Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

CBS Interactive is also testing a 1080p- quality video gallery on the TV.com portal for folks with a fat pipe (3 Mbps or higher) and a fast processor. Currently there are only 4 video clips but they look amazing. Competitor Hulu upgraded its HD gallery last year to stream videos in 720p. (Cynopsis 3/13)

The video stumbled a bit on my end but indeed, AMAZING.  Hulu’s strategy on most things is that they won’t deliver a product until they can perfect it.  Who knows which strategy will win but this new online video battle between Hulu and tv.com is an interesting one.  But to be fair, and keepin’ it real, whose at #2 in the online video ranking wars?  It sure isn’t tv.com.

Conde Nast is entering a partnership to distribute video from sites such as Epicurious and Vogue.TV via Hulu, the online video hub. Hulu is selling advertising to accompany the Conde Nast content, while the partners agree to share the ad revenue. (Iwantmedia 3/13, http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=102059 3/13)

Maybe it is all the TV news mentions, but Twitter is seeing the growth in U.S visitors to its site accelerating. In February, 4 million people in the U.S. visited the site, up from 2.6 million the month before, according to the latest data from comScore. That represents a 55 percent month-over-month growth rate, compared to 33 percent growth in each of the two months prior. (ComScore has yet to release February figures for worldwide visitors, but for January that number is 6 million). (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/13/whoa-twitter-mania 3/13)

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg will take to Oprah Winfrey‘s couch on Friday. Winfrey is expected to interview Zuckerberg and show a demo of her TV show’s new page on the social network. A “celebrity Facebook addict” might Skype in to talk up the service as well. (Iwantmedia 3/13, http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2009/03/12/oprah-to-interview-facebook-founder 3/12)

If Oprah is doing it, Facebook has achieved mainstream status officially.

New AOL chief Tim Armstrong: “I am looking forward to taking what I have learned at Google and seeing what I can bring to really help AOL.” He adds: Time Warner wants “the best outcome” for its Internet company. “That could take the form of different paths,” including a spin off. (Iwantmedia 3/13, http://kara.allthingsd.com/20090312/new-aol-chairman-and-ceo-and-about-to-be-ex-googler-tim-armstrong-speaks 3/12)

Twitter is driving much of its traffic to social networking, search, email and entertainment sites, according to an analysis by Hitwise. The data also shows that Twitter has more in common with social networks than search engines. Twitter is “a means of distributing content.” (Iwantmedia 3/13, http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=102076 3/13)

I think the only reason why Twitter isn’t recognized as a search engine for the moment is because their search functionality isn’t prominent enough yet.  Furthermore, most folks just haven’t figured out how to use the feature.  Once both of these things change, Twitter will become a more functional search engine ESPECIALLY for local news.  Hey LA Times, NY Times….integrate Twitter functionality now.  The deal will benefit both of you being that Twitter hasn’t figure out how to monetize and all y’all can think about is monetizing.  Perfect union.

Former Disney CEO Michael Eisner is developing a television series for rival Viacom’s Nickelodeon cable channel. “Glenn Martin, DDS,” a stop-motion animated series, will debut this summer. The effort will be the first TV series from Eisner’s Tornante company. (Iwantmedia 3/13, http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/content_display/news/cable-tv/e3iffcfe0c0b0255a5a8aecffcc5d1ceea1 3/12)

The WB.com has cast Jessica “LonelyGirl15″ Rose in a new 18-episode web horror series entitled Blood Cell, per THR, about a woman racing against the clock to stop a psycho killer. (Cynopsis 3/13)

Overall online video usage dropped a bit over Feb. according to Nielsen Online as those with jobs went back to work and those without spent more time networking for leads (Cynopsis’ theory).  Streams were down by almost 15% during the month (which, to be fair, is a shorter one in terms of total days.) Meanwhile Hulu climbed over Yahoo! to reach the #2 spot in terms of total video streams. (Cynopsis 3/13)

Overall Online Video Usage (U.S.)
Jan-09         Feb-09    Percent Change
Unique Viewers (000)        135,617     127,613        -5.9%
Total Streams (000)     10,457,785   8,897,943      -14.9%
Streams per Viewer              77.1           69.7       -9.6%
Time per Viewer (min)         178.6          169.3       -5.2%
Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus, includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising

Top Online Brands ranked by Video Streams for February 2009 (U.S.)
Video Brand                                            Total Streams (000) Unique Viewers (000)
YouTube                                                           5,158,727             88,136
Hulu                                                                    308,806              9,473
Yahoo!                                                                 250,425            24,085
Nickelodeon Kids and Family Network                         209,465              6,039
Fox Interactive Media                                             194,255            14,376
ABC.COM                                                              187,128             6,716
MSN/Windows Live                                                 162,900            12,198
Turner Sports and Entertainment Digital Network          125,067             5,961
MTV Networks Music                                               100,076             4,410
CNN Digital Network                                                  99,846             8,377
Source: Nielsen Online, VideoCensus, includes progressive downloads and excludes video advertising

African Americans are slowly but surely closing the so-called digital divide as internet usage grows among the community, according to an analysis from eMarketer. African American internet usage is expected to increase from 46.4% in 2008 to 56.4% in 2013, thanks in part to swift adoption and lifestyle changes from younger users. (Asian Americans remain the most connected demo, with 70.8% of the population now online, expected to increase to 78.9% in 2013.) (Cynopsis 3/13)