Archive for January, 2008
Since we’ve switched to JobThread to power our digital media jobs board, we’ve seen a big increase in the number of job postings. It also has this nifty interface that lets me look at how many people are applying for certain jobs (assuming the email address isn’t listed in the job copy.) And some jobs are getting a dozen applications or more. So here’s your friendly reminder to get your HR departments plugged into Lost Remote — as always, it’s free, and a great way to find web media talent.
January 23rd, 2008
In today’s much-anticipated announcement, CBS president and CEO Leslie Moonves revealed plans to make the company’s music acquisition, Last.fm, completely free for streaming music. CBS has done deals with all the major labels to make songs — and entire albums — available to stream for free. And you won’t even have to register. Alongside the stream will be a “tiny” targeted video/rich media ad with its audio defaulted off. You can listen to the same song three times before you’re asked to purchase it through affiliates iTunes, Amazon, or 7Digital. As part of the deal, the artist gets paid for each stream with a revenue share of the advertising. I think they’ll build quite a large audience very quickly, especially if/when they promote this new free service on CBS. As you know, there’s something very powerful about “free.”
January 23rd, 2008
The company behind ClipSyndicate, the video syndication service used by quite a few TV stations, has launched a new service called Syndicaster.tv. Basically, it translates all the video that’s aired into text. Then you can select clips using the transcript and publish them directly into ClipSyndicate or iTunes (see screen grab here). “Bloomberg has been using it for four months, making 60 to 90 clips a day,” says Critical Media CEO Sean Morgan. Explains TechCrunch, “Since all the video gets translated into text, the broadcasts from each station can be delivered as an RSS feed.” Interesting. The new service will be free for ClipSyndicate content providers.
January 23rd, 2008
Yep. The commercial arm of the free blogging platform Wordpress — my favorite blogging software and the content management system powering Lost Remote — just got a second round of funding that includes an investment from the New York Times Company.
January 23rd, 2008
NBCU chief Jeff Zucker followed through on his promise to stop the time-honored but ridiculously expensive tradition of ordering a bunch of pilot episodes every season, only to pick up a handful of shows. “So you’re spending money on programs you’re not going to get,” said Zucker, who explained the network may still order one or two a season. “It’s clear we are in a recession in the United States, and we’re going to have to manage our business accordingly,” he said. But truth be told, I wouldn’t blame the strength of the U.S. economy but the rapidly-changing economic model surrounding the television industry, as evidenced by the writers strike.
January 23rd, 2008
We just got our hands on a preview of tomorrow’s Borrell Associates report, “2008 Outlook: Online Political Advertising,” and even Gordon Borrell admits he was surprised at the results. With $4.8 billion of political ad dollars to spend this year, Borrell forecasts just $20 million for online media — less than .5% of the total (yes, that’s one-half of one percent). And half of that $20 million will be spent on search advertising. “I would have thought it would have been much larger than this,” writes Gordon in an email to Lost Remote. “But in the age of disintermediation, people go directly to candidates’ sites for information, rather than candidates having to pay a lot of money to get their messages out to the public. A lot of that still goes on, of course, in direct mail and broadcasting… but not online.”
I suspected this would be the case a few months ago when I spoke to a media buyer who specializes in political advertising. The message was very clear: the campaigns advertise on search engines and political blogs to drive fundraising. To drive the vote, nothing beats TV, which Borrell predicts will take in a 60 percent share of the total. That isn’t the say local TV sites won’t pick up some political revenue here and there. “Local stations should look at this an opportunity to funnel some of that spending into multi-media packages,” suggests the report. But clearly, no bonanza awaits online.
January 22nd, 2008
In a shift for Electronic Arts here in the U.S., the video game company announced today their plans to release Battlefield Heroes as a free game this summer. EA calls the game a fun cartoon-style shooter which caters to players of all skill levels. The interesting strategy won’t be the gameplay, but the way the company plans to make money: with in-game advertisements and microtransactions. Games usually run consumers $60 or more. The NYTimes has the backstory on a similar move EA made in Korea with a FIFA soccer game. According to the Times, EA “said it has signed up more than five million Korean users and generates more than $1 million in monthly in-game sales.” What’s your reaction?
January 22nd, 2008
But NewTeeVee isn’t very happy with the lousy video presentation on Oscar.com. “It’s good that Oscar is finally venturing into the Web video world, but its current efforts won’t win it any awards,” writes Chris Albrecht.
January 22nd, 2008
The story is headlined, “Gender or race: Black women voters face tough choices in South Carolina,” and many users didn’t like the story’s suggestion that black women face a “a unique, and most unexpected dilemma” between Clinton and Obama. So much so, in fact, CNN.com even wrote a follow-up story about the backlash.
January 22nd, 2008
A study by Burst Media reveals that more than half of all internet users bail out of a clip before the pre-roll stops playing, and a significant percentage leave the site entirely. Interestingly, younger users are more tolerant: 35% of 18-24 year olds close out a clip when they see a pre-roll ad, compared to 49.6% of 25-34 year olds. Of course, pre-rolls aren’t going away anytime soon, but I’d certainly call them a transitional video ad unit.
January 22nd, 2008
Silicone Alley Insider has been blogging about hundreds of potential layoffs at Yahoo, but so far, Yahoo isn’t commenting. The NYT predicts that the cuts will be announced later this month during the earnings call, but isn’t speculating on which of the current 14,000 Yahooers are facing the axe as Jerry Yang seeks to refocus and streamline the strategy to get the stock moving again. Is it ironic that Yahoo positioned itself as the ultimate content aggregator online, co-opting newspaper publishing strategies and partnering with the newspaper industry, and now is laying off staff like newspapers are doing nationwide?
Related: Does Yahoo’s success with sports point the way to its future?
January 22nd, 2008
James E. O’Shea is now talking, and he’s not happy. “I disagree completely with the way that this company allocates resources to its newsrooms, not just here but at Tribune newspapers all around the country,” he wrote. “That system is at the core of my disagreements with (Publisher David Hiller). I think the current system relies too heavily on voodoo economics and not enough on the creativity and resourcefulness of journalists.”
January 21st, 2008
With the writers strike raging, one thing is clear: the costly way network television is made isn’t sustainable in a new digital age. “I think there were a tremendous number of inefficiencies in Hollywood and it often takes a seismic event to change them, and I think that’s what’s happened here,” said NBCU chief Jeff Zucker, predicting that “the development process will change forever.” As we’ve reported before, the pilot process is at the top of the list. Meanwhile, it looks like NBCU has patched up its relationship with Apple. “We’ve said all along that we admire Apple, that we want to be in business with Apple,” Zucker said. “We’re great fans of Steve Jobs.” So stay tuned…
January 21st, 2008
Broadcast Interactive Media’s YouNewsTV service — an application that allows users to upload video and photos — has now grown to 50 local TV station sites in 38 markets. If you’re curious, Broadcasting & Cable reports the service costs $2,000 a month on average in licensing fees, including a share of revenue. Broadcast Interactive plans to launch a new feature in coming weeks that will allow stations in the network to share video with each other.
January 21st, 2008
HBO is one of the last television operations to embrace video on the internet. It’s testing a free service that would allow HBO subscribers to watch selected video online. Initially, the service is only available in Green Bay and Milwaukee, with plans to expand.
January 21st, 2008
The editor of the Los Angeles Times, James E. O’Shea, has been ousted for resisting newsroom job cuts. As most in the business know, this isn’t the first time this has happened. In fact, he’s the fourth top exec to leave the paper for the same reason in the last three years. “The departure of Mr. O’Shea appears to contradict statements by Samuel Zell, the Chicago real estate magnate who took over the company last month and is now its chairman and chief executive,” reports the NY Times. “Mr. Zell has criticized the previous regime of the financially troubled company for trying to improve the bottom line by cutting costs, and he has said that the path to profit lies in finding new revenue, not paring costs.” But is anyone surprised?
January 21st, 2008
Lin TV has launched politics sites in each of its 17 markets, such as MichiganPolitics.tv, but that’s just the beginning. The media group has bought up similar .tv domain names in each of the 50 states and the top DMAs, such as NYPolitics.tv and NewYorkPolitics.tv. The idea is to partner with other media companies to roll out the same site templates in their markets. Each of the sites features content from the partner TV station, AP stories, candidate bios as well as aggregated political news and blog posts (that include even “competitive” information sources.)
Not bad at all, and a smart way to expand reach beyond just 17 markets — assuming, of course, they’re able to ink deals with media partners. Press release below… (Thanks Steve for the tip!)
Read the full post January 18th, 2008
As an anonymous reader tipped in the post above, the New York Observer is rolling out a network of political sites similar to Lin TV, one for each state. For example, PolitickerNJ.com for New Jersey. So far, besides New Jersey, they’ve launched sites for Nevada, Maine, Oregon, Maryland, Arizona, Vermont and Colorado. Four more are coming in February including Washington, Kentucky and New Hampshire.
January 18th, 2008
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