“The BBC is the only European brand that could take on Google and AOL,” says BBC director-general Mark Thompson.
Following the announcement of Share Find Play, and given their strong, respected brand, an expanding international commercial operation, and the pile of cash they get from the TV licence fee, Thompson might be right. It is also nice to know that Yahoo and MSN didn't make his list.
The BBC wants to expand its international commercial activities through BBC Worldwide, explore various acquisitions, such as video-on-demand services and expansion of magazine publishing overseas, and launch BBC.com, an advertising-supported website accessible outside the UK, by the end of the year.
All this while asking the government to have UK households give them more money to run the business.
In the UK, households pay an annual TV licence fee of £126.50 per year, which funds much of the BBC's operations. The licence fee for the next ten years is currently in negotiation, and the BBC is seeking a rise of inflation plus 2.3 percent.
While the cash will certainly help the BBC compete with the likes of Google and AOL, what is the impact on local competition?
ITV, already faced with an 11% decline in ad revenue predicted at the channel for the end of the year cannot be very happy.
The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) today announced that Internet advertising revenues reached a new record of $3.9 billion for the first quarter of 2006. The 2006 first quarter revenues represent a 38 percent increase over Q1 2005 at $2.8 billion and a 6 percent increase over Q4 2005 total at $3.6 billion.
Internet ad revenue is set to overtake UK national newspaper ad revenue by the end of 2007, according to a report by WPP's pooled buying operation Group M.
The FT said the projection would make web ad revenue the third biggest revenue generator globally behind regional newspapers, currently in second place, with television still way out in front.
Estimates that internet ads would account for 13.3% of the £12bn a year media ad market by December 2007, with national newspapers marginally behind on 13.2%.
Forecasts a 39% rise in internet ads, compared with a 9% decline for national newspaper ad revenue.
Predicts that by the end of 2007, national newspapers' share of the market will drop to almost two-thirds of the levels in 2000.
Claims that analysts have continually underestimated the growth of internet ads, partly due to the perception that the popularity could not be maintained.
Adds that search ads accounted for more than half of online ads in 2005, with further growth predicted this year.
Predicts TV advertising will drop by 2% this year, and said TV was experiencing "its worst year since 2001" -- largely attributable to the global media downturn post September 11. (However, TV still has a 28.8% share of worldwide advertising revenue.)
Brand Republic suggests that the TV ad downturn would be felt acutely by ITV1, the UK's biggest ad-funded channel, with an 11% decline in ad revenue predicted at the channel for the end of the year.
The GroupM report concludes that newspaper ads were experiencing a decline in popularity for failing to engage with younger audiences. (The IAB already predicted that online ad revenues will surpass national newspapers by as early as November this year.)
That should give Paul Hayes some more dross to trawl through.
Forty-eight million American adults have contributed some form of user-generated content on the Internet, according to the "Home Broadband Adoption 2006," a report published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. That's 35 percent of Internet users. Of those adults who have posted content on the Web, 73 percent, or 31 million, have a broadband connection at home.
Paul Hayes, Managing Director of Times Publications, really knows how to win friends and influence the blogosphere.
"Some blogs are conversations among people you'd frankly prefer not to meet, others are cries for help and their writers are clearly in need of therapy," quotes the PressGazette. Others are just people expressing themselves, which is an entirely honourable pursuit, but would you like to meet this geek on a dark night?"
Hayes continues, "As information overload really kicks in, the consumer will want to go straight to the brand that they trust. So with all due respect to the hundreds of thousands of information sources out there, you can't beat a big brand name to re-assure you that what you're reading is high-quality content worth spending time with, and frankly, true. People don't have time to trawl through dross."
When it comes to news (and other information gathering online), I don't think people "go striaght to the brand" as Hayes suggests. Increasingly, I think people go straight to the story. Search, RSS, smart aggregation and yes, blogs, make the discovery process much more efficient.
What makes news from The Times any more valueable than The New York Times, Wash Post, or a trusted blog? These days, not much. On the internet, content is a conversation, and if Hayes and other old-school media types want their brands to survive in the digital era, they had better learn fast, adjust, and stop insulting their readers along the way.
Aren't visits to The Times homepage followed by browsing for interesting/relevant content as close to "trawling through dross" as it gets? Jarvis sums it up well, "And some big media will disappear noticed but frankly unmissed as well. Especially the snotty ones."
NYTimes.com reports on Stonehenge in the City. "On May 28 and on July 13, the sun will fully illuminate every Manhattan cross street (not the curved or angled ones) on the street grid during the last 15 minutes of daylight, and it will set on each street's center line. The sight is breathtaking."
Photo by Robert Caplin for The New York Times. Lyrics are by Billy Joel.
Some folks like to get away Take a holiday from the neighborhood Hop a flight to Miami Beach Or to Hollywood But I'm taking a Greyhound On the Hudson River Line I'm in a New York state of mind
I've seen all the movie stars In their fancy cars and their limousines Been high in the Rockies under the evergreens But I know what I'm needing And I don't want to waste more time I'm in a New York state of mind
It was so easy living day by day Out of touch with the rhythm and blues But now I need a little give and take The New York Times, The Daily News
It comes down to reality And it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide Don't care if it's Chinatown or on Riverside I don't have any reasons I've left them all behind I'm in a New York state of mind
It was so easy living day by day Out of touch with the rhythm and blues But now I need a little give and take The New York Times, The Daily News
It comes down to reality And it's fine with me 'cause I've let it slide Don't care if it's Chinatown or on Riverside I don't have any reasons I've left them all behind I'm in a New York state of mind
I'm just taking a Greyhound on the Hudson River Line 'Cause I'm in a New York state of mind.
Nico Flores, BBC blogger, has updated a very interesting content-related post called "Aggregates go mainstream" and he links to several new contributions that relate to his original post. One post Nico mentions is Jeff Jarvis' follow-up called Context is Content.
Both are worth a read.
Quoted: Content is nothing on its own. It only exists as part of conversations -- understood not in the usual 'blogsphere' sense of deliberation, but as shared concerns (not my term), concerns that we must partake in to be part of communities. When I buy a novel I choose it not just because I think I might enjoy it, but also because it is also being read by other people, because it's part of a larger movement that I'm interested in, or because it is relevant to something else I read. Reading is satisfactory only if I bring with me a certain baggage; and reading will add to my baggage, allowing me to appreciate other works and, crucially, to have more of a shared background with people around me. My point is that content--or, more precisely, the transaction of consuming content--is only meaningful as part of a wider conversation that is made up of countless related transactions.
A few months ago Terry Heaton wrote an influential essay on 'unbundling', in which he used the term 'smart aggregators' to refer to something like my aggregates. At some point last year, Umair Haque published his New Economics of Media presentation, and recently he wrote, in connection to ABC's ad-supported hit-show trial, that "rebuilding is where value creation will happen...where branding will be reborn".
In a recent post, John Hagel argues that "in addition to unbundling and rebundling of content, media companies face a choice: do they want to remain product businesses or do they want to become audience relationship businesses?" And in a related note, Jeff Jarvis reflects that "the future of media is not distribution, it's aggregation" -- it having been previously established, of course, that content is not the thing either.
My first "real" job was as a junior PM for Kenner/Parker Tonka in Paris. I managed Ghostbusters and other boys toy lines. I had met Tom Hanks filming the movie "Big" at Rye Playland the previous summer, and I always felt a bit like his character Josh while working at KPT. We played a lot of Risk and aso used to try all the games that the inventors would send in and judge la valeur ludique - the play value - of the games. Priceless.
Come to think of it, I played a lot of Risk in Vienna, too.
A good post on folksonomy over on Bocardo including the argument that even within social networks, personal value precedes network value. "What this means is that if we are to build networks of value, then each person on the network needs to find value for themselves before they can contribute value to the network. In the case of Del.icio.us, people find value saving their personal bookmarks first and foremost. All other usage is secondary."
That's the quesion that Scott Karp and Guy Kawasaki are asking. Karp's article is based on his reading the comments made on a Flickr photostream taken when Guy Kawasaki arranged a panel of 14-18 year olds to address that question for an audience of investors.
Karp's two key points are that: 1. When a fad becomes overhyped, teens will eventually retreat 2. Most teens know that MySpace isn’t entirely safe
After reading this, Karp checked out MySpace’s latest Alexa chart:
In the comments, reader David Krug disagrees, calls Karp a dork, and suggests seasonality as a better reason for the dip. Gotta lovit. Karp disagrees s bit, "I forgot how conformist teenagers are — of course they will continue to embrace MySpace now that’s gone totally mainstream. It’s totally hip to do what everyone else is doing."
Those interested in the subject might want to check out For Teens, MySpace.com Is Just So Last Year in which Amanda Lenhart, a senior researcher for the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Nice job here by Pepsi to play on the stereotypes and reputations of both the players and hosts without going overboard. With the World Cup days away, stay tuned for more.
This is a case study in how to engender the wrath of the blogosphere:
CMP is trying to trademark the term "Web 2.0" and is sending cease-and-desist letters to conference organizers who are using the term, including IT@Cork, who work with Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle to put on the Web 2.0 Conference each fall.
Sara Winge (VP of Corporate Communications) asked Tim O'Rielly to post the following message on his blog: Controversy about our "Web 2.0" service mark. The first comment, from JP, is priceless and indicative of things to come. Another comment, from Andy, points out the irony of Tim's having a Creative Commons badge on his blog. Classic.
This will not turn out well for Tim O'Rielly or CMP, and I agree with Michael Arrington that a lynching is going to take place, and Sara Winge has put Tim O'Rielly's head in the noose. "They are going to shoot first and ask questions later - Shel Israel, for example, wrote “O’Reilly has just put himself on the fast track to reputation implosion” and he may be right."
CrunchNotes: Tom Raftery received a cease and desist letter from the General Counsel of CMP Media, who work with Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle to put on the Web 2.0 Conference each fall. The letter demands that Tom stop his use of the term “Web 2.0? in a conference he’s putting on. The letter states that the use of the term is under a trademark application in connection with live events, conferences, etc. My favorite line of the letter: “…the public have come to associate the mark Web 2.0 and the Web 2.0 Conference with CMP and MediaLive.” I have to say that when I think of web 2.0, CMP is not the first name that pops into my head. O’Reilly and Battelle sure. CMP, no.
Surely a headline to get the merger rumors started up again, Yahoo and eBay announced a web advertising alliance. Under the deal, Yahoo will be the exclusive third-party provider of all graphic ads throughout eBay's auction site. Yahoo has also chosen EBay's online payment system PayPal to allow its own customers to pay for Yahoo Web services.
Om Malik and Michael Copeland have written a good primer. Check out their 16 step guide.
Quoted from Om's blog: New technologies are creating new business opportunities on the Internet, on mobile phones, in consumer products, and in information services. At the same time, many of these technologies have radically reduced the costs associated with launching a new venture. While birthing a company is easier, succeeding is as difficult as ever.
I teamed up with my long time colleague and comrade-in-arms Michael Copeland and talked to seasoned entrepreneurs, early-stage investors, venture capitalists, and first-time CEOs—to understand what they’ve learned about the art of getting a new company off the ground. This is a 16-step guide for building a start-up, and what are the things to avoid. Read this month’s Business 2.0 cover story, How To Build A Bullet Proof Start-Up.
The Metropolitan Opera needs your support to continue funding its live radio broadcast program. Well worth a few bucks, if you like opera and the arts, as I do.
Technorati's partnership spree continues, this time with the Associated Press. On the heels of their deal with Edelmen for international development, Technorati has partnered witht the AP to deliver blog headlines to 440 news organizations that carry AP's news module.
The news organizations that run the AP's module will display a box highlighting the 5 most bloggged about news items of the day and inbound links will be displayed on pages for unique articles.
Technorati Weblog: Technorati Teams With The Associated Press to Connect Bloggers To More Than 440 Newspapers Nationwide. Several months ago we and The Associated Press began to talk about about how citizen-generated media could enhance the AP in their mission to be "the essential global news network." Increasingly, what the blogosphere says about a news story becomes part of a more complete story, lending diverse perspectives and often expert commentary. The AP believed it was increasingly important to deliver the living blogosphere as a compliment to their their core professional news product. Social Software Weblog: This may also give a real boost to local blogs when these publications run local stories - something the WaPo deal and Sphere's new parntership with Time.com won't do.
Trends in Living Networks: The collaborative space of blogs and newspapers: Technorati’s initiatives – and their uptake by mainstream media – are making the system into a tightly enmeshed collaborative space for identifying and disseminating news through society.
A Weinstein Will Invest in Exclusivity - New York Times Most popular Internet communities, like Facebook.com or MySpace .com, measure their success by their ability to attract new members. A notable exception to this rule is aSmallWorld.net, an exclusive online community that is about to get bigger.
The Weinstein Company, the production business started by Bob and Harvey Weinstein after they left Miramax, has invested in aSmallWorld, the company will announce today. The Weinsteins, whose multimedia portfolio includes Miramax Books and a magazine publishing company, Niche Media, head a team of investors including Robert W. Pittman, former chief operating officer of AOL Time Warner. The company declined to put a dollar figure on its investment, describing it only as "significant." The Weinstein Company was attracted to aSmallWorld by the community's social networking and advertising opportunities, Harvey Weinstein said in an interview. This is the company's first investment in an online venture.
Edelman and Technorati Partner on International Project
The Edelman Technorati Deal; Why This Matters for Companies. Although Technorati is best known as the most comprehensive service for searching blogs — they currently index over 40 million of them — the company also provides the best analytic tools for tracking over time and in depth what the blogosphere is talking about.
Technorati and Edelman Partner on International Blogosphere. If there was one big take-away to Technorati's most recent State of the Blogosphere, its that the Blogosphere is going international in a Big Way. Only a third of blog posts are in English; today more people post in Japanese than in any other language.
Technorati is accelerating the development of fully localized versions of our service in Chinese, Korean, German, Italian and French. These will be moving through development and testing over the coming months and will be complete, public products in early 2007. (Technorati today can show posts in 20 languages, but so far we've only done completely localized versions in English and Japanese).
Working with Technorati to Listen to the Global Conversation: The me2revolution team at Edelman, which I am part of, has formed a relationship with Technorati to fast-track the development of localized versions of their offering in German, Korean, Italian, French and Chinese. Our PR teams worldwide will retain exclusive use of these sites as they are being developed, beginning with French this summer. These localized versions - which will include keyword/tag search and more - will evolve into more robust public-facing sites that everyone will be able to access beginning in the first quarter of next year.
Date: Thursday 25th May 2006 Time: 6.30pm Venue: New Theatre, East Building, LSE (directions) Will Web 2.0, and its promise to turn the internet into the ultimate, social and collaborative repository, bring us into an online golden age or will it simply create an orderless sprawl of content created by amateurs? Speakers: Tom Coates, Yahoo; Susan Greenberg, Roehampton University; Robert Loch, Soflow Chair: Chris Vallance, BBC
Silicon Valley is about an accumulation of people, not geography - get the right 10,000 people and you could recreate it
To create an environment which is conducive to start-ups you need two groups of people - rich people who are prepared to invest and lots of nerds
Government is not a good replacement for rich people / angel investors as they're slow, invest inappropriately and don't have the contacts or experience to support the right activity
For rich people and nerds to mix you need a location where lots of rich people who care about technology and lots of nerds want to be - New York has lots of rich people but no nerds, other places lots of nerds but no rich people
Places that attract nerds and rich people tend to be cosmopolitan, liberal, happy places like San Francisco where people walk around looking happy and with high levels of students going to high-class universities
Other features of good places potentially conducive to this kind of activity are: personality, good transport hubs and connections to the existing Silicon Valley, quietness, good weather, not about excitement
The Guardian mentioned them in March: Show and tell online Social networking sites have gone from being the next big thing to the thing itself. But, asks Sean Dodson, can they continue to hold the fickle attention of today's teens?
Tango does a parody of Sony Bravia's colour like no other spot. This is a real viral done by Clemmow Hornby Inge, as compared to the BF II parody or some others. It has caused a bit of controversy in Swansea. I wouldn't want my street turned into a fruit salad, either.
Project name Bravo Client Richard Collins, Director of Brand Marketing, Britvic Brief "Entertaining fruity refreshment" Creative agency Clemmow Hornby Inge Art director Micky Tudor Writer Micky Tudor Planner Ben Southgate, Oliver Egan Media agency MindShare Media planner Mark Holden Media spend £180,000 Production company Thomas Thomas Films Director Jim Gilchrist Editor Amanda Perry @ Peep Show Post-production The Mill Music 'Heartbeats' by Jose Gonzalez - laid at The Mill Exposure UK Supporting website Hall Moore CHI
First, an introduction: 80-20 (aka Pareto), I'd like you to meet 99-1.
A must read article and follow-up from the Church of the Customer Blog on "The 1% Rule." Using ad-hoc research and quotes from good sources, they chart citizen participation and the value of the small yet very influential group of people driving communities and content creation online.
I'm spending a lot of time thinking of how advertisers can use social networks and consumer generated media to engage in a meaningful and profitable dialogue with the 1% and find new pathways to the other 99%. More to come ...
Comscore/Media Metrix says that Wikipedia was the 18th most popular destination website on the web in March 2006, with some 25 million visitors that month alone. But the number of people who actually contribute content to Wikipedia is about 1-2 percent of total site visitors.
Quoted: It would appear that small groups of people often turn out to be the principal value creators of a democratized community. Over time, their work fuels widespread interaction that engages the non-participating community and attracts new ones. If continually nurtured, the community can become a self-sustaining generator of content and value. Quoted: The overriding lesson: Avoid marginalizing the 1 Percenters as statistically insignificant, unrepresentative of the total audience or simply the lunatic fringe. If anything, the 1 Percenters may represent the leading indicators of how well your brand is being adopted, synthesized and vocalized.
Eight articles and five podcasts. I'm a bit late finding/posting this (it was published in late April/early May), but it is worth checking out. The first two (overview and on blogging) are particularly good.
If you are too lazy to click each link individually, you can buy a PDF of the entire survey, though I am not sure what a podcast sounds like in an Adobe Reader.
No plans to go yet, but it looks ok. Plus, Amsterdam in July is very nice.
Quoted: On July 7, 2006 The Next Web conference will take place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands at the Barbizon Palace St. Olofskapel. The Next Web conference is a one day event with the best speakers from all around the world who wil give their view on how new web-technology will influence the way we surf, the way we do business and the way we live.
By the way, on Monday Michael is organizing an open event in London at the Pitcher & Piano. I'll be there. Details here.
Quote: Dozens of (mostly) European companies showcased their new consumer web applications at Innovate 2006 in Zaragoza, Spain this week. As usual with conferences like these, the companies were young, rough and hungry. And I see a lot of potential with at least a few of them.
Bill Tancer from Hitwise US breaks down Google's traffic by service. First time I've seen something like this, and it shows just how incredibly dominant search is to the rest of their products and services.
Four years after launch, and Google News is hardly making waves. Froogle, the shopping service, is barely in business. Google Local gets a pathetic 0.05% of their market share. There are many other examples.
Such fine products with no real traction.
The sparse nature of thir homepage is only partly to blame for this. The Google Personalized Homepage may help this as it allows many services to be surfaced. Google never wanted to be a portal, and their traffic shows that despite the launch of many new products and services (everything from Finance to a Calendar) they are succeeding in not becoming one.
Another factor is the "Nimoy Syndrome."
Google is so well known for doing one thing that when they try to branch out and play other roles, people continue to see them as the old character. Sure, when Google does something like GMail or Maps, people understand why - much the same way I understood why Nimoy would do In Search Of. However, it was really hard not to see Nimoy as Spock when he played Paris in Mission Impossible.
The same can be said of Google: If it doesn't involve search, then why should consumers choose Google? In this respect, Yahoo! has the edge. Yahoo! is a portal. That's what it is by nature, and that's what consumers expect.
Quote: Leveraging the custom category capability of Hitwise, I've created a category of the top 20 Google domains in order to understand the popularity of Google's varied services. The table below details the percentage market share that each property accounts for in relation to all visits to the top 20 Google Domains.
I had the chance to listen to an advance copy of Zero 7's new release, The Garden, and it is worth checking out. If you don't want to rush out and buy a copy, it s streaming (in prety good quality) on the band's web site.
When Matt Wells asked me if I could pull together some thoughts and links about starting a blog, I thought I would blog them. Seems appropriate, right? This series of posts will be in no specific order. Just links. I'll post a summary at some point.
The first RHCP release in 4 years. Just in time for summer. Yummy. Stadium Arcadium has a great sound, and I have a feeling it will work its way up my LastFM rankings.
Nielson/NetRatings has issued a study showing that the top 10 social networking sites saw traffic grow 47% over the last year, with MySpace seeing the biggest growth (367% increase) and MSN Spaces (286%) seeing the biggest growth. Hosted blogging systems were included in the study.
The full Nielson/NetRatings report (in .pdf) is here.
Greg Sterling takes a fresh look at the once-mightly and often overlooked Citysearch and likes a lot of what he sees.
SearchEngineWatch: For all its ups and downs over the past couple years, Citysearch retains a strong local brand and, according to Scott Morrow, Citysearch executive vice president of search and products, is delivering better click-throughs and a better ROI for local advertisers than general search engines could. To drive traffic Citysearch optimizes its content at the profile page level for search engines and also buys paid-clicks. Citysearch sells clicks and calls on the site to local businesses but also offers broader distribution on Google, Yahoo and beyond through a relationship with MatchCraft.
Citysearch had 41,000 local advertisers and about 500,000 user reviews on the site. The company has an ambitious program to boost reviews by 1 million in the next few months.
To that end, Citysearch has started to create ego-based incentives for people to write more about their favorite local businesses and local experiences. Insider Lists is a set of recommendations and reviews that feature collected writings of individuals. These are not user profiles per se (a la MySpace or Yelp), but it starts to approach that. How far Citysearch will go in the direction of “social networking,” to acquire more content, remains to be seen.
Yet the strength of the site is the mix of user-generated reviews and editorial content (i.e., “Citysearch lists” and “Best of Citysearch”). The company also has a local sales force, an asset many of its competitors lack.
Another question is what will be the relationship between Ask Local and Citysearch within IAC going forward. Ask Local’s content is from Citysearch and the two sites could be seen as somewhat redundant but there's also no reason the two sites couldn't co-exist as distinct doorways into local. We'll see which brand has more local traction over time.
My friend Juri arrived at the Rockstar Vienna office the other day to find that Take-Two had closed it effective immediately, "due to the challenging environment facing the video game business and our Company during this platform transition".
He is handling it very well, and between you and me, he's wanted out for quite some time. Juri is brilliant, and you should hire him. You can learn more about him on his blog, Intelligent Artifice or contact him via email. Jurie Horneman: jhorneman--at--mac.com
In tribute to his gaming background, here's the Sony Bravia spot done Battlefield II style ...
RSS advertising and metrics player FeedBurner is moving beyond feeds with its latest initiative. The company seeks to expand the volume and type of inventory it offers advertisers by enticing publishers, especially bloggers, to display its ads on their Web sites.
For the first time since 2004, Yahoo! will launch a redesign of their homepage. It is in beta release for now, and there is no clear date for an official launch yet. I find it quite good, as both the look-and-feel as well as the functionality have improved. I don't really use "portals"very much any more - when I get the urge Netvives and Live.com fill that need now - but if if I were, this would be the one.
You can find a working preview of the new page here. The navigation has been refined a bit, and the whole thing feels, well, updated.
Yang and Filo: If you visit the redesigned page while it is still playing, be sure to check out the video from co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo. The two sit on top of a desk and give a very wanna-be funny/friendly intro to the new page and re-introduction to the brand. Filo, characteristically, says nothing.
This part of the Yahoo! brand - the faces behind the name - has been missing for a long time. Whilst Brin and Page have made themselves internet icons and helped add personality to the Google brand, Yahoo! has never really accomplished this.
In the business community, Semel and Braun have fulfilled the role for Yahoo! for quite some time, but it has been absent from their consumer marketing strategy for years. I wonder if this was Semel's idea. Regardless, consumer trust is
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