THURSDAY, JULY 12, 2007

"TIME SPENT" METRIC IS IN FOR A ROUGH RIDE (Terry)
Nielsen NetRatings logoAs Steve and I have discussed previously, Nielsen made it official this week when it dropped the page view as a top line metric for measuring (and separating) websites. Since the beginning, web developers have created sites designed to generate page views, because that's the way the web was bought and sold. Stories were divided into multiple pages, so that you had to keep clicking and changing pages in order to read the whole thing (I always open the "Print" version).

This has all been rendered useless, because technology now enables a better user experience by changing the contents of elements on a page instead of changing the whole page. The dawn of the age of web video has also been problematic for the page view crowd, because you can change videos without changing the page, too.

So Nielsen has moved to "Time Spent" as the new biggie, and already it's getting trashed, like in this story from Information Week.

Tracking the time spent by users on a Web site may be an alternate way to measure engagement than tracking page views, but it remains to be seen whether it's better. Perhaps the best that can be said of time tracking is that it too has its uses.

Even so, it's only a matter of time before unscrupulous Web site operators design their Web pages to delay visitors as a way to make their sites appear more engaging. And there are a variety of possible scenarios by which a user might have multiple browsers, browser windows, and browser tabs open while paying attention to none of them.

The issue of tabbed browsing is the deal breaker for me. Firefox has enabled tabs for over two years, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 7 has the same capabilities. Browsing with tabs is one of those habits that is addictive with no turning back. I routinely spend the day at my computer with 15-16 tabs running in Firefox. That means I have 15-16 web pages "active," so what's Nielsen going to do with that? To the best of my knowledge, there's no way to tell if a page is just sitting there in a tab or whether the user is actually engaged with the page.

This points out the difficulty of third-party measurement on the web. It takes the precision that's available and turns it into mush. There are lots of companies trying to create the formula, but until that happens (if ever), a site's own server logs provide the most reliable data, but even that's problematic in comparing site A with site B.

In a nutshell, Madison Avenue and the existing media infrastructure need a reliable third-party provider of data, because that's the way it is in the world of Media 1.0. The problem is that this puts the web in the same category of, say, cable TV, which is the way many powerful people would like it to be. It's not, of course, and therein lies one of the big problems for the status quo.

None of this measurement matter impacts Google, and that's important to understand. The bulk of Google's revenue doesn't come via any measurement paradigm. Elegantly and efficiently, they simply enable commerce by putting advertisers together with users in a highly contextual environment and then daring to limit their revenue only to the virtual handshake that is made when the user clicks on the advertisement. Madison Avenue doesn't do things this way, believing instead that the advertiser should pay based solely on the reach provided by the site hosting the ad. This justifies the need for third-party measurement, so that the reach is determined by someone impartial.

I strongly recommend that media companies begin to look at other models, so that they don't get caught in the pursuit of a static system that will likely be irrelevant downstream. Advertising is content in Media 2.0 (see below), and there are many ways to put users and advertisers together outside the concept of display ads or video ads connected to streaming.   <Permalink>

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BEING BROADBAND: THREE DAYS TO YOUR OWN STATION (Steve)
Streaming Media ConferenceI am in Valencia, Spain, this week teaching at the Streaming Media Training seminar at Valencia's Polytechnic University. The European Union-sponsored event invited 16 top business and media executives to learn about broadband video at this course. Three other instructors and I will take them through every aspect of online video - production, IPTV, DRM, covering live events, and, in my two classes, building your own broadband channel and turning it into a business.

I'm writing this before I depart, and I will recap it for you next week. But one of the things that is absolutely thrilling about this process is the willingness to learn. This has been in the planning since February, 2006. Along the way, the organizers were keen on getting out the message of broadband video channels and how they can be used effectively by companies in new ways.

Companies continue to subvert old broadcast models by establishing these broadband video channels, while local television stubbornly refuses to change. Check out Land Rover's entry into the broadband video channel market: it's called Go Beyond TV. Land Rover gets the idea perfectly: the shows on its channel are about outdoor adventures, celebrities, culture and travel. Oh yeah - and you can find out about their cars if you want to. The point is that there is real entertainment to be found here now. Land Rover is no longer a slave to the 30 second ad that nobody watches. They engaged me for 10 minutes in a piece about diving with dolphins and sharks. The piece didn't mention "Land Rover" once.

Land Rover's broadband home page

So how does this translate to a local media outlet?

Suppose you worked with an advertising client to built a broadband video channel exactly like Land Rover's. It would require production time and resources, mind you. But look at that Land Rover page and imagine what car dealers or travel agents would pay.

Amazingly, there is still reluctance by local video companies to get into the broadband video business. But, as I have discovered through the process of devising this seminar in Spain, there's no reluctance among some big companies that want to get this right.   <Permalink>

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ADVERTISING IS CONTENT IN MEDIA 2.0 (Terry)
Continuing Steve's theme from above, the evolution of local media is more about the evolution of local advertising than it is about the evolution of the content formerly known as "news and information." That's because advertising IS content in Media 2.0, and the more I work with local media companies, the more convinced I am of this truth. And I'm also convinced more than ever that there is a significant revenue play available in the creation and maintenance of a local ad network.

The central mistake that most people make when considering the Media 2.0 disruption is viewing the web as a series of pipes through wich we pass "content," for this is a purely Media 1.0 perspective. The web is so much more, and the entrepreneurs of the world seem to know this, while media companies get stuck on the creation and scaling of content as a business supported by advertising. Whether our content is worth saving or not is a different argument and one that distracts us from what's behind the drapes that seemingly cover reality.

So let's pull the curtain back for a few minutes and explore the real disruption threatening media: the personal media revolution. At the risk of repeating myself, the PMR is exploding, because anybody can be a TV station, a radio station, a newspaper or a magazine these days, and that includes the people formerly known as advertisers. The tools of the personal media revolution are sophisticated, user-friendly and available to anybody, and it's a real revolution -- against institutional media, among other things.

Most people look at this and think blogs or silly videos uploaded to YouTube or MySpace pages and so forth. But the PMR also includes retailers and other businesses, who are now able to create their own content and place it where it can be seen by many. Google is the master feeder of the personal media revolution, enabling all aspects of self-publishing, if you will. That includes advertising and their adsense network, but advertiser-generated content includes much more.

Consider the case of Flush TV, that model of online reality show created by a family of Brooklyn plumbers and all the other advertiser channels on YouTube. Consider long form streaming messages, video classifieds, business vlogs, advertiser web sites that host their own content, and other forms being created every day. These are forms of media, created -- in many cases -- by non-media people using the tools of the personal media revolution. They are content -- perhaps a new form of content -- but they are content just the same.

So rather than trying to fit the web into our paradigm, we need to see that a key new mission for local media is to enable this activity in their community and then aggregate the content. We don't have to do this, of course, but if we don't, somebody else will and probably not somebody invested in the local community.

To someone thinking of purchasing a refrigerator, the announcement of a sale at Lowes is news. Think about it.   <Permalink>

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THE PLIGHT OF THE EDITORIAL CARTOONIST (Steve)
This past week, I watched the 50th anniversary gathering of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists on C-SPAN. I must say, times are not good for political cartoonists. Their livelihoods depend upon newspapers. Need I say more?

Well, maybe I'll say a little more. Because as I watched, I became a little angry. The room was full of talented, creative people - who seemed clueless that their jobs are fundamentally changed by the internet. It was pointed out there are only 25% of the staff jobs for editorial cartoonists compared to when the AAEC was founded 50 years ago. They complained - a lot - about "management," and the "lack of appreciation" of their work. One cartoonist wondered if they should unionize. Another suggested a public outreach program. While they were strategizing, one member of the board suggested to a cartoonist that he come back next year with some fresh ideas.

It was like watching a cartoon. "We're losing our jobs by the second. Next year, let's have a plan!"

I love editorial cartoons. At their best, they can satirize and synthesize an issue - and in just one frame. They are a vibrant part of journalism. But if your paycheck depends on a newspaper paying you for a drawing, reconsider your options. If a newspaper has a choice between cutting a cartoonist or cutting a reporter, which do you think they will opt for?

Go to the AAEC site and you will, immediately, see the problem. Merely mousing over a cartoon brings up a large box that says:

WARNING: All images on this website are protected under copyright law. You may not use this image IN ANY FORMAT without the express permission of the copyright holder.

I didn't add any of that emphasis. The box comes up over the comic you're trying to read. Nothing like being accused of theft when you're looking at a picture to turn you off.

bLaugh logoThe problem is simple: the cartoonists are trying to preserve the past. There is no reason why an artist with a great talent for political commentary can't have an online editorial cartoon site. Brad Fitzpatrick and Chris Pirillo at bLaugh! have done this. They have a sponsor (Go Daddy), and they let you embed their cartoons onto your blog. bLaugh is aimed at the blogger/techhie market. Good choice of audience. They went for a niche. They're not hoping some syndicate will come along and "pick them up." They're publishing and the audience is sharing.

This is not to pick on the editorial cartoonists. Watching them try to figure out how to hold on to the old model, it felt like so many conventions I had attended before. TV stations can't afford to wait until next year to come up with plans. They can complain about group ownership all they want... right to the grave. Or they can reinvent, using the web, so that they can once again lead the way and be a vibrant part of community discourse.

That's why we got into this line of work after all, isn't it?   <Permalink>

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KEVIN MARTIN'S PR MOVE: THE FCC SPECTRUM "COMPROMISE" ISN'T (Terry)
Kevin MartinI don't normally write about this stuff, but the announcement this week that the FCC would set aside nearly a third of the spectrum it will sell for the creation of an "open" nationwide wireless network is causing me heartburn. The press has generally run with the theme that Google and eBay "won" in their efforts to create a network free from the purview of the big telecoms, especially AT&T. The problem is that's not what Martin is giving us.

According to the Wall St. Journal article summarized by MediaPost, the telecoms lost out:

An open network would allow a new entrant into the wireless market that could, as Google argues, spur innovation in the nascent mobile wireless field. The likes of AT&T and Sprint Nextel operate closed networks, which they maintain close control over, limiting the Web experience of the end user, while "locking" phones made by certain manufacturers to a given carrier. AT&T's exclusive arrangement with Apple's iPhone is one example. The carriers are afraid that opening their networks would place too much power in the hands of content providers and handset makers. Of course it would, but it would also spur innovation, and -- worryingly for the carriers -- the use of low-cost VoIP services like Skype over mobile networks.
The problem is that while this is nice, it's a tiny baby step in the direction that advocates of an open broadband network are seeking. Martin's getting such positive press, because he and others in bed with the telecoms have re-written the definition of "open access." What we're reading is a carefully orchestrated example of spin, especially when Mr. Martin goes on the record as saying this is a victory for Google. It is not.

The FCC will get away with this, because people won't pay attention to the complicated details. This spectrum auction is a sham designed to boost the assets of the telecom giants who've been lobbying hard to be able to control a viable wireless web. It is monopolistic, anti-competition, anti-entrepreneurial and, frankly, anti-consumer.

Opponents of the monopoly interests want real open access, 30 Mhz of wholesale bandwidth (it's "ours" after all) that isn't controlled by any closed-network entity, so that the creation of an open wireless broadband network can take place. When AOL, for example, operated their walled garden, they raised prices regularly, because people were trapped therein. When wireline access was granted in the 1990s, people just left for one of the thousands of new ISPs that sprang up. That's precisely what's at stake here for wireless broadband.

Martin got around this scenario by redefining open access to mean allowing any device to connect to the network. Big deal! If you have an iPhone, you must be a part of AT&Ts network, but under Martin's "open access" you could connect to anybody's. That's a nice step in the right direction, but that's where it stops, because the network "owner" would then be in a position to tell you what you could and couldn't do with your phone once there.

Harold Feld skillfully explains it this way:

To illustrate, lets pretend Martin's proposal applied to the existing wireless world. Under the "Martin Open Access," you could take your iPhone from AT&T to Verzion or T-Mobile or Sprint or some other wireless PCS carrier. That carrier could not prevent you from downloading applications to the iPhone using WiFi (or installed by other means), and you could carry all your music and any other software that runs on the iPhone or over its wifi connection with you. Clearly that's an improvement over the current situation, in which you can't run an iPhone on any other network and AT&T can still dictate what you run on the iPhone.

But, your iPhone would still have real limitations. If you weren't near a hotspot, and were connecting through Verizon's network, you would still have to pay the rates set by Verizon and the rules dictated by Verizon for its own network. If Verizon says "no streaming and no VOIP on our network," than you couldn't use those applications when connecting via Verizon's network. Since it would be Verizon (or whoever else) that gives the device its mobility and potential for "always on" wireless connectivity, your iPhone would still have severe limits. And, because you only have a choice of three or four providers (sometimes even fewer), you will still be paying outrageously high fees and still rely primarily on a limited access wireles network.

So while under the Martin rule you could actually install Jajah or some similar service to get cheap long-distance or internation calling when near a hot spot, you couldn't use that application on the wireless network you subscribe to if they don't allow it. That rather limits the utility of the Martin open access condition.

I hasten to add this does absolutely nothing to solve the broadband competition or "third pipe" problem, especially if (as Google predicts in their recent filing), even well funded new entrants don't stand a chance against incumbents under the existing rules. Given that several of the largest incumbents are also vertically integrated wireless and wireline broadband providers (e.g., the telcos and the cablecos), adopting "Martin open access" means saying good bye to the last chance to get real broadband competition in this country.

So don't buy the hype you hear coming from Washington on this. This is a clever piece of slight-of-hand that offers a crumb instead of a piece of bread. The beauty of the spin is that it puts congress in a very difficult position, because it "looks" like a nice compromise and a win-win.

The only winners here are AT&T, Verizon and the telecoms that want to "own" the internet.

Consider yourself warned.   <Permalink>