Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Harry Potter, HBO, Jeff Zucker, NBC Universal, News Corporation, Steve Ballmer, Warner Bros., Yahoo
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Traffic on Hulu.com, the new site created by News Corp. and NBC Universal to offer network television content, has already sold out its advertising inventory, according to NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker. Advertisers don’t want to be next to a video of “a cat on a skateboard,” he says. (Iwantmedia.com 4/8, http://adage.com/article?article_id=126228 4/7)
Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and Chairman Roy Bostock reiterated their position that Microsoft‘s $31/share offer is too low in a reply to Steve Ballmer‘s strongly worded letter. Yahoo gives several reasons to justify the stance, including recently reaffirmed Q1 guidance, shareholder support and a fading Microsoft stock price, which lowers the market value of the original offer. (Cynopsis 4/8)
France Telecom is billing Orange as the first premium television service available on all platforms. The Orange cinema series, launching this fall, will offer 6 channels of exclusive full-length films, series and specials from HBO, Warner Bros. International Television, Gaumont and Fidelite Films to customers for viewing or downloading via Orange’s VOD, online or mobile platforms. Titles include WB’s Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix, HBO’s John Adams and Fidelite’s De l’Autre Cote du Lit. (Cynopsis 4/8)
ESPN signed its first online video syndication deal with AOL, providing the AOL Video and AOL Sports portals with highlights from games, original programming and the twice-daily “SportsCenter Right Now” rundown. Users can access the content via an embeddable branded video player on a new ESPN channel on AOL. (Cynopsis 4/8, http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=80130 4/8)
At some point, AOL should probably think about bringing their page design into the 21st century. It looks like someone threw up some content on a page with an ad dribble on the side.
Google is teaming up with the New York Times to allow users to track the news geographically in a layer on Google Earth. Users can follow the news by location and by section. The partnership marks the first time Google has worked with a news organization to offer news in real time. (Iwantmedia.com 4/8, http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/04/07/google-earth-adds-new-york-times-layer 4/7)
Facebook is close to settling its long-standing legal skirmish with competing site ConnectU. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/technology/08facebook.html 4/8)
Clear Channel, the largest U.S. radio broadcaster, is linking all of its digital FM music stations to Apple’s iTunes store, giving listeners a way to buy songs they’ve heard. The deal allows Clear Channel to share in revenue from iTunes, the biggest retailer of digital music, while luring listeners. (Iwantmedia.com 4/8, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601204&sid=avKDjO9bHgFo 4/7)
Snocap, the online music service co-created by Napster founder Shawn Fanning, has been acquired for an undisclosed amount by social network Imeem. The deal could be a sign that Imeem wants to add music and content sales to its site, according to this article. (Los Angeles Times 4/8)
NBC‘s multiplatform Kentucky Derby coverage this year will include a live simulcast of the race on NBCSports.com and NBC2Go and an interactive online/txt messaging contest, asking viewers to pick the winner from the increasingly crowded field of entrants. (Cynopsis 4/8)
Internet video delivery and services provider Brightcove announced syndication deals with social media sites and application providers Bebo, Meebo, RockYou, Slide and Veoh, contributing a combined 300 million monthly users. (Cynopsis 4/8)
Fox Networks, an advertising network run by News Corp.’s Fox International Channels, is acquiring a majority stake in utarget, a European ad network specializing in online video. The unit will be rebranded utarget.Fox and is expected to boost News Corp.’s efforts in online advertising. (Iwantmedia.com 4/8, http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/AFX-0013-24336249.htm 4/8)
In another testament to the format’s growing popularity, Vimeo reports that 13% of the 70,000+ video uploads it received in March were in HD. (Cynopsis 4/8)
Overall Online Video Consumption for February 2008
Category Jan-08 Feb-08
Unique Viewers (000) 116,745 115,799
Total Streams (000) 5,987,475 6,333,326
Streams per Viewer 51.3 54.7
Time per Viewer (min) 124.4 130.7
Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus, (U.S., Home and Work)
Top 10 Online Video Destinations ranked by Total Video Streams for February 2008
Video Web Brand Total Streams (000) Unique Viewers (000)
YouTube 2,918,799 70,222
Fox Interactive Media 405,996 21,028
Yahoo! 244,784 21,220
MSN/Windows Live 163,812 9,323
Nick Kids & Family Network 155,961 5,769
Google 122,948 18,638
Disney Online 121,933 9,606
Turner Ent New Media Network 96,991 6,850
ESPN 84,053 4,464
AOL Media Network 81,537 11,469
Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus, U.S. Home & Work
Online spending is expected to jump 17% in 2008 despite the slow economy, according to a Shop.org study conducted by Forrester. Web retail sales, excluding travel, will grow to $204 billion from $174.5 billion in 2007, according to projections. “With the U.S. economy struggling, it’s interesting to see that online retail is taking on a larger share of the retail industry,” Shop.org’s Ellen Davis said. (Reuters 4/8, USA TODAY/Associated Press 4/8, Financial Times 4/8, The Wall Street Journal 4/8, STLtoday.com 4/8)
The Internet will usurp television as the biggest advertising medium in Britain by the end of 2009, according to a new report by the Internet Advertising Bureau, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Center. The outlook for online advertising is described as “rosy.” (Iwantmedia.com 4/8, http://www.reuters.com/article/internetNews/idUSL0762361420080407 4/7)
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