Archive for September 17th, 2007
MySpace will roll out a new system to allow advertisers to hyper-target ad content to users on a self-service basis, according to the New York Times. Beefed up targeting capabilities allow MySpace advertisers to pinpoint users with their ads. All that data about yourself that you drop on your profile helps the site to custom-tailor ads to you (single guys and gals see lots of gender-targeted match.com ads these days, for instance). The NYT uses a theoretical punk band in Seattle targeting area fans as an example of potential users for the service.
Some worry about big brother of course… leading to my favorite quote of the young week: “People should be able to congregate online with their friends without thinking that big brother, whether it is Rupert Murdoch or Mark Zuckerberg, are stealthily peering in,” Jeff Chester, executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy told the Times. Bet Zuckerberg never thought he’d be mentioned in the same conspiratorial breath as Rupert Murdoch…
September 17th, 2007
Google is edging further and further into Microsoft’s bread-and-butter office software with the launch of Google Presentations. Presentations is part of the online Docs suite (which already includes a word processor and spreadsheet maker). I loaded up the program and quickly went about creating a slide. The software also imports .ppt files, and allows online collaboration. A “souped up” version will be sold for $50 to governments, businesses and the like.
Related: IBM will offer a free office software bundle called “Lotus Symphony”
September 17th, 2007
NBCU is teaming with a smattering of Clear Channel radio stations in top markets to “take over” as the exclusive sponsor of the stations for a day. Both Journeyman and Chuck will get the radio treatment. The Journeyman stations will feature :15 promos pushing people to a special micro-site where listeners can pick “now and then” songs to mash together a custom music list. The “Chuck” stations will be rebranded “Chuck FM” (ala Jack FM) - and actors from the shows will do the intro honors for news, traffic and weather.
September 17th, 2007
NYTimes.com’s premium section, Times Select, will be available free of charge beginning on Wednesday of this week. Explains the press release:
“Since Times Select was launched in 2005, changes in the way people find news and opinion on the Web have altered the online landscape. Because of online users’ growing reliance on search in order to navigate the Web, NYTimes.com expects to see a substantially increased number of unique users referred to and accessing the site once the pay wall is gone. Due to this anticipated growth in traffic, the TimesSelect subscription revenue model will be replaced by one that is based on advertising.”
As part of the change, archived articles back to 1987 will also be free. American Express has signed on as the first sponsor of the newly opened areas of NYTimes.com.
Of Times Select’s 787,400 active subscribers, 471,200 received the service free of charge as a benefit of their home-delivery subscriptions and another 89,200 received it for free on college campuses. So if you do the math, that leaves 227,200 paying subscribers. Clearly the Times believes it can beat that revenue number through advertising alone. “As demonstrated by the commitment of American Express, advertisers see the enormous value in making our site open and free to everyone,” said Denise Warren, SVP and chief advertising officer. “With the removal of the pay wall, the audience potential at NYTimes.com, already the No. 1 newspaper Web site in the United States, is vast. Advertisers on the site can expect to see an unprecedented number of Times readers interacting with their brands.”
Times Select has been the great experiment in premium newspaper content (the WSJ is a different animal). So does this put a nail in the coffin of the premium online news model? Press release follows…
Read the full post September 17th, 2007
The latest edition of Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox focuses on tabs — a navigation technique that has become very popular in web design. He offers 13 best practices guidelines for tabs, using Yahoo Finance as an example. Good stuff. (Thanks, Dale!)
September 17th, 2007
TechPresident.com walked away with a $10,000 check after winning the grand prize in the Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism. “The site not only reports on, but encourages, citizens to participate more directly in the political process,” the panel of judges said. “It’s an amazing source of information from a non-traditional news outlet.” Here are the rest of the winners:
$2,000 First Prize: CFR.org Crisis Guides
$1,000 Wild Card Award: Reuters’ Second Life Virtual News Bureau
$1,000 Citizen Media Award: The Forum, Deerfield, N.H.
$1,000 Special Distinction Award: washingtonpost.com’s onBeing
$1,000 Special Distinction Award: OrlandoSentinel.com’s Varsity MyTeam H.S. Sports
Press release with more details follows after the TechPresident screen grab…
Read the full post September 17th, 2007
Amy Gahran’s blog contentious.com is a very good read, and she’s one smart cookie who has been asking some very good questions lately in her role as a contributor to Poynter’s e-Media Tidbits blog. Last week, she asked if online journalism awards are old hat and also produced a brilliant post on why journalists should care about online ad networks. These broach two topics that are near and dear to my heart, so I jumped in and commented there, and want to share some thoughts with our readers here to get the LR community talking.
Read the full post September 17th, 2007
I always enjoy doing this. Right now, I’m being interviewed for a segment on WCVB’s evening show “Chronicle.” It’s one of those locally-produced shows I’m always saying that locals should do. This is the part where they have completed the interview with me and now they’re shooting what I do for a living. So I have to look busy. How do I look? Busy? The segment should air in two weeks on Monday the 24th.
September 17th, 2007
Only 20 percent of a survey’s respondents said watching online TV shows or movies on a TV set was important, while 64 percent said it was of little or no importance, according to Marquest Media & Entertainment Research. Theories?
September 17th, 2007
Now this is smart. When CNBC goes HD this fall, it will continue to broadcast the anchors in 4×3, but it will shift them to the left to allow for extra graphics and web content on the right. “What we did was take a very nontraditional approach to HD,” says Steve Fastook, CNBC vice president of technical and commercial operations. “It would be relatively easy for me to replace all the cameras, make the studios all hi-def and be all happy. But it doesn’t give viewers anything different than what’s on CNBC [in the traditional world].” Beyond the extra financial graphics, the extra screen space will also feature CNBC.com’s live video feed — viewers can listen in by selecting the SAP feature on their TVs.
Update: TVNewser has a screen grab of how it will look
September 17th, 2007
And for the first time, the Academy awarded the Emmy on Sunday night, during the primetime broadcast. “We are trying to open up the television medium so viewers can help to make television…and reclaim democracy,” Al Gore said in accepting the award.
September 17th, 2007
