% of its existing workforce; it will
not fill 200 more open positions. The cuts--which the company
called "a last resort"--will come across all divisions,
including the TV production and sizable syndication sales
operations
--------------------------------------
NEW YORK -
Microsoft's chief executive, Steve Ballmer, met with
Yahoo chairman
Roy Bostock in New
York this week, according to a report in
The New York Times.
The newspaper cited an unnamed source who had been briefed on the
meeting, but no details of the conversation have been released.
Yahoo's appointment of Carol Bartz as chief executive has
heightened speculation that the companies may be able to agree on a
takeover, with Microsoft possibly acquiring Yahoo's
search engine business.
yahoonews.com 1/20/09
-----------------------------------------------------
Yahoo's New Video Platform
Like the look of the videos on Flickr's new mobile site? If
you're a website publisher, you may soon be able to use Yahoo's
video platform to convert your users' uploaded clips into
great-looking, iPhone-ready video files.
Yahoo launched an updated version of its mobile website for
Flickr on Thursday, and along with that update came the ability to
playback Flickr's short, 90-second videos on the iPhone and iPod
Touch. Other devices, like the T-Mobile G1 and the Nokia N-series
phones, will be supported soon.
Videos on the Flickr mobile site are being processed by Yahoo's
new video platform, which works on the backend to transcode uploaded
videos into the high-quality H.264 format. There's also a web API
for feeding videos into the transcoder and for collecting the
results.
Flickr is rolling out a new and improved version of its mobile
website, the company announced Thursday. In addition to some
enhancements to the mobile site's user interface, the update adds
video playback capability -- something previously missing from the
Flickr mobile experience.
Video playback will only work on the iPhone and iPod Touch right
now, but Flickr plans to add support for other smart mobile devices
in the coming weeks and months.
A strong mobile experience in a must for the photo-sharing site,
especially now as camera-equipped mobile devices become ubiquitous.
Almost everyone carries around personal photos and short videos on
their phones, and the folks at Flickr are eager to make it easier
for more people to share these things online.
----------------------------------------------------
Las Vegas, Nevada, January 11, 2009 – More than
2,700 global companies, including 300 new exhibitors, unveiled an
estimated 20,000 new technology products across 1.7 million net
square feet of exhibit space this week at the world’s largest
consumer technology tradeshow, electrifying the technology industry
and helping lead the way to economic recovery. New trends unveiled
at the 2009 CES will shape the future of consumer electronics,
including 3D HDTV, advances in OLED, green technologies, Internet TV
and digital entertainment. Produced by the Consumer Electronics
Association (CEA)®, the 2009 International CES®
ran January 8-11, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
“Despite a subdued economy, excitement exuded from the
International CES show floor, with the sheer volume of innovative
products, the quantity of senior level executives from the consumer
technology and related industries, the international participation
from companies and government officials and the partnerships and
deals at the show,” said Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, CEA. “More
consumer technology business deals start at the International CES
than any other event on earth. The success of the 2009 International
CES gives us optimism that innovation will restart the world’s
economic engine.”
“The level of excitement on the CES show floor was at an all-time
high with ground-breaking technologies such as the Palm Pre, Sony’s
flexible OLED display, 3D HDTV, Yahoo!’s TV Widget, LG’s Watch Phone
and a 1/3 inch thin energy efficient Plasma HDTV from Panasonic,”
said Karen Chupka, senior vice president, events and conferences,
CEA. “Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer announced Windows 7 Beta at his pre-CES
keynote and the download response was so high, it overloaded their
systems.”
----------------------------------------------------
Cable, led by Cablevision,
mulls network DVR
If the nation's largest cable TV
operators have their way, the home digital
video recorder could soon become a relic.
Leading the way is Cablevision Systems
Corp., which plans to roll out a system in
early 2009 that will let viewers record any
show without a DVR, only a digital set-top
box. Shows will be stored on Cablevision's
servers instead of a home DVR — a shift the
company said could save it upward of $700
million. Yahoo.com news
-------------------------------------------------------------
January 15, 2009
Are Consumer Electronics
Makers the New Content Gatekeepers?
By DAISY WHITNEY,
GigaOm
The new push by
television set makers to introduce
Internet-connected models this year
could turn consumer electronics
manufacturers into gatekeepers for
content.
Internet-connected sets from Sony, LG
and Samsung were among the most
buzzworthy products showcased at the
recent Consumer Electronics Show.
They’ll come to market later this year
with Crackle, blip.tv, the Minisode
Network, YouTube, Flickr and other web
services embedded into them, heralding a
long-awaited step in the march toward
web-to-TV convergence.
Their expanding role
also raises the question of whether they
might become gatekeepers for web
content, much as cable and satellite
operators have for decades determined
which networks make the cut. Many
consumer electronics makers will now
also play a role in separating the wheat
from the chaff by striking deals with
some Internet sites and passing on
others. They’ll also determine the
placement for such services on the TV
sets. This development can benefit
content creators and consumers, because
Internet-enabled TVs now represent a new
distribution source for programs.
Most TV set makers
declined to comment on their potential
new role as gatekeepers.
Yahoo’s program to
develop widgets for TV sets is open to
anyone, pointed out Roger Urrabazo,
product manager for the Yahoo Widget
program. As part of the program, Yahoo’s
consumer electronics partners have
agreed to allow their consumers access
to any widget in the Yahoo widget
gallery, said Lucas Mast, a spokesperson
for the company. That means widgets from
YouTube, MySpace, Showtime, CBS and
others are available on sets from
Samsung, Sony, LG Electronics, VIZIO and
Toshiba, Mast said.
However, Will
Richmond, an analyst with VideoNuze,
says the best placement on a TV set menu
is likely to be awarded to the strongest
brands, like Netflix, Amazon or YouTube.
“These are known consumer brands, and
they all have some degree of pull
through the retailer,” he said.
Still, consumer
electronics makers are more eager to
welcome new services to the set rather
than block them, Richmond said. “They
are just concentrating on selling sets.
The economy is hammering these guys, and
they need to focus on that.”
More Internet services
could be what help them move more units.
-----------------------------------------------------
The digital music business internationally
saw a sixth year of expansion in 2008, growing by
an estimated
25 per cent to US$3.7 billion in trade value. Digital platforms now
account for
around 20
per cent of recorded music sales, up from 15 per cent in 2007.
Recorded music is
at the
forefront of the online and mobile revolution, generating more
revenue in percentage
terms
through digital platforms than the newspaper (4%), magazine (1%) and
film industries
(4%)
combined.
At the same
time, a new generation of music subscription services, social
networking sites
and new
licensing channels is emerging. These were led in 2008 by services
like Nokia
Comes With
Music, MySpace Music and a raft of partnerships with Internet
Service
Providers (ISPs), such as
---------------------------------------------------
LOS ANGELES — Although Apple Inc. announced
this month that some songs sold on its market-leading iTunes online
service would be available for 69 cents (U.S.) instead of the
99-cent tag Apple had insisted on for years, the change won't
necessarily put more money into the pockets of music lovers.
In fact, record companies are the ones that plan to come out
ahead.
While some songs will be 30 cents cheaper, popular songs likely
will be marked up to $1.29. That price breaks a psychological $1
barrier and prepares consumers for a new strategy by labels to
bundle songs, videos and other exclusive content together – all in
the hopes of reversing years of falling music sales.
According to NPD analyst Russ Crupnick, the music industry has
been faced with a vexing question as fans bought more digital
singles but fewer albums: “As the album as we know it goes away, how
do we replace a $12 or $13 item with something that costs more than
99 cents?”
----------------------------------------------------
The Nielsen Co.'s year-end
report is in, and the story for music sales in 2008 involves
doom, gloom and Taylor Swift.
Swift, the 19-year-old
country star who helped ring in the new year with a Dick Clark's
Rockin' Eve performance Wednesday, was 2008's overall
top-selling artist, with 4 million in total sales and two albums in
the all-genre top 10, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
Even with Swift's
commercial heft, the Nashville-based country music industry dropped
with a thud, though not from a terribly high place. Country sales —
which include tallies from albums not played on mainstream country
radio, such as the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss Raising Sand
collaboration — wound up at around 47,650,000. That's down 24
percent from last year's total. And last year's total was the lowest
for country in SoundScan's 19-year history. Only classical music had
a bigger dip, at 26 percent.
Sales of Christian and
Gospel music, much of which is produced in the Nashville area, were
down 12 percent for the year.
Album sales declined 14
percent across every genre, and though growth in overall music
purchases is up 10 percent, that increase relies on digital tracks,
ring tones and other comparatively small purchases.
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