EDP

OFF=ON

Case in point: the near-total triumph of the ‘online revolution’ (1.4 billion people online, anyone?), which now has the ‘offline world’ more often than not playing second fiddle in everything from commerce to entertainment to communications to politics.

In fact, ‘offline’ is now so intertwined with ‘online’ that a whole slew of new products and services and campaigns are just waiting to be dreamed up by … well… you? Our definition:

OFF=ON | More and more, the offline world (a.k.a. the real world, meatspace or atom-arena) is adjusting to and mirroring the increasingly dominant online world, from tone of voice to product development to business processes to customer relationships. Get ready to truly cater to an ONLINE OXYGEN generation even if you’re in ancient sectors like automotive or fast moving consumer goods.

http://www.trendwatching.com/trends/offon.htm

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Zuckerberg, surprised by the outcry, quickly made two decisions. The first was to add a privacy feature to News Feed, letting users decide what kind of information went out. But the second decision was to leave News Feed otherwise intact. He suspected that once people tried it and got over their shock, they’d like it.

He was right. Within days, the tide reversed. Students began e-mailing Zuckerberg to say that via News Feed they’d learned things they would never have otherwise discovered through random surfing around Facebook. The bits of trivia that News Feed delivered gave them more things to talk about — Why do you hate Kiefer Sutherland? — when they met friends face to face in class or at a party. Trends spread more quickly. When one student joined a group — proclaiming her love of Coldplay or a desire to volunteer for Greenpeace — all her friends instantly knew, and many would sign up themselves. Users’ worries about their privacy seemed to vanish within days, boiled away by their excitement at being so much more connected to their friends. (Very few people stopped using Facebook, and most people kept on publishing most of their information through News Feed.) Pundits predicted that News Feed would kill Facebook, but the opposite happened. It catalyzed a massive boom in the site’s growth. A few weeks after the News Feed imbroglio, Zuckerberg opened the site to the general public (previously, only students could join), and it grew quickly; today, it has 100 million users.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07awareness-t.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=i%27m%20so%20digitally%20close%20to%20you&st=cse&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

NBC Universal Signs With Google: Favorable Terms Plus Bonus: A Jab at Steve Jobs!

While no financial deals were disclosed, one must assume that NBC got a very good deal because Google is desperate to have its fledgling TV ad business take off. Now it finally has a real partner. In the near-term this is a much bigger deal for Google than it is for NBC, which is why it’s easy to conclude NBC got very favorable terms. Now NBC must convince ad buyers to use it — it will be interesting to see how it goes. I’m looking forward to (theoretically, anyway) finding out how much it will cost to advertise on the remainder of the runs of Battlestar Galactica and Stargate Atlantis via Google.

The people who sell this advertising — you know the people with fat expense accounts who are paid huge commissions — won’t love this. But it’s very likely that the market exists where Google can do all of that better and cheaper. That’s obviously not lost on the margin-minded suits at NBC.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2008/09/08/nbc-universal-signs-with-google-favorable-terms-plus-bonus-a-jab-at-steve-jobs/4983

Social Networking Dethrones Porn as Top Use of Internet

Reuters is reporting that social networking sites are officially the top attraction on the Internet, dethroning pornography and highlighting a major change in how people communicate, according to one researcher.

http://www.mediabistro.com/mobilecontenttoday/social_networking/social_networking_dethrones_porn_as_top_use_of_internet_94648.asp

Open Market On Content Protection?

Recently, there has been a new focus on how to deal with the vexing problem of copy-protecting content bound for the consumer. Tech Crunch has reported on an effort to launch a new “Open Market” platform to facilitate a “play anywhere” approach for consumer content.

http://www.mediapost.com/blogs/video_insider/?p=210

The Death of the Infinite Facebook App

The problem with most current Facebook applications (apps) is that they provide an infinite, on-demand experience. Even for an obsessive user, this can be overwhelming. It's like trying to keep up with fashion trends…. at some point, everyone who doesn't have an on-call stylist gives up. How many times can you throw a sheep at someone before you start to feel that it's pointless? How many new plants can you unlock before you think "I can't believe I've dedicated my life to sending 25 plants a day, just to unlock better plants?"

While we like to believe that users want to continually use our apps, the rational app designer has to consider a new problem: The satisfaction in completion. What does this mean – particularly in designing a marketing app?

We can easily recognize that there is a rise in popularity, and longer staying power in apps that offer a sense of completion. Contrary to the idea that an app should be open-ended, it seems that endable apps actually retain a larger percentage of their audience for a longer period of time. I'd like to suggest that the satisfaction and relief of finishing something makes the app more attractive to users.

http://www.ypulse.com/ypulse-guest-post-the-death-of-the-infinite-facebook-app/

Microsoft’s Real Problem: Facebook is the New Outlook, and Other ways that Redmond is not Listening to Generation Y

However, it does not seem to be the competitive landscape which has changed the consumer orientation towards Microsoft. What has really thrown Microsoft off, is that other companies have shown those consumers both most willing to try new technologies and most willing to open their wallets for technology, the consumers of Generation-Y, that they do not need Microsoft. Companies like Facebook, Apple, and Google, have changed the way that young consumers consume, and therefore purchase, technology. And that is a very dangerous position for a software company to be in, especially one that is not known for being nimble on its feet.

Facebook is perhaps the clearest example of this. While Mark Zuckerberg and others, brand Facebook a Social Utility, for young people, who really only care about functionality, Facebook succeeds because it is the killer web application for communications and personal information management. Facebook Mail is not without its problems, but the combination of Facebook Mail, Facebook Chat, and what is functionally an auto updating address book, makes Facebook into the new Outlook not only for those who are inside of Silicon Valley, but for anyone of the millions of people who use Facebook as either their sole or their primary digital identity. LinkedIn, is even more explicit than FaceBook is, in trying to become a person’s primary stop for vital, in this case professional, communications, as it is functionally a digital Rolodex.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/13/microsofts-real-problem-facebook-is-the-new-outlook-and-other-ways-that-remond-is-not-listening-to-generation-y/

Mobile Video Is Next for MySpace, Facebook

At a panel at GigaOM’s Mobilize conference today, representatives from MySpace and Facebook both said they saw emerging opportunities to bring video uploads to cell phones.

http://newteevee.com/2008/09/18/mobile-video-is-next-for-myspace-facebook/

Hyperactive Vlogger ‘Fred’ Scores Hollywood Deal

The video blogs of rambunctious 6-year-old Fred may seem annoying, but his high-pitched schtick has garnered him more than 500,000 YouTube subscribers, more than 13 million channel views and a top slot on the video site’s coveted “Most Subscribed” list.

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/09/hyperactive-vlo.html

How the Music Business Spent the Summer Killing Itself

The deeply troubled music industry, rather astonishingly, has been spending its summer making it harder for music fans to encounter new music online. Last month, for instance, Muxtape, which I raved about in this column when it launched earlier this year, went dark. Created by former college-radio DJ Justin Ouellette, the hipster favorite made it simple for music fans to create virtual mix tapes -- short lists of songs your friends (and other Muxtape users) could listen to but not download, because Muxtape used streaming technology. (Muxtape, in fact, offered links to Amazon’s MP3 store to make it easy for users to buy songs they had just heard.) But now, a simple, sad message appears on the Muxtape home page: “Muxtape will be unavailable for a brief period while we sort out a problem with the RIAA” -- the Recording Industry Association of America. A brief period? We’ll see.

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=130766

iWidgets to Bring CBS Fall Season to a Social Network Near You

iWidgets has now become a Social Syndication Platform thanks to its first major customer, CBS Interactive, one of the world’s top broadcasting companies. iWidgets allows website owners to socially syndicate their content and increase user activity in order to drive traffic and improve brand awareness. Apparently, CBS finds this model attractive enough to give it a shot.

http://mashable.com/2008/09/08/iwidgets-cbs/

NBC Universal in pact for Google to sell its TV ads

NBC Universal, a unit of General Electric Co, is teaming up with Google Inc on a multi-year partnership in which Google will act as a broker to sell TV advertising on some NBC cable channels.

In a joint statement, the two companies said NBC Universal will offer advertising time from several of its cable networks for Google to sell advertising through its Google TV Ads service.

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSWEN786020080908?feedType=RSS&feedName=technologyNews&rpc=22&sp=true

Fight Google by competing with it rather than feeding it

But the problem with going after Google is that - unlike typical monopolies - it didn't steal its booty like a pirate in the night. It didn't win by being closed and proprietary. Google won by being open and distributed - which is not the image of the monopolist. The rest of the marketing universe, from media companies to advertising agencies, handed Google its dominance on a silver platter.

Yahoo ran to Google to save it from erstwhile monopolist Microsoft - and to add a few hundred million dollars to Yahoo's bottom line. Google didn't hold up Yahoo; it was the white knight. Together or apart, the two companies account for 80% of US search ads. Note, as a Google executive did for me, that pricing for these ads is not set by Google and Yahoo - which is the danger of monopolies - but by the market in an open auction.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/sep/15/digitalmedia.google

Teens, Video Games, and Civics

Video games provide a diverse set of experiences and related activities and are part of the lives of almost all teens in America. To date, most video game research has focused on how games impact academic and social outcomes (particularly aggression). There has also been some exploration of the relationship between games and civic outcomes, but as of yet there has been no large-scale quantitative research. This survey provides the first nationally representative study of teen video game play and of teen video gaming and civic engagement. The survey looks at which teens are playing games, the games and equipment they are using, the social context of their play, and the role of parents and parental monitoring. Though arguments have been made about the civic potential of video gaming, this is the first large-scale study to examine the relationship between specific gaming experiences and teens’ civic activities and commitments.

http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Teens_Games_and_Civics_Report_FINAL.pdf

‘In the Motherhood’ puts down roots

“In the Motherhood” is moving from the Web to primetime with some new leading ladies.

ABC has handed out a 13-episode order to a comedy series based on MindShare’s online series, which stars Chelsea Handler, Leah Remini and Jenny McCarthy as three mothers and girlfriends whose exploits are based on real-life stories of moms across the country.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3id9a975e26c8545c5a46ec14f6b72102d

Broadcast Networks’ Use of Broadband is Accelerating Demise of their Business Model

Last weekend I finally got a chance to read “Zuckervision,” the splashy cover page piece about NBCU’s CEO and president Jeff Zucker in the September issue of Conde Nast’s Portfolio magazine. It’s a pretty candid expose of the challenges that Zucker faces turning around the flagship NBC brand. More broadly though, it describes the challenges that all network executives have in trying to profitably navigate the digital era.

http://www.videonuze.com/blogs/?2008-09-11/Broadcast-Networks-Use-of-Broadband-is-Accelerating-Demise-of-their-Business-Model/&id=1956

Advertisers Won’t Abandon TV

Overall, national advertisers are expected to finalize fourth-quarter prime-time upfront advertising “holds” to “orders” of more than $2 billion.

Despite a troubled economy that is spawning rising retail prices, growing unemployment and record home foreclosures, most advertisers will not abandon national television in the fourth quarter, with just about every marketer planning to spend as much, or even more, than they committed in the May upfront.

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/media/e3i6e1ea93903c4b3a3ba7b9ad5982d8a2b

Another Harvard professor helpfully suggests that we make hits

What is it about Harvard Business School professors and their embrace of the grindingly conventional pitched as fresh contrarianism? The latest is HBS marketing professor John Quelch, who bravely argues for, well, successful products:  Long-Tail Economics? Give Me Blockbusters!

Unlike these HBS professors, I’m actually in the blockbuster industry (Conde Nast editor), and I can confirm that blockbusters are indeed great when you happen to have one. The problem is that neither we nor anyone else can predict what will be a blockbuster or how to create them with any regularity.

So we can’t do much to improve our blockbuster batting average. But what we can do is become less dependent on them. And that’s the point of the Long Tail.

But Quelch thinks we've got it all wrong. Forget spreading your bets and embracing niches. Instead, make blockbusters! Okay. How? Well, he doesn't quite get to that. Instead, Quelch helpfully identifies the "five defining characteristics of blockbusters", all coincidentally starting with "S": [My comments are in brackets]

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/09/another-harvard.html

Google: The all-time biggest company based on free

This is what's commonly referred to as "the media business model". Sometimes it means that advertisers subsidize 100% of the content costs, other times they subsidize just 70-80% of those costs, as in the case of magazines and newspapers.

Since the advent of cable TV and satellite radio, the media business model has evolved. TV broadcasters are bigger but they're also more diversified, with a mix of revenues from traditional ad-supported free media and paid content, from DVDs to pay-per-view. Only terrestrial radio remains purely free. 

Meanwhile, the pure free-to-consumers media business model has moved to the Web, but mostly in the shape of companies that don't fall neatly into traditional definitions of "media", such as Google or Yahoo.

So to properly see how the Web free companies compare to the broadcast free companies, we'd have to carefully tease out just the free parts of the broadcasters's revenues. Fortunately, we don't have to bother because it's really no contest.

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/09/google-the-all.html

MTV's The Hills are alive... with the sound of audience participation

Following the trials and tribulations of a bunch of privileged Californians might be mystifying to some, but as every self-respecting teenage girl knows, MTV’s The Hills is something of a phenomenon. Now MTV has launched Backchannel, a “multi-player social game” to play online while watching the latest episode. Its premise is simple but ambitious: to make watching live television meaningful in the era of DVR and TIVO.

Stats cite that millennials, Gen Y or whatever you want to call them, like to multi-task their entertainment, simultaneously surfing the Internet, watching TV and chatting on the phone. Backchannel attempts to center that activity on the TV and give those watching the show an online forum in which to comment pithily in real time. So, while watching the show, you get to comment on LC’s hair do, her troubled relationship with Audrina, or how much you hate Spencer — and read others’ live comments, too. Voting on the comments means players win points (the text literally expands on the screen to reflect a tag’s popularity), so the onus is on being funny, pertinent or just plain snarky. In the words of MTV Digital’s Senior VP and General Manager, Dan Hart, this is a new world: “competitive chat.”

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/next/archives/2008/09/mtvs_the_hills.html

I must say: Wow. Warner Brothers. A solid, glamorous Hollywood company — one that turns even my generation’s parents and grandparents starry-eyed — is putting down real stakes online, committing to the Web both original talent and a sterling archive, while creating a whole new entertainment — what do you call it? — entity to be staffed at least in part by real TV executives and not only Mr. Jive Talker From Marketing Who Is Now in Charge of New Media.

This is serious. And aggressive. From the Web, Warner Brothers can make use of its video library, flattering it on a new player with minimal ads, and take on all the networks — even CW, to which it handed its audience a mere two years ago. (Even at the time, WB didn’t seem entirely content with the lopsided “merger” with UPN; indeed, CW has never made WB programming a centerpiece.)

As of this writing, the Wikipedia entry for “The WB Television Network” redirects the reader to an entry that skips the birth-to-death story of the WB television network entirely. Instead, it begins, “The WB is an online network.” History has officially been rewritten.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07wwln-medium-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

Is Fancast a Portal to Comcast’s Converged Future?

Fancast this week added an online store through which users can rent and/or own more than 3,000 television shows and movies, and that store is supposedly the start of the broad new Fancast strategy.

Keep in mind, I’m not suggesting that Fancast is a better online store than others. I am a huge iTunes advocate and think it provides the greatest ease of use among online stores. Rather, the Comcast strategy with Fancast is worth watching because the operator appears to be taking steps to become more than just a dumb pipe. After all, cable’s role as the middle man in delivering content is under siege as consumers turn to the web to watch video programming. A broader Fancast is more of a retention play than a revenue driver. Customers who contemplate jettisoning cable programming in favor of becoming Internet-only video viewers might think twice if Comcast can strengthen the ties between its web and TV services.

http://newteevee.com/2008/09/06/comcast-bets-on-fancast-but-will-it-work/

For Web TV, a Handful of Hits but No Formula for Success

Months later, they are realizing that producing Web content may be easy but profiting from it is hard. While a small number of writers, producers and actors are making a living with webisodes, they are still a long way from establishing the form alongside television and feature films. The newfound industry lacks clear business models and standardized formats.

And so far, it also lacks audiences. Ask most average media consumers what Web shows they watch, and the reaction is likely to be a blank stare. If they have heard of webisodes at all, it is probably in the context of “Quarterlife,” a Web series that leapt to TV and flopped spectacularly in the ratings in February, or “Prom Queen,” an online drama backed by Michael Eisner, the former chief of Walt Disney.

The “Lost” of the Web — or maybe it will be a “Friends” — has yet to be born. Even the medium’s first hit, Lonelygirl15, struggled to retain an audience. The Lonelygirl videos made their debut on YouTube in the summer of 2006. Initially, they reached millions of Internet surfers, introducing the concept of professionally produced webisodes to the public. But the videos kept coming well after the buzz faded. On Aug. 1, when the series ended with a 12-episode finale, hardly anyone noticed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/01/business/media/01webisodes.html

Michael Moore to Release Slacker Uprising for Free Online

Michael Moore says he will release his next movie free online, the "first major major film to be released in such a way," according to the Associated Press.

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/09/michael-moore-t.html

19% of U.S. Households Watch Online TV

Probably one of the most important benchmarks for online video, in my opinion, was the study conducted by TNS and the Conference Board last year that found 16 percent of American Internet households watch TV broadcasts online. That seemed pretty impressive at the time, especially given that it pre-dated the existence of Hulu along with widespread promotion of other network’s streaming offerings. It signaled that there was a real audience for premium entertainment on the PC screen.

http://newteevee.com/2008/09/04/online-tv-watching-doubles-in-one-year/

Clay Shirky on the weird things that happen when things suddenly become abundant

A few months Clay Shirky gave a terrific speech (scroll down past the introductions for the full transcript) that got the most attention for this important lesson from a little girl:

"I was having dinner with a group of friends about a month ago, and one of them was talking about sitting with his four-year-old daughter watching a DVD. And in the middle of the movie, apropos nothing, she jumps up off the couch and runs around behind the screen. That seems like a cute moment. Maybe she's going back there to see if Dora is really back there or whatever. But that wasn't what she was doing. She started rooting around in the cables. And her dad said, "What you doing?" And she stuck her head out from behind the screen and said, "Looking for the mouse."

Here's something four-year-olds know: A screen that ships without a mouse ships broken. Here's something four-year-olds know: Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for."

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/09/clay-shirky-on.html

The Family Guy Goes Online

The project could change the way entertainment is distributed on the Web. It also underscores Mr. MacFarlane's broader rise as a producer, writer, actor and artist with sway over coveted viewers. Among young men, only NFL football and "American Idol" outperformed "Family Guy" in the TV ratings last season, according to Nielsen Media Research. On DVD, the series has generated more than $386 million in total sales, putting it just behind such top sellers as "Seinfeld," according to Adams Media Research.

In May, Mr. MacFarlane signed the largest TV contract in recent history, a renewed deal with his studio, 20th Century Fox Television, that will earn him more than $100 million by its expiration in 2012. The size of his haul will hinge on merchandise sales and other variables, including how a new addition to the "Family Guy" franchise will fare. A spinoff series around a black character named Cleveland Brown is in production, slated for a launch on Fox in 2009. 20th Century Fox Television is owned by News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones & Co., the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122057832909402221.html?mod=2_1567_topbox

Google Chrome Reflects A Desktop In Decline

A week after Google released a Web browser of its own called Chrome, it's clear that despite the frailty of Chrome's beta code, there's a seismic shift occurring in the computer industry.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/google/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=210500375

Gossip Girl, Other CW Shows to Go Mobile

It turns out there's more to The CW than this morning's Myxer announcement. The CW's free wireless application protocol (WAP) site, wap.cwtv.com, has been in beta for mobile video since the beginning of August, AdWeek reports; the company is expected to officially launch the cell phone site as the fall season begins in earnest.

http://www.mediabistro.com/mobilecontenttoday/mobile_web/gossip_girl_other_cw_shows_to_go_mobile_93256.asp

IKEA Assembles a Web Series

The series is created by and stars Illeana Douglas (To Die For), and will feature appearances by Jeff Goldblum, Tom Arnold, Ed Begley Jr. and Justine Bateman (who must be killing time before her own web series kicks off production). Each episode will have a star learning about different aspects of the IKEA experience (think Allen wrenches and Swedish meatballs).

http://newteevee.com/2008/09/04/ikea-assembles-a-web-series/

Mobile Youth - the 10 most common myths (#10 Connectivity)

In this series for our features series, I look at the 10 most common myths held about Mobile Youth. If you want to understand young consumers don’t hire a technologist - they’ll tell you why young people are or are not relevant to Web 2.0, mobile and the internet. However, what you need to be understanding is why these technologies are relevant to young people.

Technologists will view the challenge as to how youth fit into their universe and cling on to the myths accordingly creating significant wastage in product development and marketing.

As the old addage goes, if the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer - everything will resemble a nail.

http://www.mobileyouth.org/post/mobile-youth-the-most-common-10-myths/

A C-Double Win

The question now is, can 90210—and Gossip Girl and the creaky One Tree Hill, for that matter—keep on delivering? Unkind reviews for 90210's debut episode weren't hard to find. "At this point, adding Tori Spelling to the mix would have a calming effect," concluded Variety.
But numbers from the network proved that audiences disagreed. Total viewers increased 9 percent between 90210’s first and second hours, which bodes well for next week's second episode, and for the series in general.
The CW's future had looked precarious only last week, as the network's third broadcast season approached without a bona fide ratings hit on the schedule.
While audiences of 3.4 million (for Gossip Girl) and 4.9 million (for 90210) aren't exactly American Idol territory, they still represent great strides for a network whose buzziest show only averaged between 2 million and 3 million viewers in its first season.
That upward trajectory is one that the network no doubt hopes it can maintain. But do these shows represent full-fledged successes for the CW, or are they just temporary reprieves on the path to irrelevance?

http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/top-5/2008/09/03/90210-ratings

The Music Industry And Digital Media Continue To Confuse Each Other

This summer we've seen two very large contradictions in the ongoing war between digital media and the music industry -- and these two contradictions aren't making it any easier to understand what's going on, or how it will shape the future.

First off, let's recap the last few years. A quick history goes like this: Napster launches and signals the beginning of the end for old-fashioned record stores. Metallica battles Napster, no one wins. Record industry starts whining that CD sales are down, begins massive layoffs. New business models get tested, digital downloads become more commonplace. ITunes launches, becomes number-two music retailer in the U.S. Radiohead releases album online with "pay-what-you-will" pricing model. Nine Inch Nails gives away album online, follows it up with traditional sales.

http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1377

Nielsen Reveals First Out-Of Home TV Ratings

The first out-of-home TV ratings have been released by a previously announced venture between The Nielsen Company and Integrated Media Measurement Inc., with NBC's Olympics and Fox's summer shows dominating all comers.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.san&s=89738&Nid=46764&p=963945

Joost Does The Right Thing: Killing Desktop Version; Focusing On In-Browser

Joost, the once-hyped online video startup which was a non-starter with a desktop-only client, is now killing it, Om reports. It will go browser only, and will release a small plugin that would embed itself in the browser and allow you to grab files using the P2P technologies that was the underlying technology for its high-res video service. Even a plugin will be an inhibiting factor in the takeup of the service.

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-joost-does-the-right-think-killing-desktiop-version/

Trends That Will Help Define the Future of PR and Marketing

In June Edelman, my employer, and PRWeek held a two-day summit on the changing media landscape and its affect on business and education. More than 90 people participated. Recently we published a paper chock full of with actionable insights for businesses. You can download it here (PDF). Here's the conclusion I wrote.

Trends That Will Help Define the Future

The best way to think about new media, I have learned, is to look at the recent past and at the trends that are here now and seemingly have staying power. Apple CEO Steve Jobs once famously said "you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards." He’s right. With that in mind, there are three trends that are likely to shape things over the next four years.

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/08/trends-that-wil.html

Facebook The Movie?

Is Aaron Sorkin getting his geek on?

The famous technophobe and Hollywood scribe is trading the "West Wing" and "Studio 60" corridors for the graffiti-scrawled, software-developer-mobbed corridors of social networking upstart Facebook Inc.

The Palo Alto company says it has not signed on to a Sorkin film about its inception, but Sorkin has started a Facebook group (well, he says, his assistant did that) to gather color for a Facebook film he is writing for Sony and producer Scott Rudin.

A Sony Pictures spokesman confirmed the project but wouldn't discuss details. Through a publicist, Sorkin declined to comment.

Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker said: "We are routinely approached by writers and filmmakers interested in telling the Facebook story or the stories of the more than 100 million people who use Facebook to share and make the world more open and connected. At this point, we have not agreed to cooperate with any film project, but we are flattered by the interest."

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-techblog28-2008aug28,0,4670260.story

The WB Rises From Ashes As Competitor To Hulu

Warner Brothers has resurrected its defunct WB television network as TheWB.com

The most impressive feature found on TheWB is its video search, which allows users to search across many shows on the site for mention of any word or phrase. Digitalsmiths

The site also allows users to modify selected portions from a number of shows using an embedded version of Adobe Premiere Express. While I could see some avid fans having some fun with this, the editor is clunky and not very intuitive. Still, many sites are hesitant to let viewers create embeddable clips, much less modify them. As for content, at launch TheWB.com includes seasons from Friends, The OC, Veronica Mars, One Tree Hill, Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Smallville, and a number of other shows, both from The WB and other TV networks. The site will also introduce a number of made-for-web TV series.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/08/26/the-wb-rises-from-the-ashes-as-a-hulu-competitor/

MacFarlane’s Cavalcade Launches Sept. 10

Seth MacFarlane’s advertorial series, Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, is gearing up for its launch on Sept. 10. A trailer was just posted on the new site sethcomedy.com. That site promises cast interviews and a MacFarlane blog as well, also starting Sept. 10. And we’re told that exclusive content will be posted on show sponsor Burger King’s forthcoming YouTube channel, youtube.com/bk.

What we know about Cavalcade is it’s a multimillion-dollar-budgeted cartoon series with a deal to be distributed through Google AdSense to sites that are demographically aligned. The variety show will consist of 50 two-minute episodes, and promises to be less censored than MacFarlane’s hilarious Family Guy, which is made for broadcast TV. The Cavalcade release schedule isn’t entirely clear, but according to sethcomedy.com, there will be “new Cavalcade shorts every week.” It also appears that the videos will be archived on sethcomedy.com.

http://newteevee.com/2008/08/26/macfarlanes-cavalcade-launches-sept-10/

Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked

A large gap exists between the public's perception of video games and what the research actually shows. The following is an attempt to separate fact from fiction.

http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html

'Serious Gaming' Set To Take Off

Forrester Research expects “serious gaming” - the use of games and gaming dynamics for non-entertainment purposes - to take off in the next seven years.

In a new report It’s Time to take Games Seriously, Forrester cites the rise of “Technology Populism,” the greening of IT, and the emergence of “millennials” born between 1980 and 2000 as factors driving the trend.

Michigan State University offers a master’s in serious game design and Coventry University in the UK houses the Serious Games Institute.

However, to achieve widespread adoption, the industry must deal with five issues: 1) what games should be called; 2) how slick the presentation should be; 3) how users should interface with the games; 4) how to determine ROI; and 5) determining if the technology has any limitations.

http://seekingalpha.com/article/92581-serious-gaming-set-to-take-off

The New Standard In Advertising In A Social Media World

What started out in 2003 as simple community-based Web sites and tools for sharing information with friends, social media has grown into a phenomenon of epic proportions with the monumental success of sites such as YouTube, Bebo, Flickr, Digg and a myriad of others.

Earlier this month, ComScore reported that over half a billion people worldwide hang out on social networks. That translates into two-thirds of all Internet users. And half of those, about 250 million people, call Facebook and MySpace home.

As social networks continue to expand their reach and diversify their content, the number of options for delivering innovative advertising to engaged audiences grows exponentially. Further, the opening of social networking sites to outside developers provides media and brands with direct access to millions of valuable consumers. But the question remains: How can advertisers and brand marketers successfully stimulate these potential consumers?

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.san&s=89490&Nid=46578&p=437194

Lame and Lamer: 10 Dumbest Viral Marketing Campaigns

Sure, it looks easy enough. Post a video of yourself wiggling your butt on Wii Fit, dancing your way across the globe, or practicing your Jedi Knight moves, and--presto! You're the next Web sensation, swept along by the viral nature of the Internet.

But corporations, politicians, and others who have attempted to manipulate the Net to their own ends have discovered that it isn't as easy as it appears. True viralness can't be manufactured, no matter how many phony blogs and tasteless videos you generate.

Whether you're selling Chevys, shilling for Cheetos, or simply trying to rise above the noise, certain rules apply: Don't fake it. Don't pretend to be cool when you're not. And never underestimate the intelligence of the crowd or its sheer delight in exposing you as a fraud.

The following ten campaigns didn't follow these rules, earning them a permanent spot in the Marketing Hall of Lame.

http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,148905/printable.html

Google announces Android Market for phone apps

Attracting developer attention is a key part of the Google-led Android software effort, and those who produce applications will have an easy time getting them to the market, Eric Chu of Google's Android project said in a Thursday blog post.

"Similar to YouTube, content can debut in the marketplace after only three simple steps: register as a merchant, upload and describe your content and publish it," Chu said. "We chose the term 'market' rather than 'store' because we feel that developers should have an open and unobstructed environment to make their content available."

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10028108-94.html

Can Google Crack the TV Ad Market?

Like many at the bustling Google campus here, Keval Desai has a degree in computer science and tends to view things through the lens of mathematics. Even the topsy-turvy world of TV advertising.  
"TV, for the most part, has been unmeasurable," said Desai, program manager for Google's TV ad efforts. "We're making TV as accountable as the Internet is."
Google's foray into television advertising is an important test of whether the Internet giant can use its wildly successful system of search advertising in the biggest of media channels. While it is pursuing efforts in print and radio, TV represents the company's biggest hurdle to achieving its goal of building a broad platform for advertisers to run targeted ad campaigns, continuously changed based on metrics, across all forms of media. Unlike online, however, Google faces a struggle in television to convince wary cable operators and networks that its vision is good for them.

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i67f2ad037eba0dd6900535147f139147

P&G’s Innovation Culture

A.G. Lafley and I coauthored The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation (Crown Business, 2008) to explain how to make game-changing innovation drive growth on a consistent, well-paced basis. The critical factors that we cover in the book include keeping a laser-sharp focus on the customer; establishing a disciplined, repeatable, and scalable innovation process; creating organizational and funding mechanisms that support innovation; and demonstrating the kind of leadership necessary for profitable top-line growth as well as cost reduction.

One aspect of building an innovation culture deserves more attention than we could give it in The Game-Changer: designing a social system that would spark new ideas and enable critical decisions. In the article that follows, A.G. explains the human factors that fostered innovation at Procter & Gamble. It could be thought of as the “missing chapter” to The Game-Changer; a vital com­ponent that isn’t always obvious, even to experts, precisely because it is so fundamental.

http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/08304?pg=all

Marketers get to us in more ways

But contrary to the belief that today's short-attention-span consumer is impervious to marketing, and that big brands no longer matter, Walker argues that marketing methods are stronger than ever, just harder to spot.

It's what he calls "murketing," and it's omnipresent.

"We live in a world defined by more commercial messages, not fewer." They range from deals to place products and brand mentions in movies, computer games, comic books and cult online Web video shows. Dunkin' Donuts recruits teens to wear temporary tattoos of its logo on their foreheads. Toyota bankrolls underground club parties. And so on.

Walker fills his richly reported book with insights from cutting-edge marketers, entrepreneurs and artists. He clearly has clocked some time delving into case studies of resurging old brands such as Timberland and Pabst Blue Ribbon beer, as well as hot-selling energy drink Red Bull and Lance Armstrong's Livestrong bracelet.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/books/reviews/2008-08-24-buying-in_N.htm?csp=34

The Primitive Screen

BEARING IN MIND ITS OVERWHELMING dominance in our daily media lives, it's kind of ironic that in these days of cross-media, interactive, personalized and socially networked media, the TV remains the most primitive of all screens available to us.

While TV continues to take the lion's share of our time with all media (and of all screen-based media); while it continues to take the lion's share of revenues and capital investment; and while it retains a deeply embedded position in our culture as reference point and provider of information and entertainment, the extent of true innovation in the medium over the years has paled when compared to the media ecosystem as a whole.

http://blogs.mediapost.com/tv_board/?p=367

How do we make sense of this? Why do Facebook's elaborate games of platform strategy seem to be destroying value, while Apple's platform anti-strategy promises to explode the boundaries of value creation in an industry where those boundaries have long been held to be fixed and immutable?

Yesterday, we saw platforms as mechanisms to strategically control complements. Strategists and economists studied platform wars intensely - with Annabelle Gawer and Michael Cusumano's excellent Platform Leadership being perhaps the reference work for strategists.

Today, I think there's perhaps a simpler and more powerful way to think strategically about platforms.

Let me advance a simplifying proposition: platforms are markets. The most useful way to think about platforms today is simply as markets.

The App Store's name is revealing: it tells us that Apple doesn't see a platform to be manipulated, but a market to be made. It is that understanding that's at the heart of Apple's furious domination of the mediascape.

Markets - and networks, and communities, as I've discussed - are strategic weapons of shock and awe. Why? Here are three ways in which they radically alter the structure and dynamics of entire industries.

http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/haque/2008/08/what_apple_knows_that_facebook.html

Who Will Be the Godfather of Comedy Video on the Web?

Although online video has grown in terms of content production and viewership, significant revenue and especially profitability -- even for YouTube with its massive audience of 69 million viewers -- has been largely elusive. The prevailing model is ad supported, but that market isn't necessarily ripe. Although video advertising is increasing, it totaled only $775 million this past year, a "tiny amount" of the overall $21.1 billion spent on online advertising, says Kris Oser, communications director at eMarketer. Worse, most marketers aren't particularly enthralled by what these sites are peddling. "Advertisers, besides the edgy ones -- Mountain Dew, Powerade, and Sprite -- aren't interested in being affiliated with questionable content," says Matt Stodder, VP of sales strategy and operations at online-ad-sales rep Gorilla Nation Media.

Leery advertisers haven't even been lured by impressive traffic and proven content. When This Just In tried to sell ads against "David Blaine Street Magic 2," a sequel to a spoof that first appeared on YouTube and generated about 20 million hits, no advertiser bit. The sequel garnered another 10 million hits, but marketers had no regrets: They balked again when This Just In peddled ads for a third iteration.

Even in a best-case scenario, when a video does get advertising, a financial success is hard to achieve. Many of the comedy sites adhere to a studio structure, tapping a collection of outside talent and paying per video ($1,000 to $12,000 per piece, although some climb to $15,000 or $20,000). With a $10-per-thousand-views ad rate, not uncommon in this market, a video that attracts 1 million views -- a colossal hit -- generates only $10,000. That's often break-even at best. "It's almost impossible to make the numbers work," says Steve Stanford, This Just In's former general manager and now a partner in William Morris's Agency 3.0.

http://www.fastcompany.com/article/who-will-be-godfather-comedy-video-web

Will Wright on the Sims, Spore and the Game Industry

You're doing extensive online marketing for Spore, including the Sporepedia and a deal with YouTube to upload videos. How did you get to that point?

It used to be that we would do the game, somebody else would design the box, the marketing people would own the Web site, and they would basically figure out how to use it as an elaborate advertisement. Back with SimCity, we started to see our fans forming online communities. They wanted to contact each other and share content or strategies, and we realized these players were becoming our codevelopers. With Spore, we had some fan sites, now several years old, where people were making drawings of the creatures they wanted to build. We would look at these creatures and go, Okay, can they make this or not? We actually redesigned the game to enable as many of these creations as we could. The player is the customer, and if what the customer wants to do is create stuff, and they're showing us the stuff they want to create, that's what we're going to serve.

http://www.fastcompany.com/article/will-wright-sims-spore-and-game-industry

What's New at MySpace

I visited the next day, but the MySpace management team wasn't talking about numbers. It certainly wasn't talking about Facebook. Instead, DeWolfe, Anderson, and four other senior staffers -- including chief technology officer Aber Whitcomb, hired by DeWolfe "nine years and four companies ago" (he built the original MySpace site in 30 days) and 27-year-old chief operating officer Amit Kapur -- spun out a vision of unwavering ambition and optimism. Hey, did we mention that we're profitable? And that we have 115 million monthly visitors worldwide? That we're outpacing Gmail and Hotmail in messages sent? And giving YouTube a run for its money in video downloads?

During my rounds at the offices -- which will be traded in next June for a new 300,000-square-foot FIM facility in Playa del Rey, which the company claims is the biggest real-estate transaction in L.A. in 25 years -- the crew opened up about the pros and cons of working for Murdoch. They also laid out a dizzying array of new initiatives, from an imminent site redesign to major marketing alliances with big-name brands. They practically strutted about an unprecedented new foray into the music business, set to be rolled out in early fall, and revealed that MySpace is no longer a social network at all, but -- wait for it -- a "social portal": a global, content-rich hub with a social component. The MySpacers weren't shy about touting the advantages they feel they have over Silicon Valley stars such as Google and Apple. They weren't shy about much of anything, actually (except their own ages, which DeWolfe and Anderson wouldn't confess). In their view, they have come farther, faster than almost anyone these days gives them credit for. In many ways, they are right.

http://www.fastcompany.com/article/whats-new-myspace

Can Comcast Make TV 2.0 A Reality?

But as the biggest traditional video distributor in the country, with 24.6 million cable video subscribers as of the end of June, Comcast wants to gain a foothold now in the online video-entertainment space before Google or someone else establishes an insurmountable lead.

According to some analysts, Comcast is staking out ground that all video distributors will need to claim for their survival. “Not only is it the right strategy, it’s the essential strategy,” said Will Richmond, president of consulting firm Broadband Directions. “Consumers are showing companies what needs to be done by shifting their consumption away from linear video … Any company that doesn’t give customers what they’re looking for is going to be disadvantaged.”

Cable operators have had broadband portals for years, which would seem to have been logical places to establish a beachhead in online video, Richmond noted. Now, however, those sites are being eclipsed by Google’s YouTube, Veoh Networks, Metacafe and countless others.

In that sense, Fancast, and the rest of CIM’s properties, may be viewed as a hedge against a future in which the Internet is the predominant distribution mechanism for video.

http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6588008.html?desc=topstory

Serving 3 Brands: Burger King, Google and Seth MacFarlane

Next month, Seth MacFarlane, creator of the “Family Guy” TV series, will unveil a high-profile new project called “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy,” an animated variety show that will be distributed solely through Google.

The Internet giant will syndicate the new program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane’s target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static ad on a Web page, Google will place a “Cavalcade” video clip. YouTube will also devote a channel to the material.

Marketing messages will be incorporated into the clips largely through “preroll” ads, but Burger King took its involvement a step further. In a rare example of one of Hollywood’s top creative powers working hand-in-glove with a marketer, Mr. MacFarlane created and animated Burger King ads to play ahead of “Cavalcade” clips.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/business/media/18burger.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1219644499-096rSGO2lRsvQXXaTOSFdg

Where's My Mobile TV?

If you're wondering what's taking so long for mobile TV to hit U.S. phones, you're not alone. The Associated Press posted a good roundup of the state of mobile TV—in short, it's still at the starting gate.

http://www.mediabistro.com/mobilecontenttoday/mobile_video_/wheres_my_mobile_tv_91957.asp

Hulu Reaches 100 Million Streams, 3.2 Million Uniques; Now, Time To Advertise

After only five months since going live, Hulu has reached 105 million streams in July, according to numbers released by Nielsen's VideoCensus. The NBC Universal-News Corp (NYSE: NWS). joint venture's streaming numbers were fairly strong early on. In April, Nielsen reported that it had 63 million. Still, Nielsen is a little wary of offering any historical comparisons, since VideoCensus is barely more than a year old. A rep for the audience measurement company noted that VideoCensus continues to undergo upgrades, practically on a monthly basis. The warning: "Some changes from month-to-month might be the result of definitional changes rather than organic, and we are erring on the conservative side in our public use of the data." That said, for those keeping score, VideoCensus also said that Hulu also attracted 3.2 million unique viewers last month.

http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-hulu-hits-100-million-streams-now-time-to-advertise/

Fun Way to Lose Weight: Turn Dieting Into an RPG

A friend of mine recently slimmed down on Weight Watchers. She joined two months ago, and in just a couple of weeks, she'd shed 10 pounds. She'd been trying for a year to lose weight, but nothing worked -- until now.

http://www.wired.com/gaming/virtualworlds/commentary/games/2008/08/gamesfrontiers_0811

Why People Pirate Stuff

In the universe of the free ("free" as in beer), getting ripped off is the norm. Yes, many products and services are deliberately priced at zero these days, but a significant portion of consumers will gravitate to illegitimate free versions of not-free stuff. Free versions of pricey digital products are not hard to find on underground file trading sites, or in bits and pieces on above ground aggregators like YouTube. Most high-priced wares like expensive commercial software can be had for literally nothing. But very cheap things are widely pirated for free as well. 

http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/08/why_people_pira.php

YouTube Feels Heat of Summer

Summer was good to YouTube. The world's biggest video-sharing site delivered 5 billion streams to nearly 78 billion unique visitors in July, according to Video Census figures from Nielsen Online. That's a 25% increase in volume from June, when YouTube served up 4 billion streams.

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/08/youtube_feels_heat_of_summer.php

Serial Killers

Time will tell, but right now Web serials — no matter how revealing, provocative or moving — seem to be a misstep in the evolution of online video. Introduced with fanfare again and again only to miss big viewerships, shows like “Satacracy 88” and “Cataclysmo” have emerged as the slow, conservative, overpriced cousins to the wildly Web-friendly “viral videos” that also arrived around 2005, when bandwidth-happy Web users began to circulate scrap video and comedy clips as if they were chain letters or strep. Top virals — “I Got a Crush . . . on Obama,” “Don’t Tase Me, Bro!” “Chocolate Rain” — never plod. They come off like brush fires, outbursts, accidents, flashes of sudden unmistakable truth.

By contrast, Web serials smack of planning and budgets and all that vestigial Hollywood stuff. The earliest ones were interludes in existing fiction franchises like “Battlestar Galactica” and “The Office.” The natural audience members for serials are obedient and obsessive — the John Edwards supporter who just has to know everything about him, the “Battlestar” viewer who can’t stand a few months’ hiatus from the show. From Charles Dickens’s “Old Curiosity Shop” to radio’s “Shadow” to Fox’s “24,” serials have always attracted completists. Serial fans don’t trawl YouTube for crazy junk they’ve never seen before; they turn to reputable sites for “more information” on their beloved franchises. They’ve seen one installment and feel dutybound to see what comes next.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/magazine/24wwln-medium-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

Trendwatch: No-Risk Web Video

Show creators promise advertisers they will integrate them into the story line — and always in good taste, they promise viewers. According to Electric Farm’s Brent Friedman, Afterworld tuned down an integration from a battery company because, even though it tied in well to the post-apocalyptic series’ plot, the logic of giving preference to a single brand didn’t make sense. “If it’s really hard and we have to sit there for hours thinking how to integrate this, it’s probably not the right play,” said Friedman.

So is this pre-paid content production the way of the future or does it add up to just a few lucky outliers? Having a record of success on TV or on the web is a big part of how these folks are able to score these deals. They turn the always-in-beta web-as-focus-group way of releasing projects on its head. But if you can get behind those closed doors and have people signing those checks, it’s a nice place to be.

New media management and production studio Generate tells us its productions “predominantly” bring in sponsors early in the development process. Other branded series advocates point out that networks have been meddling in the creation of shows forever, so it’s not really so different for advertisers to be the ones giving input.

http://newteevee.com/2008/08/20/trendwatch-no-risk-web-video/#more-6308

Intel, Yahoo, out to combine the Internet and TV—again

Previous attempts to combine Internet capabilities and television viewing have ranged from dismal failures (WebTV) to, well, not-so-dismal failures (Intel's DirectTV initiative, or Viiv in general), but Santa Clara is convinced it has found a new way to pair the two types of content into a seamless whole. At IDF this week, Intel, in partnership with Yahoo, announced its new Widget Channel, and detailed how this concept will finally entice viewers into viewing the television as a portal through which they are able to access online data.

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080821-intel-yahoo-out-to-combine-the-internet-and-tv-again.html

Which is a better business to be in right now: content creation or distribution? The New York Times alluded to this question in a piece about Warner Bros. this weekend. From the article:

For Mr. Bewkes and his team, the core of the strategy is a wager that the media pendulum will swing away from distribution and back toward content. “The last number of years, all you have heard about is new and better ways to distribute content,” says Mr. Meyer, sitting in his office on Warner’s lot in Burbank, Calif. “At some point, I think distribution gets commoditized,” leaving, he says, content as the more valuable component.

The Times is quick to point out that Apple has benefited more from the digital music revolution than the record labels. But is that an exact parallel? Music settled (for now) on a paid model and Apple quickly set the benchmark price. Even though iTunes and Amazon charge for video content, when it comes to short-form vids and TV shows, there is no price differentiator in the market because everything is free.

http://newteevee.com/2008/08/11/is-content-king-again/

Intel, Landau Launch Mass Animation

Intel Corp. today announced a new collaborative animation project to produce a computer-generated animated short film for theatrical release. Open to established and aspiring animators, the Mass Animation project will be produced and directed by Yair Landau, former vice chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment and president of Sony Pictures Digital.

Intel is sponsoring the development and promotion of a Facebook page where animators will be able access a collaboration application built on the Facebook Platform. Starting this fall, artists around the world will be able to contribute by animating small pieces of a five-minute, professional-quality animated short film.

“This is a great opportunity to bring together computer graphics with the creativity of both Hollywood and the Facebook community,” says Michael Hoefflinger, general manager of Intel’s Partner Marketing Group. “The power of Intel high-performance processor technology makes it possible for content creators to design, animate and innovate.”

http://www.animationmagazine.net/article/8752

Screen wars: stealing TV’s ‘eyeball’ share

Is this the summer that the Internet finally kills television as we once knew it?

Most industry observers are stopping short of that prediction, citing some significant hurdles still in the way. But the growing number of new deals and new devices being announced suggests that a profound change in the way people watch video – and what video they watch – is under way. The line between “television” and video via the Internet already has blurred and may disappear in coming years. At least one industry analyst has declared “TV is dead” and welcomes Americans to a new age of video everywhere.

Increasingly, Americans are watching video when they want to, and on the screen that suits them at the time. And more programming is from new sources that threaten to unlock Hollywood’s domination of content. Video is now delivered on displays and devices of every shape and size, from gigantic theater screens and ever-larger home projector screens, to flat-screen HDTVs, to desktop and laptop computer monitors, to tiny personal screens such as those found on iPods and mobile phones.

http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/08/15/screen-wars-stealing-tv%e2%80%99s-%e2%80%98eyeball%e2%80%99-share/

What Obama Can Teach You About Millennial Marketing

Baby boomers and Gen Xers declared mass marketing dead long ago. We live in a world of fragmented media surrounded by cynical consumers who can spot and block an ad message from a mile away. But what Gen Xers and boomers may not realize is that the unabashed embrace of select brands by millennials, from technology to beverages to fashion, has made this decade a true golden era of marketing for those who know what they’re doing. And when it comes to marketing, the Barack Obama campaign knows what it’s doing.

http://adage.com/article?article_id=130254

iPhone Software Sales Take Off: Apple’s Jobs

Apple Inc.’s bet on cellphone software appears to be paying off.

In the month since Apple opened an online software clearinghouse called the App Store, users have downloaded more than 60 million programs for the iPhone, Chief Executive Steve Jobs said in an interview at Apple’s headquarters. While most of those applications were free, Apple sold an average of $1 million a day in applications for a total of about $30 million in sales over the month, Mr. Jobs said.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121842341491928977.html

Googlebits

A few fascinating tidbits from Jim Cramer’s interview with Google’s Eric Schmidt today:

* Google accounts for 0.7 percent of GDP, according to Goldman Sachs.
* Cramer says the ad market is $600 billion and asks whether Google could get 10 percent of that. Schmid says, “Well, we could,” and then corrects him: It’s a trillion-dollar market globally.
* Schmidt says Google will make more on mobile than on desktops because mobile is more targeted and Google targets.
* What would Google make by adding sponsorship to its home page? “Some number of billions od dollars.” Why not do it? “People wouldn’t like it. We prioritize the end-user over the advertiser… We’re not going to sell it.”

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/08/13/googlebits/

2008 Trends Predictions - TrendsSpotting “Marketing Influencers Focus Group”

While seeking to bring you our 2008 trends prediction from an angle not suggested before, we present you the Meta Trends for 2008. For this, we selected a group of 10 marketing influencers suggesting their trends forecast for 2008.
We profiled each forecast according to 3 relevant categories for general trends predictions: “in”, “out” and “yet to come”. Finally - we ran a tag cloud on all forecasts to present what will be “In” for 2008.

http://www.slideshare.net/TrendsSpotting/2008-marketing-trends-predictions?src=related_normal&rel=38472#

YouTube Not Getting Into Live Streaming, After All

UStream, Justin.TV, Stickam, Mogulus and everyone else trying to make a business out of live streaming can breath a little easier. YouTube, which had previously said it would start live streaming in 2008, won’t be getting into the business this year. And it probably won’t next year, according to a source familiar with its plans.

http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/8/youtube-not-getting-into-live-streaming-after-all-goog-#slide_4

MySpace Apparently Lost in Translation

Social-networking sites may be nearing a plateau in North America, but they’re hiking diligently upward abroad. Worldwide usage of social- networking sites has grown by 25 percent in the last year, according to a new study from comScore. That’s more than double the 9 percent growth seen in North America.

http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/20080813/myspace-apparently-lost-in-translation/

Gemini Division a Litmus Test for Old Media, New Media

This web show has the weight of the traditional media world on its shoulders: In my opinion, the success or failure of Gemini Division will be critical for the web video economy in general and for traditional media in particular. CBS owns Moblogic, Sony inked a distribution deal just last week with Rocketboom, and for such marriages to continue, Gemini Division must thrive.

That’s because the show has all the ingredients one theoretically needs for programming success. For starters, big name star Rosario Dawson is fronting the show. Second, NBC has snagged major brand advertisers in Intel, Cisco, Microsoft, Acura and UPS. (C’mon, we don’t see that quintet advertising in Web video too often). Third, the show has a broadcast network’s muscles behind it.

http://newteevee.com/2008/08/16/gemini-division-a-litmus-test-for-old-media-new-media/#more-6752

A Week In, “Broadband Olympics” are Exceeding Expectations

Last Friday, in “Get Ready for the Broadband Olympics,” I posited that the ‘08 Beijing Games would be looked back upon as the first “Broadband Olympics.” NBC has made a massive investment in delivering the portions of the Games both live and on-demand via NBCOlympics.com and other outlets. A week into the Games, the broadband coverage and user experience is exceeding my and others’ expectations.

http://www.videonuze.com/blogs/?2008-08-15/A-Week-In--Broadband-Olympics-are-Exceeding-Expectations/&id=1934

Why Technology Hasn't Saved Us From Inflation (but still can)

All this said, I believe today's inflation will ultimately speed the adoption of technologies that can fight it. The higher prices get in the atoms economy, where things get more expensive every year, the more incentive there is to move goods and services to the bits economy, where things get cheaper. How high will airfares have to get (think they're high now? Just wait for new carbon taxes to kick in) before you invest in good videoconference gear and skip the flight altogether? How high will gas prices get before you decide to work a few more days a week from your fully wired home office, or skip the mall and shop online from home? The best way to lower energy prices is to cut demand.

In a world where seemingly everything is getting more expensive, the price of digital technology continues to fall and the differences between those two economies are growing. If getting rich was the incentive to go digital a decade ago, saving money may be an even stronger motivation this time.

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/08/why-technology.html

How to build a network

It gets even more head-scratching: Evslin argues that if you are too profitable, then you will attract competitors who will undercut you and steal market share. “If you’re doing well but running at or close to breakeven,” he explained, “you’ve made it impossible for anybody to undercut you without running at a deficit, which is hard to get funding for.”

So, to sum up: Take the minimum value out of the network to make it grow to maximum size to enable its members to charge more for their value while keeping costs and margins low to block competitors.

That’s not how old networks operate. Cable companies wrap their wires around you and squeeze maximum fees out of you. Ditto phone companies, newspapers, and retailers. But they all face competition from next-generation networks.

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/08/15/how-to-build-a-network/

A Summer Break of Comedy for the Web

The ability of “The Line” to attract name-brand talent reflects the increasing number of writers and actors who are showing interest in original Web video. “The Line” was the first straight-to-Internet series to be produced and financed by Broadway Video, the production company founded by the “SNL” executive producer, Lorne Michaels. But it won’t be its last: the company says it will produce other Web series created by and starring “SNL” cast members, and Mr. Michaels also intends to produce Web performances by Jimmy Fallon this fall, as that former “SNL” cast member prepares to replace Conan O’Brien on “Late Night” next year.

For the writers and stars of “The Line,” the Web was a proving ground. “We wanted to have an experience of shooting something on our own,” Mr. Hader said in an interview. “This is a good medium to do it in because it’s a very low-stakes medium.”

Mr. Meyers, best known as the co-host of “Weekend Update” on “SNL,” was lured by the opportunity to tell a tale with cliffhangers at the end of each episode, while still keeping each part to a Web-friendly four minutes. “On the Internet, it seems like things work better when they stand alone,” Mr. Meyers said. “The Line” is a test of whether viewers will come back for a serialized story. The first six episodes have drawn a wide range of views, from 15,000 to 158,000, on YouTube.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/12/arts/television/12line.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Does the Thrill of the Chase Make PR Obsolete?

It's my view that increasingly, bloggers (and maybe journos too) simply don't want our help. Many bloggers - particularly those who cover tech - love to discover new things and experience them on their own, unaided by PR. Exhibit A: Robert Scoble. Note the joy of serendipity in his post. However he's not alone by any means.

I know that when I write about news (which is not as often as I used to), I mostly do so if I discovered it on my own - as I did twice over the weekend. If I didn't find it on my own or stumble upon it early myself, I don't bother. I actually like the thrill of the chase and serendipity. I want to be first. This is something that has fueled the egos of reporters for years - partly because it sells. Heck, count me in.

So what then for PR? If this is a universal truth - and I am not sure that it is - does it make us obsolete? If we don't adapt, yessir. PR Week Publishing Director Julia Hood and I recently discussed about this during our New Media Summit in Chicago. She said, and I agree, that pitching is broken.

We have to stop spamming people and make sure that companies and products are easy and a joy to discover. That's no easy feat. Further, it means giving up control. However, in a Google age where self-discovery rules, it's becoming a must.

http://www.micropersuasion.com/2008/08/does-the-thrill.html

The myth of the creative class

One survey I quote says that 81 percent of us say we have a book in us. Another survey says that a coincidental 81 percent of young people think they have a business in them. We make tens of millions of blogs. We take hundreds of millions of Flickr photos. A few hundred thousand people write applications for Facebook. Paulo Coelho (see the post below) asks his readers to make a movie of his book and they eagerly do so. Stephen Colbert challenges his viewers to remix John McCain and they do. Howard Stern doesn’t even ask his listeners and they produce no end of song parodies and anthems to Baba Booey. The art and entertainment of Lonely Girl 15 becomes not just the videos they make but the videos viewers make. Every minute, 10 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube. People create T-shirt designs on Threadless and sneaker designs on Ryz and things of all descriptions on Etsy. BMW invites drivers to color a car and 9,000 people do. And on and on.

This has surely always been the case. The internet doesn’t make us more creative, I don’t think. But it does enable what we create to be seen, heard, and used. It enables every creator to find a public, the public he or she merits. And that takes creation out of the proprietary hands of the supposed creative class.

http://www.buzzmachine.com/2008/08/07/the-myth-of-the-creative-class/

The Pitfalls of Megabranding: Consumers Don’t Necessarily Want More Choice

What megabranders should worry about is the potential threat of narrowly focused competitors.

Look at what Steve Jobs did when he took over Apple. At the time, Apple marketed some 40 different products, from inkjet printers to the Newton handheld.

On the computer side of Apple's business, there were four major lines (Quadras, Power Macs, Performas and PowerBooks) each with a dozen different models, a typical megabrand product lineup.

Jobs cut the product line down to four machines: two laptops and two desktops. Later he told BusinessWeek, "Everything just got simpler. That's been one of my mantras -- focus and simplicity."

Over the past few years, Apple has doubled its share of the computer market.

http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=130104

How to Bridge the Digital Gap and Keep Ahead

You’d have to be caught in a “Mad Men” time warp not to realize that digital technology has changed marketing and brand building in a way even quick-draw Don Draper couldn’t have imagined. His challenge to stay ahead of the trends in the industry was nothing compared with what industry execs must do today to understand the impact that digital technology and dynamics are having on brands and brand building.

http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=129981

Will Twitter Ever Have a Business Model?

It’s a good question. Twitter—and similar aspects of other services, such as Facebook’s status updates—may have ushered in a new era of communication, according to Wired, given how many people learned of the LA earthquake last week from these services first, instead of from traditional news outlets.

But despite the site’s influence, Twitter isn’t looking for money yet. “At this point, given that we have plenty of money in the bank, it makes a lot more sense not to distract ourselves with trying to put the finishing touches on a revenue plan,” said Biz Stone, the 34-year-old co-founder of Twitter in the report.

http://www.mediabistro.com/mobilecontenttoday/social_networking/will_twitter_ever_have_a_business_model_91008.asp

Sony Pictures TV Acquires Rocketboom.com

Sony Pictures Television has snatched up Rocketboom.com, one of the more high profile video series on the Web, for an undisclosed amount.

The company said it plans to meld Rocketboom, a daily technology news series aimed squarely at Generation Y, with Crackle, the company’s fledgling hub for original online video. The series will be featured each day on Crackle.com, and will continue to be available to users on Rocketboom.com, which will soon house a Crackle-branded video player.

In addition, Sony—which going forward will handle all ad sales for Rocketboom--said it plans to widen Rocketboon’s reach by syndicating the show across Crackle’s growing distribution network.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/broadband/e3ibbefeb4c691150b5c046e965f915a63f

'Generation V' Defies Traditional Demographics

Findings about these Generation V segments:

• Up to 3% will be creators, providing original content. They can be advocates that promote products and services.
• Between 3% and 10% will be contributors who add to the conversation, but don't initiate it. They can recommend products and services as customers move through a buying process, looking for purchasing advice.
• Between 10% and 20% will be opportunists, who can further contributions regarding purchasing decisions. Opportunists can add value to a conversation that's taking place while walking through a considered purchase.
• Approximately 80% will be lurkers, essentially spectators, who reap the rewards of online community input but absorb only what is being communicated. They can still implicitly contribute and indirectly validate value from the rest of the community. All users start out as lurkers.

http://www.marketingvox.com/generation-v-defies-traditional-demographics-040205/?camp=rssfeed&src=mv&type=textlink

The art world's Pepsi Generation

The release of "Beautiful Losers," for example, is being sponsored and promoted by Nike, for whom Rose, according to a recent press release, will help produce "22 Nike Dunk Hi shoes each telling a different part of the 'Beautiful Losers' story." (Rose now runs an art-billboard campaign in Los Angeles, also sponsored by Nike.) I almost want to let that fact slide by without comment and let it speak for itself. But then, what is it saying? That we live in an era of consumer capitalism that thrives on swallowing subcultures and barfing them back up again? Duh. That artists will take money from whoever's offering it? Double duh. That the cachet of hipness is itself a salable commodity for which marketers will pay a premium price? Quintuple duh. That getting an independent film distributed has become increasingly difficult, and major corporations are sensing an untapped marketing opportunity? OK, that one is actually news, although I sure don't know how to feel about it.

In fairness, some of the artists in "Beautiful Losers" express their discomfort with what has happened to them. Graphic designer, art director and filmmaker Mike Mills is the most articulate on this score -- comparing his enormous mainstream success to winning back the girlfriend who dumped him in high school -- but everyone in the film is clearly wrestling with some version of the same dilemma. Graffiti artist and painter Stephen Powers (aka ESPO), whose waterboarding-themed installation can now be seen at Brooklyn's Coney Island amusement park, says he has sworn off commercial work. Painter Jo Jackson and installation artist Barry McGee, in fairness, never did it in the first place. Whatever you make of the allegedly subversive content of their work, they come the closest to having old-school art careers.

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/btm/feature/2008/08/07/beautiful_losers/index.html#

Keeping Up Nintendo's Momentum

Both products have allowed Nintendo to emerge from the shadows of Sony Corp. and its PlayStation and Microsoft Corp. and its Xbox. Nintendo's stock price has more than doubled in the past two years, at one point propelling the company to the No. 2 spot -- behind Toyota Motor Corp. -- among Japanese companies based on market capitalization.

Now, Nintendo is adding more games and functions to the Wii. For instance, Wii Music lets players simulate playing music together in a band. Using a new accessory called Wii Speak, players can communicate with each other remotely during a game. And the Wii Motion Plus attachment makes the controller more responsive to a player's movements. It will be bundled with a new sports title called Wii Sports Resort, which offers games based on activities such as jet-skiing, Frisbee and fencing.

In an interview, Mr. Iwata talked about the challenge of maintaining Nintendo's momentum. Excerpts:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121780805792108617.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

A parting of the programming ways for networks, cable

Here’s what has happened to TV viewing this summer: People who want reality shows have stuck with the broadcast networks. Viewers who prefer scripted series have migrated to the cable channels. And in terms of ratings, the once-vast gap between the two worlds is shrinking like never before.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-channel4-2008aug04,0,1049866.story

Time Warner Is Ready to Deal AOL Components

Time Warner Inc. has completed the internal work necessary to separate its AOL unit’s dial-up-access business from its advertising and content business, the company is expected to announce Wednesday. Now it will get serious about plotting the Internet unit’s next steps, including whether to sell one or both of the businesses.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121779084359008083.html

Disney to target boys with rebranded cable channel

Someday, Disney hopes its princes will come.

The entertainment giant, which has made billions catering to the princess fantasies of young girls, plans to relaunch Toon Disney as Disney XD, a cable channel that will target boys. The move, under wraps for more than a year, is an attempt by the company to capture a market that has long eluded it.

http://www.latimes.com/business/custom/admark/la-fi-disney7-2008aug07,0,7364328.story

Microsoft Partners With Fuse for ‘Summer of Music’

Microsoft has partnered with the music video-fueled cable network Fuse to launch a new series, Summer of Music, on its Xbox Live platform.

http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/digital-downloads/gaming/e3i54d448d16a37d60b2d0b6e2ba04e7061

Zune pursuing original content

Microsoft’s Zune is looking to Hollywood to gain an edge on Apple’s iPod.

Microsoft executives have been making the rounds at talent agencies and production companies in recent months in hopes of licensing exclusive original video programming for the portable media player, which has struggled to get traction in the marketplace.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3if2241241bd8065542e7463580ae08ef5

TubeMogul: Average Video Ad CPM Is $12.39

Video upload and analytics company TubeMogul has found that just over half of its users are monetizing videos, and the average CPM for those monetized videos is $12.39.

Admittedly, TubeMogul’s data is limited. The company reached out to nearly 12,000 of its users, which represent a mix of big media companies (CBS Interactive), new media studios (Next New Networks), ad agencies, independent creators and more. Of those contacted, 1,114 completed the survey (lured by the promise of a free T-shirt), and interestingly, some respondents were confused over terms like “monetization” and “CPM.”

But given all the recent discussion over video ad CPMs (and whether viewers want them on UGC), this is another data point to throw into the mix as we consider the actual business of online video.

http://newteevee.com/2008/08/07/tubemogul-average-video-ad-cpm-is-1239/

How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business

Social media measurement is one of those topics about which everyone has an opinion, but nobody agrees on the solution. The question about how to measure the return on investment (ROI) for social media participation comes up in every workshop I deliver, as definitive, statistic-based metrics seem to be the primary way communicators feel they can secure approval and budget for these programs from their management teams.

If you're waiting for someone to provide that magic bean, then put away your watering can. It ain't gonna happen. That's one of the reasons why I tend to think that social media (by which I mean actual conversations and relationship building exercises, not widgets and Facebook fliers) is more aligned with the goals of a PR program than it is with marketing.

http://mashable.com/2008/07/31/measuring-social-media-roi-for-business/

Hollywood Has Finally Figured Out How to Make Web Video Pay

Free-to-play videogames:

• These are mostly online massively multiplayer games, which are free to play but make money by charging the most dedicated gamers for digital assets (upgrades, clothing, new levels, etc). They started in South Korea and China (where they're now a $1 billion business) and have now come to the US, with games like Runescape and NeoPets.
• The "casual games market" (think everything from online card games to flash games) is now at nearly $3 billion.

Free music:

• How much of Apple's iPod $4 billion in annual sales should be credited to the libraries of "free" MP3 that created demand for gigabyte storage devices? How much of MySpace's $65 billion estimated value is due to the free music bands put there? How much of the $2 billion concert business is driven by P2P file sharing?

So what's the bottom line? By a strict definition of free (just the third category), it's pretty easy to get to $50 billion total revenues. Include the next most interesting free market, online ad-driven content and services, and you're around $75 billion. Expand that to the traditional ad-supported media, and you can get to $150 billion. Go worldwide, and you can easily double all those figures.

Whichever definition you like, there's a lot of money to be made around free.

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/07/how-big-is-the.html

Brands Grab Web Video’s Long Tail

Xeni Jardin isn’t exactly a household name, but she has a sizable following. As one of the creators of the popular blog Boing Boing, Jardin’s a bona fide Web celebrity.

Now, Microsoft is hoping she can lend some small-wattage star power to its “I’m Initiative,” which promotes Microsoft instant-messaging and e-mail by tying them to social causes. Through a deal brokered by Federated Media, Microsoft is underwriting episodes of a new Jardin-produced Web series, “Boing Boing TV World,” which gives snapshots of international cultures.

The deal is one of several recently struck between small Web-video producers and big brands looking to connect with consumers beyond mass-market video destinations controlled by major media companies. The hope is that the comparatively high CPMs paid for small audiences -- combined with the time needed to create the programs -- will pay off with a brand impact deeper and more lasting than just plopping a pre-roll ad in front of a piece of content.

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i023cb54210a5a93a38d15c783247fbd6

A Bad Time for Web Apps

If you follow me on the nanoblogs, you may have seen me complaining recently about getting pitched on new Web apps that I find either derivative or confusing. Or both. Now, in any entrepreneurial ecosystem, a big proportion of the ideas that people come up with will be bad, and many of those bad ideas will become actual products. But at the moment, the ratio of bad Web products to good (or even interesting) products is worse than usual. Here are a few reasons why. …

http://voices.allthingsd.com/20080731/rafe-2/

Why There Won’t Be Another lonelygirl

Pioneering web series lonelygirl15 will draw to a close today. The online show that proved the Internet could launch compelling visual entertainment that captivates large audiences will conclude with the final 12 episodes being released over its final 12 hours. This countdown to the end is a fitting metaphor.

lg15 shutting down is symbolic of web video’s changing landscape. When the show first started in June of 2006, the web video world was ruled by the users. Fueled by credit-card debt and filled with DIY spirit, Bre was going to lead a revolution, inspiring everyday people to rise up and smash the Hollywood machine. It was going to be freaking beautiful, man.

http://newteevee.com/2008/08/01/why-there-wont-be-another-lonelygirl/

What Marketers Can Learn From Twitter's Stumbles

What are the limits of consumer loyalty when a particular product or service consistently stumbles, or just doesn't work? What if those stumbles are actually due to the immense popularity of the product?

Any fast-growing brand that has seen its infrastructure quiver under the weight of widespread customer demand should look for a lesson on how not to do things in Web 2.0 darling Twitter. The fast-growing message platform allows users to tell a self-selected group what he or she is doing at any time of the day, using either a PC or mobile device to transmit short, 140-character-or-less messages.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=129952

Target the Audience or Ride Along With the Content?

Like nature vs. nurture, the debate between targeting content or audiences is something of a philosophic argument in the marketing world. Some people believe targeting audiences is what matters most -- regardless of where they are browsing online; others believe that the quality and context of the website on which a consumer is targeted matters.

Now, new findings from the Online Publishers Association suggest that content is king: Ads on branded-content websites are more effective than non-branded sites and outpace industry norms in nearly every category.

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=130033

Warning Sign: Metered Broadband Already a Hassle

We've talked before that metered access is a boneheaded idea that is bad for innovation, bad for Microsoft and Google, and ultimately bad for you. Until today, the idea seemed like an eventuality, not an immediate reality. But then NBC and TonicTV launched a new service that lets you download video from the Olympics and watch it offline. Right next to the installation instructions was this "important"note:

That's the first warning I've seen about a particular service not being recommended for folks with metered broadband access. But the real bummer? That is just a taste of things to come — especially if you're a fan of video services like Hulu.

http://gigaom.com/2008/08/02/warning-sign-metered-broadband-already-a-hassle/

Meet Moondo, Multiplayer, Multi-game Network

Moondo, a new "cross-gaming universe" from Funtactix (an Israeli game studio that's backed by $6 million in Series A funding from Benchmark Capital and Jerusalem Venture Partners) has come out of limited beta. Sort of like Xbox Live for the web, Moondo lets you create your own characters, which can jump into a variety of 3-D action and sports games. All along, points and virtual items are collected and retained across the network, so you can track your accomplishments against friends and competitors.

Since it's free to play, Funtactix CEO Sam Glassenberg tells me, the company plans to make money through virtual item sales. Moondo's a fun idea with potential stickiness, especially for young teens, but I strongly suspect the site's somewhat odd cartoonish graphics will turn off older players, as will the 85 MB client install (though a web version is planned for October.)

http://gigaom.com/2008/07/27/meet-moondo-multiplayer-multi-game-network/

So then what is social media all about?

With all the discussion on what social media is, what it’s future will be like, who will control it, I often feel we fail to see the forest for the trees.

I see it as too diverse of a phenomenon to pin down with one easy definition. Its applications go far beyond the neat capsules that can be used to pick a particular department or function that should “own” it. Social media is creating, empowering, and accompanying a paradigm shift in the way we use all media.

http://marketingconversation.com/2008/07/30/so-then-what-is-social-media-all-about/

Hulu Gets All Widgety and Facebook-y

One of the reasons Hulu caught on so quickly was the ability for users to embed full-length TV episodes and movies on their blogs and personal pages. Hulu says that its content has been distributed on 27,000 sites and over 500,000 individual embed players. Now the company is taking that distribution one step further and rolling out new widgets that expand those embedding options.

http://newteevee.com/2008/07/27/hulu-gets-all-widgety-and-facebook-y/

How American Youth Will Screw Viacom

Here’s the thing about the TV business: It’s only as profitable or as valuable as the people who watch it. And if the only people who watch it are senior citizens strapped by debt, it’s not worth much -- not to advertisers, anyway.

When Viacom posted second-quarter results yesterday, the company admitted its TV business hit a snag. Global advertising sales grew just 2 percent, and U.S. ad sales only eked out 1 percent growth. Ad volume “dropped off” mid-quarter, according to Viacom president and CEO Philippe Dauman (above).

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/07/how-american-yo.html

The time/money formula of free

At some point in your life, you will wake up and discover that you have more money than time. And you will then realize that you should start doing things differently, which means not walking four blocks to find an ATM that doesn't charge a fee, driving for miles to find cheaper gas, or painting your own house.

This same calculus is the foundation of a big part of the "freemium" economy. We see it a lot in free-to-play online games, such as Maple Story, where you can buy things like "teleportation stones" to let you get from one place to another without a long slog or wait for a bus. Most of these paid digital assets don't make you a better player, but they do allow you to become a better player faster.

If you're a kid, you probably have more time than money. That's the force behind MP3 file trading, which is kind of a hassle and but is free (albeit illegal, of course!). As Steve Jobs famously pointed out, if you download music from peer-to-peer services, fixing the messy metadata as you go, the time it takes to avoid paying means you're working for less than minimum wage. Nevertheless, that works if you you're time-rich and money-poor. Free is the right price for you.

But as you get older, the equation reverses and $0.99 here and there no longer seems like a big deal. You migrate into a paying customer, the premium user in the freemium equation.

http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/07/the-timemoney-f.html

The Vice Squad: How 'Vice' magazine became the new teen bible

Founded in Montreal, Canada, in 1994, the magazine started as a government-funded project, as part of a community-building welfare programme. Then known as the Voice of Montreal, it was originally run by three friends - Shane Smith, Suroosh Alvi and Gavin McInnes - and became the Voice before Vice was finally born. Now with its headquarters in New York and more than 900,000 readers across 22 countries, Vice is building an empire - complete with its own web-based television channel, fashion range, online store and record label.

Not least because of its expanding market, which detractors consider to be a shift away from its founding ideals, Vice is no stranger to criticism. Its self-congratulatory, cooler-than-thou attitude has long drawn derision. But despite an arguably gratuitous penchant for photos of vomiting teenagers and exploding cows, there is something to be said for some of the magazine's more controversial content. One special issue, entitled the Special Issue, was dedicated to work produced by people with disabilities. It featured the work of a group who had met at a summer camp specifically for people with special needs. Its members had made a documentary, overseen by group leader Arthur Bradford. Bradford explained how the collaboration with Vice came about.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/the-vice-squad-how-vice-magazine-became-the-new-teen-bible-876351.html

Avril Lavigne's YouTube video earns her £1m in a year

We're glad that someone's figured out how to make some money in an era of all-free, all-digital music. We're just not sure it ought to have been Avril Lavigne. Thanks to the forward-thinking strategies of her management, the singer has netted a cool £1m just from fans watching a music video on YouTube.

Last year, Nettwerk Management uploaded the official Girlfriend video to the popular video-sharing website. Twelve months later, thanks to a coordinated fan campaign, the video has clocked up almost 100m hits from around the world. And where there are page-views, there are ad-views. Even after YouTube takes its cut, "there's about a $2m (£1m) cheque waiting for her for all her YouTube plays," Nettwerk Management CEO Terry McBride explained to MusicTank.

Together with its sister record label, Vancouver-based Nettwerk Management has been one of the most controversial voices in the mainstream music industry, arguing that companies needs to forgo old methods and embrace the opportunities that the internet presents. In 2006 they offered to pay the legal fees of David Greubel – a Texas teenager being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America for downloading music - and they were among the first big labels to sell all their music in un-encrypted MP3 format.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/23/avril.lavigne.youtube

Hollywood Has Finally Figured Out How to Make Web Video Pay

Sure, the YouTube explosion was fueled by amateurs, but it will be showbiz professionals who cash in on Web video. That's because most big corporate advertisers want a safe, predictable environment — not the latest YouTube one-off, no matter how viral. Once the major brands get on board, millions of ad dollars will follow. Which is why when the writers' strike idled most of Hollywood last winter, talent agents fielded calls from clients eager to try their hand. At the same time, the fact that a three-minute clip can be shot for as little as $2,000 means Web video will be more open to ambitious neophytes than television ever was — witness the guys behind Lonelygirl15, who now have a second hit Web series called KateModern and a deal to develop more for CBS.

So far, however, this is a gold rush without any gold. Nobody knows how the business is supposed to work — what kind of stories to tell, whether to tell them in 90 seconds or 20 minutes, whether to build a destination site or distribute episodes across the Net, how to generate revenue, how to do it all on a shoestring. The Gemini team is betting they can figure it out. "People ask, 'What's your business model?'" says the director, Stan Rogow, during a lull in the shoot. "And I say, 'This morning's or this afternoon's?' It's only partly a joke."

A wiry figure who wears his long silver hair brushed straight back, Rogow is dressed in softly faded jeans and an extravagantly collared white shirt open halfway to the waist, a set of aviator glasses tucked neatly into the V. In an earlier life he was "the king of tweens," the producer who made Lizzie McGuire for Disney and turned Hilary Duff into a star. Gemini Division is the first of eight Web serials he has in the works at Electric Farm Entertainment, the production company he's formed with Friedman, the writer, and Jeff Sagansky, a former copresident of Sony Pictures Entertainment and head of CBS Entertainment before that.

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/16-08/ff_gemini

Microsoft Seeks an Ad Friend in Facebook

MICROSOFT has tried various tactics to expand its share of the lucrative online search business.

It recently failed in its pursuit of Yahoo. It is paying people to use its search engine. Now Microsoft thinks it has found a promising source of users for its foundering search service: Facebook, the social networking site.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/25/business/media/25adco.html?_r=1&ref=media&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin

Roll Your Own Digg: Coming in Six Months

According to various reports from the last Digg Townhall/meetup this week, Digg's CEO Jay Adelson announced that Digg will soon let its users create and manage their own 'sub-Diggs.' Digg's main competitors like reddit and Mixx have already given their users this ability, and Digg has been rumored to start adding this feature for a while.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/roll_your_own_digg_soon.php#more

If Microsoft Opens the Xbox Is an App Store for Apple TV Next?

Opening up game consoles could actually be very important in revolutionizing all of home entertainment. Remember that Xbox 360, Tivo and Apple TV boxes are fundamentally similar devices optimized for different purposes. All of them take information from a hard drive and an Internet connection to display entertainment on a television screen. Yes, the Xbox has much better graphics processing and an optical drive. The Tivo decodes cable and broadcast signals.

But the platforms are converging. Xbox does a brisk business in downloaded movies and has a new deal with Netflix. Tivo downloads movies from Amazon and now links to YouTube.

So think about this: a version of Apple’s app store for Apple TV. This could serve as a basic game platform for Apple–not so basic if the company beefs up the graphic chip in the device. Moreover, apps for Apple TV could offer the sort of info snacking that iPhone apps do: weather, yellow pages, photo sharing, viral videos and so on. I assume video, photos and entertainment apps would be most popular, but there is someone who will do anything. And that’s the beauty of an open environment.

But even more than casual entertainment, the right approach for open applications for an Internet connected video device will revolutionize television. Imagine a CNN application that lets you assemble a newscast on topics that interest you. People have been chatting about “interactive television” for several decades. But suddenly we have the right platform: A real computer with a broadband Internet connection coming in and video going out.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/microsoft-opens-the-xbox-is-an-app-store-for-apple-tv-next/

Prime Times

It’s worth noting that movies, novels and video experiences like games and Second Life represent life differently from television. For one, characters in those genres typically go outside more. They spend scenes lost in transit or thought. They undertake big-stage action like seafaring, working up musical numbers, engaging in espionage or waging war. They’re not always in manageable groups of two or three; sometimes they’re solitary or in crowds.

Young viewers who have been turned off by television have come to prefer plots with mind-blowing effects or, in the case of interactive media, parts written just for them and their online friends. All of this is too cerebral, text-based, active, abstract, controversial, expensive or peripatetic for TV, where the budgets, shooting schedules and ad-driven rhythms demand passive viewers and sets where filming and taking sound are easy. If young people are ever to enjoy the art of the television drama — and some will argue they should just thank their stars they never got addicted — they have to relearn how to quit typing and texting for an hour or two, lean back in couches and enjoy simple, talky dramatic scenes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/magazine/27wwln-medium-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&oref=slogin

Hitwise: MySpace leads social networks but Facebook is growing faster

MySpace remains the king of the social networks with a nearly 72% market share, but close competitor Facebook isn’t giving up. According to a new report from Hitwise, US consumers continue to choose MySpace over other social nets but the trend is beginning to change. MySpace shows -6% growth from June 2007 through June 2008 which Facebook showed 40% year over year (YoY) growth. Hitwise reports that Facebook has a 16% market share.

Facebook isn’t the fastest growing social network, however. MyYearbook.com (318% growth YoY) and Tagged (45% YoY growth). Bebo, meanwhile, dropped 41% YoY.

http://www.bizreport.com/2008/07/hitwise_myspace_leads_social_networks_but_facebook_is_growin.html

Could peace be near for YouTube and Hollywood?

Google's YouTube is quickly shedding its reputation in Hollywood as a clearinghouse for pirated content and could soon be home to clips from popular movies and TV shows--all legally obtained.

Insiders say the search company has adopted a more accommodating approach toward Hollywood, and that it's finally starting to pay off. Last week, Lionsgate struck a content agreement with YouTube in a deal that calls for unprecedented cooperation between a major film studio and the Web's largest video-sharing site.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-9996905-93.html

Column: A Silver Lining for Web TV

The thing I love about research reports is that there’s a new one every week. And this week’s installment is of the shiny, happy variety. (That’s a change of pace because I know many of you said you were ready to retire after the bleak Lehman Brothers report from earlier this month.)

So here’s your good news. There is money to be made in professionally produced online video and the prices based on cost-per-thousand (CPM) impressions are good. That’s the conclusion of a report from the Diffusion Group.

Professional Web programming yields very high CPMs, the report found. The CPMs for long-form online content are $40 today and will reach nearly $46 in 2013. Meanwhile, CPMs for short clips are clocking in at about $30 and will rise to a little over $34 in five years.

The CPMs for user-generated video will have the smallest rise, from only $15 today to about $17 in 2013.

http://www.tvweek.com/news/2008/07/column_a_silver_lining_for_web.php

Drowning Out the Big Labels: Some indies are selling more records than ever while the majors limp along

This is how crazy the music business is right now. Certain veteran independent labels, which in some cases spent the 1990s alternating between slamming the majors and begging them for emergency funding, are starting to look as if they know what they're doing.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_31/b4094075714163.htm

10 Free Resources Every Youth Marketer Should Be Using

Let me say upfront that I am copying a popular feature on Mashable and attempting to adapt it for Ypulse. The Ypulse Toolbox will be an occasional feature that lists websites and/or ideas that will ideally help you do your job better. If you have an idea for a Ypulse Toolbox you would like to see, let us know and we'll attempt to pull it together. My goal is to keep these less generic and more youth media/marketing specific. For our first feature, I'm going to share 10 sites/resources anyone trying to reach youth should Bookmark. Obviously, I don't need to tell you to read Ypulse, you're already here!

http://ypulse.com/archives/2008/07/new_feature_ypu.php

NBC & DirecTV Split FNL Costs & Rights

NBC struck a deal with DirecTV to split the production costs and distribution rights of “Friday Night Lights”...As part of the agreement, the satellite provider gets to air the new 13-episode season of “Friday Night Lights” this October before it debuts in February on the broadcast network.

When the series airs Wednesdays on DirecTV’s 101 Network, each episode will be paired with a 30-minute live call-in show, in which fans can talk with actors from the show.

Because “Friday Nights Lights” will air on such different platforms, producers are considering creating two distinct versions of each episode to take advantage of having a longer run time and fewer content restrictions on satellite...But it remains an open question whether hard-core fans of the show (are there any other kind?) who don’t have DirecTV will wait to watch it on NBC or download pirated episodes that are bound to make their way online.

http://brandnoise.typepad.com/brand_noise/2008/07/nbc-directv-spl.html

The Customer is the Company

Nickell was somewhat befuddled by all the attention. He was not familiar with the term user innovation -- or, for that matter, the term Eric von Hippel. Business at Nickell's company, Threadless, had been growing quickly -- annual sales were on track to hit $5 million, and he had lately started getting curious calls from venture capitalists and large retailers. But Threadless didn't quite seem like MIT material. At 25, Nickell hadn't even graduated from college.

Von Hippel, a Harvard graduate, entrepreneur, and former McKinsey consultant who was 40 years Nickell's senior, called the room to attention and began lavishing praise on Threadless; he called the company a "perfect example" of a new way of thinking about innovation. Von Hippel's theory, which he had introduced in the late 1970s, was that most product innovations do not come out of corporate research and development labs but from the people who use the products. Nickell shot a confused glance at Jeffrey Kalmikoff, Threadless's chief creative officer, and Jacob DeHart, his chief technology officer. The meeting had barely begun, and they had already learned something.

http://www.inc.com/magazine/20080601/the-customer-is-the-company.html

New Tool From Facebook Extends Its Web Presence

“We are going to see the big social networks start to decentralize into a series of social applications across the Web,” Mr. Zuckerberg said. “I think we are at the beginning of a movement and the beginning of an industry.”

To carve out a piece of that future, the company announced Facebook Connect, a way that other Web sites can integrate parts of Facebook’s service. Web sites can ask users for their Facebook user name and password, instead of creating an identity verification system themselves, and offer their users the ability to import their list of friends from Facebook.

For example, the mobile service company Loopt, based in Mountain View, Calif., helps people find their friends and see what they are doing on a map on their mobile phone. It will use Facebook Connect so its users do not have to re-enter their connections to the friends they want to track.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/technology/24facebook.html?_r=1&th=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&emc=th&adxnnlx=1216909565-ilG6W+LIKvBgsOpZDYGwqA

Sierra Mist Quietly Backs Animated Web Series

"Branded entertainment has gotten dated," said Claudia Cahill, exec VP-corporate development at Medium, a content-development company that produced the series.
"It's not about 'insert brand here.' The brand's role has to have a reason. These guys have embraced that." (Not that Sierra Mist hasn't embraced traditional product integration this summer.)
Likewise, visitors to onthebubblenews.com won't find any mention of Sierra Mist, nor will those who view it on YouTube or MySpace or any of the other social-media sites on which it's being seeded. The brand doesn't appear in the storyline until the ninth episode, and then only fleetingly.
The brainchild of Comedy Central writer Adam de la Pena ("The Man Show," "Crank Yankers"), "On the Bubble" is an animated newscast put on by group of fictional cash-strapped 20-something students in a dorm room at the equally fictional Middle Town Community College. Think of it as "The Daily Show" staffed by grown-up versions of "South Park" denizens like Kenny and Cartman.
"Brand marketing is evolving," said Ron Pence, Sierra Mist's senior brand manager. "It's not about [building] brand space and hoping they'll buy in. It's about having a relationship with those customers, making them laugh."

http://adage.com/madisonandvine/article?article_id=129862

Talking Agency Smack And The Seeds Of Real-Deal Change

But, look -- there are simmering trends at a high level, and in the trenches, that mark an advance:

1. As consumers and executives, we are embracing an evermore converged media world.

2. Brands are integrating media to drive both brand and performance, with choices they previously did not deem so dexterous. Search comes to mind.

3. Marketers work with content and technology, creating experiential social media and highly targeted custom programs that leverage multimedia assets. Agencies are not just in the ad business anymore.

4. The best planners and creatives are not only developing for medium or platform, but for mindset of consumer in said medium or platform.

5. Discovery, strategy and planning, and studio are getting together more often.

http://blogs.mediapost.com/spin/?p=1347