More Best Of

Best Android apps @ WSJ

A Year in review through Google Wave.@ TechCrunch and worth checking out!

Who gets the highest ad rates online?

Here is who gets the highest online ad rates and here is why....
@ Ad Age

About the music business

Great article today in the NYT on How the music business is going subscription based: no need to own music tracks any more - or dare I say CDs - you just have to go online or on your mobile and use it as your infinite jukebox. I can really relate to that article as despite my >6,500 songs in my itunes library (and my hundreds of cds in jewel cases somewhere in a box in my apt), I seem to gravitate around spotify when in the UK, Pandora when in the US and deezer when I'm in France. I definitely see a trend for the industry there, and to the naysayers I would say like Bob at the end of this article: “If you ask anybody today, they’ll tell you, ‘I need to own it.’ But once you have these services, you get to the point of, ‘Why would I own it, because I have access to everything?’ ”

* More at NYT

To put this in perspective, check out this great visual rendering of the 'death of' the music industry from the 8-tracks to the ringtones. Scary huh?
@ informationisbeautiful

End of the year LISTS

- Find out about 6 different Twitter types: From the Newbie to the Bitch...
- Mark Anderson's 2010 predictions: where the world becomes about real time and Google Goggles makes me think of an Orwellian world. More @ AdAge.

The Future will be geo-tagged

Check out how these new iPhone apps smartly integrate the GPS capabilities of the iPhone offer shoppers sweet deals or recommendations on anything you want to know about what's around you. Where are your friends, what you can buy, where you can eat. Am still waiting for the ad with the closest public bathroom. Would be very useful for tourists anywhere :-)
More at AdAge

Black Friday Cyber Monday

For a bit of seasonality here, as we just got out of the Thanksgiving week-end, it seems like Black Friday is becoming Cyber-Friday as more folks in the US do their Holiday shopping online. Online transaction was 25% up on Friday vs total Black Friday sales which rose by a mere 0.5%.
* More at WSJ

Internet Monopolies: A Tolkien Analogy

Sometimes, I do get scared of monopolistic internet situations, when I realize the power of Google, Facebook or Wikipedia...
Great article on this topic on the Guardian

Micropayment: the Answer to Freemium?

Now that the 'gout du jour' is in making people pay online, micropayment is getting a lot of attention. Who are these micropayment companies that will allow faster / real monetization of the web?

From Google Checkout to Paypal, learn more @ Forbes

Behavioral Advertising

Now when you visit a website, this website won't serve you ads depending on who they guess you are but they will now which websites you have visited before and what searches you've done, and will serve you ads accordingly. This is better ad targetting than ever before, thanks to new data mining companies.

* Read more @ WSJ

Is the Future of Gaming Online

Another industry that is scared of piracy and is moving its business model from consoles to online.
* More at The Economist

Texting too much: a good thing?

Seems like multitasking and texting at all times could be a good thing, developing the future workforce time management & communication skills.
* Read at WSJ

What does Google know about you?

A lot / way too much. And the Google Dashboard will show you how much it really is that Google knows about you.
* Read @ Techcrunch

Facebook Ad Spams: Very insightful interview: TO READ!

If you want to know why when you click on an ad on FB, you end up in a place that looks like a scam, read this interview from Dennis Yu, CEO of Blitzlocal and one of the active companies in Facebook spams.
*Read @ Techcrunch

Is convergence finally really here?

On connecting your TV directly to the internet to access content and services? and also eventually videos.
Who would have thought?
Lately no post because blogger is not available in China. No post, no reading posts. Feels quite strange when half of th einternet is blocked.
* Re: connected TVs, read @ NYtimes.

Yahoo Glee Over Bartz is Over?

1 Billion from virtual goods

1 billion of revenues for virtual goods in 2009 and more than double than last year. Who would have thought? But then who would have thought, looking back, that kids would make their parents pay to collect sticky cards to put in albums?
I still haven't bought a farm on farmville but given the fact that I spend about 5 inutes on it everyday (just to see what it is like of course), and my time being valuable, paying 10$ to get a brand new barn does seem cheap indeed :-)
More details at Venture Beat

Google Wave is out

Supposed to be the next killer app replacing e-mail (yes e-mails are already 20 years old!!!), a blend between instant messaging, google doc, twitter and all the rest of the user-unfriendly project management tools, Google Wave is pre-released and invites are sold on e-bay despite Google's opposition.

* Read at Mediapost and take a first preview look at Lifehacker

Web Squared is the new web2.0

You may have noticed that the web has been changing in the past 1-2 years to become more social, more mobile, more relevant to where you are, who your friends are.

Web 2.0 meant that the web was more flexible, the invention of recommendation engines and of the web 'collective intelligence'.

Now not only is the web "smarter", it also knows a lot more about you: who you are, who your friends are, what you like, what you buy, where you are, where you're going. Although it feels a bit matrixy in the good days (i can't believe my iPhone offers voice recognition when I put it next to my mouth) / big brothery in the bad ones (what if google was becoming evil from one day to the next and used my account, my Google docs, my e-mail messages, my customized maps, to overwhelm me with obnoxious ads), it does open the door to a whole lot of new applications/uses which we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg right now.

For a more in-depth article on what uber-geeks have called WebSquared, read the Forbes article.

WSJ on the Digital Business Model

On charging for content, offering different content on different platforms. From WSJ.
* Read more @ PaidContent

Digital Ad Spend to Grow

A recent report from GroupM forecasts global digital ad spend growth up 11% in 2010 mainly thanks to search, mobile and video and with smaller raise for display. In the US, digital advertising will climb of 7% to grab a 17% share of total advertising $$.
* More at Ad Week

Want to get in shape:: get a smartphone

Use your cell phone to track, analyse, help you achieving your fitness or health goals...
From what seemed like a fad to something that could in the future be prescribed by your doctors.

* Read @ Forbes

I want my TV Everywhere NOW

Good blog post on why TV Everywhere, Over The Top or Authentication all need to happen.
* read @ Blogmaverick.com

Hoping to Reverse the Online Video (Cash) Flow

More on the online video macro business model... my favorite topic!
* Read @ Broadcasting & Cable

tweeting while watching

Read at AdAge about some innovative social media latest efforts from TV. Want to watch tweets on TV??

@ AdAge

Hulu reaches more viewers than TimeWarner

Check out the Chart of the Day at Silicon Alley Insider: Hulu now reaches more monthly viewers than Time Warner. 38 million people watched a video on Hulu in July and it's estimated that Time Warner has 34 million subscribers... Always believed in the power of broadband...

More on real time Web

The Good the Bad the Ugly of Real Time Web or why Tweeter' success / why did Facebook buy FriendFeed.
* Read first part at Read Write Web

Web Video Viewing Breaks Records in July

More video viewing in the US in July with >1 hour average on Hulu
* Full article at Mediaweek

Targeted e-mail newsletters: Way to go?

Succesful e-mail newsletters such as Thrillist, dailyCandy or Flavorpill seem to gain advertisers traction. In the gloomy media landscape are e-mail newsletters a way to link old and new media and still get some revenues for an overall limited cost base?
* Read @ Forbes

What makes a viral video? and a viral sequel?

Good summary article on what makes a viral video with the 10 most viral videos of all times + how they got there. To see Numa Numa again @ Lifebeyondcode

The Real Time Web

If you want to know all about this new phenomenon called 'real time web", why it's getting all the attention from Silicon Valley VCs and learn the difference between Twitter, Foursquare, Friendfeed, Ginx or Gnip, read this
* @ Businessweek

Allowed or not allowed to tweet?

Recent phenomenon: where can do work and social networks meet and where do they separate. After a few newspapers have forbiden their journalist to tweet, which I can understand: personal tweet or news tweet? it seem that espn is now having the same approah with its employees. Wonder if one can stop sport stars as well?
* Read @ CNET

Foursquare

Haven't tried the app yet and unfortunately they it's not available yet in London,but it does sound like the perfect mix between Location Based Services / Social Networks / yelp / party info / what are my friends doing / where are they / app. Also was happy to learn from this article that it was dodgeball v2.0.
* Read the pros & cons, how and why of foursquare and all their competitors in the same space @ mashable

New Strategy Game

Am not exactly a game person but this one sounds really tempting.... I used to play SimCity about 10 years ago so now is probably time for a new conquest civilizations type-of-game.
* Read about Dawn of Discovery @ NYT

It's the 1984 of the online world

See how ads will now track you down online and know what you eat, drink, buy and where you live
* Ads Follow Web Users, and Get More Personal @ NYTimes

YouTube on the Path to monetization??

read at Business Insider how YT is bragging on its recent success monetizing UGC and professional content...Let's see...

How is the news business changing

After TMZ broke the news on MJ's death, some unknown news site founded by a 19 years old, was the first to release a full Osama Bin Laden video back in 2007. And now this news site is ready to create an iPhone App and charge a 99cts monthly subscription fee for it.

Check out the full story about the Breaking News Online network @ ReadWriteWeb.

United: You Broke my Tailored Guitar

If you haven't heard about Dave Caroll's broken by United guitar, watch the video on YT (hitting 2.8MM views at the time of this article) and read this great article on the difference between effective and ineffective social media, good and bad customer relationship, and learn what to do next time an airline mishandles your luggage (that one really strikes a chord with me...)
* @ Smartblog on Social Media

"Twitter is for old people"

And "I phone my friends from my games console while I play Call of Duty."
Check out this great article to learn how a 15 years old is telling investment bankers around the world, through his internship report 'How Teenagers Consume Media"
* at Timesonline.co.uk

Sluggish 2009 US Upfront

The ad dollars are not abundant this year, for one thing, and the online ad dollars either. In a market where people spend less, buyers are not eager to change their marketing mix and are still on a reach and frequency strategy (TV) more than on an efficiency one (online).
Still online video keeps steady growth compared to overall online ad $$ or TV ad $$ (see chart from emarketer)
* More at paidcontent.org

Manage abundance and not scarcity

Just read a great article in WIRED giving another perspective on the digital business model issue and around the theme of Chris Anderson's latest book 'Free: the future of a radical price'.
Made me want to read the whole book and also the part about the allocation of memory for WIRED' staff mailbox made me smile and cringe at the same time.
Anderson goes from nature wasting life to how YouTube makes sense in a word where production and distribution costs literally close to 0.

Read it for yourself @ WIRED

The next big thing:: Augmented Reality

Thanks to CA for this great article on augmented reality.

If you've ever visited le Louvre and followed Japanese tourists looking at the centuries-old art from their camera and wondered how on earth could these paintings indeed be looked at through a 5mm lense, just wait for the world's smartphones to be equipped with these augmented reality apps that will allow you to see how buildings looked 100 years ago, how much a the apartment on the street you're walking on costs, or how high is the mountain in front of you during your week-end hike.

* Read at VentureBeat

Short is sweet

New report from F Magid - sponsored by metacafe - reporting the rise of online short-form video. More on the report here.
* 7/10 males 18-24 view online video weekly.
* Consumer-created and uploaded clips are still the most popular particularly among young males, accounting for 42% of videos viewed among males 12-17.
* Over half of TV viewers go online while watching TV; 13% report do so "all the time"
* 70% of weekly online video viewers play video games regularly, compared to 47% of non-online video viewers
* 41% own a personal digital media player for music and video vs. 23% of non viewers
* 28% rent DVDs weekly (vs. 17%)
* 11% own a smartphone, compared to 7% of non-online video viewers

More findings include:
-- 50% of all respondents watch online video weekly.
-- 11% of all respondents watch online video daily.
-- 28% of those who watch online videos report watching less TV as a result.
-- 19% of those who watch online videos report regularly sharing a link to a video with someone else.
-- The top-five most commonly viewed types of online video content, based on respondents reporting that they watch regularly, are:
-- Comedy/jokes/bloopers (37%)
-- Music videos (36%)
-- Videos shot and uploaded by consumers (33%)
-- News stories (31%)
-- Movie previews (28%)

Cannes Ad festival awards

Sign of times, the winner of the prestigious Cannes Film Lions, is not a commercial...it's a website, which is ultimately an ad for a new Philips screen... Check out the site and the amazing video....

To learn more about all the winners and how 10 of the 88 Film Lion awarded are not traditional commercials: read this article @ Ad Age

MJ: more popular than Jesus?

Not sure about my title statement, but the news of MJ's death yesterday definitely caused an Internet turmoil as Google, Twitter, Facebook were slower or showing error pages...

Commenting on the surge in traffic, Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, said: "This particular news about the passing of such a global icon is the biggest jump in tweets per second since the US presidential election.”

@ Netimperative

@LA Times

Cannes International Advertising Festival 2009

A lot of rich, 360, digital, on-air / off-air / online / on-ground, winners this year. All interesting, original, breath-taking, creative winner campaigns. With my favorites: HBO, Uniqlo and 'The best job in the world'...
* article @ USA Today
* photo gallery @ USA Today

Another doom and gloom article on the future of the cable business

Pretty well summarized tho'. Definitely worth a read for the parallel between newspapers and TV and for the how what happens now will change the role of TV/cable/mobile companies tomorrow. It's all about disnitermediation guys...
@ Silicon Alley Insider

Between TV content and UGC: midtails

'Are Midtails the Future of Television?": read this NYT article to learn about this semi-professionally produced content that may be the future of Web TV. From Obama Girls to Next New Networks: read and watch a new genre develops...
@ NYT

The good, bad and ugly in Social media, by an ad agency exec

GREAT article from Matt Jones, director of strategy and planning at Jack Morton, about how to use social media for marketing purposes.
Matt uses examples of companies (and individuals) who have done Twitter and Facebook successfully and well and others who are not doing that well.
Also good advices to marketers to use social media to change the way they market and not only as additional elements of their marketing mix
@ Ad Age

Cable TV networks risk losing ad revenue because of online video distribution

No surprise here but a few interesting pieces are highlighted in this new report from Credit Suisse named "The Future of Home Entertainment".
Read a summary at Contentinople

Microeconomics of the Consumer Web

Interesting article to get some numbers background on the complex landscape of free vs. pay online.
* From GigaOm

A very useful map of the top networking sites

Around the world...
@ techcrunch

The iPhone 3G S is coming

And lots of announcements on the Apple WWDC keynote:
* @ moconews: Expectations Were High For Apple, Did It Deliver With The iPhone 3G S?
* @ Washington Post more details on the Apple announcement

Viral videos

Good overview of the most viral ads with a most personal favorite for Gilette :-)
@AdAge

Pay is the new black + top 10 under 20 + Digital Darwinism

* Pay is the new black
Words of wisdom from Jonathan Miller @ THR event. Pay is back. Eventually in bundles. Well, well, well.... Interesting comments to this article anyhow.
@ THR

* After Bill Gates and his friends 20-somethings, the 10-somethings.
Top 10 under 20 tech entrepreneurs list. Fascinating.
@ Econaffinity

* Digital Darwinism. Great article about how digital is changing marketing, organizations, businesses, etc.
@ strategy+business

Twitter again

How using Twittr for TV nets is a subtle art. Or how to share your WTF if Michael Scofield from Prison Break dies in the Season Finale.
@ TV week

Lots happening this week

No common thread but a few interesting articles / releases this week:
* Millennials and homeless people, can't live without internet
@ WSJ

* Googe unveils Wave: to share photos, e-mails, IM and docs. All in one, all at once
@ WSJ

* Digital music trends: how to make music, listen to music, buy music, buy concert tickets, in today's world
@ mashable

* How to build a succesful social / digital marketing campaign. See case study from Adobe
Creative Suite
@ imediaconnection

* More on Hulu's desktop
@ WSJ allthingsD

Hulu desktop

Hulu desktops is here. Remote controllable. If you have a large PC / MAC screen in your house, this is the perfect replacement to TV...
* Read @ CNET
* Download @ Hulu

Steal our ideas

In the same vein than the last post: Corky, funny, creative, interesting ideas:: to steal;; Steal our ideas

Ignore everybody

A personal favorite entrepreneur / creative / humorist / self-help / blog & piece of advice:
From gapingvoid.com, how to be a successful entrepreneur while drawing on the back of business cards and ignore everyone who tells you not to do it...

The Ovi store is up

The long awaited Ovi store is up: check it out

Some comments: from exhaustive, to conservative, oto very negative... as techtree says: hell breaks lose.

Nokia owners feedback??

Hulu Going Global

As everyone knows, Hulu, the market leader for professional long-form video in the US, is not announcing it's going global, not announcing with a great buzz.
* See good opinion piece on the Kangaroo failure and Hulu arrival to the UK market
@ Netimerative

More on Twitter

* How 60 % of twitterers don't come back
@ Nielsen blog

* Big news in the TV world:: How twitter will be the subject of a new reality series
@ latimesblog

* And how Ashton will pull away from Twitter threatening to bring with him his 1.9 million followers if the TV show stalks him...
@ news.com.au

* Even Elizabeth Taylor is on twitter from her hospital bed. Makes me wonder if stars indeed have friends...
@shewired

Are you appnoxious?

Funny article on how smartphone apps make our life better / or worse?
@ msnbc

The Webbys are here

If you're in need of web inspiration, check out the state of the web. My personal favorites: the personal site, video, activism and television categories
@ Webbyawards.com

Story Telling 2.0

Will the Digi-Novel help the print business? Not sure but it's a great idea to change the story-telling paradigm. From the creator of the CSI franchise: Anthony Zuiker's
Read @ deep media

Pepsi on Social Media

Good interview from Bonin Bough at Pepsi on how to integrate social media in market & comm activities
@ Brandweek

Loads of Hopes & Contradictions on the International Digital Landscape

After last week's NYT article I blogged about on the difficulty to monetize video traffic outside of the US, two statements this week are highlighting that non US media is a growing opportunity that US companies should tackle asap.
~ Download a great free white-paper from Global Internet Advisors on America's shrinking presence on the Global Internet and learn that US internet traffic used to be 50% of the global traffic 10 years ago and is now a mere 15% .
~ Read on recent moves from numerous US cable companies to tap into more international tv and digital growth potential.
@ Broadcasting & Cable

On Hulu and Disney

By now everybody knows that ABC took a 28% stake in Hulu against providing them some Long Form content on an exclusive basis for Hulu.com and for third party distribution for the next two years.
Read an overview of the deal @ NYT.

For an interesting insight, read @ VideoNuze: OK, now Hulu has NBC but when will it prove its business model

About Television and Social media

An interview I did with C21 a while go finally got shaped into an article. Yay!
read AETN’s ABC of social media @ c21media

AETN’s ABC of social media

RE-vision 2009: Rather than sit back and watch audiences flock away from the television set and on to the net, AETN International has embraced social media. Director of digital media Fabienne Fourquet (below) tells Katie Jacobs how.

Last autumn, US cable company A&E Television Networks (AETN) launched a game on Facebook based on its factual series Parking Wars, about the men and women of the Philadelphia Parking Authority.

The game, in which each player owns a street corner and can ticket their friends' cars and become a Parking Mogul, was the only marketing support behind the first season's launch.

AETN International director of digital media Fabienne Fourquet claims it was one of the most successful branded applications on Facebook, earning more than 1.2 million unique players, with 200,000 users playing and 100,000 tickets distributed every day.

On TV, she says, Parking Wars outperformed A&E's network average, was ranked seventh in its time slot out of all US cable networks among adults aged 18-49, and delivered a demo seven years younger than the network's average.

All of which was enough to convince the company of the value of the need to adopt "sensible and smart approach" to social media. AETN now has Facebook fan pages for its channels, such as History, plus specific programme brands like Paranormal State, and all can be followed on Twitter.

It can take a lot of time and effort to develop a strong presence in these spheres because, as Fourquet says, "a good social media strategy takes into account the fact that social networks are an earned media and not a paid one."

What this means is engaging the audience through games, blogs, forums and communities rather than bombarding them with ads. But using social media is essential for a traditional TV networks' survival, Fourquet believes. Programme choices on any medium - TV, online, mobile - are increasingly made through recommendations from the likes of Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and others, she says.

"More and more TV content is consumed through social media recommendations that don't answer to traditional marketing tactics or paid media promotion. So the success of TV series and channels will depend upon a good social media strategy and approach," she explains.

Fourquet defines social media as the crossroads of social networking and media consumption. She quotes statistics that show two-thirds of the global online population is on a social network currently, and media consumption is continuing to rise - over 150 hours of video watched per person each month in the US alone.

"If you add to these numbers the growing trend of viewers watching TV and using the web simultaneously - Nielsen calls this 'mutually reinforcing media' - you begin to understand the opportunities and to see that more and more media is becoming 'social' in the sense that viewers are emailing, IM-ing or Twittering friends on a PC or mobile device while consuming video."

Not only are these forces shaping the way in which people consume TV content, they're also going to have an impact on the nature of that content. "Social elements such as rating and commenting about shows will become an integral part of the viewing experience. In the future users and fans will have more of a say in TV and social media brands' activities," Fourquet predicts.

But with even more new talent and content emerging online, can TV and social networks co-exist? Absolutely, she says, they already do: "The two mediums enhance one another's experience."

Discussing TV and creating communities online may facilitate the return of watching together: "We've seen it happen in the past year with the US elections and the Olympics."

Delayed watching is also a growing trend, and viral watching - commenting on and communicating about shows while watching them - is on the increase. This viral interaction is definitely something that producers and broadcasters should capitalise on, according to Fourquet.

"They should use social media as awareness and promotional tools to extend their brand and reach more eyeballs," she says. "It should also be used as a test bed or incubator for new programming ideas. Social media sites are a great way to target niche audiences and develop new content."

The economic meltdown means people are spending more time online or watching TV, so social media may become an indispensable part of media consumption. This, in turn, should lead to increased advertising revenue, but social networks are still struggling to crack this one.

"With social and media activity growing, advertisers will have to turn to these growing audiences and find the magic bullet to grab their attention," says Fourquet.

But this is something that hasn't happened yet. Simplifying and finding common ad formats, educating publishers, advertisers and ad agencies about the possibilities and advantages of the different platforms and connecting with viewers are some of the issues she says need to be resolved. Measurement and research tools that help demonstrate and aggregate digital campaign ROI across all sites, services and media are also developments she would like to see.

These remain more than minor kinks to be ironed out before the ecosystem becomes ideal for all parties, but Fourquet believes that ultimately video content will become "a more seamlessly integrated experience to our favourite social networks, the way music has become an integral part of MySpace."

Katie Jacobs
30 Apr 2009
© C21 Media 2009

About Global Business Models, Googling Yourself, and The Sustained Growth of Online Advertising $$

~ Apparently there is no answer to my earlier post about how to be successful with a global online strategy. NYT writes a good article this week about how hard it is to monetize global traffic now that US advertisers get smarter and only want to buy US eyeballs on websites... So are YouTube, Veoh and all going to start geoblocking their videos? Not very web-friendly that's true but at the same time, this traffic does have a cost...
From NYT:: In Developing Countries, Web Grows Without Profit
~ Who has ever googled their names?? I do :-) Not to check out my popularity rank but also to know what people see when they look for me. A company had already jumped on that bandwagon and built a service around people search called Pipl (Read from Jon's blog about it) and now Google is also jumping on its own bandwagon and allows you, me, all of us to build their online profile and to manage themselves the way they display their persona on the web. read about it here and see how it works by doing your name serach on Google...
~ Good news of the week. Advertising is down but video advertising is still up and the announced increase this year is 32%. Good news for those in this industry!
read it at ClickZ

On Apple vs. Microsoft on the advertising front

A new take on the battle of titans between Microsoft and Apple: Very different advertising strategies. Read this great article from CNET in Technically Incorrect

Year 2009: The Coming of Age of Digital

I know it isn't the time of predictions anymore, but a few announcements and reports this past week made me realize that 2009 will be remembered not only as the year of the first real global economic and financial crisis, but also as the year of the Coming of Age of Digital. Meaning when Digital Media REALLY are becoming mainstream AND finally -hopefully- monetizable…

A few rolling milestones can explain why we are (to my mind) reaching this tipping point:

- spread out, commoditized, soaring consumption of TV (see Accenture's report) and particularly long form online video, see the article from video business with 23% more time spent watching online video YoY in February 2009.

Hulu in the US and the iPlayer in the UK have generalized catch-up TV on the internet. People are not only watching stupid videos on YouTube any more or music videos on MySpace, they're actually are more and more to watch long form shows on the internet (see The Office, Lost, House on Hulu - iTunes – announced recently, long-form videos on YouTube as well, etc) full screen

- Declining marketing budgets across the board mean CMOs need to show higher ROI and hence spend more on digital. Hence relatively speaking, digital ad spend is growing double digits, and in absolute flat or growing a little. Think about 2010, when, crossing fingers, the economy comes back up, digital advertising will be at a whole new level in terms of the digital spend

- social networks have taken over internet time. Just announced this week by Nielsen Online, that time spent on social networks have surpassed time spent on online e-mail systems. Why is that? Because people now use Facebook to send e-mails, twitter to send text messages. Now that FB is a country of 200MM people and that Oprah Winfrey is on Twitter, we are really talking about mainstream media. As the article above mentioned says ‘and this is driven not by the young, but by the middle-aged’.

- the birth of the apps. As Apple announced this week their one-billionth apps downloads, mobile content has gone mainstream too. This progress was previously hampered by the variety of devices, sizes, and exploitation systems. Apple was genius enough to create one device, with one size, one system, a business model common to all content providers, and to make it a success. And as we all know, blackberry, Nokia and Samsung are coming with their own version of the App Store, which will make mobile consumption of content, mainstream, commoditized, and advertiser friendly, as well.

All these growing global digital indicators: media consumption, social networks, advertising spend, mean that both eyeballs and engagement are shifting platforms (from traditional television, newspapers, magazines, to the internet and convergent media) and that once the economy recovers, and the business models and analytics standards get clarified, we will see major holes in the traditional media spend model. And digital & convergent media will start driving some revenues, after having only gathered eyeballs… At least this is what the company who will spend an outrageous amount of money buying Twitter thinks.

Exciting times ahead…

More DIGITAL BREAKTHROUGH THINKING AND NEWS SUMMARY @ Flypaper.TV

For my Digital Marketing Friends

A few good overviews on how to improve your Digital Marketing activities:

~ Top Ten Reasons Why Your Content Marketing Strategy Fails:
TopTenList It is better to fail after trying something new, than to fail because you're not even trying.

The definition - content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience - with the objective of driving profitable customer action.

It's the opposite of interruption marketing. You create great content that attracts customers and prospects, educates them, and potentially engages them in a conversation with you.

With that in mind, here are Top Ten reasons why your content marketing strategy fails:

The rest @ ConversationAgent

~ If you are really desperate: Hire someone who knows what they're talking about... How to hire someone with strong & real digital media skillset
@ MediaPost

~ Most CMOs are not happy with their company's digital marketing efforts and rely on agencies or hiring specialized staff. New survey from Heidrick & Struggles.
To read @ Brandweek

~ Great article on 'Making Social Networks Pay' with a good analysis of the current ROI issues marketing groups are facing and some new measurement tools to gauge the success of social marketing campaigns. It's not about measuring effectiveness but exposure'
@ Ecommerce Times

YT to create a safe zone for movies

Safe zone created by YT for movies and TV content. The battle of David and Goliath between Hulu and YT for premium content and higher cpms is heating up. The YT safe zone is very blend and underwhelming if you ask me.

~ Read a good article about YT vs. Hulu @ wsj

See if for yourself and check out the brand new YT movies section

State of the Land

Some great summaries and overviews of the state of the new media landscape, advertising business et al.

~ Sir Martin Sorrell from WPP MIPTV one-hour speech summary on trends and issues for new media consumption and advertising revenues: Go green, branded content and think about media habits from younger generations: @ mobiadnews

~ Good summary of a new report from IBM called 'Beyond Advertising: Choosing the path to the digital consumer' @ mobiadnews

The World is Looking Bleak...

Everyday, the news are bad for newspapers, magazines, and not too great for 'classic' TV either:
~ Free Sport magazine ceases publication
~ Cable TV threatened by online video? From AdAge
~ The come-back of the pay model or newword: "Freemium": See how many seasoned media execs it takes to come up with a brand new idea: Charging for content

If you have anything else in the old media bleak media landscape, let me know!!

Android for More Than Phones

Interesting move on the mobile operating systems side. Shows that mobile devices are broader than phones and a good mobile OS could as well be powering a netbook in the future, or a STB to go... read @ CNET

The world is Receding but Internet Usage is Growing

~The same day that global ad spending is announced to be dropping at ~7% from last year, Nielsen announces that online video usage is soaring at more than 40% increase from a year ago and US people now spend more than 3 hours watching videos online.
On Nielsen Online Video report:: read an article in Mediapost

Europe Logs On:: TV on the TV or on the PC? or anywhere through the Internet?

I strongly believe that consumption of video over the internet even has a stronger appeal internationally. Outside of the US, multichannel homes penetration is much lower than in the US where ~95% of the homes have access to cable TV with more than 100s of channels, and broadband penetration is much higher (more than 80% is Northern Europe). In France, the UK, or Italy for instance, there is still a large % of the population who only has access to the terrestrial channels and who wouldn't mind having access to a wider choice, at the right price, over their broadband connections.
Microsoft just published a report going in that sense as it predicts that "Internet will take over TV as the most consumed form of media by the middle of next year".
Read the article @ReadWriteWeb.com
Download the report here

On Electric Cars

What our streets will start looking like in the next few years. From the papomobile to the James Bond-like Tesla. From TBI

On Social Networking and Video

When social networking meets TV and people realize that Facebook is the 5th largest country in the world
** Facebook EMEA's Commercial Director on 'connecting' with the iPlayer. Would make pave the way for even more mainstream social TV integration
** Facebook now 5th largest country in the world. From SA Insider with a cool map
** and someone put the words in my mouth explaining what's wrong with the recent Facebook changes and why Facebook trying to be twitter can't work. To quote the GigaOm article: "Twitter allows almost anyone to follow (or discover) anyone else based on their celebrity, interests or location. Twitter is about infinite affinity circles. Facebook is not. By allowing a torrent of status updates into our Facebook pages, the company has destroyed what made it special: its ability to construct a constantly updated newspaper about us."
** Facebook CEO on FB monetization, T&Cs, latest changes, young CEO, etc. From Business Week

LIVE from MIPTV 09:: in rainy Cannes

Other than the Zillion hype and as expected, an attendance that seems to be down 20 or 30% (14% for the organizers), a few announcements or keynotes worth noticing:

** Interesting co-pro with Endemol, Gaumont, MySpace and a distribution partner and advertisers already joined in. From Reed Midem newly launched MIP Blog

** Sir Martin Sorrell from WPP on the ever-changing business model "Whether you want to call it disintermediation or not, the traditional notion of profitability is being challenged". Full summary at C21media.

** Disney also taking a stance for the 'freedom of online viewing' @ c21

** All the large media companies wondering what to do about online video while it soars and still hardly gets monetized: free? more ads? online HBO model? @ FT

** and in the meantime, change and weird rumors go on: lots of talks and noise on ZillionTV at MIP, Disney adding content on YT and rumored to be buying a stake in Hulu, Orange buying back-end from Kangaroo, and of course Google to buy (or not? or yes? or?)Twitter, to add micro search to mega search, geo search, e-mail search, desktop search, etc...

Trading analogue dollars for digital pennies

Good recap of NBCU's Zucker's interview at the McGrawHill media Summit. And a great catch phrase on the topic of changing business models... @ paidcontent

To advertise or not to advertise on social media sites

Social media still small in the digital ad spend portfolio but definitely growing.
Change takes time for the ad community. From AdTech

On Business Models

Great article on why we can't wait for business models to be perfect in a world where the marketplace changes faster than new business models arise. Full of good historical comparison and a great punch line:
"When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.
Yes, you do have a problem, if you're running that old business. But for the rest of the world, you don't have a problem. You have a revolution and a tremendous opportunity.
From Mike Masnick @ techdirt

Can't wait not to have to listen to my voicemail any more

Learn more about GrandCentral, the Google Voice soon to launch service. Not only does it transform voice mails in texts, allow you to keep one same number for life, but it's also apparently very very good. So good that people are buying 'free' accounts on ebay for $600.
From Techcrunch

Tough times

Just stumbled upon the layoff tracker from Techcrunch: Scary although the tech industry is not doing as bad as others: 308K lay-offs since August 08

On that 'economy downturn' topic, great POV from Spectatorbytes on how media companies are facing the digital age...

Twitter

- If you are not on Twitter, first you shld learn abt it in this article from NYT and if you want to get a feel for what's going on in the twittersphere. Check this Retweetradar for the top 'retweeted' people, links, learn about the PI Day (today) etc.
- On the value of Twitter traffic by Techcrunch
And see the latest traffic growth charts on this 'Twitter Facts Blog'
- One of my favorite Twitter stories about a guy finding out about a stranger in his house while and getting the live help of his twits as it was happening.
- Last: twitter song & twitter fans on YT.

For digital advertisers

Huge but looking interesting:: Digital Outlook report from Razorfish is in the can. Have just started the 177 pages reading but it sounds promising. Download here and enjoy!

Zillion starting to make noise

I met these guys... Am curious to see what happens with this product. If well executed, could be the next big thing. Check out this article on Zillion TV. From MCN A suivre...

Creativity video podcast

Just watched this week's issue and had to share. Every week: The top 5 of creative work with a mix of promos, ads, outdoors, websites in a short video piece. From very effective campaigns to very beautiful promo work. @ Creativity Online.

About Netbooks

Great article on the birth of netbooks and good example disruptive innovation. From WIRED magazine.
And a quite polemic (if you actually read the 21 excited comments) opinion piece on 'why apple should release a netbook' or not. From ComputerWorld

More on YT and music

But less collaborative this time. Where will the catfight end?

Kindle for iPhone: the best of both worlds

Loving this already. Check out this great review... Image ::courtesy of Heart Hi Tech::

Is there a right international digital strategy for media companies?

I guess we (including me) all struggle on this one. And MTV does too.
One way would be to focus your growth and target new niche and promising audiences, wherever you go (see bebo)
More on this later. I need to do a little research!

About twitter

A few people whom I know and I don't know now follow me on Twitter thanks to this blog...

I must say I don't always know what to say on Twitter; how it duplicates my FB status, my blog, and all my other multiple ways of self-expression. This is a great article on the 5 stages of "Twitter Acceptance". It did resonate with me... just to let you know, I'm between phase 3 and 4. Where are you at?

Music by and with your iPhone

Not only is the song great... but the fact that iPhones can replicate a whole band music instruments is amazing to me. Read the article and check out the video.
Reminds me of Birdie Nam Nam, (video here), without the turntables.

And to link this post with the last one, the best YouTube music mash-up ever, by an Israeli musician named Kutiman, article on Mediamamo. Again, switch on your speakers and watch the video.

Online music moves

A few moves on the music front on YouTube, with or without YouTube.

From teen created iTunes player layer based off music videos on YT called Muziic
to Youtube and Universal "talking"about creating a premium music service with another 4 letters name VEVO? Read more, on NYT or WSJ.

Bigger better ads

Google relaxing its 'quality' standards with expandable ad units. Is the world really coming to an end? :-)

Ad Budget Crunch Puts Pressure On Supply Line

Interesting perspective from MediaPost on the intricacies and multiple layers of the online ad spend

One more article on the Hulu vs YouTube saga

Wondering which one has the best business model, again...
Do the math with paidcontent

Expanding broadband to bail out economies

A good thing coming out from the world's crisis:
better and faster internet connections for everyone
From the IHT

New Nielsen Numbers Reveal Key Video Behaviors by Age Group

Video consumption is at an all time high with >150 hrs per month in the US {Side note: where do people find time to watch that much TV?: that's 5 hours per day!!!}.

For youngsters, non-television TV watching is already significant with 6.2% of video consumption happening on mobiles for 12-17 yrs old and 4.3% online for the 18-34.
Full downloadable Nielsen report and more details here:
New Nielsen Numbers Reveal Key Video Behaviors by Age Group

Recipe for a Successful Viral Video

Creative & marketing folks always want to make videos viral:: nothing new here but a quick overview of what not to miss from the WSJ.com

En Vrac, January 09 Favs list

Thanks to those of you who have shared some of these news with me. Sharing along...
- Kangaroo, UK's online VOD consortium with iTV, BBC and C4 gets killed...
- Coming up: a pool of standards for online video advertising, courtesy of Starcom, CBS, Discovery and Hulu?
- 10 websites that will matter in 2009 by PC world. Lots of videos sites.
- Great online video overview from the Economist, courtesy of Flypaper.
And for a bit of fun:
- If you haven't tried Hulu yet and want to watch again that e-trade babies Super Bowl ad:
- An ex-AETN Digital team member creates a great 'technology and gadget blog for beginners' which make me feel like I should read it everyday to look like I really know more about that stuff. Go Hillsy!