Online Media Links

Android Gaining on Apple, Says Report

2010-06-30T15:40:00.000-07:00

92 countries generated more than 10 million request in May 2010, up from 27 countries in May 2008
Nokia leads in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe
Apple leads in North America, Oceania and Western Europe
In May 2010, smartphones generated 46% of traffic in the AdMob network, up from 22% 2 years ago
24% of May's traffic was via Wi-Fi
Mobile Internet Devices (including the iPad, PSP and iPod Touch) consistently have accounted for 10% of traffic over the past year
57% of Apple devices in AdMob's network are outside the U.S.
Traffic from the Android platform has grown 29% month-over-month since May 2009
iOS and Android users spend 79 minutes per day using apps
iOS and Android users download about 9 apps per month"

Appcelerator's Mobile Developer Survey, June 2010

2010-06-23T13:40:00.000-07:00

Appcelerator: "
- Interest in tablet application development has spiked since Apple's iPad debut in April.
- When stack ranking platform potential, developers give the long-term edge to Google.
- While iOS and Android maintained a high level of interest, second tier platforms lost ground.
- Large organizations are expressing even more interest in mobile than smaller ones.
- Porting applications across platforms is the number one developer pain.
- Multitasking tops the list of iPhone 4 features."

Scapegoating Craigslist Is Not Going to Solve the Problem of Underage Prostitution

2010-06-14T07:48:00.000-07:00

AlterNet: "Speier is not asking for a hearing about the problem of underage sex trafficking. She’s asking Congress to investigate Craigslist, despite the fact that the site has not broken any laws and has made countless changes to address the concerns of law enforcement officials, politicians and human rights activists."

Misreading Tehran: The Twitter Devolution

2010-06-14T07:44:00.000-07:00

Foreign Policy: "But it is time to get Twitter's role in the events in Iran right. Simply put: There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran. As Mehdi Yahyanejad, the manager of 'Balatarin,' one of the Internet's most popular Farsi-language websites, told the Washington Post last June, Twitter's impact inside Iran is nil. 'Here [in the United States], there is lots of buzz,' he said. 'But once you look, you see most of it are Americans tweeting among themselves.'"

It's Official - Apple Kicking Google Out of iWorld

2010-06-09T11:54:00.000-07:00

John Battelle's Searchblog: "Apple this week 'clarified' its policy with regard to third party networks, and it's hard to read it as anything other than a direct declaration of war with Google."

Android Ad Impressions Rise 77 Percent In April, iPhone Sees 8 Percent Drop

2010-05-20T12:45:00.000-07:00

Techcrunch: "Although the Apple OS had a month-over-month decrease of 8% it still remained the leading OS on Millennial’s network in April with 62% share of Smartphone impressions. RIM’s BlackBerry remained the second largest OS on Millennial’s network for the ninth consecutive month with a 3% increase month-over-month and a 17% share of impressions. Android’s took a 10% share of impressions for the month of April."

Apple Solidifies Its Lead Among U.S. Music Accounts, As Mobile Merchants Fade

2010-05-20T12:42:00.000-07:00

Billboard.biz: "Apple's iTunes store, which emerged in 2008 as the top U.S. music account for the first time, widened its lead last year over former market leader Walmart."

Google's Overhauled Search Page Has New Tools, New Look

2010-05-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

Bloomberg: "Microsoft Corp.’s Bing and social media sites Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. have made a case that Google’s search, based on relevance- ranking, is outmoded"

Duke study: TiVo doesn’t hurt TV advertising

2010-05-04T07:57:00.000-07:00

Triangle Business Journal:: "• He says about 95 percent of people still watch television live and, as a result, cannot fast forward through the commercials.

• Even those without a DVR can skip commercials by using the breaks to go to the kitchen or flip to a different channel.

• While viewers fast-forwarded through about 70 percent of the commercials in shows they recorded, they still watch the screen to know where to resume play, meaning they are still being exposed to the advertisements.

• And the ability to record a show and watch it later means consumers are watching more television.

Nielsen: Facebook's Ads Work Pretty Well

2010-04-20T05:40:00.000-07:00

Advertising Age: "The study of more than 800,000 Facebook users and ads from 14 brands in a variety of categories shows a marked increase in ad recall, awareness and purchase intent when home-page ads on the social network mention friends of users who've become fans of the brand in the ad."

Newspaper ad revenue plummets to 1986 level

2010-03-25T08:35:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! News: "The picture is even more grim after adjusting for inflation. The $27 billion in revenue that newspapers received in 1986 would equal nearly $53 billion in today's dollars."

Why Is Every App A Game? The Badgeification Of The Internet

2010-03-22T08:33:00.000-07:00

The Next Web: "What the heck is going on here? It’s actually pretty obvious. Every web company wants to be “sticky.” They want people coming back again, and again, and again. Everyday, if they can finagle it. What is a dead simple way to get people to come back? Make the product into a game."

What Are the Legal Implications of PleaseRobMe?

2010-03-08T16:34:00.000-08:00

MediaShift: "The site aggregates Twitter posts sent when a person uses Foursquare to check in at a location -- meaning they're basically telling the world that they're not at home at the moment.

According to the folks at PleaseRobMe, if a would-be burglar knows you're out with friends, that 'leaves one place you're definitely not...home.'"

Angels vs. Venture Capitalists

2010-03-02T08:10:00.000-08:00

blog.pmarca.com: "In a nutshell, entrepreneurs and the businesses they are starting have evolved. Start ups today don’t need to build a manufacturing plant (as DEC, the very first high-tech VC investment, did in 1957) to start a business. They need less money to build a product and prove that it works before scaling the business. Yet, the paperwork involved in funding entrepreneurs hasn’t changed to meet these needs."

Understanding the participatory news consumer

2010-03-02T06:41:00.000-08:00

Pew Internet & American Life Project: "The internet has surpassed newspapers and radio in popularity as a news platform on a typical day and now ranks just behind TV."

How Google’s Algorithm Rules the Web

2010-02-23T08:10:00.000-08:00

Wired Magazine: "Want to know how Google is about to change your life? Stop by the Ouagadougou conference room on a Thursday morning. It is here, at the Mountain View, California, headquarters of the world’s most powerful Internet company, that a room filled with three dozen engineers, product managers, and executives figure out how to make their search engine even smarter. This year, Google will introduce 550 or so improvements to its fabled algorithm, and each will be determined at a gathering just like this one."

Spotify now makes record labels money

2010-01-22T05:50:00.000-08:00

Telegraph: "Spotify has already taken over iTunes, in terms of revenue levels, in its native Sweden. Per Sundin, head of Universal Music Group in Sweden, told The Swedish Wire last year: “In five months from the launch Spotify became our largest digital source of income and so passed by iTunes.”

The service is expected to make its US debut in the first half of this year."

L.E.K. Consulting's Media Survey Shows 'E-reader Republic' Comprises Hungriest Consumers of New Media

2010-01-21T08:45:00.000-08:00

PRNewswire:
* The 'E-reader Republic' is driving growth in the book and magazine market and has a voracious appetite for new media. While iPod owners consumed about nine hours per week of new media, e-reader owners consumed more than 18 hours a week.
* Consumers are willing to pay cable providers for access to online video content. Up to 38% of consumers reported they would definitely or probably pay a $19 fee on top of their cable bill to gain access to their cable content online and on their mobile phones.
* Consumers are rampantly multi-tasking while online. One out of every three consumers spending time online is simultaneously watching television, and one in five is simultaneously listening to music.
* Internet radio is finally becoming relevant. 32% of respondents used Internet radio services, logging an average of 5.8 hours weekly per user -- eclipsing satellite radio in popularity.
* If they are online, older people (ages 50 to 64) spend significantly more time there than younger people (ages 25 and 39). Online activities among these age groups differ, with older people spending more time e-mailing whereas younger people spend a higher percentage of their online time on social networking sites."

Google Is to Introduce Nexus One, a Rival to the iPhone

2010-01-05T07:21:00.000-08:00

NYTimes.com: "In recent decades, the power of industry giants like I.B.M. and Microsoft, which once seemed unassailable, waned as computing shifted from big mainframes to PCs, and from PCs to the Internet. Many analysts say it is now Google that is faced with a less certain future in the face of another shift."

New Survey Shows Android OS Roiling the Smart Phone Market

2010-01-04T16:23:00.000-08:00

Change Wave Research: "21% of those planning to buy a smart phone in the next 90 days say they'd prefer to have the Android OS on their new phone – a monstrous 15-pt jump in just three months."

How Alike Are Android and iPhone Users?

2009-12-28T10:03:00.000-08:00

eMarketer: "Usage patterns for Android and iPhone owners were very similar, and tended to differ from those of other smartphone users as well as from those of feature phone owners. There was a notable gap in e-mail usage, with Android users far behind iPhone owners, but mobile media consumption and browser and app usage tracked very closely."

NYC Lost Nearly 60,000 Jobs In Communications

2009-11-19T05:34:00.000-08:00

wcbstv.com: "The report says San Francisco lost a third of its information industry jobs. Phoenix, Atlanta and Dallas lost more than one quarter."

Cashing In on Interactive TV Advertising

2009-11-16T16:43:00.000-08:00

WSJ.com: "As Comcast gets close to a deal for control of General Electric's NBC Universal, the big cable operator and Madison Avenue think the merger could lead to some major changes in the $65 billion U.S. television advertising market."

Trouble At Twitter: U.S. Visitors Down 8 Percent In October

2009-11-16T10:16:00.000-08:00

TechCrunch: "Twitter is obviously committed to making its service better on its own Website (these numbers do not measure usage on mobile or desktop clients, which is easily half of all Twitter usage). But while it fiddles, rival Facebook keeps moving further and further ahead."

Interview with Ken Auletta, author of Googled - the end of the world as we know it

2009-11-12T07:33:00.000-08:00

I Want Media: "Google is not composed of cold businessmen; they are cold engineers. The difference is that Google is not obsessed with killing competitors; they're obsessed with eliminating inefficiencies. They're not trying to harm the New York Times with Google News or NBC with YouTube. In some ways, they help them. A reason NBC's 'Saturday Night Live' is reaching a younger audience is because it winks as YouTube downloads its skits.

But Google and the Internet do disrupt traditional media business models. More than a few traditional media executives fervently believe Google aims to conquer the world. By obsessing about Google's 'evil' intentions they spend too much time playing defense and not enough time figuring out their own digital offense."

Is Facebook a Paradise for Scammers?

2009-11-12T07:17:00.000-08:00

Newsweek.com: "This week, Silicon Valley blogger Michael Arrington caused a ruckus by suggesting that Facebook itself has been turning a blind eye to the scams because it is sharing in the spoils. Arrington, who runs the influential TechCrunch blog, is on a crusade to pressure Facebook to clean up its act.

“Ultimately this is Facebook’s fault,” Arrington says. He says the social-networking site isn’t enforcing its own rules against scam ads. “It’s like with Major League Baseball and steroids. If the rules aren’t enforced, which is what’s happening on Facebook, then people are going to break the rules. Facebook needs to stop this.”"

Google Declares War on Facebook

2009-11-06T09:13:00.000-08:00

The Daily Beast: "Google announced this week that it is putting a few new bells and whistles on its Friend Connect software. Users visiting sites that have the application installed will be able to fill out little profiles of themselves and see the profiles of others who have been there. Presumably, regular visitors of the same sites will seek each other out based on shared opinions and preferences. And make friends. Think of it as Facebook functionality without the Facebook."

Study: Internet use leads to more diverse networks

2009-11-06T09:11:00.000-08:00

Yahoo! Tech: "Online activities such as e-mail, blogging and frequenting Internet hangouts can even lead to larger, more diverse social networks, according to the study released Wednesday by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The study refutes research earlier in the decade suggesting that people's growing embrace of technology has come at the expense of close human connections.

'Social isolation has not changed that much since 1985,' said Keith Hampton, the main author of the study professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg School for Communication. This means that very few adults — 6 percent of the population — say they have no one to talk to about important matters in their lives."

As Facebook Ages, Gen Y Turns to Twitter

2009-11-06T05:30:00.000-08:00

ReadWriteWeb: "Over the course of the year, there have been countless reports - some more substantial than others - but all with the same message: Generation Y is just not interested in Twitter. The reports generally cited members of this demographic as saying Twitter was 'pointless' and 'narcissistic.'

Apparently, that's beginning to change. Well, maybe not their perception of Twitter, but certainly their use of it. Today, Twitter is now the second-youngest of the top four social networking sites. Its median age is 31. MySpace's is 26, LinkedIn is 39, and, as noted above, Facebook is 33."

Google Accounts for 6% of All Internet Traffic

2009-10-14T14:14:00.000-07:00

NYTimes.com: "Now, instead of traffic being distributed among tens of thousands of networks, only 150 networks control some 50% of all online traffic. Among these new Internet superpowers, it's no surprise to find Google listed. In fact, the search giant accounts for the largest source (6%) of all Internet traffic worldwide."

The PC is becoming the new TV, survey shows

2009-09-09T08:48:00.000-07:00

latimes.com: "A survey by the nonprofit Conference Board released Tuesday showed that nearly a quarter of households in the U.S. now view television programs online. That's up from 20% last year."

Social networking sites grab big slice of Web ads

2009-09-02T06:39:00.000-07:00

Reuters: "The study by comScore, released on Tuesday, said social media sites represented 21.1 percent of U.S. Internet display ads in July, with MySpace and Facebook accounting for more than 80 percent of those ads."

Facebook Sets Sights On Online Payments Business

2009-09-01T12:52:00.000-07:00

SmartMoney.com: "This month, the company revealed it is testing a system for users to buy physical merchandise, like real roses, through Facebook's payment platform. It also launched a test to let some users buy Facebook Credits by billing their mobile phones."

Media multitasking doesn't work say researchers

2009-08-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

Reuters: Multitaskers of media activities like watching YouTube, writing e-mail and talking on the phone are not very good at any of their tasks, according to a Stanford University report on Monday.

"Heavy multitaskers are lousy at multitasking... The more you do it, the worse you get," said Stanford communications professor Clifford Nass.

Addicted to the Internet? $14,500, please, at first US rehab

2009-08-26T09:16:00.000-07:00

Ars Technica: "A rehab center has opened in Washington state that aims to treat Internet Addiction Disorder with counseling, psychiatric help, and other activities geared toward getting patients back on track with normal life. If you believe in the disorder, then this is a great first step—but not everyone does."

Milestone: Local online tops traditional

2009-08-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

Inside Radio / M Street Publications: "For the first time, digital media use exceeds that of radio, newspaper, television and other traditional media among small and medium-sized businesses. BIA/Kelsey’s Local Commerce Monitor study shows 77% of local businesses are doing some form of digital marketing. At the same time, traditional media usage slips to 69%."

Study shows there is not a lot of news on Twitter

2009-08-14T07:47:00.000-07:00

San Antonio Business Journal: "After randomly sampling a public timeline of tweets — 140 character comments on Twitter — for 10 days, Pearanalytics found that 40.5 percent of the updates fell in the “pointless babble” category. An example: “I am eating a sandwich now.”

Other findings:

• 37.5 percent of the comments were conversational — a back-and-forth discussion on a topic

• 8.7 percent had pass-along value — tweets that were re-broadcast or re-tweeted

• 5.8 percent were self promotional

• 3.75 percent were spam — the equivalent of junk mail

• 3.6 percent were news"

Read the original research report

Media buyers: Twitter is for, well, twits

2009-08-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

Media Life Magazine: "Twitter earns a big thumbs down from more than half of the media planners and buyers who responded to a recent Media Life survey on new media advertising and the areas of promising growth.

Asked to finish the statement: 'Twitter is,' 52 percent agreed with this statement: 'For twits. I predict we'll look back on this silly craze as the Friendster of 2009. It holds little promise for advertisers (or anyone else).'"

Celeb Endorsements Come to Twitter

2009-08-06T10:51:00.000-07:00

ClickZ: "Izea launched Sponsored Tweets this week to connect popular tweeters with advertisers -- who, in turn, pay tweeters to tweet. And reaction is mixed. Some experts say this is a natural progression of Twitter and that paid tweets are no different than any celebrity using their clout to endorse a brand. Others go so far as to say paid tweets are the end of Twitter as we know it."

Social sites losing popularity with young

2009-08-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

FT.com: "The proportion of British 15- to 24-year-olds with a profile on a social networking site such as Facebook or MySpace fell for the first time last year from 55 per cent to 50 per cent"

Microsoft, Yahoo to Take on Google With Search Deal

2009-07-29T05:25:00.000-07:00

Advertising Age: "Through the pact, Bing will become the default search engine on Yahoo, creating a search player with close to 30% market share of search queries, compared with Google's 65%, according to ComScore data.

One of the most interesting wrinkles involves who takes ownership of search sales: Yahoo is likely to take on exclusive representation of Bing inventory to eliminate channel conflict and complexity for advertisers, but not before both sides unwind the thousands of advertiser relationships and proprietary systems through which many large advertisers buy search ads. Microsoft's AdCenter is expected to be the sales-technology platform."

Best Buy/TiVo Partner To Push Home Entertainment

2009-07-09T10:13:00.000-07:00

MediaPost: "Part of the new agreement will have the two companies developing a new cable set-top box, sold in Best Buy stores, that allows the retailer to deliver its own advertising message to TiVo subscribers."

Mainstream media failing to make news understandable to public, says new report

2009-07-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

Journalism.co.uk: "We were struck by the confidence that people expressed in the internet generally and Google specifically as the most trusted resource of explanation and analysis"

Pew Center illustrates how Craigslist is killing newspapers

2009-05-22T13:32:00.000-07:00

CNET: "Not that this is big news but the Pew Center helps to illustrate just how devastating online classifieds has been on newspapers. A graph of newspaper classified ad revenue since 1980 to last year ... shows that the industry saw a high in 2000 with about $19.6 billion. Last year, newspapers recorded $9.9 billion."

Hulu's tug of war with TV

2009-05-11T08:09:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles Times: "But in making a bid for the next generation of Internet- attuned viewers, Hulu's owners have strained their lucrative relationships with cable and satellite operators. Companies like Time Warner Cable Inc. and DirecTV Group Inc. pay cable networks billions of dollars each year to carry programming. Believing that they should have exclusivity because their payments support the enormous cost of producing TV shows, such companies have been pushing back against the Hulu freebies."

How the next internet revolution will save your favourite TV shows, newspapers and magazines

2009-05-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

Times Online

Brand Mentions Preferred over Ads

2009-04-21T06:21:00.000-07:00

eMarketer: "Compared with banner ads, pop-up ads, e-mail offers and sponsored links, articles that include brand information were most likely to lead US Internet users to read—and act."

Bloggers: America's Newest Profession

2009-04-21T00:26:00.000-07:00

WSJ.com: "In America today, there are almost as many people making their living as bloggers as there are lawyers. Already more Americans are making their primary income from posting their opinions than Americans working as computer programmers, firefighters or even bartenders."

Techmeme founder: WSJ, NYT are aggregators

2009-04-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

CNET: "'All successful Web publishers want their content quoted and linked,' Rivera wrote in an e-mail to CNET News.com. 'The benefits are clear. Some prefer that the quotes remain short...these are precisely the kind that Google and Techmeme use. So for AP and News Corp. to discourage quoting is a clue that they don't really get the Web and are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot.'"

Wireless Connectivity Has Drawn Many Users More Deeply into Digital Life

2009-03-26T17:09:00.000-07:00

Pew: "Not everyone has the wherewithal to engage with 'always present' connectivity and, while some may love it, others may only dip their toes in the wireless water and not go deeper."

Social Media Outlay Still Small

2009-03-17T08:54:00.000-07:00

AdWeek: "Social media had yet to prove its impact, using accepted measurement standards, in moving customers through the marketing funnel, Forrester said. That lack of proven impact has relegated efforts to the sidelines: 45 percent of respondents said their social media budgets are determined on an 'as-needed' basis."

Mobile Internet Becoming A Daily Activity For Many

2009-03-16T20:50:00.000-07:00

comScore: "the number of people using their mobile device to access news and information on the Internet more than doubled from January 2008 to January 2009. Among the audience of 63.2 million people who accessed news and information on their mobile devices in January 2009, 22.4 million (35 percent) did so daily; more than double the size of the audience last year."

Where to From Twitter

2009-03-13T05:43:00.000-07:00

Hitwise: "It appears that Twitter is being used as a social network and means of distributing content. 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. Twitter's clickstream differs markedly from search engines in that relatively little traffic goes to retail websites and Education (i.e. Wikipedia). It is also different from Email in that less traffic goes to Dating websites and again, to retail and Business and Finance websites."

Web Portals, Social Networks Lose Share in Ad-Spending Study

2009-03-10T04:34:00.000-07:00

Advertising Age: "The question becomes how a brand can have a presence within social environments -- and that doesn't always include paid media."

Social networks more popular than email

2009-03-10T04:09:00.000-07:00

USATODAY.com: "penetration for social networks and blogs was highest in Brazil where 80% of the online audience visited such sites. That compares to 75% for runner-up Spain and 67% for the USA. As the most popular social network globally, Facebook is visited monthly by three in 10 people across the markets in the report."

Down with Facebook!

2009-03-08T21:43:00.000-07:00

Weekly Standard: "Last week, my wife logged onto Facebook, took it in for about three minutes, shook her head, snapped her laptop shut, and sighed.

'What's wrong?' I asked.

'I don't know, it's not the same,' Alana said. 'I was into it at first. But then I realized, there's no longer any wonder, any intrigue. Everything's out there, on display. For years, you wondered, 'Whatever happened to so-and-so?' And now you know. All questions get answered. There's no more mystery.'"

Report: iPhone takes 2/3 of mobile Web in February

2009-03-02T17:38:00.000-08:00

Ars Technica: "According to Net Applications' most recent survey of the mobile browser market, the iPhone OS commands nearly 67 of mobile browsing worldwide. Its closest competitors have yet to break double digits, with Java ME (which collectively represents the stripped-down browsers on most regular phones) leading the pack at 9 percent, Windows Mobile in second place at 6.91 percent, and Symbian and Android following closely with a tie for third at 6.15 percent. The mysterious 'Other' category accounts for 2.75 percent. What is perhaps most interesting about February's mobile OS market share numbers, however, is that the iPhone seems to have lost a little ground to the competition."

Niche Web Sites Buck Media Struggles

2009-03-02T08:08:00.000-08:00

WSJ.com: "Several start-up Web sites such as SB Nation, Seeking Alpha Ltd. and HealthCentral Network Inc., which create and aggregate content about topics like sports, business and health, are recording sharp gains in visitors and -- in many cases -- revenue. They are outpacing other sites on similar topics through business models that allow them to create niche content with little financial investment. Many also are landing distribution partnerships with big media brands eager for cheap content during the recession."

The New York Times Battles a Googler for New Jersey

2009-03-02T08:03:00.000-08:00

Valleywag: "Why is the Gray Lady building websites for the obscure suburbs of South Orange, Maplewood, and Milburn? Perhaps because those are the exact same towns Google executive Tim Armstrong picked for Patch, his local-news startup."

Hearst to Begin Charging for Digital News

2009-03-02T08:02:00.000-08:00

WSJ.com: "A top executive at Hearst, which publishes 16 newspapers including the Houston Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said the company is mulling how much of its online offerings to keep free, while reserving some content exclusively for people who pay."

Technophiles are abstaining from Facebook for Lent

2009-03-02T07:58:00.000-08:00

NJ.com: "Religious leaders and scholars across the country are encouraging the faithful to unplug from Facebook, MySpace and other sites in a virtual Lenten fast."

Why the Japanese Hate the iPhone

2009-02-27T03:28:00.000-08:00

Wired.com: "Besides cultural opposition, Japanese citizens possess high, complex standards when it comes to cellphones. The country is famous for being ahead of its time when it comes to technology, and the iPhone just doesn't cut it."

Online networking 'harms health'

2009-02-19T08:22:00.000-08:00

BBC: "Social networking sites should allow us to embellish our social lives, but what we find is very different. The tail is wagging the dog. These are not tools that enhance, they are tools that displace."

The Database of Intentions is More Valuable than the Database of Musings For Now (Google and Twitter)

2009-02-17T08:31:00.000-08:00

Charles Hudson: "whoever beats Google won’t do it by beating them in web search - it will have to be something different and non-obvious to Google as the incumbent"

Make Online Ads Accountable

2009-02-17T08:13:00.000-08:00

BusinessWeek: "You might conclude we're measuring online advertising in a perverse way. Yes, the Web is effective for brand building, but in dwelling relentlessly on display advertising and CPM pricing, we're losing focus on the Internet's real power as a medium for direct marketing and eliciting a response."

The future of newspapers: "Google devalues everything it touches"

2009-02-14T08:51:00.000-08:00

Poynter Online: "Google devalues everything it touches. Google is great for Google, but it's terrible for content providers, because it divides that content quantitatively rather than qualitatively."

Pew: Twitter and status updating used by 11% of Americans

2009-02-13T07:01:00.000-08:00

Pew: "As of December 2008, 11% of online American adults said they used a service like Twitter or another service that allowed them to share updates about themselves or to see the updates of others."

Blogging Hits Crossroads: A-Listers Giving Up

2009-02-11T05:39:00.000-08:00

WebProNews: "Like it or not, the corporation is going to have to enter the blogosphere, and by irony, will ruin it in order to save it. Luckily, unlike the past, there will be wider avenues via user-generated media for quality content producers, so long as they have the passion and will to walk those avenues. Besides, writers write, bloggers blog, regardless."

Bigger than TV, bigger than the internet: Understand mobile of 4 billion users

2009-02-06T05:30:00.000-08:00

Communities Dominate Brands: "Newspapers? the total circulation of all daily newspapers worldwide is about 480 milllion. Cars? There are about 800 million cars on the planet. Cable and satellite TV subscriptions? About 850 million. Personal computers including desktops, laptops and netbooks, about 1 billion. Fixed landline telephone connections, about 1.2 billion. eMail users about 1.3 billion. Internet users about 1.4 billion. Television sets about 1.5 billion. And credit cards? About 1.7 billion people carry at least one credit card in their wallet.

But there are 4 billion mobile phone subscriptions now in January 2009. More than twice the number of credit card owners, 2.5 times the number of TV sets or internet uses, approx 3 times the number of email users of total landline phones and yes, four times the number of personal computers. This is a monster sized industry, totally towering over all others."

Android: Being ported beyond smartphones

2009-02-05T10:11:00.000-08:00

BusinessWeek: "In late 2009, Touch Revolution plans to introduce a remote control and a touchscreen land-line home phone that will be powered by Android. Also in the works from Hamblin's company: touchscreen menus for restaurants, Android-based medical devices, and a 15-in. kitchen computer where family members can leave messages for one another."

Google TV to Start Selling NBC Universal Inventory

2009-01-28T13:18:00.000-08:00

Advertising Age: "if Google can sell the inventory more effectively and cost-efficiently than the current sales force efforts, we believe that it could set an important precedent that other cable networks may follow"

Old media will never be as profitable again, warns WPP's Sorrell

2009-01-22T08:24:00.000-08:00

Brand Republic: 'The painful thing for old media is it will never be the same again,' Sorrell said. 'It will never be as profitable as it has been.'

...

He said the seeds of the problem were sown when the people who created the new-media industry in the early Nineties, decided to give it away for free."

YouTube Will Soon Let Big Content Partners Bring Their Own Ads

2009-01-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

TechCrunch: "The ability to sell their own ads on YouTube is a big deal for larger media companies, especially those which are already selling Web video ads across their own sites. Media companies with lots of video tend to have large advertising sales teams that are typically able to command better ad rates than what YouTube can get. The prospect of selling ads against all of their videos on YouTube at those higher ad rates has them salivating, even if they have to share the spoils with YouTube."

Twitter to integrate search

2009-01-22T08:14:00.000-08:00

Times Online: "Biz Stone, one of Twitter's co-founders, told The Times: 'Search integration is a way of introducing relevancy to people. This is not just about 'What are you doing?' but about what everyone else is doing. Twitter is about finding out what is going on out there right now in real time. This is a powerful new way of repositioning the product.'

Within the next 10 days, Twitter will start putting search into the Twitter home pages of about 1 per cent of users, to test the waters and ask for feedback, before rolling it out across the network, Mr Stone said."

Free Newspaper Venture Depends on Local Blogs

2009-01-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

NYTimes.com: "The Printed Blog, a Chicago start-up, plans to reprint blog posts on regular paper, surrounded by local ads, and distribute the publications free in big cities."

Web 2.0, Revenue Models and Profitability

2009-01-12T07:07:00.000-08:00

The Drama 2.0 Show: "The most popular Web 2.0 creations have not been cheap to grow and operate. They’re still struggling to find revenue models that will serve as the foundations of self-sustaining businesses and even those startups that generate significant revenue in absolute terms (namely Facebook) cannot justify the valuations they’ve been given. And profitability is still largely a pipe dream."

Social networks must focus on monetisation, says Deloitte - NMA

2009-01-07T13:48:00.000-08:00

New Media Age: "Deloitte claimed social networks need at least 100 users to generate the same revenue as one user on traditional media. It also pointed to large operating costs of social sites, particularly those with video streaming."

Advertisers Face Hurdles on Social Networking Sites

2008-12-13T22:59:00.000-08:00

NYTimes.com: "FOR some time, Procter & Gamble, the world’s largest advertiser, has been dipping its big toes into the vast pool of Facebook, now the world’s largest social network. I recently knocked on the doors of both companies to hear how the experiment was going. Neither was inclined to say much.

Independent experts on Web advertising have been watching, however, and what they see is a myriad of difficulties in making brand advertising work on social networking sites. Members of social networks want to spend time with friends, not brands."

Understanding HP Lab’s Twitter Research

2008-12-08T09:22:00.000-08:00

Jeremiah Owyang: Key findings from Twitter research conducted by HP's Labs group:

Most users have a smaller inner circle they communicate with: Within a social network, it was found that most only frequently communicate with a small segment of users –even if one has a large community. Makes sense, everyone has an ‘inner circle’. Finding the true network that an individual has (even if they have thousands of “friends”) is what’s really important. Although Scoble solicits imput from thousands of contacts, he leans on a smaller subset of folks to trust above all others.

HP Labs Sample Size is @ 6% of the Twittersphere: HP Labs took a random sample set of Twitter users, for a base of number of 309,740 users. According to my social network stats tracking page, Twitter’s total universe is somewhere between 4-5 million (still very small). I’ll value the network on the 5 mil side, so that’s sample size of about 6%, which is pretty healthy.

On average, most had 85 followers: They found that the average user has 85 followers in their network, this number seems reasonable when averaged out across the network.

On average, most had 80 friends: Most users followed back 80 others, which is close to the actual follower number. Perhaps some weren’t following spam bots, or people that follow everyone. James Governor has been discussing asymmetrical networks, but it appears that on the average, most are symmetrical.

About One Tweet a Day is Average Frequency: On average, these users had posted 255 tweets, and since the average users has been around for nearly 7 months, thats about 36 tweets per month, or about one a day.

68%: are active users Social networking stats are almost always flawed, as the vendors don’t disclose how many are truly active. I define active user base as logged in and completed an activity in the last 30 days. Among the 309,740 users only 211,024 posted. It’s unknown if this filtered out spam tweets, although nearly 2/3rds of users have returned (site stickyness. That’s a pretty good return to site rate.

Most members have been on twitter nearly 7 months: The research showed that the average person (from first to last post) was active for 206 days. This means that June 2008 (report written in Dec) has become somewhat of a trigger point, perhaps where a growth curve started to point upwards. I noticed an influx of users on April 2008, two months before HPs findings, see comment #579

A quarter of tweets (@) are directed at other users: The report showed that Around 25.4% of all posts are directed, by using the “@user” which is responding to others. This could suggest that the other 75% of tweets are updating their network of what users think is interesting or discussing ‘what they are doing’

The more followers, the more they tweet –up until a point: Figure 1 indicates frequently in posting the more followers they have, right up until about 500 followers where the frequency starts to level out (if the graph were smoothed). The data around number of friends suggests a similar graph, although there’s no saturation point (see figure 2). I’ll suggest the more connections a user has, the more value they have, and therefore are more active.

Despite having large networks, a smaller circle is maintained: For users with a high number of followers, they actually only still communicate with a smaller subset of users. This rule remains constant see figure 4.

Where’s the value? within the hidden network: To find out the real value of a twitter user and their network, finding out their true network of folks they communicate with on a regular basis will show their trusted network. Finding out who the Scobles’ communicate with the most will determine will help find out how he is influenced.

Google: Could They Have Two Down Rev Years Ahead?

2008-12-02T09:30:00.000-08:00

Barron’s: "“Our research indicates that the challenging macro-economic conditions continue to worsen Google’s advertising driven consumer Internet business,” he writes. Chowdhry asserts that “contacts” say the number of keywords sold is down 2%-5%, and that bids on many keywords are down 20%. While Google is benefiting from the shift of ads from offline to online, he says that “the shift is not sufficient to overcome the downward macro-economic pressures.”"

Retooled Wall Street Journal site packing them in

2008-12-02T09:29:00.000-08:00

Newspapers & Technology: "Not only does the site, which debuted Sept. 16, deliver more content, it's offering its distinctive mix of news and information to both subscribers and non-subscribers alike. That's a radical departure from the old WSJ.com, which restricted the majority of its content behind a paid wall."

Twitter turns serious with messages of life and death

2008-12-01T07:40:00.000-08:00

FT.com: "Twitter , a text-based micro-blogging service better known for people alerting each other about what they are having for lunch in 140 characters or fewer, has become the central channel for eyewitness accounts and news updates on the events in India.

The service has been flooded with thousands of posts or 'tweets', some from people trapped in the hotels where the attacks were taking place. There are also calls for blood donors to go to specific hospitals, unconfirmed death counts and search pleas for the missing."

Social Networking Traffic Up as Advertising Falls Flat

2008-11-25T19:38:00.000-08:00

Mediaweek: "More than half the country actively uses social networking sites, but so far advertising on these properties is nothing short of anemic, says a new report issued by market research firm IDC."

Mediapost interview with John Battelle

2008-11-06T09:02:00.000-08:00

MediaPost: "It's not that ad networks are a problem, it's that they are only a small part of the solution. DR-driven ad networks play an important part in the digital media ecosystem. But they have discouraged advertisers from focusing on the real issue facing the online world--that of brand engagement in digital media."

FCC Approves Google-Backed Plan to Free TV Airwaves

2008-11-05T09:03:00.000-08:00

Bloomberg.com: "U.S. regulators agreed to free up unused television airwaves for wireless Internet access, handing a victory to Google Inc. and rejecting claims by broadcasters that the plan would disrupt TV signals."

Web Surfers May Be the New Couch Potatoes, Nielsen Study Finds

2008-11-03T14:26:00.000-08:00

Bloomberg.com: "Turns out couch potatoes and Web surfers have a lot in common, besides being glued to their seats"

Study: When it comes to influence, bloggers beat friend lists

2008-10-28T08:18:00.000-07:00

CNET News: "Facebook likes to trumpet the value of 'trusted referrals'--recommendations and ads with the endorsements of members of your friends list. But a new study from Jupiter Research, commissioned by analytics company BuzzLogic, says that consumer purchases are more likely to be influenced by what they read on a blog versus what their social-networking rosters recommend."

Shakeout Threatens to Thin Out Web-Ad Brokers

2008-10-28T08:17:00.000-07:00

WSJ.com: "More than 300 online-ad networks have cropped up over the past couple of years, making the business of brokering ads on the Web one of the most popular -- and crowded -- niches on the Internet.

But with the nation's economic woes deepening, there are signs of a shakeout as growth in online spending starts to slow and venture-capital funding begins to dry up."

YouTube tosses 10-minute limit to show full TV episodes

2008-10-27T09:16:00.000-07:00

USATODAY.com: "Forrester Research analyst James McQuivey says advertisers have been reluctant to spend big dollars on YouTube. Instead they prefer the more targeted ad approach on sites such as Hulu and ABC.com, where people come to watch specific shows.

'If you're an advertiser, where will you put your money?' he says. 'In front of content you're not sure about, or behind a series like 30 Rock, a known brand?'"

Study: Huge Potential SEM Spend Untapped

2008-10-15T08:55:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Land: "A new JupiterResearch, Marin Software-sponsored study has found some surprising things about large-search marketers and their SEM spending: more than 90 percent would spend as much as 22 percent more — if they had better tools and technology to manage complex campaigns. That potentially represents hundreds of millions — even billions — of dollars that are untapped by the industry because technology isn’t keeping pace with the needs and demands of the industry’s larger marketers."

Interview with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey

2008-10-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

I Want Media: The CEO of the hit microblogging service aims to take Twitter mainstream -- and find a business model. But Twitter won't ever replace blogs or newspapers, he says. "We will always need a medium that carries more words. ... Twitter is very good at immediacy."

Making Social Networks Profitable

2008-09-29T08:13:00.000-07:00

BusinessWeek: "Google is applying the same approach to social networks it has used to dominate the online search business. If this works, it may finally make ads on social networks relevant—and profitable."

NBC and News Corp.'s Hulu Is Off to a Strong Start

2008-09-29T08:11:00.000-07:00

BusinessWeek: "Hulu users on average spent 256 minutes in August watching videos, up from 169 minutes in July. That was the longest time spent among all Web brands, according to Nielsen."

Technorati CEO on the state of the blogosphere

2008-09-29T08:07:00.000-07:00

iMediaConnection.com: "What I found most interesting was the level of sophistication and professionalism. The average blogger has been at this for three years, and more than half have more than one blog. Bloggers are making serious investments both in terms of time and money, even more so with bloggers who have advertising on their sites. They're also incredibly advanced in their use of Web 2.0 tools and traffic generation, and this last fact has big implications for marketers who advertise with bloggers, as these authors are all about information and influence. They're everywhere in the social media space, always linking back to their blogs as part of their identity."

TNS Media Intelligence Reports U.S. Advertising Expenditures Declined 1.6 Percent in First Half 2008

2008-09-24T12:37:00.000-07:00

TNS: "Ad spending during the second quarter of 2008 was off 3.7 percent versus last year, the steepest quarterly drop since 2001."

Google CEO won't delay Yahoo deal any further

2008-09-22T08:46:00.000-07:00

Yahoo! News: "After voluntarily delaying the start of the Yahoo deal three months ago to give antitrust regulators time to review the potential impact, CEO Eric Schmidt said he isn't willing to wait very much beyond an Oct. 11 deadline spelled out in the companies' contract.

'Time is money in our business,' Schmidt told reporters."

Rallying Cry for Display Ads

2008-09-22T08:44:00.000-07:00

WSJ.com: "But some ad-technology and Web-measurement companies are trying to engineer a comeback for display ads, offering data that they say show display advertising is more effective than marketers think. Microsoft is the latest company to make this declaration, with new evidence coming next week that it says proves display ads are actually better than searches at triggering consumers."

Hulu viewers choose their own ads

2008-09-22T08:41:00.000-07:00

Wired: "Hulu viewers now get a choice of ads that they will be shown before viewing video content. Though the choice is limited — all ads are from the same brand — viewers can choose if they'd like to see a Nissan ad for a mini-van, SUV, or compact car or choose between a spot for Coke, Diet Coke, or Sprite. Viewers on Hulu.com can also choose their formatting. Many videos ask if the user would rather watch one pre-roll ad or a fewer, shorter ads within the programming.

These options let advertisers know exactly how their spots and formats are performing, which is in line with Hulu's efforts to 'create a service that users, advertisers, and content owners unabashedly love.'"

Google's U.S. share of Web search reaches 63 percent

2008-09-22T08:40:00.000-07:00

Reuters: "Yahoo Inc, the No. 2 player in the U.S. Web search market saw its share of the business drop 0.9 percent to 19.6 from July while Microsoft, the No. 3 U.S. player, slipped 0.6 percent to 8.3 percent, according to comScore Inc.

IAC InterActiveCorp's Ask.com grew 0.3 percent to retain its fourth-place ranking while Time Warner Inc's AOL edged up 0.1 percent to 4.3 percent, according to August monthly data published by the market research firm said."

MySpace Music hears the antitrust song

2008-09-22T08:39:00.001-07:00

The Register: "Special Report News Corporation and the major record labels are facing antitrust questions about the blockbuster MySpace Music venture - even before the site has launched.

MySpace Music is billed as the biggest music retail launch of the year. It's a one-stop shop backed by the cross-media muscle of Rupert Murdoch's media empire, with the three biggest record labels. The site promises to offer everything from downloads to ringtones to concert tickets, backed by the 'street' cred of the MySpace brand, and a blockbuster launch is expected this week. Astronomical valuations - $2bn - have already been placed on the service, which MySpace insiders want to become the 'internet's MTV'.

The problem? Not everyone can play. Independents say they're being frozen out of the new venture. No independent music company has inked a deal with the News Corp, and independent labels report that they've been blocked from uploading their music. And since MySpace Music is a joint equity venture between News Corp and the three biggest labels, which control 70 per cent of the US recorded music business, the trouble might only be starting."