NBC will offer up a ton of live video during the Olympics: 2,200 hours. “We think it will generate a tremendous amount of engagement. We think it will generate more television viewership,” said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics. But there is one limitation: events that will be televised on NBC will not appear online until after they air (not everyone is happy about that). Meanwhile, as Webware points out, a big winner in all this is Microsoft’s Silverlight, which will power the live video on NBCOlympics.com. (Full disclosure: I work for msnbc.com, a joint venture between NBC and Microsoft.)
The snazzy NBCOlympics.com, with a big push for users to localize to receive live video streams and content from affiliate partners.
Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane has teamed with Google to distribute a new internet-only cartoon series in an unique way: through the AdSense network. Google will use AdSense’s targeting capability to distribute 2-minute sponsored clips of “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy” to male-oriented sites that carry AdSense ads. Some of the clips will feature pre-rolls and others will have overlays. Some clients are paying big bucks for MacFarlane to create original cartoons for them. Explains the NYTimes:
…The partnership with Mr. MacFarlane represents a bold step into the distribution business, one that, if successful, will surely send shock waves through the entertainment business. “Cavalcade” is not only from a high-profile Hollywood talent, but also carries a multimillion-dollar production price tag, by far the largest amount spent on original Internet content to date. “We feel that we have recreated the mass media,” said Kim Malone Scott, director of sales and operations for AdSense.
Hollywood’s big problem in the new internet age is the high cost of doing business compared to the relatively low revenue generated online. Could this be a new model? Google thinks so.
The Hollywood Reporter puts together all the possible options for Jay Leno’s future after NBC pulls Conan up to the 11:35 slot. Some you’ve heard of: shows on ABC or FOX; some you haven’t: Leno replacing Letterman at CBS? Though that last option seems unlikely, THR makes an interesting case.
On the heels of this site being protected from the dumb things commenters write anonymously on the Internet comes another piece of news that may make some take pause. A judge is set to order the (New York) Journal News to fork over the identity of three anonymous posters. Three folks used nicknames to attack a former congressman and his wife. The couple went after the newspaper, saying they had to know who made the comments to file defamation suits. A judge agreed, and the paper will have to fork over identifying information.
I’ve been watching with great interest how some news sites are getting into the comments business. While I thought it was such a smart idea a year ago - now I’m not as sure. A particular news site I watch has turned into a cesspool - with attacks, slander, inane and off-topic comments - and very little that contributes to public discourse. There has to be a better way to engage community.
We first told you about a coalition of Ohio newspapers that are side-stepping the Associated Press model with a new collective known as the Ohio News Organization, or OHNO (which might be exactly what AP execs are thinking about now). OHNO allows the papers to swap content without feeding it to the AP machine. As we’ve detailed, the AP takes content from its members - resells it to Google and others, all while extracting money from the originating organization. OHNO is up and running, and has sparked interest from groups of papers in Texas, Indiana and Pennsylvania, according to the Wall Street Journal.
The editor of the Columbus (OH) Dispatch nailed the problem on the head: “What has happened is we’ve become the wire service for the wire service.” Bingo. With news sites competing to be first and comprehensive, the AP doesn’t have to do nearly as much on the state level anymore. They can dial up their local media sites, do some rewrites and call it a day. “If they’re our partners, they’re going to help us find ways to reduce costs,” Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News told the WSJ. “If they’re not our partners, they’re just vendors.”
Time Inc. will take the wraps off MagHound this September - a new service that will allow folks to mix-and-match magazine subscriptions and have them delivered to their door. The key difference is commitment: you can trade titles at any time, and get out whenever you want. The pricing model is three titles for $3.95, five for $7.95 and so on. Titles outside the Time family will be available.
NBC is rolling out a new promotional slogan, but so far it’s subtle. The network is tagging promos with the text “chime in” next to the NBC peacock (and the G-E-C chime sound). I’ve scoured the Interwebs and can’t find any official reference (though, of course, it’s on Wikipedia) to the new branding statement. So ABC has “start here” and NBC wants us to “chime in.”
It’s what many media folks are still worried about: what if someone posts a comment on our site that gets us sued? Well, a federal court has ruled that ConsumerAffairs.com can’t be held responsible for user comments that blasted car dealers. Very good news.
Some 33 years after co-founding Microsoft with Paul Allen, Bill Gates is ending his full-time employment with the company today, which would explain the TV crews standing in front of a Microsoft sign as I arrived to work. That made me a little reminiscent of my days as an 11-year-old programming in BASIC on an original IBM PC. Ah, those were the days. Who would’ve thought Microsoft would grow to 91,200 employees and essentially create a new city here in Washington State. Of course, BillG (that’s his Microsoft alias) has taken some heat for the company’s hesitancy to embrace the internet, but he wrote this in a memo in 1995: “I want to make clear that our focus on the Internet is critical to every part of our business.” And those memos became famous. (My favorite is this hilarious memo back in 2003 when he couldn’t download Moviemaker off Microsoft.com. Oh, and who can forget the Blue Screen of Death.) Now BillG is devoting his time to continue his role as the world’s biggest philanthropist — a noble calling that’s already making a big difference around the world.
I’ll end my little rambling tribute with a Gates quote: “Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.”
You’d think with six weeks to go to the Olympics, everyone would have a good grasp on the rules. But the IOC has just issued new sweeping restrictions for online video and audio for non-rights holders. And the Chinese government is still trying to figure out what to do with all the roving TV crews and their satellite trucks. Stay tuned…
I don’t know about you, but I’m not entirely on an aggregator/RSS diet. So, given today’s news that MySpace has launched data portability, here’s something on my want list: Friend Feed functionality built in to my favorite news websites.
Ideally, my favorite news sites’ “latest stuff” feed would include:
1. Newest items posted to the news website (I’d filter what the feed would deliver - say video versus photos, or my own neighborhood’s news)
2. Imported data - What my friends are doing on Facebook (once your site is a trusted FB partner), MySpace, Twitter and other sites
3. Select hot comments on news stories on the site (filtered by criteria)
4. What my friends on the news site are doing (comments, posting photos, etc.) given that the site has social networking
4. And, yes…hello behavioral ad targeting!
Would you dig this, too?
In comments:Rex reminded me that NYT has a variant on this idea: TimesPeople.
Terry Heaton writing in the AR&D newsletter: “When I’ve noted that we MUST work to outdo Google at the local level, the immediate reaction is one of disbelief. After all, the thinking goes, Google already does a fantastic job of organizing local information, and we’re fooling ourselves if we think we can do better. But this argument presupposes that Google’s business is information organization. It isn’t. It’s an advertising system, and this is where we can beat them.” Good advice.
Using data from Hitwise, which roughly estimates online traffic, PBS.org says it’s beating ABC.com, NBC.com, CBS.com and Fox.com in share of online visits since late May. PBS says traffic is up 25% from the 2006-07 season to the 2007-08 season. “Much of this growth has been driven by enhancements to PBS.org’s video offerings and by our focus on search engine optimization,” said Jason Seiken, Senior Vice President PBS Interactive. “We expect to see another big bump this winter when we launch a major redesign of PBS.org and extend our video offerings to local PBS station Web sites across the country.”
MySpace, NBC and msnbc.com have announced a contest to recruit two citizen journalists to attend the political conventions later this year. Contestants submit video entries on the MySpace Decision ‘08 section which will be judged by a combination of MySpace users and judges from NBC and MySpace (which include Joe Scarborough and Tom Anderson). More details in the press release below. (Full disclosure: I work for msnbc.com.)
Sure, IPTV services like FiOS are taking forever to roll out, which means limited service areas. But some cable companies are getting a little too aggressive in their ad campaigns. “We already have a fiber-optic network serving ALL our homes,” says one Comcast ad. Technically, cable TV networks are fiber only up to a point — coax cables make the last stretch to the home. But just wait, the cable-IPTV wars are just beginning.
I thought I’d get one of these for the front of One LR Plaza.
The photo above is of the world’s largest LED video display, located on the side of a building in Bejing. Per the official website, “the building performs as a self-sufficient organic system, harvesting solar energy by day and using it to illuminate the screen after dark, mirroring a day’s climatic cycle.”
Disney believes its recently reworked Disney.com looks too corporate, so it’s getting another redesign. I found this paragraph from the NYT story interesting: “It is also no accident that video search pages will look similar to those of YouTube: Disney designers worked to incorporate certain YouTube hallmarks, figuring that kids had grown accustomed to viewing Web video in that manner.” Interesting, huh?
A study by The Kelsey Group predicts that small and medium-sized businesses in local markets will increase their video spending from $10.9 million in 2007 to $1.5 billion in 2012. But these aren’t pre-rolls folks, but advertorial video sold by the increasingly aggressive online yellow pages, city guides and local business directories. See an example here of a New York pizza place on YellowPages.com. The problem with many local media sites — the ones without vibrant city guides or business directories that score high in search — is they have no place to put advertorial videos that will actually get watched by people thinking about buying a particular product or service. Since these sites are outside the purchase loop — if you Google “Dallas doctors” for example, you get no local media results in the first 2.5 pages — they won’t be significant players in the small to mid-sized advertorial video pool.
The Orange County Register is shipping off some of the editing chores to folks in India. Workers at a New Dehli-based company will handle some copy-editing chores as well as some page layout tasks during a one month trial. Editors stress this won’t affect local decision making, or even affect staffing levels… for now.
In a time when media companies are launching new websites by the hundreds, NYTimes.com and IHT.com — the International Herald Tribune — are considering merging into a single site. One of the ideas is the international edition of NYTimes.com will carry both brands with expanded IHT.com content.
Google News isn’t growing nearly as fast as the rest of Google - or competitors in its field. GN is currently the #8 most popular news site, despite that prime link on Google.com. The site’s growth rate over the past two years is only about 10% - while sites like MSNBC.com grew more than 42% over the same period. I use GN quite a bit - and am generally a big fan. But its home screen never gets my attention, I only use the search function to hit up major keywords each day. When the AP decided to resell our content to Google News, I became a public critic. The New York Times takes a dive into the interesting relationship Google News has with news sites - which want the traffic, but are afraid of the end result.
CNN.com rolled out a new site for Anderson Cooper 360°. The site is centered around the show’s blog, and also has an archive of regular features from the show. I’ll have to subtract a few points though: Clicking on the “video” tab takes you to the generic CNN.com/video page, where finding clips from AC360 is next to impossible.
Also: A regular feature will be “TV Talk” where some of the behind-the-scenes words we use will be explained. The first entry is “crashing.” Lost Remote used to have an exhaustive list of TV terms and their meaning. I can’t find it - but maybe Cory will come along and link us up.
Microsoft might not have that big stake in MSNBC-TV anymore… but once in a while the computer giant still finds a way to have an impact on the cable channel (via Inside Cable News)
Some 33 years after co-founding Microsoft with Paul Allen, Bill Gates is ending his full-time employment with the company today, which would explain the TV crews standing in front of a Microsoft sign as I arrived to work. That made me a little reminiscent of my days as an 11-year-old programming in BASIC on an 
Using data from Hitwise, which roughly estimates online traffic, 
Disney believes its recently reworked 
