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March 2007

Saturday, March 31, 2007

links for 2007-03-31

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Friday, March 30, 2007

How Apple TV Can Change the Economics of TV

The following is also my column in next week's Advertising Age.

This week, like thousands of early adopters, I picked up an Apple TV. It lead me to believe that as Internet-connected set-top boxes take off, Apple and others will change television, and with it, TV advertising.

Apple TV is a small set-top box that connects to any flat-screen television. Think of it as a smart iPod. However, bloggers have also widely reported that it will work with any set that has component inputs. The box also connects to any wired or wireless network in your home. That's all you need to get up and running. Apple TV will then take any media in iTunes on your PC or Mac and copy it to an internal 40 gigabyte hard drive. You can then access your audio and video content on your TV even if your computer is off.

Most of what consumers will watch initially via Apple TV will be movies and shows purchased from the iTunes store. Unfortunately, these do not come in high definition, at least yet. So, the viewing experience is less than ideal. However, as the cost of HD video cameras sink below $1000, individuals are rushing in to fill the void. Merlin Mann, a productivity guru, told me last week his popular video podcast will be available in 720p next month.

TV for years has been a closed system. It requires big infrastructure and dollars to create content and broadcast it to the masses. And although distribution has shifted from broadcast airwaves to copper wires and now fiber optic cables, the economics remain the same.  The cable nets identify a niche that is big enough to support a sizable audience and therefore advertising.

Over time, however, niche content will change the economics of television. Millions of Americans will add one or more Internet-connected set-top boxes to their living rooms. Once they do, look out. As they discover there is niche HD video content that matches their precise interests, the existing TV networks will see their viewers erode even more. Further, brand marketers will see they don't need media to reach people in their living rooms. They too will produce their own content that will be distributed over the Internet for consumption on TVs.

Posted at 04:20 PM in Advertising, Television | | Comments (14) | TrackBack (0)

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links for 2007-03-30

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Thursday, March 29, 2007

Survey: 43% of Employees Web 2.0 at Work

There's a common myth that the entire Web 2.0 movement doesn't have a big impact on B2B and  their enterprise purchasing decisions. Nonsense. Workers are knee deep in these sites. According to a new survey by Clearswift, some 43% of employees access Web 2.0 sites multiple times during the work day. Think they're publishing too? Nod. Studies have shown that most blogging takes place during the day.

More stats from the survey....    

* 51% spend an hour or more a week on Web 2.0 sites; 13% spend five hours or more    
* 46% have discussed work-related issues    
* 46% regularly access Wikipedia during work hours    
* 50% believe they have a right to use work computers for personal internet access

Posted at 04:50 PM in Handy Resources, PR, Web 2.0, Weblogs, Wikis | | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)

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The Value of "Why I Blog" Posts

Rex Hammock has a great post that explains why he blogs. It demonstrates that many blogs often are not confined to finite boxes the way media is. Someone can blog about their cat having a hairball and in the next post come up with an idea that solves global warming. Fred Wilson's blog seems to cover everything.

This could  be the start of a valuable meme. What if we all did short FAQ posts like this one and tagged them? Then they can be archived and it would take on new value. It would help the PR community better target our approach while also making it easy for birds of a feather to flock together. Then again, there are already some services that do this like MyBlogLog.

I also like how Rex traces his lineage back to Dave Winer. I am part of the same tree. Robert Scoble, who Dave mentored, really gave my blog a boost when he granted me this interview back when I started three years ago. The whole blog tree is eerily similar to the famous Bill Parcells and Bill Walsh coaching trees.

Posted at 03:14 PM in PR, Weblogs | | Comments (7) | TrackBack (1)

links for 2007-03-29

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Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Fun New JibJab Features Bloggers

You know you've made it big when you're in a JibJab video (which by the way is a great commentary on our celebrity obsessed news media). Congrats to three of my good friends, Robert Scoble, Michael Arrington and Chris Pirillo.

Posted at 09:15 PM in Weblogs | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

TrackBacks Are Dying

For awhile, the TrackBack was a popular tool that let one blogger let another know they are linking to them. Further, it let bloggers embed snippets of posts on the posts they mentioned. CNET even for awhile adopted the technology on all of their stories. No more. Yahoo even tested it too. Finally, Six Apart submitted it as a standard a few months back.

These days, however, the TrackBack feels irrelevant. Sebastian Kiel agrees with me. So does Jeff Harrell. It's been replaced by little widgets that have the same effect. You'll notice that all of my posts have a chicklet that show the number of links and diggs. This is powered by Feedburner.

However, there's more here. I think blogging has matured as a medium. We're not as obsessed with blogging or Technorati rankings as much as we used to be. Take a look at charts below. The number of mentions of the word blogs is largely flat the last six months. The universe has expanded. We have YouTube, Twitter, social networks and on and on. Blogging continues and is strong but it's part of something bigger. That's a big change.

 

Posts that contain Blogs per day for the last 30 days.
Technorati Chart
Get your own chart!

Posted at 09:04 PM in Weblogs | | Comments (19) | TrackBack (7)

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The Long and the Short of Media

Poynter is out with their latest Eye Tracking study. In a nutshell, they track how people interact with news in different formats. They found that people read farther into into online stories (77%) more than they do when perusing print (roughly 60%).

The findings are surprising. Further, it gets me thinking about the ramifications on PR. If a client appears at the bottom of say an AP news story that runs online, it's actually more valuable than the same story that runs print. Think about that.

Posted at 08:38 PM in Handy Resources, Journalism, PR | | Comments (3) | TrackBack (1)

GMOOT and the Folly of Crowds

Several people have told me over the last few years: "Steve, you never met a technology you didn't like." That's fair. There have been a few. But for the most part, they're right. Nick Denton is one of those people. He makes fun of my wide-eyed enthusiasm for Second Life.

That said, I don't sit in the camp that every new gizmo is right for every client. We work hard to match the clients' needs up with the right solution. Sometimes they come in asking about a blog. We think about their situation and often show them another approach that is better suited for their goals and audience. That's the way marketing consultants work.

However, there is definitely a problem in this Web 2.0, enthusiastically charged time we live in. Scott Donaton at AdAge calls it GMOOT - short for "get me one of those." That's the cry that marketers often hear from their executives. They get wind that their competitors have viral videos so then they want one too. It's the opposite of the Wisdom of Crowds.

GMOOT was the first thing that popped into my head when I read this AP story about the gold rush to grab land in Second Life. Again, I love Second Life. Our company has an island in the metaverse for many months now. Nevertheless, I wonder just how many consultants are selling Second Life to marketers without thinking it all the way through. They simply are aiming to please. They're giving the customer what they asked for.

The facts are clear, however, who is on Second Life and who isn't. For example, it's common knowledge that you need a computer with a fair amount of horse power to run it. I don't think a lot of Moms are on it. I could be wrong, but that's my gut based on the data I have seen.

Eventually Second Life and other virtual worlds will run in a browser, thanks to technologies like Apollo, WPF, Ajax, etc. That's when it will really take off and reach a much broader audience than it does today.

Posted at 08:26 PM in Avatar Marketing, Marketing | | Comments (11) | TrackBack (1)

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links for 2007-03-28

Posted at 12:32 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Adobe Launches a Colorful Social Network

Adobe, which is an Edelman A&R client, today launched the CS3 suite - a massive upgrade to all of its core design products. However, there was some other news too that I thought was cool. And I am not just saying that because we work for Adobe and I want to be nice and all.

The company also unveiled a social network called kuler.  Basically  it's a place for designers to share color combinations for different purposes. The site has tags, RSS feeds and desktop and Apollo widgets as well. Using the site, designers can upload color combinations they used for different projects.

Kulerwidget

Posted at 09:54 PM in Social Networking, Widgets | | Comments (2) | TrackBack (1)

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TV: The Next Great Development Platform

The personal computer was the first great development platform. The PC era ushered in giants like Microsoft, Apple, Sun and others. They all succeeded in creating great software that created operating system software that made computers far easier to use and more powerful. (Microsoft is an Edelman client.)

The computer - whether it is running Windows, Linux or OS X - is still a very robust market to develop for. Moore's Law has no immediate end in sight nor does our appetite for using our computers. Further, the gap between mobile phones and computers are narrowing with announcements like we saw from Microsoft today and Apple's forthcoming iPhone. So, for the purpose of this discussion I am lumping in mobile with computers as a single platform. The future remains bright for computers.

The second great development platform is the programmable web. Lots of businesses developed wonderful tools that work solely in a browser. The specific platforms - HTML, Javascript, Flash, Ajax, etc. - may change. However, the concept remains the same. Developers create web-based applications that, by being always connected, offer considerable advantages and value.

Clearly, with all of the new rich Internet applications coming on board, the Web has tremendous prospects as a dev platform. Further, now that millions of us are on broadband connections and the tools to create software has become democratized, we're just beginning to feel its impact.

Now let me throw a curveball at you. Think about what comes next. What hardware will emerge as a fertile ground where developers will want to plant some software seeds? Is there a piece of hardware that many people own that makes this all economically viable? The answer is yes and that platform is your television.

In 2007, for all but the alpha geeks, the cable and satellite companies determine who earns the right to have a place on your TV deck. That's changing. Attach an Apple TV, an XBox 360, and soon, a Slingcatcher and suddenly your TV can do things it couldn't do before. It can download video podcasts and other content from the Internet on the fly. Software is the magic that makes it happen. Further, if you purchase a Sony set you don't even need a third party box. These TVs have wifi and RSS built right in.

The TV is undergoing a renaissance. In five year's time, 50% of what the most coveted audiences watch on their sets will come off the Internet. However, it goes beyond the changes in video content. Television will run widgets and other connected software applications. These will be different from, yet complementary to what runs on a PC desktop or webtop. That's just the beginning.

Who will create the de-facto OS for your TV? Right now that's anyone's guess. The leaders are all the stalwarts from the PC era - e.g. Microsoft and Apple. And we haven't heard from the leaders who program the web yet. Companies like Google, for example. In addition, there are the companies who make the boxes (the Tivos of the world) and the cable/telcos who re-sell their boxes. These will run software too.

What is certain, though, is that once again TV is a growth business thanks to the Internet and software. And therefore the Golden Age of Television may be a head of us, not in our rear-view mirror.

Posted at 08:27 PM in Mobile, Podcasting, Television, Video | | Comments (10) | TrackBack (1)

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links for 2007-03-27

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Monday, March 26, 2007

On Death Threats and the Blogosphere

Kathy Sierra, a very popular blogger, has been receiving very serious and scary death threats over the last several weeks. The situation has gotten so bad she is afraid to leave her home. Allegedly other bloggers are behind the attacks.

Although startling and thoroughly condemnable, this situation - or God forbid worse - is bound to occur and it does all the time. Nobody should have to deal with such threats. However, the blogosphere is a community made up of human beings. Therefore, it's going to bring out all of the good in society and also the bad. Sometimes they converge and that's what is happening here. The bad are unjustly targeting someone good.

Most people who publish online are doing so for motivations that are positive and constructive. You always hope that the good will drown out the negative and that words won't come to actions. However, such behavior will never go away. We're humans and this is a human medium.

My thoughts are with Kathy and her family and my best goes out to her. Be strong. We're with you.

Posted at 07:28 PM in Weblogs | | Comments (8) | TrackBack (3)

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Rocketboom Seeks Alternate Revenue Steams

Rocketboom, the pioneering video blog, although quite successful is realizing that advertising alone won't sustain its future growth. According to a Marketwatch report by Frank Barnako, Rocketboom's Andrew Baron is exploring other revenue streams, including potentially charging for shows. Further, he views the show as a loss leader that is driving demand for other services like consulting. Baron is producing John Edwards' video blog.

This isn't the last we'll see of this. The problem is there's an economic conundrum. Advertisers want eyeballs and millions of impressions. The startup sites - even the successful ones - can't deliver so they need to explore alternative streams. Video is hardest hit here because it's more expensive to operate.

I've said it before and I will say it again. If you're a Web 2.0 site counting on advertising as your sole source of revenue, don't do it. Advertising is very cyclical. Yes, your overhead is low, but you might be ahead of the curve. The marketer's way of thinking hasn't shifted yet.

So if Rocketboom is facing these issues and it's a big daddy, what about Podtech and Podshow? Could a shakeout be in the works? I hope not. Further, advertising spending is strong now. What's the fallback for these sites?

Posted at 05:37 PM in Advertising, Marketing, Video, Vlogs, Web 2.0 | | Comments (10) | TrackBack (1)

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links for 2007-03-26

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Sunday, March 25, 2007

links for 2007-03-25

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Saturday, March 24, 2007

links for 2007-03-24

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Friday, March 23, 2007

Online Primetime

MarketingVOX reports that comScore Media Metrix found that 5-8 pm is the primary viewing time for online video. Some 123 million people in the U.S. viewed 7.2 billion videos online in January. Naturally given its two huge properties, Google was the top streaming video site for the month. For more, including charts and graphs, hit the MarketingVOX site.

Posted at 04:15 PM in Advertising, Handy Resources, Marketing, Video | | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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