Articles of the Day
YouTube To Unveil Ad System, Rev Share With Producers - BBC News interviewed YouTube founder Chad Hurley shortly after the announcement at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland this weekend that the online video provider would begin sharing ad revenue with producers. Hurley said this is one of a number of major announcements YouTube is set to make over the coming months. The other big one–is the “audio fingerprinting” technology that would be used to identify copyrighted material as it’s uploaded by users.
Questions Surround YouTube’s New Ad System - After speaking with CEO Chad Hurley at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, search luminary John Battelle surmises that the new rev share program would likely present producers with a series of options, as well as middle, after, banner or even button, ads. Battelle also says Google Video, the advertising system, will become a crucial component to AdSense, its publisher network.
MTV On Course To Break New “Laguna” Ground - The broadcaster, realizing that kids don’t pay television the kind of attention they used to, is moving into virtual online worlds, long the domain of tech geeks, mostly 18-34 males. For teens and 20somethings that want be like the kids on the highly successful reality show “Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County,” MTV is making that possible (sort of), through a 3-D rendered Southern California world in which avatars piloted by the show’s main characters, Kyndra and Cami, lounge by a virtual pool with scores of their fans, also piloting their own avatars.
Search Engines Try Out New Variations - The biggest names in Internet searching are spinning off some siblings — test sites for trying out new features that could spell big changes for Web search as it exists today. In September, Google launched SearchMash.com which displays a subset of the normal Google search results in an entirely different interface, with video, blog and image results on the same screen. IACI, Yahoo, and Microsoft have also launched similar initiatives with AskX.com, AllTheWeb.com and MsDewey.com, respectively.
‘MySpace’ the Top Search Term in 2006 - The Hitwise “Top US Search Lists of 2006″ report provides a valuable view into the minds of Internet users over the last year, showing what they took the trouble to type into search boxes. “MySpace” “MySpace.com” occupied the #1 and #2 spots, followed by “eBay”, “yahoo”, and “mapquest” amongst others. Included are rankings of the top search terms in the “television” category, “television shows” category and “fashion” category.
Online TV Revenues Set To Increase 10-Fold Over Five Years - The latest report to try to nail down the future benefits of online TV projects downloads of TV shows and films will grow 10-fold in the next five years, amounting to $6.3 billion worldwide in revenues by 2012. The report from British market researcher Informa views growing broadband penetration and the trend towards legal peer-to-peer services as the main drivers advancing greater acceptance of IPTV. Despite the incredibly upbeat view of online TV profitability, Informa says there is one major obstacle: the persistence of internet piracy.
Tribune Outsources Certain Classifieds and User-Gen Content Functions - Tribune has made two deals amidst its continuing probable-sale saga. The first one: It has tied up with news aggregator Topix.net to power classified ads in the general merchandise category on Tribune’s newspaper sites. The papers will include their ads on their sites along with ones submitted directly to Topix. The companies plan to share revenue they get from advertising that will run on the classified ad pages. The second deal is with Vmix, the San Diego-based social media platform white label firm…the online publications for Tribune properties will manage user-generated videos, photos and blogs using Vmix’s technology.
Nickelodeon Jumps On “Virtual City” Bandwagon: Nicktropolis For Tweens - Viacom-owned Nickelodeon previewed its latest interactive offering Monday, a “virtual city” called Nicktropolis, its most ambitious digital venture yet. The launch is strategically before Disney.com relaunch, which competes with Nick’s properties and plans to include some similar social networking and gaming experiences.
Earnings: CNET’s Profits Fall Due To Costs Of Options Investigation - CNET Networks reported its Q4 2006 results today, and its profits fell to $6.3 million, compared to $20.7 million in the year ago quarter, as a result of higher costs related to its stock options investigation. Revenues rose 14 percent to $118.4 million. The company also filed its amended earnings statements up to date with SEC, thus fulfilling Nasdaq’s conditions for continued listing. The total stock option investigation costs came in at $6.5 million…the investigations resulted in longtime CEO Shelby Bonnie resigning last year.
YouTube and Google: Quantifying the Synergy - Hitwise leverages its daily data on market share and clickstream and provides a quick analysis on the synergies between the two sites after YouTube was included in the Google Video Search Index. On the Saturday prior to the Google Video index integration (January 20th) YouTube received .54% of all Internet visits in the U.S. , and 37.98% of all visits to the Entertainment - Multimedia category. For the Saturday following the integration (January 27th) YouTube’s market share rose to .64% for all site visits in the U.S. a one week growth rate of 18.5%.
