Week of November 26, 2007

NBC in new deal with TiVo

Friday, November 30, 2007

Even as radio reels from the announcement of the delay of the PPM in several markets, television is forging ahead with new deals for audience measurement. The latest is NBC's agreement with TiVo to use TiVo's audience tracking and advertising services.

The deal will allow NBC is to get detailed information on the TiVo database about how people view programming, such as how many skip commercials, how much viewing is time shifted, etc. But perhaps the most significant element is that advertisers who buys spots in NBC programming will also have the option of buying a TiVo tag, which allows viewers to click to get more information about a product.

Google Extends The Algorithm

Thursday, November 29, 2007

Google has made billions of dollars off the strength of its search results. The engine behind these results has always been the mythical Google Search Algorithm. But now in Google Labs a revolutionary (for Google at least) new project is being launched...the ability to use community filtering to create better results.

While still in early beta and limited only to individual search results, users can vote up or bury results that they don't find relevant. When rolled out to the entire population of Google, the results could be extraordinary: Spam results would be quickly buried, and relevant results would be raised to the front page.

This "wisdom of crowds" approach is certainly open to abuse, but it could also create a much more focused search engine, especially as it is powered by the underlying Google Search Algorithm for its initial results.

Disney Pursues Long-Term Growth By Short-Term Acquisition

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Disney has quietly created a new group within their corporate structure with the sole purpose of strategically acquiring start-up companies whose businesses dovetail with Disney's kid-friendly content. This is not the kind of group that will buy $1 billion business but rather a long-term play in betting on smaller companies whose content/technology can be developed for long-term success.

Verizon Opens Up

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Verizon stunned the business world today by announcing that it was opening up its service in 2008 to all device makers and application developers. While there are a number of reasons for this move, from the upcoming spectrum auction to Google's Android announcement, this was still a startling move.

While it is certainly too soon to predict a response from other carriers, it is likely that the upcoming spectrum auction will increase the pressure on other carriers to match Verizon's move. The government has stipulated that carriers that bid on the new spectrum will have to have an open service (like Verizon's announcement), and players like the CEO of AT&T have gone on record on the importance of winning some of the new mobile spectrum bandwidth being auctioned off.

MySpace Follows Facebook's Lead...Again

Monday, November 26, 2007

Facebook has generated a lot of traffic off of its news feeds--little updates on what its users are doing within Facebook. MySpace has announced that it is launching a similar service shortly. The biggest difference appears to be better control of news distribution, allowing users to decide what information to send and receive.