AT&T Inc. has announced the nationwide launch of AT&T Video Share in nearly 160 markets. Video Share is the first-ever service in the U.S. that enables users to share live video over their wireless phones while on a voice call.
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The least fast-forwarded television campaigns in April were dominated by direct response ads that ran during the day.
That was a key finding from TiVo Inc.’s first Top Commercial Rankings report. Using TiVo’s Stop-Watch service’s ability to track consumer viewing behavior on a second-by-second basis, in both Live and Timeshifted viewing context, TiVo will release these reports monthly.
Nearly half of mall shoppers (47 percent) viewed content provided on the Adspace Mall Network and, of those viewers, 34 percent had an average recall of specific ads they saw on the network, according to a study by Nielsen Media Research. Adspace Networks, owner of the largest in-mall digital video advertising network in the country, commissioned Nielsen Media Research to measure the percentage of mall visitors viewing their Smart Screens, including each viewer's frequency and duration.
Heavy.com is set to launch what it is calling “sequential advertising,” a new offering that will provide advertisers with the ability to run a series of spots featuring a continuous narrative during the course of a video program or content block, which may eventually contain elements of branded entertainment.
"Scientists [Dr Prashan Premaratne and Quang Nguyen] have come up with a box that lets television viewers change channels, switch on the DVD player or switch off an irritating presenter with the wave of a hand. The controller's built-in camera can recognise seven simple hand gestures and work with up to eight different gadgets around the home."
PocketTweets is a Web-based Twitter client for the Apple iPhone. See the latest tweets from your contacts, update your status remotely, or see what's happening around the world by viewing the public timeline. -- all via EDGE or WiFi.
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Casio Computer has developed its first digital cameras with a video mode optimized for YouTube. They come with software that can upload clips to the popular video-sharing Web site with a single click.
With widgets, any page on the Web can be your point of sale. Marketers met at a conference to figure out how to spread them far and wide
Bits of code called widgets open the door to viral marketing across social networks. Silicon Valley sees them as a Web revolution in the making
ailgates technology delivers ecommerce transactions from the banner itself. Essentially users can purchase items by interacting with the banner as opposed to having to click through to another page. The benefits from web sites owners are immediately obvious: using Tailgate, advertisements will no longer take users from their sites. For advertisers, capturing impulse buyers just became that much more easy.
The Live Earth global pop concerts on Saturday broke a record for an online entertainment show by generating more than 9 million Internet streams, Microsoft Corp. Web portal MSN said.
Women not only outnumber men online but also rely on the internet for the conduct of their daily lives - so much so, that two-thirds (66.1%) of online women say their lives would be disrupted if they were left without internet access for a week, according to a recent Burst Media survey.
Some 66.1% of surveyed women say their daily routine would be disrupted - and 43.6% say significantly so - if internet access were not available for a week, according to Burst, which in June surveyed some 1,800 women age 25+ who visit content sites.
A new generation of super-thin, power-sipping displays is making its way to the market, stretching battery lives to new limits and perhaps one day posing a challenge to heavier, energy-gobbling LCDs.
New screens that glow on their own are taking on their clunkier liquid crystal display rivals -- which require powerful backlighting -- by producing sharper video images for smartphones, game consoles and portable media players.
But industry watchers say it will be years before a clear winner -- if any -- emerges with the clout to outdo LCDs.
Organic light-emitting diode (OLED) and bi-stable technologies are the most likely challengers to LCDs.
An OLED screen uses as much as 40 percent less power than a comparable LCD and could be twice as thin because it does not need backlighting.
Online video activities are outpacing the growth in popularity of other digital media, while social networking is quickly becoming the dominant online behavior globally, according to the latest "Face of the Web," Ipsos Insight's annual study of Internet and Technology trends, writes MarketingCharts.
Internet users have grown accustomed to streaming and downloading music in the past three years, and now it's apparently online video's turn.
Participation in online video activities is climbing quickly in many developed markets of the world, and that growth is most prevalent within the US, Ipsos said.
Well over one-third (36 percent) of recent adult US Internet users have watched a TV show or other video stream online, compared with 28 percent at the end of 2005, and three-quarters of those users have done so in the previous 30 days, Ipsos found.
The U.S. market share of visits to YouTube, which Google Inc.bought for $1.65 billion last November, rose 70 percent from January through May, online audience measurement firm Hitwise Inc. said in the survey published on Wednesday.
By contrast, visits to the next 64 largest sites tracked by Hitwise rose only 8 percent during 2007's first five months.
"As of May 2007, YouTube's market share was 50 percent greater than those 64 sites combined," Hitwise research director LeeAnn Prescott said in a summary of her firm's data.
YouTube's share of the U.S. online video market was 60.2 percent in May, according to Hitwise. Its closest rival, News Corp.'sMySpace Videos site, had 16.08 percent of market share, the survey of Web surfing habits showed.
YouTube's sister site, Google Video, held 7.81 percent, while Yahoo Inc.had 2.77 percent and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, 2.09 percent, according to the study.
Start-up Metacafe ranked No. 8 in U.S. visitors to video sites with 1.07 percent, Time Warner's AOL Media had 0.94 percent and Veoh was No. 10 at 0.86 percent, Hitwise said.
To take the Web to the next level -- to move from Web 2.0 to Web 3.0 -- the information in those documents will have to be turned into data that a machine can read and evaluate on its own. Only then will computers be able to take over tasks we now do by hand: find the nearest restaurant, book the best flight, buy the cheapest CD.
Think of it as the difference between two dimensions and three dimensions. "People will see the Web start to become smarter," Spivack says. "Eventually it will have some reasoning capabilities built into it."
Yahoo is slowly but surely trying to make its display ads just as relevant and targeted as Google's search ads. It is beginning to test what it calls SmartAds, graphical Web ads that can be customized in an automated fashion to the demographics of the audience most likely to see them.
YouTube, which has had to pull copyrighted videos off its site after legal attacks by some big media franchises, has enjoyed a surge in U.S. audience share that leaves it far larger than the next 64 video-sharing sites combined, a survey found.
The U.S. market share of visits to YouTube, which Google Inc. bought for $1.65 billion last November, rose 70 percent from January through May, online audience measurement firm Hitwise Inc. said in the survey published on Wednesday.
By contrast, visits to the next 64 largest sites tracked by Hitwise rose only 8 percent during 2007's first five months.
Mobile television and video subscription revenues grew 198% year-over-year to $146 million in the first quarter of 2007, according to the latest data from Telephia Inc. Approximately 8.4 million wireless customers now subscribe to some form of mobile video, representing nearly 4% of all U.S. mobile subscribers.
Additionally, nearly half of the mobile video subscribers polled said they were willing to view ads on their cellphones in exchange for something of value, according to Telephia. At least 55% said they recalled viewing a mobile add in the last 30 days, which is nearly three times the recall rate for mobile data consumers in general.
Measurement giant The Nielsen Company has signed an agreement to acquire Telephia, Inc., a provider of syndicated consumer research to the telecom and mobile media markets, to bolster its wireless measurement technology and expertise.
As the use of mobile devices for communication and content purposes continues to grow, Nielsen agreed to acquire Telephia in order to more accurately track mobile and wireless trends, according to Jesse Goranson, senior vice president of account management for Telephia.
Nielsen earlier this month announced the launch of a wireless measurement service, Nielsen Wireless. The service will use data from the firm's existing National People Meter TV panel to help mobile media firms position their offerings and identify how customers of different mobile operators consume media in the home.
Plaxo, which makes software for PC users to keep address books up-to-date, said on Sunday it is helping millions of members open up their online datebooks to build social networks like MySpace or Facebook.
In a major comeback push by the 6-year-old company, which Silicon Valley insiders see as a forerunner of the social-network craze, Plaxo has created the first Web service to share data between major address and calendar programs.
With Plaxo 3.0, as the new service is known, consumers can synchronize address books and calendar data locked up inside Microsoft Outlook, Googleand Yahoo services, Apple Macintosh computers, Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail and many mobile phones.
So, you don’t mind being followed and tracked? You don’t care if your friends can see what websites you’ve been to lately, what software you’ve been running, or even what music you’ve been listening to? Then you’ll love the web’s trend towards extreme openness: sharing everything you do on your computer. Sometimes referred to as sharing your ‘attention’ data, this is a growing market. Below, we round up 12 services that want to track your every move - voluntarily.
The rumors of the demise of television advertising and the 30-second spot have been greatly exaggerated. The prevailing fear of the complete transition of television content to the Internet — and the horrible impact this will have on television advertising — is just plain wrong. On the contrary, new technological solutions and the digital deadline are going to double television advertising dollars.
ICE Innovative Technologies is a new revolutionary interactive television (iTV) technology accessible with a standard TV or cable remote control. With just a touch of a button, viewers can access lists of products showcased in any TV entertainment and purchase them in seconds; a literal one stop shopping experience through ICE. (see it in action at www.ICEit.tv). With ICE, marketers can use entertainment (product placement) as a superior alternative to traditional TV advertising (being eroded by DVR technology), and connect directly to their consumer to immediately satisfy the buyer's desire and impulse to purchase.
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.
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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?
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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.
