Archive for April 8th, 2007
Xbox 360 Live members like myself will be able to link our MSN chat accounts to our gamertags to chat over our TV sets. Voice chat is coming later this year. “We feel this is a huge step in driving social networking further into the family room by allowing Xbox 360 users to IM directly from their couch,” said John Rodman, Microsoft’s group manager for the Xbox 360. “Now you don’t have to manage two separate groups of friends online.”
April 8th, 2007
While much has been said about the declining value of the 30-second commercial spot, what about all those network (and local news) promos that run in the same breaks that DVR viewers skip? As a 99-percent-commercial-skipping DVR owner, I find myself only sampling new shows when my friends mention them (which includes their blogs) or when I see them highlighted on iTunes. Old thinking: The best way to promote yourself is on your own station/network. New thinking: In order to build new audience, the best way to promote yourself is anywhere but your own station/network.
Case in point: The producers behind the CBS show How I Met Your Mother are using MySpace and YouTube as viral promotion vehicles. “People watched the video, linked to it, traded it around, sent it to friends, who end up watching the show the next week and are still with us. Without that, a lot of the younger viewers we have might not have found us,” said co-creator and producer Craig Thomas.
April 8th, 2007
A first for me at Lost Remote: a rewrite of a column, based upon your input. Last week, I wrote “Things Web Viewsers Never, Ever Say,” a list dedicated to poking fun at all those silly quirks TV news websites have. We tend to get so worked up when building a site that we forget one important thing: the user experience. TV news sites are a clutter of marketing, news, sales and PR. As always, I invited the LR Faithful to contribute. And you did. Your first message: drop the word “viewser.” In 2003, when I wrote “Things Viewers Never, Ever Say,” I wound up writing a separate column with reader input. This time I’m merging my stuff with yours into a remixed piece, with the title you suggested: “Things News Website Visitors Never, Ever Say.” I’ve cut out some of my original stuff and given credit to you where due. (And yes, although “1.5” is in the headline, visitors don’t care about that stuff, so it’s not official.)
Read the full post April 8th, 2007
Sam Zell told a group at Stanford University that Tribune and other newspaper publishers should stop giving their content to Google and other search sites. “If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?” he asked. “Not very.” Meanwhile last week, Google settled a lawsuit with Agence France-Presse over Google News. Financial details were not disclosed, and AFP headlines, summaries and photos will return to Google News — as well as some form of extended content that goes above and beyond regular listings. “This will probably be a template for others,” writes Rafat Ali in PaidContent.
Adds James in comments: “How do I occasionally stumble across interesting newspaper content? By finding things on Google. So if the newspaper blocks Google in their robots.txt file, I will never find their stuff, and they will never get the revenue I would bring them with my visit. So if they leave Google, they loose. Making your paper an obscure backwater on the web does not seem to be a great route to success. Google enables papers much more than papers enable Google.”
Adds Joel: “Today I was told about an article in the newspaper, I went to the newspaper’s site and couldn’t find it. I went to Google News and did the same search and found it. Does he not see how Google actually helped me find a article on his own websites. The shear stupidity of these people never fails to amaze me.”
April 8th, 2007
Here are the top five paper sites in February (uniques in thousands, time spent):
| 1. |
NYTimes.com |
12,960 |
37:09 |
| 2. |
USAToday.com |
9,050 |
22:08 |
| 3. |
WashingtonPost.com |
8,030 |
20:28 |
| 4. |
LATimes.com |
4,546 |
12:08 |
| 5. |
WSJ.com |
3,436 |
15:50 |
| |
|
|
|
The list of the top 30 is available here. (Nielsen-Netratings)
April 8th, 2007
I just watched last week’s 30 Rock on my DVR where an up-and-coming NBC exec (in the show) pioneered the “ten-second internet sitcom.” The clip played inside a NBC.com player, ending with a lightning-fast credit roll and the NBC Universal billboard. Simply hilarious. Screen grab from the show of the ten-second sitcom…
Of course, you can watch 30 Rock online here.
April 8th, 2007
Bambi Francisco has resigned from MarketWatch to focus all her energy on her new venture, Vator.tv, after conflict of interest concerns were raised by parent company Dow Jones. Vator.tv allows companies seeking funding to post video elevator pitches for venture capitalists. While Francisco did not promote Vator.tv — and she had approval from her editor to start the company — she reported on some of the same companies that appear on the site, as well as her partner in the venture. Writes Francisco, “I’m going to try my hand as an entrepreneur. I think I’m making the right decision. If I didn’t make this decision, I would always regret not trying.”
April 8th, 2007
