TV SHOWS BRING THEIR ADS ONLINE July 16, 2009 (WSJ) Cable-TV shows, including TBS's "My Boys," are coming to the Web -- along with a full complement of ads.The shows will be part of a new Web-TV trial that begins this month, spearheaded by cable operator Comcast Corp. It involves more than a half-dozen other media companies, including CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc. The idea is to put more TV shows online, but only for paying cable subscribers. Read Story
CONSUMERS SEE INTERNET ADVERTISING INEVITABLE July 15, 2009 (Adweek) They may not quite be grateful for advertising. But consumers realize it pays the bills for much of the content they enjoy -- and, for that matter, that it helps the economy to function. Those are among the significant findings of a newly released global survey by Nielsen, AdweekMedia's parent company. Read Story
TV COMMERCIALS DECODED July 15, 2009 (Christian Science Monitor) Advertisements are one of the canaries of American culture. American culture is being debased by an insidious form of comedy. Three commercials in particular deserve to be decoded.Read Story
STUDY REPORTS FACEBOOK USERS ARE OLDER July 5, 2009 (SFGate) Facebook users are getting grayer. Long a hangout for college students, the social-networking giant has morphed into a virtual parlor for the middle-aged, according to a new study. People 35 to 54 are now the biggest age group on the Web site, accounting for 28.2 percent of all U.S. users as of July. Following close behind are 24- to 34-year-olds, who represent 25.2 percent of users. Read Story
LONG FORM VIDEO GAINING INTEREST ONLINE July 5, 2009 (NY Times) When motion pictures were invented at the end of the 19th century, most films were shorter than a minute, because of the limitations of technology. A little more than a hundred years later when Web videos were introduced, they were also cut short, but for social as well as technical reasons. Read
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INNOVATIVE ADVERTISING SELLS June 24, 2009 (BusinessWeek) Everybody seems to hate advertising, in part because it seems inescapable. Television screens are cluttered with commercials. Web sites are obscured by pop-up and rollover ads. Streets, sidewalks, and vehicles are plastered with so many signs and digital screens that many people are calling them graffiti. So what's an advertiser to do? It's all about making—and leaving—an impression.Read Story
ICONIC VIDEO FROM TEHRAN PROTESTS DEMANDS NEW SKILLS June 19, 2009 (Christian Science Monitor ) Before Iran, there was Moldova, which had its own (unsuccessful) "Twitter Revolution" back in April, when young activists used online tools to coordinate protests against the country's dubiously reelected Communist government. In Egypt, meanwhile, a new generation of activists has come to embrace Facebook and Internet-based social networking applications to protest (again, mostly unsuccessfully) their repressive government. But new-media experts say that Iran's civil resistance movement is unique because the government's tight control of media and the Internet has spawned a generation adept at circumventing cyber roadblocks, making the country ripe for a technology–driven protest movement. Read Story
ICONIC VIDEO FROM TEHRAN PROTESTS DEMANDS NEW SKILLS June 18, 2009 (Poynter Online) The 40-second video from Tehran is gripping and brutal. It shows a young woman apparently dying in the street. Uploaded to YouTube Saturday, the video (and a second one showing only the struggle to save her) spread quickly from blogs to Twitter to the publishing platforms of established news organizations. But as news resources decline and the capacity of non-journalists to document such moments grows, a new challenge is emerging: the wherewithal to collaborate with and enhance the storytelling of the people on the scene when journalists are nowhere to be found. Read Story
CAN BRUNO SAVE MYSPACE FROM CULTURAL IRRELEVANCE? June 18, 2009 (Advertising Age) Sacha Baron Cohen, or "Bruno," wants you to "freund" him on MySpace, or as he says as his Austrian alter ego, "MeinSpace." The movie, about a satirical fashion journalist, will have close ties to the social-networking site, as shown by the de facto home page for the film, MeinSpace.com, hosted by MySpace. Read Story
LOCAL MOBILE HOT FOR ADS June 8, 2009 (Media Post) According to The Kelsey Group, a division of BIA, local mobile ad revenue is expected to reach more than $3.1 billion by 2013, up from $160 million in 2008. At the same time, the report says, local ad revenue may hit a low of $135.8 billion in 2010, before climbing a bit in 2011. And, local advertising across newspapers, direct mail, TV, radio, yellow pages, outdoor, magazines and online is expected to slip to $144.4 billion by 2013, down from $155 billion last year, says BIA. Read Story
HOW TWITTER WILL CHANGE THE WAY WE LIVE June 5, 2009 (TIME) The one thing you can say for certain about Twitter is that it makes a terrible first impression. You hear about this new service that lets you send 140-character updates to your "followers," and you think, Why does the world need this, exactly? It's not as if we were all sitting around four years ago scratching our heads and saying, "If only there were a technology that would allow me to send a message to my 50 friends, alerting them in real time about my choice of breakfast cereal." Read Story
HARVARD SOCIOLOGICAL STUDY ON TWITTER June 4, 2009 (Christian Science Monitor) Harvard Business School released the results of one of the first extensive sociological studies of Twitter, the frenetically popular micro-blogging site. The data was culled from a random sample of the May 2009 activity of 300,000 Twitter users; it was then compared to user patterns on social networks such as Facebook. “Twitter has attracted tremendous attention from the media and celebrities, but there is much uncertainty about Twitter’s purpose.” Read Story
COURT UPHOLDS FCC BAN ON CABLE EXCLUSIVITY May 26, 2009 (Bloomberg) Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and other providers of cable television services may not use exclusive contracts to block competitors from apartment buildings and condominiums, a federal appeals court ruled. Read Story
MARKETERS WEIGH CACHET OF AMERICAN IDOL FINALISTS May 22, 2009 (USAToday) Arkansas native Kris Allen took the American Idol title, but marketing experts say Adam Lambert has the edge in selling. The all-American Allen may be too forgettable to help pitch products, while Lambert's edgy appearance makes him one to remember. "He's glitter and glam rock," says Patrick O'Neill, an executive creative director at ad agency TBWA/Chiat/Day in Los Angeles. "Putting him in something would get twice as much attention as Kris Allen. I was relieved that Adam didn't win, because now he really has a chance of legitimacy." Read Story
FCC IS PUT ON HOLD WHILE GOP WEIGHS CANDIDATES May 12, 2009 (Wall Street Journal Blog) Just one day after the Senate Commerce Committee announced it would hold a confirmation hearing on Julius Genachowski’s nomination to be chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, the hearing was abruptly canceled.What happened? Republicans threatened to boycott because the lawmakers want a Republican FCC commissioner to be paired with Genachowski, industry lobbyists say.
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MOMS SAY MARKETERS IGNORE THEM May 5, 2009 (Brandweek) Marketers have made great strides in recent years to better understand and connect with moms. But in trying to perfect the message, many have forgotten to listen to the very consumer they are trying to woo. According to M2Moms, 60 percent of moms feel that marketers are ignoring their needs, and 73 percent feel that advertisers don't really understand what it's like to be a mom. Read Story
GENERAL MILLS RECRUITS BLOG BACKERS April 28, 2009 (Adweek) Bloggers, particularly moms, are an audience of such growing importance to General Mills that the consumer-goods company has built a formal network to feed them free products and enable them to run giveaways for their audiences. MyBlogSpark has recruited more than 900 bloggers -- over 80 percent are moms -- to register to be eligible for everything from sampling campaigns to product coupons to news of a new ad campaign. Read Story
TWITTERS AUDIENCE HAS 'NO RETURN' POLICY April 28, 2009 (Adweek)
Over 60 percent of people who sign up to use the popular (and tremendously discussed) micro-blogging platform do not return to using it the following month, according to new data released by Nielsen Online. In other words, Twitter currently has just a 40 percent retention rate, up from 30 percent in previous months -- indicating an “I don’t get it factor” among new users that is reminiscent of the similarly over hyped Second Life from a few years ago. Read Story
THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM IS NOT IN THE PAST April 16, 2009 (MediaChannel) The question of “How to save Journalism?” is a front-burner issue, as major metropolitan dailies, like the Rocky Mountain News and the Philadelphia Inquirer, implode. Calls for bailouts in the tens of billions of dollars have gone up, even from critics of the industry, and some are calling for further relaxation of limits on media ownership so newspapers and television stations can merge, presumably to improve the financial prospects of both.
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ONE THIRD OF YOUNG AMERICANS SEE COLBERT AND STEWART AS ALTERNATIVES TO TRADITIONAL NEWS March 25, 2009 (Rasmussen Reports) Nearly one-third of Americans under the age of 40 say satirical news-oriented television programs like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart are taking the place of traditional news outlets. Thirty-two percent (32%) of adults ages 30-39 believe this to be true, while 42% disagree, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.Read Story
IS PRESIDENT O'BAMA'S PR BARRAGE WORKING? March 23, 2009 (AdAge) Have you seen or heard President Barack Obama pitching his stimulus plan lately? If you say no, you are clearly either lying or actually living under a rock.The reason for the PR blitz is twofold. Mr. Obama is looking to drum up support among citizens and politicians alike for his nearly $800 billion stimulus plan and his $3.6 trillion 2010 budget proposal. But he is also trying to calm the growing fear and anger within an electorate that has had to watch its salaries get cut and homes taken away. Read Story SOCIAL MEDIA OUTLAY STILL SMALL March 16, 2009 (Adweek) Despite the hype surrounding Twitter and Facebook, advertisers for the most part spend little on social media marketing, according to a new report by Forrester Research. Forrester found that 75 percent of marketers have budgeted less than $100,000 for social media efforts over the next year. The firm concluded that social media has not yet entered the marketing mainstream, but is largely relegated to experimental budgets -- despite the fact that social media marketing typically costs less than traditional ad programs.Read Story
ADVERTISERS GAIN TREASURE TROVE OF CLUES FROM SMARTPHONES March 11, 2009 (NY Times) The millions of people who use their cellphones daily to play games, download applications and browse the Web may not realize that they have an unseen companion: advertisers that can track their interests, their habits and even their location. Smartphones, like the iPhone and BlackBerry Curve, are the latest and potentially most extensive way for advertisers to aim ads at certain consumers. Advertisers already tailor ads for small groups of consumers on the Web based on personal information. But cellphones have a much higher potential for personalized advertising, especially when they use applications like Yelp or Urbanspoon with GPS to identify a person’s location, right down to the street corner where they are standing. Read Story
FOX TIVO BUSTING PROMOS March 8, 2009 (TVWeek) Fox’s on-air promotions team has quietly opened a new front in TV’s ongoing war against digital video recorders. With little fanfare, the network in recent weeks has started sprinkling its commercial breaks with what it’s calling “TiVo-busters”—spots designed to be effective even when viewers use a DVR to fast-forward through advertising. Read Story
INTERACTIVE TV (ITV) TIME HAS COME March 2, 2009 (MediaChannel) This year, the largest cable operators in the U.S. plan to have upgraded at least 20 million digital set-tops with code to run standardized interactive-TV applications. That will make it possible for viewers to click a button on their remote to, say, ask an advertiser to e-mail them more information, or cast a live vote for the MVP of the basketball game they’re watching.
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RADIO BECOMING MORE ENGAGED WITH ITS AUDIENCE February 24, 2009 (RadioInk) Entercom President/CEO David Field acknowledged the tough economic climate, "Radio is rapidly reinventing itself with aggressive investment in new digital technologies and capabilities, significantly enhancing the ways we interact with and engage our audiences. Despite the current issues facing everyone in this economy, over the long haul, radio's future is quite bright." Read Story
STALLED SWITCH TO DIGITAL TV CLASSIC TALE OF BREAKDOWN February 14, 2009 (Washington Post) The nation's switch to all-digital broadcasts has been more than a decade in the making. The federal government has spent nearly $2 billion to help people prepare. Broadcasters spent another $1.2 billion to run warning ads and millions more to upgrade equipment. United States seemed ready to follow the half-dozen European countries that have made the switch. But with two federal agencies in charge, no clear idea of how many people would be affected and constant partisan disagreements over money, it has now been pushed back four months. Read Story
IRON TRIANGLE OF STIMULOUS MISINFORMATION February 7, 2009 (MediaMatters) On any given day during the current congressional debate over the economic recovery plan, chances are good that Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity will say something false about the administration's or congressional Democrats' efforts to pass a bill. And they do not promote these falsehoods in isolation; they are often promoted concurrently with each other and with Republican members of Congress. Read Story
YOUTUBE'S POPULAR VS MOST VIEWED: WHAT GIVES? February 4, 2009 (LA Times) In the latest in a series of moves away from its early, freewheeling roots, YouTube has quietly changed the default filter on its highly trafficked main video page from "most viewed" to something called "popular."
Since its inception, YouTube's "most viewed" page has been the place to find the Web's hottest -- and, in a sense, most popular -- videos. The area is still available but is sure to become less prominent now that it's lost the default status. Read Story
SUPERBOWL RECESSION? January 31, 2009 (Bloomberg) NBC-TV, broadcast host of Super Bowl XLIII, sold all its advertising spots at a record $206 million, even as some longtime advertisers passed on participating due to a declining U.S. economy. The network also set a record for advertising revenue for the National Football League championship from pre-game through post-game, with $261 million, said Jeff Zucker, NBC Universal Inc. chief executive officer, in a statement. Read Story
OBAMA ROCKS THE WEB January 20, 2009 (AdWeek) On Jan. 20 CNN.com Live had served more than 21.3 million live video streams globally from 6 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. EST. According to CNN’s internal data, that figure is more than four times the previous record of 5.3 million live streams set on Election Day last year, which at the time was record shattering.Read Story
ALL DIGITAL EYES ON OBAMA January 18, 2009 (MediaWeek) It’s doubtful that—between managing two wars and implementing a massive economic stimulus package—behavioral targeting ranks high on President-elect Obama’s first 100 days’ to-do list. Yet, with a new administration set to take charge this week, backed by a larger Democratic congressional majority, the online ad industry is swiftly moving to present itself to Washington as a business that can police itself. Read Story
ANALOG SHUTOFF SHUFFLE CONTINUES January 18, 2009 (MediaWeek) It’s doubtful that—between managing two wars and implementing a massive economic stimulus package—behavioral targeting ranks high on President-elect Obama’s first 100 days’ to-do list. Yet, with a new administration set to take charge this week, backed by a larger Democratic congressional majority, the online ad industry is swiftly moving to present itself to Washington as a business that can police itself. Read Story
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"The first thing to keep in mind, is that your objective is not to make a 'TV show' or a 'show' of any kind. You are collecting evidence; you are encouraging witness; you are emboldening ordinary people to 'go public.'"
George Stoney from forward in Turn on the Power! Using Media for
Social Change
