Filed under: Feature | Tags: Advertising, Arts, Arts and Entertainment, Brian Cusack, Metacafe, Microsoft, Omma, online video, United States, Video, YouTube
BLURRING OF THE LINE: CONTENT OR ADVERTISING?
Today at Omma Video, Brian Cusack, Sales Manager of YouTube, laid down some serious food for thought for the audience. Simply put, the line between content and advertising is grey enough that the audience cannot tell the difference. Here are some examples.
Levis Commercial: Jeans Jumping
User Generated: Jeans Jumping
Levis created the top video to pre-empt a television campaign. The top video has garnered just fewer than 4 million views and sponsored a variety of user-created attempts like the video below it. Notice that there is absolutely NO Levis branding in the top video. So, is it a commercial or just cool online video?
Here’s another example:
McNuggets Commercial: Second City Chicago Style
Two cast members from Second City Chicago were on their way to rehearsal and feeling a bit hunger town. So, they stopped off for some McNuggets and decided to make a rap about their experience. Called a friend, shot a quick video and sold it to McDonald’s. Nice.
And finally:
Jay Z HP Commercial
User-Generated HP Commercial
The original Jay-Z HP commercial spawned user-generated editions. How’s that for a user interacting with your brand? Finally, most of us are very familiar with the original Soulja Boy video. That video brought it home with 29 million views. That pales in comparison to the 500 million views garnered by user imitations. Here’s my favorite. Like whoa.
Miller gave a list of his top 3 sites. In order, they are:
1) Google
2) Wikipedia
3) YouTube
Mobile post sent by Marauder using Utterz.
Filed under: Feature | Tags: Aetna, Health, Health care, Health care industry, Health Policy, Insurance, Medicine, NYU Medical Center, Sirius, United States
I CAN’T GET MY DOCTOR ON THE PHONE BUT I CAN GET HER ON THE RADIO!
I love the idea of doctors providing information through this medium so I sought out the website to take a quick listen of a clip on the type of brain tumor Ted Kennedy suffers from. Click the image below for some quick clips from the shows.
Being a former radio DJ and even more hysterical a former pre-med student, I found the idea of health professionals communicating with a large audience compelling. I think most people’s biggest gripe with the health care industry is certain doctor’s lack of communication skills in delivering sensitive information. Well, here’s an example of health professionals attempting to speak our language and provide care off the clock as it were.
The DJ serves to dumb it down for the audience, listening to guest doctors lecture and trying to provide a translation of sorts. Kudos NYU Medical Center. Who would have thought that NYC would be the first city vto test something out like this? Surely not me. FYI. I love my doctors but it has definitely been a hard road in finding great ones who know how to communicate.
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Filed under: BROADCAST/CABLE | Tags: David Gregory, Joe Scarborough, Meet the Press, MSNBC, NBC, NBC Universal, New York Times, Tim Russert
Tim Russert, 58, moderator of NBC’s Meet the Press and the network’s Washington Bureau Chief died of a sudden heart attack last Friday. Tim began as moderator of Meet the Press in 1991 and led the show longer than any other person in the show’s 60-year history. (Cynopsis 6/16)
I have been a loyal Meet the Press fan for years. I sat down last night, Meet the Press mug in hand, and watched the retrospective from Sunday morning’s show in sadness. To a reporter who always asked the uncomfortable questions in the search of truth behind the politics, I raise my mug. FAVORITE Meet the Press moment: Russert asked President Bush whether the war in Iraq was a war of necessity or a war of choice. Bush stumbled a bit but eventually answered the question (necessity). In the first moment after the question, you can clearly see a mixture of fear and uncertainty wash over the president’s face. Here is where Russert made politicians human. Click below for a slideshow brought to you by the New York Times.
Next, speculation abounds about who will take Tim’s seat as moderator of Meet the Press, especially as the November presidential election looms closer. On the short list, those named in various reports include MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, David Gregory and Joe Scarborough. (Cynopsis 6/16)
NBC Universal has confirmed that it is the sole negotiator, along with private-equity partners Blackstone Group and Bain Capital, for Landmark Communications’ The Weather Channel. NBCU is reportedly looking to nab the channel for about $3 billion, a much lower price than the $5 billion sought by Landmark. Time Warner withdrew from the hunt for The Weather Channel on Friday. (Financial News Online 6/16, The New York Times 6/14, Los Angeles Times 6/14)
HBO has a Latino-themed drama in the works titled Palladium from screenwriter Franc Reyes, according to THR. The one-hour project will be set inside a posh nightclub in New York where the owner has a volatile relationship with his son. Franc is writer and executive producer and if a pilot is ordered will also direct. (Cynopsis 6/16)
20th Century Fox TV made a first-look pact with Jason Bateman to develop television series in addition to producing and directing projects. The terms give 20th TV first dibs on anything Jason develops under his production banner, F+A Productions. (Cynopsis 6/16)
Two series are in the works for AMC’s 2009 season as the cable network looks to follow the success of original shows “Mad Men” and “Breaking Bad.” The exploits of a 1920s magician inspire “Carter Beats the Devil,” while “Ice” takes on the domestic drama of New York City diamond sellers. (Variety 6/15)
Rabid Jericho fans are at it again trying to whip up support for the ill-fated show. This time a group called the Jericho Rangers is pushing to get the show brought back on cable or online. Fans have pooled their resources for a slickly-produced TV spot that will air in LA-based Time Warner cable homes some 200 times during the 3rd week of June. (Cynopsis 6/16)
Pretty impressive. . .
Sony Pictures Television (SPT) secured the rights to co-produce and distribute Dr. Oz, the newest project from Harpo Productions. Another “spinoff talent” from The Oprah Winfrey Show, Dr. Mehmet Oz has appeared on Oprah and Discovery Communications programs many times and his own show will launch in 2009. (Cynopsis 6/16)
NBC moved up its series debut of Celebrity Family Feud to June 24 at 8p. The opening episode will feature a match between rapper/actor Ice T and his family versus Joan and Melissa Rivers and family, followed by singer/actress Raven-Symone and family squaring off against Wayne Newton and family. (Cynopsis 6/16)
Bravo’s first-ever The A-List Awards show hosted by Kathy Griffin aired Thursday night (10p) and drew in 663,000 A18-49 viewers and 1.1 million total viewers. The A-List Red Carpet Preview Special (830p) which aired for 30 minutes and hosted by Tim Gunn attracted 359,000 A18-49 viewers and 533,000 total viewers. In between these two, the fourth season of Kathy Griffin: My Life on The D-List (9p) debuted with 569,000 A18-49 viewers and 928,000 total viewers. The series moves to its regular time slot of Thursdays at 10p starting this week. (Cynopsis 6/16)
Comcast and Big Ten Network are expected to announce an end to their long-standing programming dispute this week, after the companies have reportedly hammered out a truce. If a partnership is announced, BTN’s reach will be extended from 30 million homes to 55 million. (Chicago Tribune 6/15)
Canoe Ventures, the new venture set up by U.S. cable giants to build the next generation of cable-TV advertising, plans to sell its technology platform to cable programmers, who will in turn resell ad inventory to marketers. “We’re half tech company,” says CEO David Verklin. (Iwantmedia 6/16, http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6570402.html 6/15)
Filed under: ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Carl Icahn, Google, Joe Nocera, Microsoft, New York Times, Proxy fight, Yahoo
ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
When blogs and regional newspapers trash Jerry Yang it’s one thing. But when the New York Times does it, people really notice. Public lynchings like this are few and far between from that bastion of traditional journalism. Yesterday’s article by Joe Nocera, titled “Oh Jerry, It’s No Longer Your Baby” was a stinging condemnation of Yang. It’s presented as a memo from Nocera to Yang, with the subject “Shafting Yahoo’s Shareholders” and outlines the many ways Yang has failed Yahoo’s shareholders and employees. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/15/nytimes-article-reverberates-through-yahoo-whos-their-next-ceo/ 6/15)
Jerry Yang
Yahoo’s new advertising deal with Google “might have some merit,” says Carl Icahn. The financier declines to comment on whether he will continue to press his proxy battle to replace Yahoo’s board. “I continue to be extremely disappointed with the Yahoo management,” he says. (Iwantmedia 6/16, http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSN1539640520080616
Carl Icahn
Advertisers are growing suspicious of Google’s dominance of the online market, with last week’s tie-up with Yahoo adding fuel to the fire. Google is “becoming a dominant media owner,” gripes iCrossing CEO Arjo Ghosh, “but without the regulation [of] traditional owners.” (Iwantmedia 6/16, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/discontent-flares-over-googles-dominance-847920.html 6/16)
Google launched Gears last May, and for the first year of its release it was considered a minor, niche product that a few developers and users may take advantage of to allow offline access to web applications. You can probably recall the arguments at the time: who needs offline access, connectivity is everywhere anyway, not enough apps will support this etc. It wasn’t until a year later and only a few weeks ago, that Google revealed its ace card: Gears-powered messaging for MySpace that is super-accelerated. Google had entered the race to provide the new web API, and for a year almost nobody had noticed. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/06/13/google-drives-towards-microsoft-and-adobe-with-gears/ 6/13)
With Microsoft’s talks with Yahoo ending, the question is whether the tech giant will start shopping elsewhere. AOL might be Microsoft’s second-best option, according to Gabelli & Co. analyst Christopher Marangi. (Iwantmedia 6/16, http://blogs.barrons.com/techtraderdaily/2008/06/13/will-microsoft-now-buy-aol-from-time-warner 6/13)
Time Warner hopes to move swiftly to find a buyer for AOL’s dial-up business after the company completes its separation from the Platform A advertising division in the next month. The media giant is said to have held talks with rival dial-up provider EarthLink about a combination. (Iwantmedia 6/16, http://www.nypost.com/seven/06162008/business/aols_sale_is_up_next_for_time_warner_115682.htm 6/16)
MySpace attracts 118 million users, but the cash is not coming in so quickly. With an eye toward monetization, the News Corp. online social network will unveil a redesign Wednesday. “The jury’s still out on MySpace’s ability to monetize,” says Sanford Bernstein analyst Michael Nathanson. (Iwantmedia 6/16, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/business/media/16myspace.html 6/16)
An ad for the new Batman film will be on the home page of MySpace on Wednesday.
Hulu, the NBC-News Corp. free video site, delivered 63 million total streams in April, its first full month of operation, making it the No. 10 online video-streaming service. CEO Jason Kilar says he sees value in developing a “department-store model” for shows. (Iwantmedia 6/16, http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/tv/la-et-channel16-2008jun16,0,6637665.story 6/16)
YouTube is holding its first-ever gathering for developers in July at the company’s San Bruno, Calif., headquarters. The event will draw attention to new partnerships — Sony, Panasonic, TiVo — as the video-sharing site increases user options to “consume YouTube on television sets.” (Iwantmedia 6/16, http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2008/06/13/youtube-continuing-api-push 6/13)
This morning at the OMMA Video Conference, Brian Cusack, Sales Manager of YouTube was asked about YouTube’s ability to deliver its content to the television screen. He answer that he didn’t think that the short form content YouTube sports would be appropriate as consumed on a television screen. Instead, he suggested that media companies should look at Youtube as more of a content farm of sorts. Now, I’m confused. Who to believe?
A record-breaking 46% of Americans have used the internet, email or text messaging to get news about the campaign, share their views and mobilize others, according to a new study from Pew Internet & American Life Project. Some 35% of Americans say they have watched online political videos – nearly triple the number in the 2004 race. Another 10% say they have used social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace to gather information or become involved. Not surprisingly young Democrats and Obama supporters are leading the trend, with 74% of online-using Obama supporters using the net to follow the campaign, compared with Clinton’s 57% and McCain’s 56%. (Cynopsis 6/16)
Sony will launch its new show “Angel of Death” on various Web sites. After the Internet run, Sony will release a traditional DVD of the series with additional scenes. The company’s plan marks Hollywood’s latest attempt to use Internet distribution without losing revenue. (Iwantmedia 6/16, http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121357528674575987.html 6/16)
Hollywood is experimenting with a range of home-video tactics that would have been unthinkable a couple of years ago, from making films available to cable subscribers the day of their DVD release to enabling consumers to catch feature films before their DVD release date. These moves, which include finding the optimum strategy for downloading films online, are aimed at making up for declining DVD sales. (Los Angeles Times 6/16)
Some MSOs, including Time Warner Cable, are considering tactics to dissuade content providers from making some programming available on the Internet for free, while others are taking the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach, by launching online entities that, according to Comcast, “complements the content on TV.” (Advertising Age 6/16)
A new system from Boston-based Backchannel Media allows TV stations to air content with an interactive component, allowing viewers to essentially bookmark ads using their remote control. Currently, a handful of stations are experimenting with the Backchannel offering, including Hearst-Argyle Television stations WCVB in Boston and WMUR in Manchester, N.H., along with Media General station WJAR in Providence, R.I. (The New York Times 6/16)
(Below) Thank you Google for empowering the consumer rather than monitoring, charging extra for bandwith usage (see blurb directly below this one), and providing laughable broadband speeds. You may think you will NEVER be that top 5% of user but with video usage over the internet rising, especially on the HD side, don’t be so convinced.
Google is working to develop online tools to help broadband subscribers monitor their connections to determine whether or not their ISP is restricting access or throttling traffic to certain sites. Google Senior Policy Director Richard Whitt spoke of the need for a more informed consumer during a Net Neutrality forum last week hosted by The Media Access Project at Santa Clara University, as reported in The Register. (Cynopsis 6/16)
AT&T will be the next ISP to test a new system charging heavy users extra for surfing the net. Company analysis finds that the top 5% of users consumer about 46% of the network’s bandwidth and that bandwidth consumption is doubling every 1.5 years. Time Warner Cable began testing a metering system in Beaumont, Texas this month, and Comcast is reportedly planning to cap usage at 250 gigabytes of downloads/month then charge $15 for each 10 gigs beyond that. (Cynopsis 6/16, The Street.com 6/13, CED Magazine.com 6/13)
Comcast announced it will nearly triple upload speeds for cable modem subscribers from 384 kilobits/sec. to 1 megabit/second. Comcast is planning to roll out its 50-MB DOCSIS 3.0-based broadband service, currently being tested in Minneapolis, in several markets later this year. (Cynopsis 6/16)
The shift toward a digital media economy will continue to dampen U.S. advertising growth for some time to come, predicts TNS Media Intelligence exec Jon Swallen. The epic ad shift away from newspapers “won’t bottom out anytime soon.” Consumer magazines face “an uncertain future.” (Iwantmedia 6/16, http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=84682 6/16)
New digital music alternatives to MP3 might offer more advanced audio solutions, but they will be hard-pressed to challenge the reigning standard because — like the QWERTY keyboard — it is so entrenched in the mass culture, according to observers. This month, MPEG will review a new digital audio format from South Korea — called MT9, or Music 2.0 — that splits audio files into six channels; but despite the innovations, many in the industry foresee a host of obstacles to MT9 taking root. (Reuters/Billboard 6/15)
ABC.com resumed the top spot among Hitwise’s top visited broadcast network websites after American Idol wrapped, while NBC boosted its market share considerably from 11 to 19.77%. Summer reality shows make up most of the top 10 visited show sites. Idol remained on top but with much smaller share of visits, dropping from nearly a 40% share two weeks ago to 14% last week. (Cynopsis 6/16)
Top Visited US Broadcast Network TV Websites (Week ending June 7, 2008)
Rank Network Website Market Share of Visits
1 ABC www.abc.com 28.55%
2 CBS www.cbs.com 25.95%
3 FOX* www.fox.com 20.44%
4 NBC www.nbc.com 19.77%
5 The CW www.cwtv.com 5.12%
6 MyNetworkTV www.mynetworktv.com .18%
Source: Custom report from Hitwise, *includes traffic aggregated from stand alone websites americanidol.com, amw.com, familyguy.com, thelot.com and thesimpsons.com.
Top Visited US Broadcast Network TV Show Sites (Week ending June 7, 2008)
Rank Network Website Market Share of Visits
1 FOX American Idol 14.27%
2 FOX American’s Most Wanted 6.22%
3 NBC Deal or No Deal 4.52%
4 ABC The Bachelorette 4.50%
5 FOX So You Think You Can Dance? 3.97%
6 ABC Lost 3.48%
7 CBS NCIS 3.45%
8 NBC Last Comic Standing 3.39%
9 ABC The Mole 2.49%
10 NBC The Office 2.16%
Source: Custom report from Hitwise
Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: 3G iPhone, Alltel, Blackberry, Dave Navarro, iPhone, Social network, Social network service, WWDC
Mania TV launched a mobile version of its internet TV service featuring mobile versions of shows such as Dave Navarro‘s over-the-top Spread TV and Tom Green Live. Mobile users can go to mania.tv from their phone’s browsers to access the free content. Mania TV Mobile is powered by mobile video platform Transpera. (Cynopsis 6/16)
Loopt Mobile has optimized its free GPS-based social networking software for a variety of BlackBerry devices across multiple networks including T-Mobile, AT&T, Alltel and Sprint. Loopt enables users to see where their friends and colleagues are geographically through an interactive map application that integrates with various social networks and enables bookmarking and other cool location-based functions. Loopt also demonstrated a version of the software in development for the 3G iPhone at the WWDC conference last week. (Cynopsis 6/16)
