media landscaping

Internet Math Applied to Video and Social Networks

One of the things I enjoy doing is reverse engineering bogus numbers thrown around by supposed 'experts' or start ups.  Online advertising is so accountable and data is so prevalent that these wild claims are not to hard to call BS on.  It seems that others enjoy this as much as me...here are 2 great examples:

VideoNuze published a very insightful breakdown of instream video advertising revenues on the web and points out some major holes in analyst forecasts.  According to Mugs's math, YouTube (34% of total web video views) can only deliver about $22.6M worth of instream ads this year and the big four broadcast networks won't break $120M combined.  Analysts have predicted up to $1.3B in online video revenue...so where is the rest of the $1.16B coming from?  Conclusion: analysts full of crap.

On another note, Mashable invents the Screw You Coefficient used by social networks to determine if a new feature should be launched or not.

It totally works.  Check out the post for more details.

The Future of Television Advertising

A panel at the Future TV conference in New York discussed what TV advertising will look like in the future and it sounds strangely familiar to the world of internet display advertising today.  As technology evolves to allow targeting down to the household level.

By aggregating the disparate local cable advertising in ways that deliver meaningful sub-segments of viewers, Steib [Mike Steib, director of Google TV Ads] said Google TV ads program is able to create audience mixes that likely would have higher advertising value than their remnant avails currently have on their own, and which theoretically could compete in value with some of the TV industry's most premium network TV inventory.

"There's all these opportunities to drive sell out," he said, "much, much closer to 100% and to take the CPMs up significantly when you start matching the right advertising with the right audiences."

Joan Gillman, president-media sales at Time Warner Cable, and Barry Frey, senior vice president-advanced platform sales at Cablevision, concurred with Steib's vision, though they didn't necessarily think it would be the exclusive province of Google.

"We can give the data, that measurement is there, but the actual customer data is at the operator level," Gillman said, portraying a vision for aggregated TV advertising networks that are not unlike the kind that are becoming increasingly popular in the online world, which are based more on the behavioral targeting of consumers than traditional demographic targets.

The initial vision for this is aggregation of "long tail" content across multiple channels and selling them static as one package, which is nothing like dynamic behavioral targeting at all.   Its a start but is still very far away.

Real TV behavioral targeting would be serving ads to viewers based on what they have watched in the past...not the content they are watching now.  The cable-box would need to have a memory and be able to transmit viewing data back to the ad providers, who then send an ad customized to the viewership of that TV.

The MediaPost article about this panel, Future Of TV Ad Market: A Lot Like Online's -- Ad Networks, Behavioral Targeting, Etc. is interesting but left me wanting more.  TV still has a long way to go to catch up to the efficiency of online advertising.

Movies on a cell phone

Mobile evangelists love talking about video on mobile devices and how great it is.  I get that pulling up your favorite youtube video at a bar to show your friends is a great use of this, but David Lynch obviously doesn't think this will be so great for watching a feature film.  Enjoy.

Thanks to Ken 'The Samurai' B for forwarding this to me.

Amazing Image Technology and the Newspaper

I just came across this video from a recent TED Conference.  The technology is completely mind-blowing, but I was particularly fascinated with how this could impact the future of 'electronic editions' of newspapers and magazines. 

I still don't think that people want to read their paper this way, but with infinite resolution like this I could end up changing my mind.

Testing out the new 'share' video syndication tool on washingtonpost.com

Rocketbooms New Podcast Ad Model

I was on vacation last week and very busy at work the week before that, so sorry for the long posting drought.  (You'll get over it I'm sure)

Catching up on things I missed while I was at the beach, I noticed that Andrew Baron and the folks at Rocketboom rolled out a new model for advertising in their podcast.  PodcastingNews breaks it down to this:

The show plans to charge $3,000 per episode for sponsorships, which will include:

• Post Roll Sponsorship Gratitude. White text on black background. Company logo and byline. 7 seconds. Travels with all videos to all platforms (incl. web, phone, tv, portables). Quicktime videos online are clickable to open company website in a new browser window.
• Company Name & Link. Travels as metadata to most platforms (inc. RSS feeds). Increases company link value across the web.
• Sponsor Blog Entry. Click here for details.
• Quicktime Chapter Marker. Easy access to sponsor message from chapter drop-down box.

Early sponsors under this format are Twitter and YouTube..coincidently timed with the launch of Rocketboom's own YouTube channel.    I am surprised it took Andrew this long to get on YouTube.

Aggregating in a Disaggregated World

I wrote in the past about Bud.TV and the problems it will have attracting sustainable audiences.  According to a new article in Ad Age:

Anheuser-Busch Cos. CEO August Busch IV today said the No. 1 brewer expects its pioneering online television network to "fade" during the second half of the year.

A-B spent $30-40 Million on a site that they will just let fade away.  Smart decision, because aggregating in a world of disaggregated content is just a bad idea.  It will always be an uphill battle to attract an audience.  With open distribution systems like YouTube, Joost etc. there is no need to hold content hostage on your own little "island".  There are millions of people gathered in existing video portals who would love to watch, recommend and share your videos...so why spent ad $ to draw them out of that environment?

Bud.TV is a great case study on how not to run a branded content strategy.  Hopefully, they will adjust their mindset and extend their content out on the web.   

Dave Beaupre has said for years,

Bring the content to the people, not the people to the content.

Wise words that could have saved A-B a lot of money...

Marie Claire Would Sell Her Soul for an Ad $

Marie Claire, the womens fashion and beauty magazine, launched a video podcast late last year (produced by Podshow).  The show is called "The Masthead" and is sponsored by Unilever.  One thing they seem to ignore though is the healthy line between church and state.  It should always be clear what is an ad and what isn't.

Yesterday, I was on a call with the ad agency for an auto-maker who asked for "video ads beyond pre-roll...I want true integration.  If you can pull that off, we have HUGE dollars to throw at you."  I am sure that all publishers are hearing this, but those who have a division between church and state are going to have a hard time pulling this off. 

If you know of any examples of this being done well, please let me know.  This project from Marie Claire is an example of what I am NOT looking for.

They apparently have no editorial line at all and were able to land a big deal for Unilever by dropping all ethical concerns and taking one for the team.

The very first episode I watched this morning, episode 8 "NY Fashion Week", started off with Editor-at-Large, Joyce Caruso-Corrigan saying, "we are looking for trends and we are looking for the NEWS.  At the end of the day we are a magazine...its JOURNALISM...and we depend on NEWS every season."  OK, so assuming this is news about NY Fashion Week, why do they only cover the fashion show of their sponsor, Diesel?

Womens Wear Daily notes that,

Nearly every one of the eight segments so far has prominently featured Unilever beauty products in scenes with the magazine's editors, and the most recent one included footage of the Diesel New York show, with Marie Claire fashion director Tracy Taylor explaining in the podcast, "What I love about Diesel…."

In episode 4, Paula Knight, Associate Fashion Editor, holds Degree Deodorant in her hand while she tells the viewer that they have to return the garments to the show when done, so the models have to wear clear deodorant so they don't stain the dresses.  They even do a close up on the deodorant to be sure that the viewer can see it is Degree she is holding...a Unilever Brand.

I have a few questions.

Is this really journalism as Ms Caruso-Corrigan claims?

Is this what ad agencies want when they ask for "Integration"? 

Do advertisers really want to do business with a property who is so desperate for ad dollars that they will cross these lines?

I think it is fine for Podshow to produce these and it is a great idea for Marie Claire to be playing in this new media realm.  However, you can't call this journalism.  Its a 9 minute ad that comes out every two weeks, disguised as editorial.  Lets hope that dying magazines don't continue to sell their souls like this just to survive a little longer.   

A nod to BrandBrains for the link.

CBS and Video Syndication

I have been critical of CBS's Innertube Project in the past, but they just took a huge leap ahead of the pack with the announcement that they will allow their content, with ads, to be syndicated out to at least 10 other websites.  I see this as the first step toward the complete democratization of media and is one of the biggest signs of the changing media landscape since ABC first offered full episodes on abc.com.

They will be offering full episodes and clips to sites like AOL and Comcast and through more specialized outlets like NetVibes and Joost.  I don't think it will be much longer before they will offer up completely unrestricted embedding of these files into blogposts.  If the ad travels with it and all of the proper protections they want are in place, why wouldn't they allow this?  Not sure why it has taken them so long.

What better way to get buzz about your programming than by allowing people to take selected clips of a show and discuss them in their blogs? 

Be on the look out for a similar announcement from ABC soon, as I am sure they have considered this.  NBC will be the last to act...I think they are still trying to pull down the "Chronicles of Narnia" clip from YouTube.

Via MediaBistro Daily News Feed

Post Video Crew featured on Apple.com

I don't normally post about our editorial team, but Apple has produced an "Infomercial" for their video editing products that uses our video team as the "happy customer".  You would never expect a newspaper website to have such a sophisticated, kick-ass video team.

Apple will be featuring this all week on the front of PRO.  Check it out HERE.