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ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA by Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA
Sundance Channel‘s multiplatform coverage of the 2009 Sundance Film Festival (to be held Jan. 16-25 this year) will include a month of special programming delivered via the Sundance website, cable channel and VOD platform. Sundance’s “Festival Favorite” VOD package will feature 13 exclusive films from past festivals including Andrew Jarecki‘s Capturing the Friedmans and Ryan Fleck‘s Half Nelson. Original segments will be featured on the network’s minisite throughout the festival along with two new original web series. (Cynopsis 12/2)

Former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller is said to be trying to raise money to acquire Yahoo. Miller reportedly believes he can do a deal that would involve raising about $30 billion to purchase the entire company. Sources close to Yahoo expressed deep skepticism that Miller would succeed. (Iwantmedia 12/2, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122823988574372899.html 12/3)

Facebook is expanding its online authentication service Facebook Connect in the coming weeks, reports the NYTimes, which allows members to log on to other sites directly from their Facebook profile. A number of prominent publishers including Hulu, Discovery Channel and Digg will integrate the service in to their pages allowing visitors on those sites to invite their Facebook pals to join them. (Cynopsis 12/2)

MySpace co-founder Chris DeWolfe has highlighted an upside to the economic downturn — digital media startups are on the market at knock-down prices. DeWolfe said he may look to strike some deals. There “may be some opportunities on the music side at some point.” (Iwantmedia 12/2, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/dec/02/myspace-acquisitions 12/2)

Digg, the online news aggregation site, is no longer for sale, according to CEO Jay Adelson. The four-year-old startup is now focusing on building an independent business that will reach profitability “as quickly as possible.” Among the new efforts: selling advertising on its RSS feeds. (Iwantmedia 12/2, http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2008/tc2008121_004686.htm 12/2)

Compared with a tepid Black Friday for brick-and-mortar retailers, Cyber Monday for e-tailers was red hot. By 3 p.m., the Web sites monitored by Akamai Technologies, which watches online traffic for about 280 retailers such as Best Buy, were getting 6.7 million visitors per minute, the best performance since Akamai started tracking the data three years ago. ClipSyndicate (12/1) , The Washington Post (12/2) , USA TODAY (12/1) , The Wall Street Journal (12/2)

Advertisers who buy online post-roll ads may want to read this. Online video distribution/measurement service Tube Mogul studied the issue of follow thorough, measuring what percentage of videos clicked on are actually watched until the end. A sample of 188,055 videos on 6 top sites (YouTube was not one of them) found that 10.39% of viewers clicked away after just 10 seconds and that over half of the audience left after one minute. The longer the video, the quicker erosion; all but 16.62% of the audience left the building by the end of a 3-minute clip. Tube Mogul notes that the research indicates that overlay ads should also be placed as early as possible within the video stream. (Cynopsis 12/2)

Audience Attention Span
Video length    % of Audience who watched the entire video
10 sec.                   89.61%
20 sec.                   80.41%
30 sec.                   66.16%
60 sec.                   46.44%
2 min.                   23.71%
3 min.                   16.62%
5 min.                     9.42%
Source: Tube Mogul

Top 10 Online Retailers Ranked by Unique Audience on Black Friday 2008 (U.S., Home and Work)
Rank  Site              11/21/08 UA (000)       11/28/08 UA (000)   % Growth
1. eBay                      9,227                           9,871                     7%
2. Amazon                 6,503                           8,448                    30%
3. Wal-Mart Stores     2,923                           6,029                  106%
4. Target                   1,780                           4,196                  136%
5. Best Buy               1,252                           3,709                   196%
6. Circuit City               639                           2,889                  352%
7. Dell                      1,527                            1,926                    26%
8. Sears                   1,478                            1,639                   11%
9. Kohl’s                  1,018                             1,601                   57%
10. JCPenney              974                             1,518                    56%
Source: Nielsen Online, NetView Custom Analysis

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