Daily Marauder

ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Hulu is pre-premiering Southland today, one week before its debut on broadcast television.  The new NBC show delves into the gritty world of a police unit in Los Angeles.

I haven’t seen Ben McKenzie in anything since the OC.  I wonder if he’ll have a dreadfully annoying girlfriend on this show as well.

Twitter has changed its homepage design to highlight search functionality.  The new homepage design is currently not available to all but will be rolling out shortly. (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/02/twitter-confirms-and-details-new-discovery-engine 4/2)

I think the search box could be even higher on the right nav bar but this is a nice start.

Wall Street skeptics are questioning whether Tim Armstrong’s experience selling Google’s best-of-breed search advertising products has prepared him for the challenges he will face in reviving AOL as the Time Warner unit’s new CEO. At AOL, “he’ll have to roll up his sleeves.” (Iwantmedia 4/2, http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20090401-712550.html 4/1)

The latest round of pink slips is hitting Conde Nast Digital, where 30 people are said to have been let go. A spokeswoman says the company discovered some duplication after the merger of its various digital units. “We are streamlining to form one unified staff.” (Iwantmedia 4/2, http://www.wwd.com/media-news/fashion-memopad/conde-nast-said-to-lay-off-30-employees-2089041 4/1)

Following the launch of several new destinations, NBCU’s SciFi.com charted a course to its best-trafficked month and quarter ever. In March, SciFi.com attracted 4.5 million uniques (+40%), 7.4 million visits (+182%) and 7.4 million videos streams (+59%). Users spent 16 minutes per visit (+67%) and 27 minutes per unique on the site (+90%). Sci Fi WAP sites also earned 1.2 million page views and 275K unique users in March. (Cynopsis 4/2)

Following a successful Twitter campaign around On Board Air Force One, National Geographic Channel has launched its own full time Twitter account to market priority programming. NGC’s Air Force One campaign amassing more than 2,000 followers in three weeks and reached 1.4 million people. (Cynopsis 4/2)

Following the IAB/PwC’s release of slowing internet growth, down from 26% in 2007 to 11% last year, eMarketer released some newly revised online ad spending projections that cuts its growth projections for 2009 in half. The researcher predicts that growth will expand by just 4.5% to $24.5 billion this year as marketers deal with the economic contraction. (Cynopsis 4/2)

US Online Advertising Spending Growth 2007-2013
Year      $ (billions)     % change
2007      21.2              25.6%
2008      23.4              10.6%
2009      24.5                4.5%
2010      26.8                9.4%
2011      29.7               10.8%
2012      33.7               13.5%
2013      37.2               10.4%
source: eMarketer