Advertising’s big engine slows
Monday, July 31st, 2006A global study by WPP Group’s GroupM unit and reported in today’s MediaDailyNews confirms something I’ve suspected for several months — that the boom in comparatively cheap internet advertising is slowing the growth of advertising overall.
…the rapid expansion of supply of online advertising opportunities is helping to satiate demand from marketers, keeping media price inflation in check for the overall advertising economy, especially in major markets such as the U.S. “At this late stage of the economic cycle one would normally expect media growth to have run well ahead of GDP as healthy profits finance excess demand for diminishing media reach,” the GroupM report says, noting, “One thing stopping this is the growth of the Internet in developed economies. Its audience is growing even faster than its incoming tide of advertiser money, so it is actually getting cheaper. At the same time it is attracting cash from the big but fragmenting and hence inherently inflationary media, whose valuable reach is in shortening supply.”
The time to act is NOW
Monday, July 31st, 2006If 2006 is/has been the unbundled awakening, 2007 is looking more and more like a desperation year for local broadcasters, a year when new media ventures begun this year need to begin producing fruit. We won’t have the Olympics, although they didn’t perform up to snuff this year, and we won’t have elections, so political ad money will vanish. Wherever I go and with whomever I speak, there is this growing sense that new media MUST be more aggressively pursued…or else.
While this shouldn’t come as a bulletin to anybody who has been following my writing, the urgency I now sense is intense and palpable. Two items of interest today add to my concern.
One, the folks at WeatherBug have launched their own video sharing community, where anybody can upload their own forecasts, reports or storm video. The key word here is “community,” and while the site sucks so far, that’s not the point. It’s another play for the local weather niche by an outside internet company. Weather is THE local franchise for broadcasters, and they ought to be viewing this — and the effort by the Weather Channel to provide local weather applications — as very serious competition.
Two, take a look at BuffaloAtHome.com, a local information portal built by VertaSource, LLC. This company has a deal with CBS/Viacom and has already launched “at home” sites in Chicago, Philly, Baltimore, Detroit, Rochester, and Erie and has plans to launch 30 more — including Denver tomorrow — by year’s end. These are not stamped with the CBS brand, although it’s pretty easy to see the partnership.
Bob Gerow, General Manager of VertaSource told me that it’s been quite a challenge to get the local CBS affiliates to sign off on providing content, because they assume they already have a portal. In the end, though, revenue drives the deals, and while he won’t give me his “secret sauce,” Gerow is quick to point out that their model isn’t banners and page views. Keyword exclusivity and business search optimization are two areas where they make money, and isn’t that just like pure internet players? So while the broadcasters are still out there trying to make a buck off of reach/frequency methodologies, this company is growing revenue the internet way. How terribly smart!
Related to local media, “CBS asked themselves this question,” he said. “Do we want to be one of 25 sites in a market or one of two or three portals?” Who will these other portals be? Googles, Yahoos, YouTubes, or other internet pure plays?
So once again, we have very smart people coming into town and creating applications that could and should be done by the local stations (media companies) themselves. This is serious business, folks, and not to move TODAY to develop new businesses on the web is playing with the lives of your employees. 2007 is just a few months away.
I must be beautiful
Monday, July 31st, 2006A report from the London School of Economics — and reported in today’s London Telegraph — finds that beautiful people are 36% more likely to produce daughters than sons. It also notes that the world’s females are becoming better-looking than men as a result (Oh THAT’s why, eh?).
So while the children of aggressive, scientific parents tend to be boys, who can outwit their competitors when it comes to finding a mate, the children of beautiful, empathic parents tend to be girls, who can take their pick from the gene pool and then hang on to their man.
“We have shown that beautiful parents have more daughters than ugly parents because physical attractiveness is heritable and because daughters benefit from this more than sons.”
Right.
Boxes and more boxes
Friday, July 28th, 2006
My furniture — or should I say boxes arrived first thing this morning. Not bad, since I was expecting Allied to deliver the stuff next week. I counted this morning, and I’ve moved my whole household 18 times since 1970. That’s what happens with the news business, but I was a little extreme.
This one was/is the most difficult, because I’m doing it alone. Everything I unpack has a little story attached to it, and I find myself drifting emotionally. On the up side, it’s been a chance to clean out a bunch of old “stuff” and organize what’s left. I need that to make this truly a fresh start.
I’m writing tons of stuff, although it’s not for publication. I promise I’ll get back to serious writing here as soon as I get settled.
The benefits of apartment living
Thursday, July 27th, 2006To the neighbor whose WiFi I’m currently stealing, I’d gladly pay you, if I knew who you were. My DSL line won’t be in until next week, and, well, you’re probably at work anyway.
The Godlike anchorman
Thursday, July 27th, 2006I watched the PBS worship of Walter Cronkite last night with nostalgia, fondness and a whole lot of gratitude that there will never be another like him. Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times agrees in a column that basically trashes the whole breed.
But the thing about Walter that was different was that he wasn’t pumped as the most trusted guy in America; he simply was. There was no relentless stream of promos touting him as the greatest (although some did appear later in his career). He earned that position, largely, I think, because TV News was still in its relative infancy. Audience manipulation “rules” hadn’t been written yet, and network anchors were news people first and “talent” further down the line.
In today’s world, the “anchor-as-God” is over and done with — commoditized along with everything else in the TV world. Those who didn’t have the good fortune to be alive during the Cronkite years missed a truly remarkable person in the history of communications. We needed Walter. We needed gatekeepers, because access to information was limited to the few. That’s all changed now, and I believe that’s a good thing.
Nevertheless, Walter Cronkite was a big part of my early life, and I’m happy to have been there for the sense of security in “and that’s the way it is.”
Spreading the new media word
Thursday, July 27th, 2006There’s an excellent primer in today’s Dallas Morning News on the changes underway in video viewing in the home. It’s nothing substantial or deep, but it’s the kind of article that’s necessary for the continued education of everyday people (and some media people, too).
Many agree that we’re headed for a time when almost every piece of video ever recorded — your favorite sitcom, your favorite movie, your favorite candidate’s speech, your kid’s soccer game — will be available and quickly accessible for viewing.There are enormous technical issues and costs to overcome, but technology companies are focused on making it happen.
For TV viewers, the world of ubiquitous video could be an amazing technological advance or a confusing mess.
No one’s sure exactly what the future holds, but it’s safe to assume that consumers are going to grapple with more choices and more complex technology.
For most consumers, the changes won’t happen overnight, said Dick Anderson, general manager of International Business Machines Corp.’s media and entertainment practice.
Gadget lovers and young trendsetters will embrace new TV technology while the majority, the “massive passive,” continues to veg out the old-fashioned way.
Eventually, though, even the traditional audience will follow.
The most important thing about articles like this morning’s is how they’re spreading the technology word to people outside the typical tech publications and challenging people to boost their knowledge of technology. This will accelerate change by breaking down knowledge barriers. I believe this is a fundamental role of media companies who wish to play in these new worlds downstream, and it’s nice to see a report like this in the paper of my new hometown.
Moving Adventures
Wednesday, July 26th, 2006I’ve arrived in Dallas and am camping out at my new apartment. It’s a super place, and I’m nestled in the trees. It’ll be a great place from which to write and work. The doggie downers did the trick for my dog, and the trip was essentially uneventful — until I arrived in Dallas. It seems there’s a rather serious problem with my new old car — $1,200 for steering and suspension repairs. Nice.
Gone are the days when they just pick you up and move you. Allied told me they’d be by at 8am Monday. They got there at 1pm, which put me on the road near nightfall. My “window” for furniture delivery is today through August 4th. So I’ll be camping for awhile. The phone is in. Cable TV on Saturday. Internet sometime next week. I’m writing now from the apartment complex’s business center, which will be a frequent visiting spot for me.
I’m working on a new essay about third-party metrics for the web that should be finished by Monday. Stay tuned.
ABC’s experiment becomes permanent
Monday, July 24th, 2006From Jeff Jarvis comes this gem via a pending Ad Age article on the ABC experiment with ad-supported online programming. The network says it’ll become a “real” offering beginning in October, because the experiment earlier this year was such a success.
The network said the experiment was a success for advertisers given that research showed users had 87% recall of the advertisers involved. (Average recall of advertising on TV is about 24%.) Each program that was streamed was supported by a single advertiser.
It’s also another significant blow to network affiliates, because it reduces the rerun value of primetime programming. I’ve been predicted for years that the programming value of net affils will be steadily diminishing, because the web eliminates the need for middlemen.
This’ll be my last post from Nashville. I’ll be westbound later today and hopefully blogging again later in the week.
Email hell
Saturday, July 22nd, 2006In moving to Dallas, one of the things I must give up is my Comcast Cable and Broadband. I’ve been a faithful customer for eight years, and I will surely miss it. The apartment complex into which I’m moving has an exclusivity deal with AT&T, so I don’t have any choice but to let go.
The problem? I’ve enjoyed the email address “xnuzboss@comcast.net” for eight years, and it’s my connection to a hundred websites and businesses, all of whom will “lose” that connection in after 30 days. I’ll be sending notices to many online billing companies, but I’ll never remember them all.
This, I suppose, is why God made Gmail, Hotmail, etc.
I submitted a formal suggestion that comcast create a business that will allow people to keep their addresses (heck, I’d pay for it), but even if they do, it’ll be too late for me.
The things we learn, eh?
Quote of the day
Saturday, July 22nd, 2006(T)he new feudal economics of “Web 2.0″: the serfs must be grateful for the hospitality of the proprietor.
The Register
Closure from the Medical Examiner’s Office
Friday, July 21st, 2006
It is with great sadness — yet in the hope that her tragic end might save another — that I report the cause of my beloved Allie’s death. She may have taken too much over-the-counter cold medication (generic Nyquil) that night before she got ready for bed. The cough suppressant dextramethorphan interacted with prescription pain medication that she took for endometriosis and, as the pathologist at the Davidson County Medical Examiner’s Office told me, it shut down the mechanism in her brain that controls the “will to breathe.”
So she essentially just drifted off to sleep, then coma, then death. She felt no pain.
I say she “may have taken too much,” because Dr. Adele Lewis, the pathologist, told me that 10-20% of people are what’s called “slow metabolizers” of dextramethorphan, and that could account for the extremely high level of the drug that they found in her blood. In other words, a pretty fair chunk of society doesn’t process the drug like it’s supposed to be processed, so multiple doses even as directed can accumulate and stay active in the body. I want to point out that this is a very common over-the-counter medication for cough suppression, and it’s been around for 50 years. There are documented cases of accidental overdose death with this drug, so it’s not something to play around with, especially when mixed with prescription medication.
Some idiotic people actually abuse the drug, but that certainly wasn’t my Allie. She just didn’t feel good, so she took something she had taken many times before. We’ll just never know for certain how much she took or when.
As I researched the possible causes of the sudden death of a young, healthy woman, something like this was high on the list. It is profoundly sad, because her death was an accident, and accidents — at least one like this — can be prevented. I don’t dwell on that, however, because it will keep me forever bound to the past, and the best way I can honor her and her life is to live on and be well.
It took a long time for the Medical Examiner to piece this all together, and I am extremely grateful for their assistance. It has been agonizing for me and Alicia’s entire family, but now we know. And this will help us with our grieving. There aren’t words in any language to adequately express the loss of someone like her, so I won’t try.
I’m moving to Dallas next week to begin another chapter in my life, one that she had a major role in developing (and is likely orchestrating from the world beyond). I need this move, this change, this turning-of-the-page. The headstone on her grave will be up soon, and it contains the last words I ever said to her: “He gives to His beloved, sleep.”
She is gone, but her memory will always be with me.
Blogging as community
Thursday, July 20th, 2006Don’t miss the Center for Citizen Media’s inaugural podcast featuring Nashville is Talking editor, Brittney Gilbert. The interview, by hyperlocal h20town.info’s Lisa Williams is especially insightful as it relates to the community that is local blogging.
(DISCLOSURE: WKRN-TV is an AR&D client.)
News Corp and MySpace — pay attention, everybody
Sunday, July 16th, 2006The latest issue of Wired has an outstanding cover story on Rupert Murdoch and MySpace. I think this should be must-reading for every broadcaster, because it rightly raises the matter of a business model and rightly answers that there isn’t one — yet. Spencer Reiss wrote the piece, which references the standard options of advertising and subscription services.
As lucrative as those ideas may be, they’re based on an old media conception of audiences as consumers. But MySpace members are something different: They’re participants.(Emphasis mine) The site’s greatest value isn’t connecting people to products, people to information, or eyeballs to advertisers. It’s connecting people to people…MySpace multiplies the value of each member by connecting one to another. It’s a virtual nation of people instant-messaging their friends a link to Gnarls Barkley’s new track and decorating their pages with Family Guy clips. And that’s where MySpace could strike gold: It lets News Corp. host the cultural conversation.
MySpace fits into an old media portfolio like a skateboard in a Manhattan boardroom. Even though News Corp. has a reputation for edgy content — The Simpsons, 24, American Idol, even Fox News — its business model is as old-fashioned as they come. The company earns its daily bread by luring people with carefully crafted content and selling their eyeballs to advertisers. MySpace, on the other hand, is out of control. Indeed, its core value is that users rule. They write what they like, stream their choice of music, link to their favorite sites, turn their profiles into HTML Niagaras of cascading style sheets. Hence the question: How do you manage MySpace without ruining the site’s irresistible free-for-all?
Eclectic thoughts for a Saturday evening post :)
Saturday, July 15th, 2006I noticed at the airport the other day that a 16 ounce bottle of water cost $2.89, while a 16 ounce bottle of Coke, etc., cost $2.79. This intrigues me, because, well, don’t you think the carbonation, flavorization and colorization processes have costs? I mean, Coke is just a bottle of water that’s been carbonated, flavored and colored. WTF? Is this a ploy by the water companies to justify charging more when THEY start flavoring, coloring and carbonizing their products? Hmm.
Want to know the cause of all the strife in the Middle East? I’m about to drive to Texas, so the price of gas had to go up, right?
I had a flashback to the Ma Bell days this morning. AT&T has cable and broadband “rights” in the apartment complex to which I’m moving, so I called to make the arrangements. Their voice mail told me to call back during normal business hours, Monday through Friday. Ah, I can just hear Springsteen singing “Monopoly Days.”
My zefrank T-shirts arrived today, just in time for my trip to San Diego tomorrow. I wonder if anybody will recognize them. I especially like the “Thinking, so you don’t have to” shirt. I’ll be out-of-pocket again for a couple of days. Back to Nashville on Wednesday.
Finally, on my way home from Dallas on Thursday, I had a fun experience on the plane. My cellphone has the old “Our Man Flint” hotline “red phone” ringtone, and I usually have it set pretty loud. We were heading out towards the runway, when the flight attendant made the usual announcement about shutting down everything that has an on/off switch. I lifted my phone out to turn it off just as Harry called. The “Our Man Flint” theme echoed throughout the plane, and everybody broke out laughing. It was a moment.
Rocketboom is back (yes, the real thing)
Friday, July 14th, 2006I waited until the first week of the “new” Rocketboom was finished before making a comment, and here it is: The new Rocketboom looks and feels a lot like the old Rocketboom. Shocking, I know, and evidence that personality-driven television isn’t always as personality-driven as the personality doing the driving would like us to think it is.
Today’s episode, I think, is pretty much an instant classic. Give a lookie-loo at Casual Friday.
Seriously, Rocketboom is a show — a concept — not a person. I adored Amanda and hope we all see her again soon, but Joanne Colan brings new life, energy and opportunities for conflict that only help the program. Good job, Andrew.
Rather wants “to do news that matters.”
Friday, July 14th, 2006I watched Larry King’s interview with Dan Rather while I was in Dallas, and this part of the exchange stayed with me:
There came a time when I realized…That we were working for not CBS and not CBS news. We were working for Viacom News, which was a whole different thing……with different interests, different traditions. And more lately, and they have a right to do this, they indicated they want to go in a different direction. The very top management has said they want, I think this is a paraphrase of a quote, they want to break with the past. They want to be done with the past and build something new. And I’ll be interested to see what that something new is.
But…I want to do news that matters. And so much of news these days, and this is not directed at CBS and I include myself as one who from time to time, maybe more than time to time, but it’s so driven by ratings, so driven by demographics, so driven by, we used to be told “stockholder value.” It’s driven by things other than the public interest. I want to do news that’s fair and accurate, do it with integrity and I want to do it in the public interest, and I now have an opportunity to do that at HD Net.
This is spin and nothing more; it’s Dan’s way of twisting his departure from CBS into an unrighteous act, a jihad against the high priest of 20th century journalism. He’s a victim of “Viacom News” and nothing else. This is simply false.
For all his experience and credentials, Dan Rather was a polarizing evening news anchor and was the perfect foil for the right, because historical facts didn’t support his claims of objectivity or lack of bias. Rathergate was simply the last straw, and I’d rather (I know) see him now do news with a perspective than to claim that his news is fair, accurate and done with integrity.
This interview — and others he’s doing to promote his new gig — suggest that Dan Rather has learned nothing from his experiences during the last two years, and that’s a real shame.
Thoughts from the mainstream
Wednesday, July 12th, 2006I’ve spent two days having my assumptions challenged, and it was a rich and rewarding experience. The vision becomes stronger when other voices (and minds) are considered. Wisdom, I think they call it.
Some take-aways for me:
I’ve been alone for so long in my world and its accompanying vision that I need to go back upstream for a season and strengthen the various thought tributaries that guide my future view. I’ve no intention of altering them in any way; it’s just that when you’ve been down this river for as long as I have, there are certain things — certain pieces of knowledge — that I cannot assume others will understand without further explanation. And without those explanations, it’s impossible for people in positions of power to be persuaded by the business concepts and opportunities I present to the extent that they will actually implement change.
And I’m in it for the change.
Someone once gave me the picture of myself and those I’m trying to reach as traveling along the current on separate rafts. I call to them to come closer to me, but realize when I look down that we’re actually traveling along parallel streams, and moving others to my stream requires a return to the original split in the streams — the old fork in the river. This is tough for me to do, because even my language assumes years of life on my stream. But this I will do, because my work with television stations demands it. For example, I can’t talk about RSS unless those in the room fully understand my knowledge of RSS. I want to talk about downstream applications, but the immediate need is for upstream entry points.
Next, I think I’ve got to tone down the shouting. This stems from frustration (a three-syllable word for anger), and I’ve caught myself lecturing here many times. Who wants to sit through that? I need to try harder, because an iconoclast is born of anger, and while my communication from that perch may resonate with readers, it throws an unnecessary roadblock in my attempts to take “the message” to the industry I have loved all my life. Passion can be interpreted many ways, and it’s my responsibility to make sure it’s not interpreted as unbridled criticism.
AR&D is a dynamic, smart, vibrant and flexible company that sees the challenges facing television stations with informed eyes, and we’re going to do our best to be a big part of the solution to those challenges. Turning my esoteric concepts into doable products and services is the best part of my new job, because it will result in opportunities for broadcasters in the months and years ahead. Allie, I’m sure, is smiling at the thought.
This is a brave new world we face, and I’m a very happy camper tonight, because I’m now linked with the broad shoulders of people who are just as motivated as I am to face the new world with confidence, conviction and workable ideas.
BTW, I’m “Senior Vice President of New Media.” Holy crap.
Off to Dallas
Monday, July 10th, 2006…and important meetings with my new teammates at Audience Research & Development. I’m not sure how much blogging I’ll be doing, but I’m sure life will go on without my daily 2-cents. I’ll write if I can. Back Thursday night.
Bullshit Oops, I can’t say that.
Monday, July 10th, 2006
This is one of those times I wish Doc Searls had comments. He posts this morning about Ulises Ali Mejias’ rant on how technology is actually bad for the concept of community and that online “interaction” isn’t really interaction at all. Always the gentleman, Doc tries to be nice, and I encourage you to go on over and read it.
Mejias’ writing is essentially a modernist intellectual rant about the cultural evils of a liberal web. While I do think it’s important to consider the potential downsides of cyber “life” compared to real “life,” categorizing life this way is a slippery slope.
…the kinds of sociality that these “virtual communities” prescribe are actually more aligned with the dynamics of a mass than with a community.Masses are not sites of rich social interaction. Masses foster an alienated form of individualism, making it difficult for people to come together meaningfully. Because of their large numbers, masses may give the appearance of robust communities, but a closer look reveals that people feel irreparably alone in a mass.
The web, with its associative links, is a deconstructionist machine, and this is (and should be) frightening to the institutional status quo. In that sense, it DOES destroy community, but let’s not stop there. Let’s look at what it is about “community” that it’s destroying, because maybe, just maybe, that needs destruction.
It’s not liberal versus conservative. It’s about the failure of modernist institutionalism.