SubscribeArchives: Internet
Google TV Ads Trial...
Posted in Television, Long Tail, Internet, Advertising, News on April 10th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Google announced a partnership with EchoStar, a satellite TV platform with 13 million subscribers. Through this partnership, Google is to start selling TV ads. Keval Desai, Google’s director of product management for TV ads believes that a lot of principles of the Internet can be applied to the TV business, and their press release reflects this fact.
Google will, for example, aggregate their own statistics and metrics, providing advertisers with a much more timely and accurate report of viewership than actual rating systems. In the same way that Adwords, Google’s contextual advertising solution charges advertisers per click, Google TV ads will bill advertisers based on the segment of audience that watched the commercial. All this changes, meant to increase relevancy for advertisers and adjust campaign costs to actual audience are a pretty large step forward compared to actual practices and it’s not clear broadcasters in general might be interested in departing from much less precise approximations is use today.
Google TV Ads will bring more changes, or efficiencies as Google puts it, including a completely automated online process from campaign planning to content uploading, and the same auction system working right now for Adwords.
If Google can bring the Long Tail to TV advertising and with complementary ideas such as this one, it will be an exiting time for low budget advertisers as they’ll be able to reach customers in ways that right now where reserved only to the wealthiest businesses and brands.
Suit & Award Announcements...
Posted in Television, Internet, News on March 20th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Viacom, owner among other things of MTV and Nickelodeon, announced last week that it will sue YouTube for $1 billion. According to Viacom, YouTube has been avoiding taking steps to filter out copyrighted content, as they filter for example adult content. YouTube, in the other hand, is acting under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), that protects online service providers if they remove copyright contents when asked to do so. The problem for companies like Viacom is that YouTube users upload copyrighted contents as fast and as soon as YouTube takes them down. As Lost Remote points out, this suit could become a major test for the DMCA, affecting many user video sites, in part responsible for the current explosion in developments and notoriety of online video.
While YouTube is not fighting with everyone, they are certainly aligning themselves with indie content creators: YouTube announced it will host a virtual awards show to reward it most popular video contributors.
Links for 2007/03/12-19...
Posted in Internet, Reports, News on March 20th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Guy Kawasaki links to a 2007 Digital Outlook Report in his personal blog:
This report examines trends in the way consumers, publishers, and advertisers employ digital media to have a conversation with each other.
National Geographic presents the Camera Phone Book
… The book aims to guide users on how to choose the best equipment as well as take better pictures, print, store and send images.
The Snack Culture...
Posted in Long Tail, Internet, News on March 13th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
On it’s March issue wired published a manifesto and and several “Bite-Size” examples of what they call “The Snack Culture“:
We now devour our pop culture the same way we enjoy candy and chips - in conveniently packaged bite-size nuggets made to be munched easily with increased frequency and maximum speed. This is snack culture - and boy, is it tasty (not to mention addictive).
Because of it’s short length, “bite sized” contents naturally tend to be very niche oriented. Maybe it the concept of “Bite-Size” media creation and consumption is the way some media contents are adapting to the Long Tail.
Interesting links from last week...
Posted in Television, Internet, Radio, News on March 13th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
GigaOM: Last.fm, Pandora Ko-ed by new royalties?
The Copyright Royalty Board increased Internet radio royalty rates adopting a rate proposal that according to webcasters (such as Pandora or Last FM) will put them out of business.
Meet EZTV the leading TV contents distributor group via Bittorrent. Interesting for it’s views on piracy as a positive force for the TV industry.
Lost Remote: The Future of Media
… a series of one-on-one video interviews with local technology thought leaders about the future of media. (…) Also, a great example of how a local broadcaster can carve out a niche online.
Selected articles & Joost invitations...
Posted in Internet, Mobile, News on March 5th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Here’s a selection of 3 must-read articles published just last week:
The Attention Economy: An Overview (Via Digg)
…The challenge is not just to protect consumers information, the challenge is to put the user in control of her information… Instead, the user chooses what services he/she wants to receive in exchange for their attention information.
Mobile as the 7th Mass Media (Via Smart Mobs)
…the mobile, as the 7th Mass Media is the youngest, least understood, most dangerous new mass media - one which will soon supercede the internet.
…They then think with a legacy TV mindset, and assume the phone is the dumb little screen, worth only for “snacking” and that “classic” TV content (programmes) should be chumped into tiny bits of football highlights and news soundbytes and little “mobisodes” and this will bring TV to mobile.
…That same argument would suggest we cannot comfortably consume newspaper content on a PC, yet after a newspaper website is cleverly reformated - with a search button for example near the top - the internet is SUPERIOR to the newspaper, even though a traditional full page newspaper does not fit on a PC screen without some zooming or panning or scrolling.
Study: Linear TV on its way out to many (Via Lost Remote)
People in the 18-39 age group will consume 80 percent of their television/video via the internet, VOD, DVR, IPTV or other on-demand platforms in 7 years time
Also, Media Cool Hunting has been a beta tester of Joost for a few months now. We just received 2 invitations and we would like to offer them back to you. If you are interested in joining the Joost beta program get in touch with us through our contact form.
Paying (or at least reciprocating) the user first...
Posted in Internet, Radio, News on February 26th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Tim O’Reilly and Phil Torrone give their opinion on terrestrial radio and point out how the industry completely forgot the most important key principle of success in business: to focus on your customers. This fact, as mentioned in the article, is increasingly true for other industries such as television networks or cell phone carriers. The problem for all this non customer focused industries is that disruptive technologies and trends are becoming a viable alternative for this customers, thus forcing traditional industries to evolve.
Many times, it’s the customers themselves who are behind this alternatives, built on OpenSource, OpenContent and free to share concepts. As Samuel Rose of SmartMobs points out, the future might actually be based on a SharingEconomy. Under it, the very same concept traditional industries are having problems with today remains the same:
…”the market” will eventually drive people towards creators and providers and facilitators who really start to think about “How can i reciprocate back real value to these people who are sharing with me?”
Web TV’s Top Rated Acts...
Posted in IPTV, Internet, News on February 26th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
This Business 2.0 article is very good overview of video online today. While not too long, it overviews the “web TV’s top rated acts”, pointing out their business models, the ideas behind them and the challenges they face. The article includes many links to other related contents profiling companies and ideas changing the world and the industry today.
Murdoch talks about…...
Posted in Internet, News on February 12th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
It’s always interesting to hear the opinion on things such as broadband, internet targets or politics and media bias from one of the most powerful forces in media and the Internet. Journalsim.co.uk recently posted several videos of Robert Murdoch giving his opinion on these and other subjects. Here’s the link.