In-Store TV Networks Coming of Age
Wal-Mart Network up 9% in 2005. More than 2850 stores. Wal-Mart launching "check out TV" in Q3-2005. Kroger launches in-store TV network in 2500 stores in Q3-2005 as well.
Providers are IBN (http://www.ibnads.com/ibn/about.jsp) and PRN (http://www.prn.com)
Digital TV Mandate Set for April 7, 2009
Your rabbit ears won't work after that date. But the Feds have cooked up plans for putting a set top box in every pot! (Ha!)
- Here's a great, fun commentary from Fast Company's blog.
- And here's today's news item from the New York Times.
BitTorrent Lands $8.75MM In Funding
Associated Press c/o Forbes.com
The creator of the popular online file-swapping software BitTorrent has lined up $8.75 million in financing from a venture capital firm in a bid to build his software into a commercial distribution tool for media companies.
Bram Cohen created BitTorrent in 2001 as a hobby after the dot-com crash left him unemployed. Since then, it has become a favorite tool for computer users to swap large files - particularly movies and other video - because it grabs bits from various computer users simultaneously as they send and receive a file. That speeds up transfers.
Nintendo DS + McDonalds Announce WiFi Agreement
Free wireless Internet access in the US starts Nov 14, and then in Europe beginning Nov 25. Access points supplied by US firm Wayport, which is to be paid an "undisclosed sum" by Nintendo. The deal covers nealy 6,000 McD's restaurants. More from the BBC News.
Siemens Closest Yet for Digital Paper Packaging
c/o The Melbourne Age newspaper
Siemens has announced a new colour display screen so thin and flexible it can be printed on to paper or foil, and so cheap it can be used on throw-away packaging.
God Bloggers Hold National Conference
AP Newswire c/o Yahoo! News
This is important: Agencies and clients need to stop thinking of blogs, RSS, the Web, Podcasts and the rest as being appropriate solely for young adult males. Other segments are hyper-active in cyberspace -- evangelicals, tree-huggers, political activists (left and right) and more.
Ad Age Reports - Americans Watch More TV Than Ever
(Is a rash of uncontrollable hair-pulling among agency execs far behind?)
Research conducted by Neilsen Media Research between September 2004 to September 2005 revealed the average American family watched TV eight hours and eleven mintues a day. That's up 2.7%. Ten years ago the average was only seven hours and fifteen minutes.
So why all this chatter about integrated marketing? First of all, there are hundreds of channels and choices that simply didn't exist before. And on-demand services are only beginning to appear. Also, people leave the tube on while surfing the Net, playing games or what not.
More at Adage.com (subscription required after 14 days)
Digital Music Accounts For Growing Piece Of Global Market
- The digital music market has more than tripled in a year
- Sales totaled $790 million in the first half of this year, equivalent to 6 percent of industry sales
- That compared to $220 million in the same period last year
- Recorded music sales fell 1.9 percent to a retail value of $13.2 billion in the first half of this year, compared with $13.4 billion in the same period last year
- The digital boom, which now exceeds the value of the global singles market, was largely driven by sales in the top five markets--the United States, Britain, Japan, Germany, and France
- Sales of physical formats fell 6.3 percent by value in the period to $12.4 billion, it said
- Apple Computer Inc.'s iTunes online music store accounts for 82 percent of legal downloads in the United States.
- The company has sold more than 500 million songs online
- And about 22 million iPod digital music players
Esther Dyson calls Blogs Overrated
Quoted from article in DIRECT magazine
The author of Release 2.0 and editor-at-large of CNET Networks, Dyson says blogs get way too much press and should only be used by companies under the right circumstances. "Blogs are just one more way to put things up on the Web,"said Dyson while speaking at the Shop.org conference in Las Vegas, "just a set of words, sometimes with links."
She estimated there are 20 million blogs. But they're not right for every company. "If no one volunteers, don't assign it. If you have to assign it, forget it."
"Dell Takes One Hell of a Blogging"
from Direct magazine
A blogger named Jeff Jarvis has been "calling out" Dell for providing loussy customer service and worse. It's tipped off a bloggers' storm of resentment.
Study - In-Game Ads Boost Brand Awareness
c/o MIT Adverlab
"In-game advertising generated a 60 percent lift in awareness for new products in a study conducted by Nielsen Interactive Entertainment for in-game ad agency Double Fusion. The study also found that animated 3D ads were twice as effective at creating recall as compared to static billboards within the games." -- originally reported on Clickz
152 Million US Adults Own a "Mobile Entertainment Device"
c/o The Wireless Weblog
About 70 percent of the total U.S. adult population (over 152 million) owns some type of portable entertainment device including laptops, music players, and enhanced wireless phones, according to the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA). Of course, this is a huge pool of potential customers for content developers to market their goods and services to. The CEA estimates that consumers will spend over $8 billion dollars in mobile entertainment content over the next 12 months. However, this pool of people is not downloading digital files directly to their PCs or players in large numbers, but you would think that total will rise in the next 12 months as well, if not sooner.
U.K.-retailer, Downtown, broadcasts in-store television from an in-store studio
OCTOBER 03, 2005 --
Street Corner Confessions for National TV from Bogota
c/o The LA Times via Yahoo! News
Pedestrians in one of South America's largest cities step into a video booth and tell everyday tales of their own lives for a national TV audience. "The clips formed part of the hit show 'Citycapsula,' a weekly compilation of footage of ordinary residents who stop at one of several camera-loaded kiosks around the city and opt to put a few moments of their lives on film."
"The show's inspiration came from a sister channel in Toronto, home to "Speakers Corner," a program named after the famous spot in London's Hyde Park where people station themselves and declaim on any subject under the sun."
At the CTIA Wireless IT & Entertainment expo in San Francisco, speakers and vendors showcased what 's in store for mobile phones in the near term:
1. Streaming video and TV -- bottom line is it's still earlyy
2. Music -- Everybody's looking to play in here
3. Multiplayer Games -- This looks to be a fast pickup
Link to full article here
Article c/o Kodak Ships Wi-Fi Digital Camera
Priced at $599, the EasyShare-One sends photos and videos via wireless access at home or work. It also works with T-Mobile USA's 6,000 hot spots at stores, airports, hotels, etc. (including for example Starbucks). But, disappointingly, it won't work with other Wi-Fi carriers! More from AP Business News here.
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