Archive for December 5th, 2007
It’s easy to say that Newsblues.com founder Mike James is jaded. After all, that’s why he quit the business to start a controversial industry site. But it’s hard to argue with his assessment of TV news these days:
TV news, and those who draw paychecks from it, have become lazy, sloppy, and too willing to trust consultants rather than their own instincts. The industry no longer delivers news. It falls back on formulas. Content has become predictable. It takes the easy way out. It tries to fill an ever-increasing news hole with artificial preservatives.
Absolutely right, although there are some exceptions out there. As I’ve written many times before, my hope is the internet will help bring quality, relevancy and innovation back to TV newsrooms (which will soon become multiplatform newsrooms). But it takes newsroom leadership brave enough to embrace it, and so far, success stories are too few and far between.
December 5th, 2007
Forrester analyst James McQuivey predicts that Apple won’t be able to do with video what it did with music. “MP3 players, including the iPod, are valuable from the day you buy them because your entire CD collection provides immediate content to fill the device. The video hardware business is different,” because you can’t rip video DVDs to iTunes, he explains. “To make matters worse, the one bright spot iTunes had going for it — the TV show download business — is stalling.” His advice for Apple? Get NBC back, for one. And get more aggressive in bringing professional and user-generated web video to iTunes. “Envision ubiquitous ‘download this to iTunes/iPod’ links that go beyond those few web videos formatted as video podcasts,” McQuivey writes. Hmmm, good idea. Because at the end of the day, there’s not enough interesting stuff on my AppleTV compared to my DVR. What do you think?
December 5th, 2007
- Fox Digital Media buys Beliefnet in “tens of millions” range
- Scripps selects Maven to power Internet video distribution
- CBSNews debuts mobile site for iPhone users (via Cyberjournalist)
- Drudge launches iDrudgeReport.com for mobile devices
December 5th, 2007
In this year’s installment of the ongoing saga, “Violent video games are destroying the fabric of our nation’s youth,” the National Institute on Media and the Family has issued their 12th-annual report card to help parents judge which games are suitable for children this holiday season. The report finds that efforts to protect children have not kept pace with the rapid growth of the gaming industry, and producers, retailers and consumers (i.e. parents) are guilty of “growing complacency’ when it comes to excessively violent games.
A screen grab from the hyper-realistic game Call of Duty 4.
Adds Ed in comments: “There seems to be this perception that because they’re ‘games,’ they must be for children. But, all the games on the list are rated ‘M’ and clearly are not for children, any more then ‘Saw 4′ or ‘CSI’…”
December 5th, 2007
…and a bag of chips, too. Not content to stop with buying DoubleClick and owning online advertising, Google is looking for more partners and purchases to build a one-stop for media-buying on all platforms. We all knew that’s what they wanted, but now they’re saying it openly. Tim Armstrong, Google’s president of advertising, said their toe-dipping in selling ads in print, radio and television had shown that marketers would like a joint system that lets them better manage ad inventory. The target date is five years.
December 5th, 2007
Anybody have any skinny on this? WSJ has an article that Nielsen has some new technology to offer publishers and netcasters that thwarts online video piracy. Digimarc is reportedly on board as a partner.
Update from Cory: Nielsen has just announced a new service that will allow publishers to track the viral distribution of their video across the internet. The goal is to “establish an industry-wide rules-based solution” using Digimarc’s watermarking and fingerprinting technology. Press release below…
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