Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

President Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration marked the first time that online viewers outnumbered television-watchers. The TV industry is moving slowly toward the Internet, analysts say, but the “flawed but efficient” 70-year-old TV model continues to bring in more revenue than online. (Iwantmedia 2/3, http://www.reuters.com/article/televisionNews/idUSTRE5115HB20090202 2/2)

Living without a cable subscription may soon become possible for even hardcore TV fans. Netflix sent out an email survey to a handful of subscribers over the weekend asking them if they would be interested in paying an additional $9.95 for streaming access to original shows and premium movies from HBO via the company’s Watch Instantly feature. HBO has been cautious in developing a digital distribution strategy. Netflix has been pushing to license more content for instant streaming. Its first deal with a premium programmer was struck with Starz last fall to allow members to access the Starz Play broadband movie service as part of their subscription. (Cynopsis 2/3)

NBC‘s foray into the world of 3D broadcasting will also extend to the online world of Chuck. NBC.com began streaming the episode “Chuck vs. The Third Dimension” in both 2D and 3D for free beginning this morning at , complete with a full range of interactive options including live invitation-only viewing rooms, casual games and a 360 degree virtual tour of the Chuck set. (Cynopsis 2/3)

With online video viewing becoming increasingly popular, companies such as VideoSurf are helping a new wave of Webizens enjoy a more satisfying and targeted experience, according to this report. VideoSurf’s product, for example, uses facial-recognition software in its searches that has the ability to distinguish between Sarah Palin and Palin impersonator Tina Fey. USA TODAY (2/2)

This year’s game may have been unusually thrilling, but the fact of the matter is that most people tune in to watch the Super Bowl for the ads (and an excuse to gorge on beer and chips). For this year’s event a number of groups tapped into Twitter to try to get a real-time perspective on how each ad fared. One of the more impressive reports was put together by SocialMedia, an advertising network that focuses on social networks. Their report, called the TweetBowl, plots the number of tweets relating to each commercial over time, allowing us to easily see which commercials were the most popular, and which had the most staying power. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/02/tweetbowl-taps-into-twitter-to-find-the-super-bowls-real-winners-the-ads 2/2)

PepsiCo’s Sobe and Doritos ads dominated online chatter following the game accounting for almost 40% of the top 10 conversations (both positive and negative), according to social measurement service Collective Intellect. Coke managed to grab 12% of the Top 10 share-of-voice, despite its ads being pushed to the second half of the game by Pepsi’s purchase of the first half. Of the five brands with the highest online activity, Audi had the highest “brand affinity/loyalty” association. (Cynopsis 2/3)

Valentine’s Day is rapidly approaching.  Fortunately, Animoto has you covered. The site has put together a new Valentine’s Day card that allows you to submit a handful of photos of you and your loved one to automatically a generate a great looking video-slideshow set to the music of an appropriately sappy love song. It only takes a few minutes to put together, but to anyone who hasn’t been exposed to Animoto before it’s pretty impressive – at least, it’ll buy you enough time to run down to the store and grab something a bit more tangible. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/03/animoto-launches-the-perfect-last-minute-valentines-gift 2/3)

Dell’s Twitter experiment seems to be working. After making $1 million during the holidays by alerting Twitter followers to sale items, Dell is now offering discounts exclusively to the 11,844 people who follow @DellOutlet. For instance, here is a Tweet with a link to a 30-percent-off deal on an XPS laptop. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/03/dell-starts-offering-exclusive-discounts-through-twitter 2/3)

Video sharing site Bablegum has opened up voting for its 2nd Annual Babelgum Online Film Festival, the jury of which will once again be led by Spike Lee. More than 600 professionally-produced entries are available for free viewing online and via 3G enabled mobile devices. The top vote recipients are vying for top cash prizes of 20,000 Euros each. (Cynopsis 2/3)

Members of the Association of Downloadable Media reached an agreement to support a set of standards for podcast ad formats and audience measurement. Among the 25 creative options outlined in the charter are standardized pre, mid and post roll insertions, guidelines for product placement within shows as well as rules for in-show host endorsements of products. The standards were drawn up last summer and have been at least partially adopted by more than 25 digital media players including Burst Media, NPR, KCRW and Revision3. Conspicuously missing from the list of supporters is Apple, the dominant distributor of podcasts and a founding member of the ADM. (Cynopsis 2/3)