Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

AOL unveiled new “video ticker ads” as an alternative to pre-rolls, embedding graphic banner ads directly into streaming video content. The Flash-based ads offer click-through interactive opportunities for sponsors; clicking on an ad pauses the video and takes the user to an interactive spot.

Notice the Crest Ad overlaid on the Rihanna music video. (Click on the image to watch) Am I the only person who finds this incredibly annoying and antagonistic to the video playing behind the ad? Think about it this way, when an ad is literally overlaid on top of streaming video, it seems even more necessary that those two pieces have a synergy or the overall effect is a noticeable dichotomy.

Sundance Channel is offering a free sneak peek preview of the first episode of Nimrod Nation on iTunes starting Nov. 19, a week prior to its on air premiere on Nov. 26. Subsequent episodes of the 8-part documentary will be available for purchase on Mondays, the day after they air.

Will people pay to read newspapers or blogs on the new Amazon.com Kindle e-book device? Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos says: “The convenience of having your newspapers pushed to you full text is fantastic. Ninety-nine cents a month for a blog [is] a third of the cost of a latte.” (http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/19/qa-with-bezos-about-the-kindle/ 12/19)

MySpace is planning to test its own ad-supported music streaming service powered by mobile billing and content delivery service Textango, report AdAge. So far only the indie band Pennywise is participating, with a widespread launch not planned until March.

Beowulf succeeded in slaying the competition at the box office this weekend with roughly 40% of its $28.1 million in domestic receipts coming from digital 3D screens. (Theater owners were able to charge more for 3D screening, boosting box office totals.) Meanwhile 3D IMAX screenings contributed a record $3.58 million to the total, despite showing on less than 2% of the screens it was released on.

Sony BMG Music Entertainment is entering a licensing deal with Yahoo that clears the way for people to upload files with music or video content by the record company’s artists to Yahoo. Like similar deals, the agreement calls for Sony BMG to receive a cut of advertising revenue. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071120/ap_on_hi_te/sony_bmg_yahoo 11/20)

AT&T plans to buy online advertising company Ingenio, in a move that puts the telephone giant in competition with Google and other online ad leaders. Ingenio’s technology measures the effectiveness of ads by tracking phone calls made to businesses based on phone numbers used in ads. (http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/11/20/ATT-buys-pay-per-call-advertising-company_1.html 11/20)

As more professionally produced content finds a home online, user-generated video is becoming less alluring to both viewers and advertisers. ManiaTV.com recently canceled its user-generated channels. Says CEO Peter Hoskins: “We have Hollywood talent that wants to work with us.” (http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/nov2007/tc20071119_701831.htm 11/20)

Digital is where the growth is for the music industry, according to a new report from Jupiter Research. But it won’t be enough to “save the industry.” Sales of downloads, on-demand subscription services and ring tones, “won’t compensate for declining CD sales.” (http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/card/archives/2007/11/latest_us_digit.html 11/19)

The boom in online advertising is reigniting New York City’s tech sector, spurring growth as companies are drawn to the concentration of media and creative industries. Google and Yahoo are building up their operations in the city, and AOL is relocating to the Big Apple. (http://www.crainsnewyork.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071118/FREE/71118028/1010 12/18)

Researchers are increasingly frustrated with measurement companies’ inability to provide reliable audience data for online video, reports Mediaweek. The trend of distributing the same content to several sites at once continues to result in dubious viewership numbers as competing data providers use different methodologies to track video usage. Expect this issue to heat up as more online video ad deals are tied to impressions, offered now by start-ups such as VideoEgg.

Google accounted for 64.49% of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending October 27, 2007, according to Hitwise. Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 21.65, 7.42 and 4.76% respectively. The remaining 49 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.68% of U.S. searches.