Microsoft TV announces Microsoft® Mediaroom™ at NXTcomm, the latest update to the award-winning IPTV platform including exciting connected entertainment features and a new ingredient brand to support service provider marketing activities.
Only 44 percent of cellphone owners use data services like video or the Internet on their phones, according to Forrester Research. Among those who use phones for more than calling, 88 percent of them use messaging, mostly text messaging, and about a quarter surf the Web, but only 7 percent watch videos. Screen size and low resolution are problems, analysts say, and many consumers seem uninterested in content on their phones.
“A lot of what is being said is being driven by what is technically possible as opposed to any real understanding of just what people are doing,” says Mike Bloxham, research director at the Center for Media Design at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. “Yes, it is possible to watch video on many of the cellphones people are buying,” he added, “but you have to look at how many people are doing that.”
Of consumers who made a purchase in the last month, 48% said the Internet drove initial awareness, 57% said they learned more using the Internet, 55% used the Internet to decide where to buy, and 56% made the final purchase decision using the Internet. Word of Mouth, which also has strong Web components, was second in importance -- however the Internet outpaced all others by at least 50%.
In fact, sites such as Club Penguin, a popular virtual community for young kids, Gaia Online, Habbo Hotel and relative newcomers Zwinky and Kaneva all had more unique visitors than Second Life's stand-alone application did in May, according to figures from comScore Research. And another site, There.com, had about the same number of visitors as Second Life in May.
Photos, video clips and other content embedded into personal MySpace and Facebook pages will now be tracked separately by the online measurement company comScore Inc.
The introduction of the comScore Widget Metrix represents the company's latest evolution as new technologies make the standard yardstick of page views less and less meaningful.
The new measurement means that Photobucket, for example, would get full credit for items that are accessed as part of a Facebook profile.
RECENT ADVANCES IN ONLINE ADVERTISING have yet to take advertisers' focus off TV, according to a new report from JupiterResearch. "Neither relatively better targeting nor the increasing availability of branding-friendly rich media and video inventory have led to any demonstrable online cannibalization of TV spending," said David Card, vice president and senior analyst at JupiterResearch.
One reason for TV's continued ad dominance, according to Card, is the fact that so many consumers use the Web for communicating rather than consuming content from either media companies or brand marketers.
"Over half of users' time online is spent in communications, like email and instant messaging," he said.
In the realm of social networks, where people mix connecting with friends and content consumption, brand advertisers should rely on sponsorships, widgets or branded microsites to make an impression.
Q: What's the biggest myth about viral video?
A: That it will market itself. Good viral takes a lot of work. Eepybird, started by two guys from Maine, spent six months getting two minutes of footage of Mentos being dropped in Diet Coke bottles and causing an explosion.
VISIBLE WORLD AND IMAGESPAN TODAY are announcing a new online dashboard that allows advertisers to tap into thousands of videographers and photographers to create rights-cleared creative. Iain Scholnick, chairman and CEO of Sausalito, Calif.-based ImageSpan, says the new platform promises nothing short of a revolution for the $8 billion rights management clearance process.
"Advertisers are on the front lines of a complex new world of mashups and multi-copyright-holder content projects due to increased demands to scale campaigns and tailor them to local markets in real time," Schnolnick said.
The new platform "provides a marketplace where advertisers can electronically secure rights-cleared images and video to create, customize, target, tailor, monitor and actively change ads on-the-fly to reflect changing market conditions."
For example, Schnolnick said, an automaker could order local footage be shot by the more than 7,000 videographers and independent photographers available to shoot and upload raw content on demand through its new dashboard. This can then be woven into a national ad campaign making for a seamless and more consistent brand experience rather than the "cut to local" appearance most such ads get now.
We've been advocating respondent segmentation in post-click marketing for a while now, in particular early segmentation, before a respondent converts. The motivation is to fill the gap in the funnel: somewhere between winning that first click from 100% of your respondents and actually converting a tiny fraction of them (~3% industry average), there's a mysterious pre-conversion void, where the far majority of respondents simply vanish without a word. The question is always: why?
No matter where you go, you can watch crystal clear High Definition TV on your laptop with Plextor’s Mini Digital HDTV Receiver. Enjoy unlimited hours of entertainment without recurring charges and expensive subscription fees. Turning your PC into a portable media center has never been easier.
"Drummer rocks the kettles with his brushsticks and barbeque sauce. Featuring David Suycott, the drummer from the indie rock band Stabbing Westward. Brought to you by DraftFCB." So says the latest viral video from a big ad agency. They keep trying. And we keep buying.
read more | digg story
The evolution of our mature marketplace, along with the technology that allows consumers to be in control, has created a seismic shift from one-size-fits-all mass markets to millions of markets of self interest. All mature markets inevitably evolve into this kind of economy, driven by ever-narrower markets of desire and ever-narrower facets of individual self-identities.
I've actually played casual games at home on my 37" TV through Dish Network using just my remote. It may not look earth-shattering, but considering the popularity of casual games among women age 35+, this is important. We're in the stage of this convergence thing now at which we must constantly question our assumptions about which device belongs to what kind(s) of "content."
On a purely practical scale, I'd rather try to run some video advertising for, let's say, a packaged food brand via DirecTV's casual gaming "interface" than the eensy-weensy screens on Yahoo! Games. Wouldn't you?
Powered by ScribeFire.
The high-profile Internet start-up Joost plans to announce today that it has hired Mr. Volpi, 40, as its new chief executive. Joost, which is based in London, is building a global television network of full-length TV shows and movies and sending it to viewers over the Internet.
Mike Volpi was rumored to be the new CEO of Joost for quite a while, and the company confirmed the news today. We had a chance to catch up with Volpi, one of the rising stars at Cisco Systems, and talked to him about his decision, and his plans for Joost, a P2P video company started by Skype co-founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström that recently raised $45 million in funding from investors such as Sequoia Capital.
Unlike the often-violent world of videogames, virtual sites such as Stardoll, Doppelganger, Club Penguin and Gaia Online hark back to a more innocent time of tea parties and playing outdoors -- and they are winning young users in droves.
The success of Second Life, one of the most popular virtual lifestyle sites for adults, with even its own banks and real estate agents, has helped to raise interest in the genre.
At Stardoll, young girls can create their own online 'MeDoll' identities from a template that allows the user to choose everything from skin tone to eyebrow shapes.
Most important, it allows the user to dress-up their avatar in the latest teen fashion.
The computer comes with a diary-like folder that attaches to the laptop via magnets. The folder, available in different colors, also functions as a wireless charger for the device. One side features a screen made of material devised by E Ink, one of the recipients of investment by Intel Capital. It can display a picture, the calendar, or your schedule for the day.
On average, there are only seven readers for each of the 12.5 million blogs on LiveJournal, one of the most popular services for hosting these online journals.
COMCAST'S TOP EXECUTIVE BELIEVES IT'S "imperative" the cable operator give advertisers a user-friendly way to beam targeted messages into millions of homes within the next several years. The same philosophy applies to interactive ads, in which a viewer could potentially engage in impulse e-commerce.
"The money is humongous--and real cash," Comcast chairman-CEO Brian Roberts said Wednesday at an investor conference.
That calculus would appear to come from advertisers' increased interest in employing Internet-style targeted ad techniques on linear TV--and the massive amount of ad time Comcast has to sell via the two minutes an hour per channel that it retains for itself.
The ad is fully customizable and can be segmented along the page to include multiple video clips, blogs, and redirects for more information, all in one unit. It is the only ad that will appear on the page alongside the content and runs the full screen, ensuring it is viewed for the entire duration of the reader’s session which, according to the Hollywood Reporter, can last several minutes.
The 50/50 is slated to roll out to other Nielsen Business Media properties later this summer, including Billboard, Adweek, Brandweek and Mediaweek.
The NBC ad can be viewed here.
Apple Inc. said Wednesday it will soon introduce the ability for Apple TV users to access the popular YouTube service on their living room televisions through its video-streaming set-top-box.
Beginning in mid-June, users of the Apple TV device will be able to wirelessly stream videos directly from YouTube. The feature will help address what some observers have said was a shortcoming of Apple TV.
Site Unique Visitors Year-over-year (April 2007) growth
Tier I
1. YouTube 46,436 271%
2. Google Video 17,372 139%
3. vids.myspace.com 14,856 66%
4. Yahoo! Video 14,531 453%
5. MSN Video 13,218 39%
6. AOL Video 13,150 NA
Tier II
7. Metacafe 3,903 131%
8. Break.com 2,906 3%
9. iFILM 2,003 -18%
10. Veoh 1,530 NA
11. Addicting Clips 1,226 2%
12. Heavy.com 1,135 -44%
Two new IBM banner ads running on B2B sites, inviting visitors to connect directly with an IBM "concierge" to discuss the Express Advantage product suite, reports ClickZ (via MarketingVOX). Visitors can launch a chat session within the ad unit, without leaving the page. Using video, VoIP and text chat technology, the LiveBanner ads are an AVivocom product. The IBM chat ad units will appear on various B2B sites, including Inc.com, Entrepreneur.com, and some "non-traditional environments" in eight U.S. cities.
A demo video of a European version of the LiveBanner is available here.
Facebook’s timing is perfect. They just released an API that gives third party developers deep access to Facebook functionality and it’s 20 million users. Not only can these third party startups get a widget placed on people’s Facebook profiles, but they can also get viral distribution through users’ news feeds and access core Facebook features. Using the tools that Facebook made available, developers could build new versions of some of Facebook’s own applications, like Facebook Photos. Users can then remove those default applications and add the new ones. Like Microsoft with Windows, Facebook is now competing with application developers on its own platform.
Read the rest on Techcrunch here.
Rival armies, guns ready to fire, camouflage vests, helicopters. Then explosions, ambushes, splatters everywhere. The most colourful game in the world goes awol.
Facebook.com on Thursday took the wraps off its highly anticipated makeover from a members-only club into what it hopes can allow it to become a software operating system for all sorts of Internet media.
The college student social networking site, which opened up to users of all ages over the past year, said it has signed up 65 partners, including Microsoft Corp. and Amazon.com Inc., to build Web applications within Facebook.
Other companies building services within Facebook include photo-sharing site Photobucket, multimedia presentation site Slide, music discovery site iLike, new-style instant messaging site Twitter.com and Web-calling companies Jajah and Jaxtr.
MOBILE AD PROVIDER GREENLIGHT WIRELESS Corp. said its new three-week-old sponsored listings service has seen a daily click-through rate (CTR) for the publisher-created copy ranging from 1.0% to 3.1% daily.
TechCrunch is reporting that Google is about to close a deal to acquire RSS management firm FeedBurner for $100 million in cash. The report cites a "source close to the deal." The transaction is expected to close in two to three weeks, TechCrunch says. FeedBurner was founded in 2003 and has raised about $10 million in venture capital funding. FeedBurner allows blog owners to manage their RSS feeds and track usage of their subscribers. A Google spokeswoman said the company does not comment on rumors or speculation. Representatives at FeedBurner did not return calls seeking comment.
Google is running a limited test that will allow select advertisers to run video ads inside of video clips on some U.S. publisher Web sites in Google's AdSense program. Under the AdSense for Video test, which began on Wednesday, revenue will be split between the Web site publisher and Google. Details were not disclosed. Advertisements will play on the publishers' Flash players and not on YouTube or Google hosted videos. Publishers can select which videos to monetize and track the performance of the ads, as well as choose where the ads will appear within the video. Ads will be 30 seconds or shorter and can be made skippable.
Google ran two pilot tests previously that allowed publishers to choose video clips with bundled ads to display on their sites as part of an AdSense video distribution and sponsorship that involved Epicurious.com, The Wall Street Journal and Conde Nast LX Networks. Google also offers click-to-play video ads to its AdSense publisher network.
Phozi hosted photos that can be displayed on MySpace and all the usual social networking and blogging services. Photos can be uploaded directly or can be taken via Webcam or Mobile Phone.
Phozi differs in what if offers in terms of editing the uploaded image. Phozi offers a variety of tools to customize each image. Users can add borders, stamps and free form text to an image, which from accounts is similar in functionality to a Japanese photo booth.
It’s not without competitors. Cameroid offers similar online functionality and WebCamGreetings offers it through software with a web cam focus.
The long-predicted convergence of the Internet and the broadcast world is finally accelerating as video-sharing Web sites are nurturing a snacklike world of shorts that cannot be found on traditional television networks that serve up 30-minute meals.
For the first time, HBO has used the Internet not only to debut an upcoming TV series but also to allow viewers to spread its pilot episode virally across the Web.
Neutrogena is giving young women a forum to share tips on how they deal with stress with a Web series and a contest that awards a posh trip to the Bahamas.
The online reality show, “OneLessStress,” follows three 20-something women as they compete in seven New York City-based stress-related challenges. They include time management, diet, career, relationships, organization, money management and beauty and grooming.
The Webisodes, sponsored by Neutrogena and its Oil-Free Acne Stress Control, are available at OneLessStress.com. Actress Hayden Panettiere of NBC’s “Heroes” hosts the series, which run through August. Each episode will feature tips from experts specific to the online challenges.
Skype joins Wal-Mart's Internet marketplace - Yahoo! News
Handsets, webcams and other gear from Skype, a pioneer in PC-to-PC calling, will be sold in more than 1,800 Wal-Mart stores starting Monday.
The Wal-Mart partnership is the latest sign that Skype has arrived on Main Street, says Don Albert, vice president of Skype's North American operations.
"This brings Internet communications to the masses," he says. "This relationship is an acknowledgment that Skype has arrived in the mainstream."
Skype will show up at Wal-Mart with its own discount offer: a prepaid calling card.
- Read the AP story on MSNBC here
"In TV's worst spring in recent memory, a startling number of Americans drifted away from television the past two months: More than 2.5 million fewer people were watching ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox than at the same time last year, statistics show.
Everyone has a theory to explain the plummeting ratings: early Daylight Savings Time, more reruns, bad shows, more shows being recorded or downloaded or streamed.
Scariest of all for the networks, however, is the idea that many people are now making their own television schedules. The industry isn't fully equipped to keep track of them, and as a result the networks are scrambling to hold on to the nearly $8.8 billion they collected during last spring's ad-buying season.
"This may be the spring where we see a radical shift in the way the culture thinks of watching TV," said Sarah Bunting, co-founder of the Web site Television Without Pity.
In this white paper, Bob Liodice (CEO of the ANA) forecasts the ten ways that marketing will be transformed in 2007.
The web has seen an explosion in the use of widgets over the past year or so. So let's explore what a widget is and its uses. Note that in this post, we're discussing Web-based widgets only, rather than desktop widgets such as those provided by Yahoo Widgets or Microsoft's Vista widgets.
Maurice Lévy, chairman and chief executive of Publicis Groupe (PUB); David Droga, creative chairman of New York City-based creative shop Droga5; and David Kenny, CEO of Digitas (both subsidiary companies of Publicis); were out West to talk up the launch of Honeyshed, a new Web site aimed specifically at providing only branded content. And though official word said that Microsoft wasn't doing anything but acting as host for the announcement, it's unlikely that its interest in the proposal is merely an act of selfless generosity.
A new company, RIPPLE, is poised to help businesses large and small create their own digital place-based video displays to promote inventory and drive traffic. The expansion of the new service, announced today, promises to democratize place-based video advertising, a medium long dominated by large video networks in cooperation with national retail chains.
In effect, local stores will be able to advertise in other local stores using neighborhood networks. The network may also prove useful to national advertisers looking for local access.
Ripple has already established video displays at 400 locations throughout Southern California, Arizona, Nevada and Hawaii. The network's co-founder and president, Ali Diab, says it reaches an estimated 10 million consumers a month and hopes to expand the network to thousands of locations nationally by the end of 2007.
Rich Internet applications appear on the Internet with increasing regularity, yet publishers, marketers and advertisers continue to struggle with measurement of user interactions within some of these apps. Avenue A/Razorfish is attempting to address this problem with an analytics and reporting solution called RIAx, which it's making available to clients.
