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ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA by Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Boosted by a wealth of new interactive features and video content, Disney-managed Oscar.com saw major year-to-year increases on Oscar Sunday, with unique visitors and page views up 57% and 87%, respectively. Users spent an average of 11.63 minutes on the site per visit, a 15% bump from last year. (Cynopsis 2/24)

Not surprisingly Twitter traffic spiked dramatically during the Oscar telecast as users chimed with their two cents about who won or wore what. Stars like Ashton Kutcher kept their fans abreast of the party scene with comments and photos using the TwitPic mobile photo app that allows users to post pics directly from their phones. (Cynopsis 2/24)

(Below) Now here is a company thinking out of the box.  This should be a lesson to us all.  Stop complaining.  Start reinventing and monetizing.

Glam is seeking to make money by editing streams from Twitter. The women’s online publisher launched a widget that lets users tweet their thoughts about this year’s Academy Awards. Glam’s editors edit the stream to make advertisers more comfortable with the tweets. (Iwantmedia 2/24, http://venturebeat.com/2009/02/22/glam-edits-oscars-twitter-feed-and-makes-money 2/22)

Following the success of CNN’s immensely popular Facebook integration during the Inauguration, ABCNews.com is teaming with Twitter and multiplatform news network ABC News Now on a new interactive web venture dubbed “Nightline Now” tonight during President Obama’s State of the Union address. Users will be able to post “tweets” on Twitter as they watch live streaming of the address then see their comments show up simultaneously on ABCNews.com and ABC News Now. (Cynopsis 2/24)

Netscape founder Marc Andreessen announced on Charlie Rose last week that he is creating a VC fund with partner Ben Horowitz to help seed technology companies. Check out the interview to hear Marc’s thinking on the future of the newspaper business (shut down the print editions tomorrow), the patience of Facebook’s monetization strategy and the wonders of devices like the iPhone that get the user interface right. (Cynopsis 2/24)

Rapper star Eminem is suing Universal Music over how much he is entitled to when the world’s largest music company sells his work to third-party distributors, including Apple’s iTunes. At stake is potentially hundreds of millions of dollars from digital downloads. (Iwantmedia 2/24, http://www.thewrap.com/article/1549 2/23)

Welcome to the future, Safari fans, because the Safari 4 beta just hit the download shelves and it’s ready to tear some things up in Tiger and Leopard and even Windows. The download requires the latest security patch (2009-01) but other than that you’re ready to ride. (http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/02/24/safari-4-finally-a-reason-to-come-back 2/24)

Comcast will launch by the end of this year a video-on-demand service that will play out on the Internet. The service reportedly will be called On Demand Online, and Comcast rival Time Warner Cable is mulling a similar new product offering. Reuters (2/23) , Home Media Magazine (2/23)

AOL is launching AOL Classifieds, a site that enables consumers to search through millions of local classifieds listings for every ZIP code in the United States, as well as to post their own ads for free. The site is developed in partnership with classifieds service Oodle. (Iwantmedia 2/24, http://blog.clickz.com/090223-173154.html 2/23)

Yahoo is unveiling several tools to help marketers better target their online ads, as the Internet company tries to win back business during the recession. The services include targeting graphical ads to users who have searched for particular terms in Yahoo’s search engine. (Iwantmedia 2/24, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123543765554954735.html 2/24)

President Obama has chosen former MPAA lobbyist and current FTC member Jon Leibowitz to serve as the next Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, reports Bloomberg. The body that reviews mergers and enforces consumer protection laws, the FTC has already warned that it may take a closer look at behavioral targeting practices if the online advertising industry doesn’t successfully establish and adhere to self-regulatory guidelines. Leibowitz himself has been a critic of the industry’s lack of transparency and Byzantine opt-out solutions and has pushed the government to take a stronger tack toward privacy policies. (Cynopsis 2/24)

L.A.-based gossip blog Defamer has been folded into Gawker Media’s N.Y.-based flagship blog Gawker.com as the site’s entertainment column. (Cynopsis 2/24)

In a bid to increase engagement on its website History.com launched its first original web series regaling viewers with “great and telling tales” of unusual tidbits of arcane knowledge from historian Timothy Dickinson. The show, available in snackable ad-supported clips, features crude animation in the Monty Python tradition and is available as an exclusive to the AETN Digital site. (Cynopsis 2/24)

At its annual leadership meeting The IAB announced the release of its final Audience Reach Measurement Guidelines to once and for all to define key industry metrics and foster greater accuracy and reliability of all forms of online audience measurement. The guidelines call for full disclosure of methodology, suggest that audience measurement should be spearheaded by clients not sellers, and call for internal numbers tracked by systems such as Omniture to be excluded from ad contracts. (Cynopsis 2/24)

Microsoft is creating a council of Web companies to help it develop a new advertising platform for publishers. The council will include IAC/InterActiveCorp, Dow Jones Online, New York Times Co., Time Inc. and Viacom. Goals include enhanced targeting and measurement. (Iwantmedia 2/24, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Microsoft-partners-with-Web-apf-14441309.html 2/23)

The explosion of video on multiple platforms is still a tide in which all boats are rising as video consumption grew during Q4 across all three major platforms – TV, internet and mobile, according to Nielsen‘s just released A2/M2 Three Screen Report. Viewing on television reached a record 151 hours/month. Those who watch video on the internet consumed another 3 hours of online video per month. Mobile video viewers watched nearly 4 hours per month on mobile phones and other devices. (Cynopsis 2/24)

Other highlights of the report include:

• Video viewing on mobile devices and DVRs jumped by the largest margin during the quarter (each about 9% vs. Q3) as 11 million reported viewing video on phones or PDAs and 74 million watched DVR programming
• And while audiences of all ages are watching online video, the trend for younger 18-24 year old viewers – broken out by Nielsen for the first time – suggest a dramatically increased reliance on the internet for video viewing. The demo spent nearly the same amount of time (about 5 hours a month) watching video online as they did watching DVR programming
• Even younger viewers (aged 12-17) watched less video on TV, DVRs and the internet than last quarter but spent almost 6.5 hours a month watching mobile video
• When broken down by gender, females 2+ watched more TV and more online video than by almost 8% points but men consumed almost twice as much video on mobile phones

Overall Usage Number of Users 2+ (in 000′s) – Monthly Reach
4Q08      3Q08        4Q07     % Diff Y/Y
Watching TV in the home         285,313   282,289   281,376     1.4%
Watching Timeshifted TV°          73,934    67,656     53,914   37.1%
Using the internet                   161,525   160,070   156,323    3.3%
Watching Video on internet      123,195   120,362      n/a         n/a
Using a Mobile Phone              228,920    224,495      n/a         n/a
Mobile Subscribers Watching
Video on a Mobile Phone           11,198      10,260     n/a          n/a
Source: The Nielsen Company

Monthly Time Spent in Hours: Minutes Per User 2+
4Q08   3Q08    4Q07 % Diff Yr to Yr     Absolute Diff Yr to Yr
(4Q08 to 4Q07) (4Q08 to 4Q07)
Watching TV in the home          151:03   140:48   145:49         3.6%             5:13
Watching Timeshifted TV              7:11      6:27      5:24       33.0%             1:47
Using the internet                      27:04    27:18     26:08        3.6%             0:56
Watching Video on internet           2:53      2:31      n/a          n/a                 n/a
Mobile Subscribers Watching
Video on a Mobile Phone               3:42      3:37      n/a          n/a                 n/a
Source: The Nielsen Company

Video Audience Composition – Age  4Q 2008
K2-11 T12-17 A18-24 A25-34 A35-44 A45-54 A55-64 A65+
On TV                           10%    6%      8%       13%     14%    17%    15%   18%
On the Internet                7%    8%      8%       16%     19%    20%    15%    7%
On Mobile Phones            n/a    19%     11%      34%     20%    11%      5%    1%
Source: The Nielsen Company

Video Audience Composition – Gender 4Q 2008
F2+     M2+
On TV                       53%    47%
On the Internet          54%    46%
On Mobile Phones       37%    63%
Source: The Nielsen Company

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