Week of June 4, 2007

Nielsen gets into mobile

Friday, June 8, 2007

Nielsen has made it official; they'll be measuring mobile content usage starting in July. Nielsen will use the Portable People Meter to track customers' usage of their mobile besides beyond simply phone calls. Later this year, their service, called Mobile Vector, will begin measuring the popularity of specific mobile programs.

This move, combined with Nielsen's recent changes in television ratings, will leave radio, which is just dipping its toe into electronic measurement, even further behind in terms of state-of-the-art advertising and audience measurement. Many broadcasters who were originally reluctant to move into the PPM world may end up finding themselves wishing it would happen faster.

eBay vs. Google

Thursday, June 7, 2007

eBay's purchase of Bid4Spots puts the online auction giant in direct competition with Google, the search and online advertising king. eBay will start taking bids on spots immediately, creating an online battle of the titans for unsold inventory.

What does this mean for the radio industry? Will the two bid against one another for blocks of unsold time, driving up the price for broadcasters? Station's may be more willing to participate in the eBay auctions since they have the right to accept or decline to participate in an auction. For advertisers, the Bid4Spots/eBay system allows for more sophisticated buys, letting them detail station, daypart and market.

Search Is Getting Interesting

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Ask.com just launched a revamped search interface, and a quick look at the various competitors in this space shows some interesting things happening. Ask now has a universal interface, meaning that if you search for "radio" for instance, you'll not just see a web search, but a news search, map search, and other searches...all conveniently placed on the search results page. Google has something something similar in development, but it doesn't look as well thought out as Ask's. For example, integrated into the Ask results is a Wikipedia search, which makes perfect sense, since so many searches end up at Wikipedia.

Also, a new search engine called Mahalo has been launched. Mahalo uses people to filter the most-searched items to present a more relevant search result page. While Yahoo Answers! is similar, Mahalo is trying to make the results blend entirely into their search results page. It's an interesting concept.

In the end, Google still has massive market share, and it will take quite a bit of improvement and awareness to get people to shed the Google habit, but as Firefox has shown in the browser wars, things in the web space are not always a sprint--long term minor erosion can really add up to significant gains for challengers.

Court Rebukes FCC on Indecency

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

A Federal Appeals Court panel has rejected FCC regulations on obscenity relating to vulgar language. The ruling came down in relation to the "fleeting expletives," but could have broader implications. The FCC can now appeal the decision to the entire panel of the court, or take it to the Supreme Court.

The FCC's decision to fine radio and TV stations for obscene language violations led to a sweeping change in policy for many broadcasters, ranging from bans on certain song with expletives included, and even TV stations that refused to air the unedited version of the movie Saving Private Ryan for fear of being fined.

Apple iPhone Release Date Announced

Monday, June 4, 2007

It's official: The Apple iPhone will be released on June 29. The date was announced on Sunday night and can now be heard in television commercials from AT&T featuring the phone.