Pew: 69 Percent of Americans Use Cloud Apps

Data Center Knowledge: "Sixty nine percent of online Americans use cloud computing in some form, with the largest participation seen for webmail (56 percent of respondents) and personal photo storage (34 percent). The most interesting finding of the report is that 29 percent of respondents say they use “online applications such as Google Documents or Adobe Photoshop Express.”"

Carriers begin to believe in data revenue, as Android’s puzzle pieces come together

VentureBeat: "US carrier revenues for data totaled $14.8 billion for the first six months of this year. That’s an increase to 20 percent of their total revenue, up from the previous ten percent."

Google Strikes Partnership With NBC to Expand in TV Advertising

NYTimes.com: "Google will begin selling ads on some cable networks owned by NBC Universal in a new partnership that will expand Google’s efforts to become a force in television advertising, the companies said late Monday.

Under the agreement, NBC Universal will make a relatively small amount of advertising time on networks like MSNBC, CNBC, Sci Fi and Oxygen available for sale through Google’s TV Ads program in the coming months, the companies said. The partnership could later be extended to other NBC Universal properties."

Walmart to Roll Out 'Smart Network'

Mediaweek: "Rolling out in time for the holiday season to about 300 stores, the Walmart Smart Network will be powered by Internet Protocol Television, allowing content and advertising to be monitored and controlled down to a single screen. By 2010, Walmart anticipates chain-wide deployment of 27,000 screens by early 2010.

Initially, advertisers (limited to those companies with products in the store), will be required to buy across the entire network of stores. As the network rolls out, advertisers will be able to target more precisely by store, by screen, by day and by time-of-day, as well as change messages daily."

Google's Chrome - It's all about the ads

Advertising Age: "But it's also likely Google was worried about the latest iteration of Microsoft's popular Internet Explorer, which is the clear leader in the browser space with 72.2% penetration, according to Net Applications. (Mozilla's Firefox is second with 19.7%.)

As Ad Age wrote last week, this latest Internet Explorer has the ad world in a tizzy over an option to surf 'in private.' Surfing in this mode is not the default setting but should many consumers choose it so, it could block advertisers from collecting the browsing data they use to help target ads and glean data about what ads were shown when."

Can Google Crack the TV Ad Market?

Adweek: "Desai said Google is in negotiations to gain access to more inventory, saying the company will announce a significant deal in the next few weeks that will greatly expand its reach. Google's pitch: It can allow networks to tap into Google's enormous base of hundreds of thousands of small advertisers, most of whom have never run a TV campaign. As for the cable companies, Google sees an opportunity for them to aggregate demand on niche channels that fall off the radar on their own."

Online to overtake radio in global advertising spend as credit crunch slows UK growth

Press Gazette: "Carat forecast that the internet’s global share of advertising spend will rise to 8.6 per cent in 2008, up from 7.3 per cent in 2007, overtaking radio which is set to drop from 7.5 per cent to 7.4 per cent, behind TV’s forecast share of 41.2 per cent and newspaper and magazine’s combined print share of 36 per cent."

MySpace: We're No Longer a Social Network

Fast Company: "With Facebook surging, cofounders Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson have gone back to their roots -- music, pop culture, and a proven cash-flow ad model -- to spur a next phase of growth."

Yahoo mixes old and new in Internet-age news service

Yahoo! News: "Yahoo is building an Internet-age news service, leveraging its global audience of a half-billion people to win exclusive interviews with world leaders.

Unlike websites that just aggregate news stories plucked from the Internet, Yahoo is cutting content deals with wire services and other 'traditional' outlets as well as investing in a bullpen of its own reporters.

'Yahoo News is a news organization,' director of editorial programming Jessica Barron told AFP in an interview this week.

'We have been doing a lot of original reporting and we are going to be doing a lot more.'"

Report: Mobile Web Advertising Impacts Brand Awareness

Mediaweek: "Advertising on mobile Web sites and applications has the potential to impact brand awareness, at least in these still early days of the nascent medium, according to a new report issued by online ad research firm Dynamic Logic.

The report found that on average, awareness of a particular brand increased by 23.9 percentage points among those who were exposed to a mobile ad campaign compared to those who were not."

Caution - Driver May Be Surfing the Web

NYTimes.com: "Today, Chrysler is poised to offer in its 2009 models a new entertainment option for the children: Wi-Fi and Internet connectivity. The problem is that the entire car becomes a hotspot. The signals won’t be confined to the Nintendos in the rear seat; front-seat occupants will be able to stay online, too."

NBC, like Phelps, in record pursuit at Olympics

Los Angeles Times: "Reached by phone Tuesday in Beijing, Wurtzel, president of television research and media development for NBC Universal, called the Olympics an 'extraordinary research laboratory' for the company to learn how to deliver content on multiple platforms and understand viewer behavior.

Researchers are using a new technique -- what's called Total Audience Measure index (TAMi) in NBC's corporate jargon -- to track viewers' exposure to various platforms. And they plan to apply this to other network programming when the Olympics are over, Wurtzel said.

'Far from being a cannibalizer, the Internet increases both [viewers' engagement] with TV and their use of it,' Wurtzel said."

The AOL flub has analysts revisiting Google

SF Chronicle: "'Other than search, what has Google done right? They have 1,001 products in beta, but what's been successful?' Chowdhry asked."

Some Web Firms Say They Track Behavior Without Explicit Consent

washingtonpost.com: "Several Internet and broadband companies have acknowledged using targeted-advertising technology without explicitly informing customers, according to letters released yesterday by the House Energy and Commerce Committee."

Online Publishers Turning to Video, Marketing Enhancements and Consumer Insights to Offset Ad Network Pricing Impact, Says New IAB/Bain Report

Jack Myers: "The IAB/Bain Digital Pricing Study reports that video advertising is generating costs-per-thousand averaging two-to-three times higher than publishers' average direct display advertising costs and twenty-to-thirty times higher than display advertising sold through ad networks. Average ad network inventory generates CPMs to publishers of $0.60 to $1.10; directly sold display advertising is generating CPMs in the $10 to $20 range; and video advertising is generating costs-per-thousand averaging $40 to $50."

Facebook: No. 1 Globally

BusinessWeek: "Facebook owes its results, in part, to its technology-driven international strategy. Rather than launch local-language versions of Facebook for new markets, complete with a local Facebook bureau, Facebook opted to provide translation tools that let users take the existing site and personalize it in their own tongue."

U.S. Lawmakers Query 33 Companies on Web Advertising

Bloomberg.com: "U.S. lawmakers broadened their investigation of Internet advertising, asking AT&T Inc., Google Inc. and 31 other companies whether they target ads based on consumers' Web surfing habits.

Representative John Dingell of Michigan and three other lawmakers told the companies in a letter today that they are concerned about targeted Web ads' potential impact on consumer privacy."

Music industry ‘should embrace illegal websites’

FT.com: "The music industry should embrace illegal file-sharing websites, according to a study of Radiohead’s last album release that found huge numbers of people downloaded it illegally even though the band allowed fans to pay little or nothing for it.

“Rights-holders should be aware that these non-traditional venues are stubbornly entrenched, incredibly popular and will never go away,” said Eric Garland, co-author of the study, which concluded there was strong brand loyalty to controversial “torrent” and peer-to-peer services."

Google to Extend Reach With Venture-Capital Arm

WSJ.com: "Google Inc. is working on plans to start a venture-capital arm, according to several people briefed on the discussions.

The group will be led by David Drummond, Google's senior vice president of corporate development and chief legal officer, according to two of these people. Google has hired William Maris, a 33-year-old former entrepreneur who has worked as an investor, to help set up the venture. How the group will be structured and what sort of investments it is likely to target remain unclear."

How's 2008? Disaster For Newspapers, Magazines and Radio

MediaPost: "On Wednesday, The New York Times Co. announced another round of dismal second-quarter results, with total ad revenues falling 10.6% compared to the same period in 2007. That contributed to an overall revenue decline of 6%, to $741.9 million.

NYTCO's revenue declines follow similarly dismal second-quarter results from other newspaper publishers like Gannett, where publishing ad revenues fell 13.3% to $1.11 billion, and Media General, with newspaper ad revenues down 17.1%. McClatchy's results--due out Thursday--will not be much better, judging by revenue declines of 14.8% in April and 15.1% in May.

Magazines and radio are not doing quite as badly, but there's no question they are also suffering."