Articles of the Day
Digital Shops Exploiting General Agency Skill Gaps - The Web and related digital technologies are exposing major weaknesses in traditional agency skill sets, a new Forrester Research study reports. Among the trends: Marketers turning to digital shops for their “traditional” agency work.
MSNBC.com Tees Up FirstPerson - In the Web 2.0 world, everybody has a story. MSNBC.com has tapped into the trend with the launch of FirstPerson, a feature that enables consumer-generated storytelling by inviting readers to upload stories, video and photos related to their passions. Rich media advertising opportunities will follow.
eMarketer: Online Ad Spending Growth To Slow - It had to happen sometime. Market research firm eMarketer is forecasting online ad spending growth will slow to less than 19% this year after three straight years of more than 30% gains.
Google Will Fling Open Kimono On AdSense Network - Google will begin telling its advertisers where their ads run across the AdSense publisher network, a move that provides some transparency heretofore absent in the search giant’s contextual advertising product.
YouTube Taps NBA To Harness Basketball Fan Passion - In its second content partnership with a major professional sports league, YouTube has struck a deal with the National Basketball Association to start a branded NBA channel. Fans will be able to upload videos of their own moves.
Brightcove Enables New Washingtonpost.Newsweek Ad-Supported Video - With the help of video technology company Brightcove, Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive is launching ad-supported Web video channels across all its online properties. Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive — the online publishing subsidiary of The Washington Post Company — will feature daily newscasts from the Washington Post’s stable of journalists, news documentaries, and international coverage.
Men 18 to 34 Years Old Are Key Online Video Viewers - New consumer research, Emerging Video Services, from Leichtman Research Group, found, based on a survey of 1,250 households nationwide: 1. Men aged 18-34 account for 41% of those who view video online on a daily basis, while comprising just 14% of the online subscribers sample 2. Men aged 18-34 account for over two-thirds of adults who view YouTube and other user-generated content daily and 3. Just 8% of those who watch video online strongly agree that they now watch TV less often.
Building Is Big Business In Second Life - Real-world real estate might be suffering, but there’s a building boom happening in the virtual world Second Life — in the commercial sector. Whether it’s a marketing/advertising thing, a way to gauge word of mouth by engaging consumers, or a way to find and talk to potential recruits, building a second home in Second Life is hot with real-world companies.
Piper: Online Spending To Hit $80 Billion By 2011 - Ever-bullish on Internet media, the financial-services firm Piper Jaffray now predicts that online ad spending will surge to $80 billion by 2011. Most research firms peg online ad spending at around $20 billion this year — eMarketer, for example, expects growth to slow.
Joost Founders: We’re Going After Cable TV, Not YouTube - In a past life, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis made a habit out of producing disruptive technologies. Co-founders of the controversial software programs Skype, a free Web-based phone service they sold to eBay for $2.6 billion, and KaZaa, the peer-to-peer service that enabled millions of users to trade music and other media files illegally, Zennstrom and Friis have decided to play it safe with their latest creation: the Web TV service Joost. Why? “We don’t want to be in a long, multiyear litigation battle,” Friis said.
Over-Aggressive Filtering Snags Video Producers - It’s the online video takedown smackdown: the consumer backlash to video clips removed that appear to violate copyrights, but do not. Mere weeks into the widespread regulation of Viacom content on YouTube, producers are complaining that perfectly legitimate content is being farmed out by over-aggressive filtering from the Google video site.
Apple Delays Web TV Device - Apple has confirmed that its new Apple TV device will be delayed, although the company gives no explanation. The Web-based set-top box, code-named iTV, was officially unveiled by the computer giant at its Macworld conference on Jan. 9; it is designed to play content downloaded through Apple’s iTunes media store on a TV set.
Earnings: CBS CEO: More Digital Investments Coming - Some highlights from the CBS 4Q06 earnings call with Chairman Sumner Redstone and CEO Leslie Moonves: (transcript by SeekingAlpha): MMOD: Moonves: “Our out-of-market online game coverage turned out to be a huge hit. So this year, we’ve sold it much more aggressively and project to double our revenues and increase our profits sixfold. This is a trend that we expect to continue as this medium grows.”
