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."

Vast changes at the New York Times

Advertising Age: "How fast, and how treacherous, are the currents sweeping over The New York Times? This September, its home page -- some of the most valuable real estate on the web -- will start automatically displaying links to competitors' takes on big news. That's not your traditional paper of record"

Total Newspaper Readership Grows

MediaPost: "For all the gloom in the newspaper industry, total readership--including Web site visitors--is increasing, according to Mediamark Research and Intelligence, which found a 2.1% increase in audience size to 80.6 million between spring 2007 and spring 2008."

High Wattage at Sun Valley, but No Deals - New York Times

New York Times: "There are a few givens at Allen & Company’s rarefied annual summit for media moguls in Sun Valley, Idaho. Titans arrive in a conga line of private jets, attend some gold-plated panels followed by cocktails, and occasionally head out to the paths of the Sun Valley Resort for a little speed-dating. The guest list is always incandescent — hey, there’s Bill Gates! Tony Blair! Rupert Murdoch! — and the air is thick with rumors of deals."

Last.fm Pays Royalties To Indy Bands

MediaPost: "Last.fm is officially launching an unusual new Artist Royalty Program that will pay royalties to unsigned or independent musicians and bands."

Google Push to Sell Ads On YouTube (and Elsewhere) Hits Snags

WSJ.com: "Mr. Armstrong says it will take Google another five or 10 years to realize its advertising vision. He says advertisers are getting on board, but he acknowledges that the company's main rivals have adopted similar approaches. 'The next five years of the Internet is about execution,' he says."

Poll: Social Network Ads 'All Equally Horrible'

MediaPost: "Readers are asked in the online poll to indicate which social networks had the best ads among Bebo, Friendster, Facebook, hi5, LinkedIn, MySpace, 'Other,' and 'They're All Equally Horrible.' Based on more than 700 responses as of Tuesday afternoon, 'Equally Horrible' was in the lead with 256 votes to Facebook's 214."

Google to Offer a Tool To Measure Web Hits

WSJ.com: "Google's approach, aimed at bolstering its ad-sales business, could pose a major threat to the Web measurement services that are available now, ad executives say. The two main players in the business -- comScore and Nielsen Online -- gather data on Internet use largely by tracking what panels of people do online or by conducting surveys, and their results can be inconsistent and incomplete."

Symbian, iPhone & the New Mobile Reality

GigaOM: "Nokia, already a stakeholder in mobile OS maker Symbian, has announced that it will buy the remainder of the company and throw all the assets into a new platform called the Symbian Foundation, which will unite all the flavors of Symbian into a single, common software platform that will go open source in two years. Major mobile players such as Motorola, NTT DoCoMo, AT&T, LG Electronics, Samsung Electronics, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Vodafone have all signed on."

Q1 ad spending: print flat, internet way up

WWD.com: "And while print was relatively flat, the Internet was way up: Internet advertising impressions rose 14.7 percent in the first quarter, driven by sponsored search, Nielsen said."

Blogger arrests hit record high

BBC: "More bloggers than ever face arrest for exposing human rights abuses or criticising governments, says a report.

More than half of all the arrests since 2003 have been made in China, Egypt and Iran, said the report."

Web Do-Over: ABC Gives TV Advertisers Makegoods--Online

MediaPost: "Broadcast networks are starting to experiment in giving makegood inventory in digital streaming episodes in lieu of traditional TV commercial time."

Study: Americans use Net to look beyond sound bite

Yahoo! News: "the Pew Internet and American Life Project said that nearly 30 percent of adults have used the Internet to read or watch unfiltered campaign material — footage of debates, position papers, announcements and transcripts of speeches.

'They want to see the full-blown campaign event. They want to read the speech from beginning to end,' said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew group. 'It's a push back from the sound-bite culture.'"

Where TV and the Web converge, there is Hulu

Los Angeles Times: "The issue boils down to this: Will low-cost original programming, à la 'lonelygirl15' or those grainy, amateur YouTube clips, continue to dominate online video? Or will the little guys get crowded out in a new, heavily commercialized era, led by expensive, slickly produced studio shows that premiered on broadcast or cable?"

eBay Shutters Ad-Sales System

Adweek: "Online auction house eBay has shuttered its Internet-based system for buying and selling TV and radio ads, the company has confirmed on its Web site. The system had been up and running for just over a year.

The system was controversial from the start and received little support from the cable network industry, which eBay had hoped would contribute significant amounts of inventory. But the networks by and large stayed away fearing the process would cheapen the value of their ads."

YouTube: You Created the Content, Now Sell the Ads

Advertising Age: "Professional content producers -- those who come equipped with their own ad-sales teams -- are now able to sell advertising on their YouTube channels. That includes the click-to-expand overlays that run across the bottoms of YouTube videos and display units on the page that hosts the video player. The revenue is split between the content creator and YouTube, just as it would be if YouTube sold the ads."

Google CEO Eric Schmidt: "The next big wave in advertising is the mobile internet"

Netzökonom: First: There is still a lot of revenue in search - as we get the technology better or as we can do more targeted ads. There is no limit for search marketing. People assume that there is a limit, but we have many more ideas about technology. Second: The most obvious large space of advertising is the mobile internet. Every German has a mobile phone. Just take the success of the iPhone: It has the first really powerful web browser on a mobile device - and many more are still coming. Nokia has one coming, Blackberry has one and Motorola has one. They are all supposed to be released this year. By these products, the advertising gets more targeted because phones are personal. So targeted ads are possible. And that means the value of the ads will grow. The next big wave in advertising is the mobile internet.

Google co-founder pushes TV white space plan

Reuters: "Page highlighted the benefits of making more spectrum available, while downplaying opposition from broadcasters, and makers and users of wireless microphones, who fear the wireless devices would cause interference.

'I think the debate's really been politicized,' Page said.

Page said making more spectrum available would benefit computer users, giving them Internet connections with greater range and speed."

Craigslist Tops U.S. Mobile Browsing

PC World: "U.S. users spent about 1 hour, 39 minutes per month on Craigslist, M:Metrics said. The site has two big factors in its favor as a mobile destination, Donovan said. It's text-based, so it's easier to load with a weak signal, and it emphasizes local information. Donovan believes mobile users are visiting local listings for events such as yard sales along with the site's popular personal ads."

Diller: Social nets are nice but where’s the money?

Reuters.com: "Barry Diller likes social networks. He says they function as telephones used to: they help us communicate with each other. But one thing they don’t do is make money."