Week of March 16, 2009

Time Warner's "TV Everywhere"

Friday, March 20, 2009

Cable TV giant Time Warner is in talks with content providers to take a big step in its on-demand services, with a new service called "TV Everywhere." This move would untether the content from the traditional TV set-top box. Time Warner wants to provide on-demand access via the Internet or mobile for customers that subscribe to premium content.

This means that a subscriber who has cable access to HBO, and can receive much of it on demand already through their Time Warner box, would also be able to get hat content on demand over a PC or mobile device. Time Warner is already testing this service in Milwaukee and is looking to expand it later this year.

DRM Free Comes With Music?

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Previously, we've discussed Nokia's "Comes With Music" initiative, a phone that comes with a music subscription. The catch is that the music is DRM-protected and the service is only offered on a limited number of handsets, available so far only in the UK and Singapore. Sales have been underwhelming to this point, so now Nokia is starting to make noise about offering a DRM-free version.

Now the phone maker is reportedly in discussions with the labels to offer a DRM-free version. The problem is that this would open up Pandora's Box by allowing users to transfer music from their phone and computer onto other devices. However, the proposition is already eroding with music stores like iTunes moving to DRM-free MPs, as well as the availability of other smartphones that currently allow owners to load their existing music onto their phones.

Google Lets You Target Yourself

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

The latest in targeted online ads is targeting yourself. Google AdSense, like other online ad services, uses user interests, demonstrated by his/her web site browsing history, to target ads on other web pages. Cookies in a consumer's browser indicate the users' browsing history and, by inference, his//her interests. Google will place each user into one of 600 subcategories of interests.

Google's new wrinkle is that soon users will be able to go to Google's Ad Preferences Manager and see how they are categorized. Then, the user can edit these preferences, adding or deleting interests to make the ads more relevant. When a user goes to the trouble of modifying his/her profile that information can then be figured into the algorithm to categorize other people with similar patterns.

Clever? Scary? Efficient? Customized? Targeted? Inevitable? You decide.

More on the Growth of Social Networking

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

As discussed yesterday, a new Nielsen study shows that social networking has become the most popular activity on the Internet. This news seems inevitable in the sense that, since the Internet defines a new form of community not dependent on physical proximity, sites that exploit this ability would become the most powerful drivers of Internet activity.

The growth is fast and it's accelerating. But the one area that lags behind is monetizing the advertising possibilities. The growth of overall traffic and time spent on these sites (an important metric in monetizing web usage) has far outpaced the advertising revenue. The report says, "As the online industry matures and the value of online real estate is increasingly measured by time spent, rather than pages viewed, a significant shift in advertising revenue from 'traditional' online media towards social media could be realized -- if the successful ad model can be found."

This means movement from traditional advertising exposure to engagement with users/customers, not unlike what's happening in the non-virtual world. Online as well as off, advertising is becoming less about just selling and more about creating value and building relationships.

Read the entire study here.

Nielsen: Social Nets More Popular Than Email

Monday, March 16, 2009

A new Nielsen study comes to the conclusion that social networking is now the most popular Internet activity, unseating email in the top spot. Activity in what Nielsen calls "member communities" (social networking and other types of communities, including virtual worlds), now exceeds e-mail participation by 67 percent to 65 percent. Also, social networking sites and blogging communities are growing twice as fast as other primary Internet activities such as portals, email and search.

Here are some of the highlights from the study:

• Almost 2/3 of the world's Internet population visited a social networking site in 2008
• Social nets now account for almost 10% of time spent on the Internet.
• Facebook is the #1 social network worldwide.
• The US is not #1 in this area, countries such as the UK, Australia, Italy and Spain show even higher usage of communities.

  We'll have more on the study tomorrow.