Week of March 13, 2006

More On AIM Openness

Monday, March 13, 2006

One of the reasons for the opening of the AIM client code to developers (mentioned on Friday) is that it will allow social networking sites and companies to more easily integrate AOL's messaging service, further cementing AIM's market share dominance.

March Madness Online

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

This is certainly a first for a sports broadcast of this magnitude and a sure sign of the future: CBS will be webcasting the first 56 games of its March Madness coverage of the NCAA Division I basketball tournament for free.

Planning For Divergence

Wednesday, March 15, 2006

In our New Media Landscape report (request it via hq@pollackmediagroup.com), we outlined the important trend of divergence, which is content creators diverging content for multiple media and distribution channels. Time this week outlined several companies planning specifically for this divergence of content, including The Tonight Show, which has a writer on staff whose responsibility is to focus on the best bits for other media and producer Dick Wolf, who foresees more use of close-ups in television to better translate the material to smaller screens.

Google Moves Into Amazon's Neighborhood

Thursday, March 16, 2006

It's long been expected, but Google has made public its plans to allow publishers who hold the rights to books indexed in its Google Print database to sell books directly to people searching the books. If the publisher agrees, Google will even allow the searcher to pay for immediate access to the whole book.

More Evidence Content Is Key

Friday, March 17, 2006

Huge cable company Comcast has a stranglehold on cable operations in numerous cities, but distribution clearly isn't enough today, with Comcast aggressively looking to build its content holdings. One headline this week came with the news that Comcast was going to try and buy out the remaining 40% of E! that it doesn't own from Disney, which has been its partner in the network for nearly 10 years.