Sunday, November 30, 2008

Microsoft Attempts to Buy Yahoo Again

Here's a short article. But it's short, sweet, and important.
Also- just to prevent confusion- I accidentally commented on this blog under Muz or mandaswanson17@gmail.com.... my bad.


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MSFT 20.22, -0.27, -1.3%) the Redmond, Wash., software giant, is in talks to buy Yahoo Inc.'s search business for $20 billion, the Sunday Times of London reported. Microsoft does not plan to bid for all of the Sunnyvale, Calif., Internet-services giant, after it abandoned a $47.5 billion proposal last summer, the paper reported. Under a deal the companies are planning, Microsoft also would support new management for Yahoo, possibly led by Jonathan Miller, the former chairman and chief executive of AOL, (TWX:
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How do solve a problem like radio?

We have discussed this quite a bit in class and there does not appear to be an easy solution. What can be done to maximize radio profits?

Radio's Revenue Falls Even as Audience Grows
By STEPHANIE CLIFFORD The New York Times Published: Nov 26, 2008

CAN radio save itself?

Listeners are diverted by iPods and Internet and satellite radio. Companies are loaded with debt. Advertisers are heading to television or the Web — and the advertisers that have continued to advertise on radio, like auto dealers and retailers, are being hit by the economic crisis and pulling back.
And even though the audience for broadcast radio is actually growing, stations cannot seem to increase their revenue.
Radio advertising was down 10 percent last month from October 2007, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau, the 18th consecutive month of declines.
And the third-quarter numbers are dismal. CBS Radio reported a revenue drop of 12 percent. Citadel Broadcasting’s revenue dropped by 10.9 percent. CC Media Holdings, which owns Clear Channel Communications, said radio revenue was down 7 percent. Cox Radio revenue fell 6.2 percent; Emmis Communications’ radio revenue decreased 1.5 percent; and Radio One revenue was down 2 percent.
Problems in the radio industry have been piling up for years, said Marci L. Ryvicker, an analyst at Wachovia Capital Markets. In the 1990s, radio companies consolidated, then began increasing the ad time available. “They started to fight for share, instead of being proactive and thinking of new ways to generate revenue,” Ms. Ryvicker said.
Then, when advertisers decreased their spending around 2001, radio stations were stuck with too much time and too few advertisers. “There was too much inventory out there, and rates kept going down, down, down,” Ms. Ryvicker said.
Recent years have not changed the fortunes of radio. Many companies borrowed money to buy back their stock, leaving them saddled with debt.
And the industries that supported radio advertising — finance, retail and autos — have all been particularly hard-hit by the current economy. Radio advertising declined 8 percent in the second quarter of this year from a year earlier, according to TNS Media Intelligence. That was worse than any other category except newspapers.
From an advertiser’s perspective, the consolidation of radio companies has resulted in sound-alike stations, said Jim Poh, vice president and a director of analytics and media planning at Crispin Porter & Bogusky, which handles radio ads for clients like Burger King and Domino’s.
“The group ownerships in various markets tended to blunt the edges of the formats, so that each of the stations could play across more demographic groups, and that way could share more of the revenue from various advertisers,” Mr. Poh said. “The downfall of that is the medium isn’t as relevant, the stations aren’t as relevant to people as they were.”
There are some signs of hope, though. The radio audience is increasing: radio now reaches more than 235 million listeners in a week, versus 232 million last year, according to a study by Arbitron. But those people are listening to the radio less: fewer than 19 hours a week, versus about 20.4 in 2005.
Stations in small markets are doing relatively well. Stations in the 10 biggest markets had revenue drop about 12 to 15 percent this year. Stations in the smallest markets, though, have been about flat, Leland Westerfield, an analyst with BMO Capital Markets, said. “The ad agency-placed business that predominates in larger cities has been subject to a greater level of pricing pressure,” Mr. Westerfield said.
Radio executives are hoping that HD Radio will catch on with consumers.
“We’re beginning to see revenue-generation opportunities for radio broadcasters” on HD stations, said Robert J. Struble, the chief executive of iBiquity Digital, which develops and licenses the technology.
HD Radio lets stations transmit on digital signals, which allow each FM station to broadcast on two to eight channels, theoretically making the medium competitive with satellite radio.
But consumers have to buy a special radio to hear the digital stations, and only about 500,000 units were sold through September, iBiquity said. The radios have been available since 2004.
Consumers listen to the radio most frequently in the car and in the office, and so far, have little reason to pay for an upgraded radio in those places.
And automakers, which have other problems, are not embracing the technology; so far, only Volvo is offering HD Radio as a standard feature in its new cars (it is standard in all but one of its 2009 models).
“HD radio is pretty much going to be nonexistent, because they can’t figure out how to get the auto guys to include that as an option, and the auto guys that do include HD don’t let the consumers know about it,” Ms. Ryvicker of Wachovia Capital Markets said. “It’s been a horribly marketed product that’s not going to save the radio industry.”
Mr. Struble objected to that characterization. “For a number of years, we were very focused on getting stations to convert,” he said, adding that about 1,900 stations now broadcast on a digital signal. “The attention has now turned to the consumer side.”
He said there was “a lot of momentum” with the auto industry.
Still, with only 500,000 radios in use, a lot of the technologies available for HD Radio, like one that allows listeners to “tag” a song and buy it later from iTunes, are going unused.
Radio companies are taking other small steps into the future — several have created free iPhone applications, for example, which are popular. Still, it’s a scramble, analysts said.
“I think things will get better if the economy recovers,” Ms. Ryvicker said, “but I can’t imagine this sector going from negative double-digits in Q4 to positive anytime soon.”
© The New York Times. All rights reserved. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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Friday, November 28, 2008

Black Friday Shoppers Out, but Cautious

I had to post something about Black Friday because I'm very curious to see how it turns out! I know that this holiday season is going to be the weakest in a long time, but nonetheless, when deals are out, people are there. In fact, I almost wonder if more people would be there for Black Friday because they need the deals now and can't afford some of the regular holiday expenses? Either way, I will be tuned in tomorrow to see how the numbers shaped up. Oh, and did anyone hear about the Wal-Mart worker in New York. He was killed by a stampede of people who knocked down the door to get in for the deals. See what a few bucks can do to people?

Black Friday Shoppers Out, but Cautious


Associated Press, Nov 28 2008, 10:11 AM ET

NEW YORK (AP) — Shoppers, who had snapped their wallets shut since September, flocked to stores before dawn Friday to grab deals on everything from TVs to toys on the traditional start of the holiday shopping season, feared to be the weakest in decades.

It was clear that despite the crowds that showed up for the discounts, shoppers' worries about the economy — massive layoffs, tightening credit and dwindling retirement accounts — tempered buying.

Retailers extended their hours, some opening at midnight, and offered deals that promised to be deeper and wider than even the deep discounts that shoppers found throughout November.

Best Buy, which threw its doors open at 5 a.m. offered such specials as a 49-inch Panasonic plasma HDTV for $899.99 and a $189.99 GPS device by Garmin. Toys "R" Us was offering up to 60 percent discounts from 5 a.m. to 10 a.m.

Many consumers, clutching the store circulars, were focused on a few bargains Friday and said they were slashing their overall holiday budgets from a year ago as they juggle paying their rent and other bills while putting food on the table. Even for the growing number of parents who were limiting their gift buying to just their children this year, financial troubles were forcing them to be stingy.

"I have never slept here before to save a few bucks, but with the economy so bad I thought that even a few dollars helps," said Analita Garcia of Falls Church, Va., who arrived at a local Best Buy store at 7 a.m. Thursday with 10 family members. She bought a Dynax LCD 32-inch TV for $400, slashed from $500, along with an iPod and several DVDs.

"This year a lot of people I know won't be getting Christmas presents. I have to pay the rent and bills, and I have two little ones at home to think of," Garcia added.

At the Best Buy store in Syracuse, N.Y., a line snaked past stores and around walkways on the second floor of Carousel Center a few moments before the store's 5 a.m. opening- - about eight hours after some people near the front of the line had arrived. Rob Schoeneck, the mall's manager, estimated about 1,000 people were waiting for the electronics store to open and said the crowd was about the same size as a year ago.

Inside, Kira Carinci, 33, a teacher from Cicero, N.Y., searched for the $80 "Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock" video game and guitar controller bundle for her son but said she is more concerned about money than she was last holiday season. She said she had set aside a certain amount for Christmas spending.

"I don't usually save, so this year is a little different," she said.

By 3:43 a.m., about 50 people had lined up in preparation for the 5 a.m. opening at a Wal-Mart store in Cary, N.C. Shannon Keane, 38, of Cary, who arrived with her son, Miles, 13, at midnight, said she was buying only one item today: an iPod for her son.

"He really wanted this one thing," Keane said. "So we're here for this one thing."

Keane, who was recently laid off from her job at an insurance company, said she was on a budget this year because her unemployment checks were also helping support family in Colorado.

"I really can't focus on gifts," she said. "I have to focus more on helping them pay their bills. It's hard," she said of being a single mom on a small income. "I've always filled the tree. But you have to be honest. This year, I'll do the best I can."

Joyce and Kevin Kirk of Georgtown in southwest Ohio, who arrived at Kohl's at Eastgate Mall in suburban Cincinnati, at 4 a.m Friday, bought toys for the baby and clothing for her older children, mostly at 50 percent to 60 percent off.

She said they decided to focus more on the kids this year and cut down on gifts for other people. Her husband, a construction worker, wasn't getting enough work at his company and recently switched to another company.

"We just can't do as much this year because of the economy," said Joyce Kirk, who aims to cut her holiday budget to $1,000. She usually spent $3,000 to $4,000 on Christmas gifts.

Wayne Patty and his wife Patty Blalock, who arrived at a Kohl's store in Miramar, Fla., shortly after 4 a.m. Friday, said they were planning to spend $300 to $400 on each of their their five children, down from about $600 each a year ago. They were buying mostly toys and clothing for their children, but for their 24-year-old daughter, they're planning a more practical gift: an appointment to the dentist because she doesn't have insurance.

"We're much more budgeted and regimented this year, versus last year, when there was more impulse spending," said Patty.

Black Friday received its name because it historically was the day when a surge of shoppers helped stores break into profitability for the full year. But this year, with rampant promotions of up to 70 percent throughout the month amid a deteriorating economy, the power of this landmark day for the retail industry could be fading.

Still, while it isn't a predictor of holiday sales, the day after Thanksgiving is an important barometer of people's willingness to spend for the rest of the season. And particularly this year, analysts will dissect how the economy is shaping buying habits in a season that many analysts predict could see a contraction in spending from a year ago.

Last year, the Thanksgiving shopping weekend of Friday through Sunday accounted for about 10 percent of overall holiday sales, according to ShopperTrak RCT Corp.

The group hasn't released estimates for Black Friday sales this year, but experts believe it will remain one of the season's biggest selling days, even as shoppers remain deliberate in their spending.

"This is definitely a hit-and-run mentality," said C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group. "They are running in, grabbing the deal and running out. This is what I am seeing this morning."

Sunday, November 23, 2008

Hey guys, I found this article about Michael Eisner's life post-Disney, I thought this was great since we just finished up the No Asshole Rule, where Sutton used Eisner and many of this tantrums while he was at Disney for examples. However I hate to admit it but being a asshole has worked out for Eisner who seems to be as successful as even now. Although the article does not paint the same picture as Sutton's book, its still pretty interesting.

After Disney, Eisner Finds a Home Online


Published: November 22, 2008

ON a Friday morning in September, Michael D. Eisner was in a television studio on the East Side of Manhattan, asking Robert L. Nardelli, the chairman of Chrysler, whether he nursed a grudge against Jack Welch for passing him over for the top job at General Electric eight years ago.


J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

Michael D. Eisner formed the Tornante Company to hold his hodgepodge of ventures, from Web sites to sports cards.

Michael Eisner, left, interviewing Robert Nardelli during his talk show on CNBC.

“I don’t hold any grudge against Jack,” Mr. Nardelli told his interviewer.

Mr. Eisner then delicately raised Mr. Nardelli’s fall from grace at Home Depot, where he was deposed last year after a seven-year run during which profits doubled but the stock declined, putting him in the cross hairs of the executive-pay critics. He left with a $210 million payout.

“Your performance was great,” Mr. Eisner told him, “but your style was different from the founder.”

It is a narrative of the aggrieved executive — victim of outside forces, the swells of public opinion pivoting against highly paid chieftains — that could be applied to Mr. Eisner’s own conception of his corporate life as chief executive of the Walt Disney Company and how it came to an end after a bitter public fight with the nephew of Walt Disney himself.

“I’m much happier now,” he says. “The only thing I’m disappointed with is I didn’t leave three to four years earlier.”

In the autumn of 2005, Mr. Eisner worked his last day as chief executive of Disney. His ubiquitous mug and wide grin came to embody the company almost as much as Mickey Mouse, making him a public personality in his own right.

At the end, however, he looked more like Richard Nixon, isolated atop his empire. He found himself under siege from two former board members, who sought to force him out after 20 years because they felt the company was underperforming.

Today, Mr. Eisner has settled into a comfortable post-Disney existence — deeply involved with his talk show, his investments and his experiments in new media, and quite pleased that corporate spinmeisters no longer surround him.

It all adds up to a persona that defies his once pugnacious image. The psychic burdens of life outside the spotlight aren’t apparent, and even if his assemblage of media assets isn’t raking in profits, he is staking a claim on the next media frontier by attracting an audience and buzz for programs created expressly for the Web.

He is one of the very few to do so, with shows like “Prom Queen,” which has reached more than 20 million viewers, and a newer series called “Back on Topps.” He has pulled that off even as big, established media companies — the world he formerly inhabited — have focused on packaging their shows and movies for viewing on the Web rather than making many creative inroads in original Web programming.

His success on the Web is made possible, in part, because he is not running a big media company like Disney anymore. Those companies, reliant on feature films and television programs as their major revenue streams, are gun-shy about doing anything that might threaten those big moneymakers.

Mr. Eisner’s hodgepodge of ventures includes a stake in Veoh, an online video Web site; Vuguru, a video production company that produces shows conceived by Mr. Eisner; Team Baby, a children’s entertainment company; and Topps, the baseball card company.

Barry Diller, a friend of Mr. Eisner’s who has known him since they worked together at ABC decades ago, said: “If you are a corporatist for 38 years, and one at a senior level for 30-something of those years and in a position of C.E.O. of Disney, which is a totalitarian regime, and it stops cold, it’s going to have an extraordinary effect. Most people don’t survive the contrast. It’s annihilating.”

“Michael, and it’s part of his character, he’s more than survived it,” adds Mr. Diller. “He’s emerged as an interesting, curious, engaged person.”

IN the media industry, chief executives are known for creative acumen, or their business expertise. Few are known for both. Mr. Eisner was always a creative person first, who later steeped himself in the intricacies of profit-and-loss statements and balance sheets.

John Travolta, the actor, met Mr. Eisner in 1975 when he starred in “Welcome Back, Kotter” and Mr. Eisner was head of programming at ABC. “He has genuine enthusiasm for the arts,” Mr. Travolta says. “His taste is impeccable with theater, with painting.”

Mr. Travolta recalled a former agent who could tell what a Picasso cost in 1930. “But Michael could tell you why it cost that,” Mr. Travolta adds. “And that was the difference.”

Mr. Eisner, 66, grew up a child of Park Avenue style, an upbringing that explains his sophisticated tastes, but which he says he’s always “been slightly embarrassed by.”

“My grandfather was a very wealthy man, but he would go across the Queensboro Bridge to save the 25 cents on the Triborough Bridge,” he recalls. “As a kid I would get dropped off two blocks from my apartment because I didn’t want people to see where I lived.”

When it came time for college, he shunned his father’s alma mater, Princeton, for Denison University, a liberal arts school in Ohio. After college, he briefly sought the life of a playwright before settling on the corporate media world, working his way up through ABC and Paramount. He became chief executive of Disney in 1984.

Today, without shareholders to worry about, he is driven by his creative impulses and an almost messianic belief that movies and TV shows and videos are more valuable in the long run than the pipes over which they are delivered.

“It’s always the content that defines the platform,” he says. Now the platform owners are “being arrogant and saying, ‘we’re it,’” he adds. “But eventually exclusive content wins out.”

Then he gives an important caveat: The content must be professionally produced as well as exclusive. “How many skateboarding cats can there be?” he says.

Like his counterpart, Mr. Diller, Mr. Eisner is at pains to offer a unifying vision for the different companies he has in his portfolio.

“There is a method to my madness, but it’s hard to define,” says Mr. Eisner, who explained that eventually the assets would fit together as one media company.

For now, the businesses are part of the Tornante Company, a private investment vehicle that Mr. Eisner set up with some of the vast wealth he accumulated during his career at Disney. (He chose the name after seeing the word during a bike trip in Italy; it means “hairpin turn” in Italian.) When he left Disney, he owned 14.2 million shares, valued then at close to $333 million, and options for 21 million more shares, according to a regulatory filing.

HIS right-hand man is a baby-faced, 20-something Princeton graduate named Andy Redman, who searches for deals for him. Their biggest success has been “Prom Queen,” a murder-mystery series that made its debut on MySpace, the social networking site, and will soon be in its third season.

At a conference last summer hosted by Fortune, Peter A. Chernin, the president of the News Corporation, called “Prom Queen” “the first pitch of the first inning in what is going to be an evolution of different kinds of content.”

The companies inside Tornante are already interacting in small ways. Team Baby will be integrated with Topps, and Vuguru has produced the “Back on Topps” series, a fictionalized comedy about what happens to two brothers, former heirs to the card company, when it falls under new management.

Mr. Eisner, who once ran ABC, sees the traffic statistics for Veoh, which distributes online video much the way YouTube does, and predicts the demise of broadcast television. At a meeting in Los Angeles with Veoh management, he is shown statistics that say Veoh gets 44 percent of its viewers during early evening and prime-time television hours.

“If you are Les Moonves, this makes you very nervous,” he says, referring to the chief executive of CBS.

To Mr. Eisner, the numbers clearly show that people are watching online video beyond their time-wasting hours at the office. And that excites him even more. “Veoh or some other online video aggregator is going to be more important than NBC in 10 years,” he boasts.

While the future may be entertainment on the Web, the bulk of money to be made is still from traditional means. (Veoh, for all Mr. Eisner’s faith in it, is not yet profitable.) So, at a meeting in August at Tornante’s offices in Los Angeles, Mr. Eisner and his team discussed turning “Prom Queen” into a film. “It would be an event, taking an Internet property and turning it into a theatrical movie,” he said in the meeting. “I think we have to do it.”

Tornante also sold Nickelodeon 20 episodes of a stop-motion animated comedy called “Glenn Martin DDS,” and Mr. Eisner has been intricately involved in the storytelling and writing.

And at Topps, finding ways to make the brand valuable online — for example, with a virtual trading card collecting game for children — is important, but so is selling physical goodies.

“It’s like movies and theaters,” he says. “The theatrical movie is still the main distribution. You can put it on the iPod, et cetera, but movies in theaters are still the core.”

And these baseball cards would hardly be recognized by previous generations. After a boom in the 1980s and 1990s, when collectors overtook children as the target customers and companies flooded the market with newfangled varieties of cards, the baseball card industry has been in decline. “We’ve got to get the kids back,” Mr. Eisner says.

After a meeting last summer about Topps’s digital strategy at the company’s offices in Lower Manhattan, Mr. Eisner found himself in a closet-sized room draped with laundry. Babe Ruth’s and Lou Gehrig’s laundry. The uniforms were bought at auction — Mr. Ruth’s pants cost $90,000 and Mr. Gehrig’s $60,000 — and will be sliced into tiny pieces and embedded into cards.

Mr. Eisner, a serious art collector, is openly uneasy about the endeavor, but Scott Silverstein, the chief executive of Topps, explains that this gimmick is a big moneymaker.

Several weeks ago, after interviewing Mr. Nardelli, Mr. Eisner was having a chat in the green room when a producer ducked his head in and asked if the group would move down the hall to a room that could pass for a closet. The room needed to be prepared for lunch.

Mr. Eisner genially walked down the hall. It’s hard to see him as the corporate tyrant he was portrayed as in “Disney War,” James B. Stewart’s 2005 book.

STRIPPED of the corporate image-crafters and lawyers that surrounded him in his last days at Disney, and with the benefit of distance — three years, to be exact — Mr. Eisner appears mellowed, happier, different.

“I think there was somewhat of a caricature of him as being unpleasant and difficult to deal with,” says George J. Mitchell, an ex-chairman of Disney and former senator from Maine. “He had a lot of major negotiations and major decisions to make that not everyone liked.”

Cyma Zarghami, the president of Nickelodeon, recalled receiving a call from Mr. Eisner earlier this year when he was pitching “Glenn Martin DDS.” She knew of Mr. Eisner’s reputation as a micromanager and being difficult to work with, so she was initially hesitant. “I wasn’t sure what to expect when he brought the show in,” she said. “I would have expected the deal-making process to be more difficult.”

Mr. Eisner says the big “error” of his last years at Disney, when he was fighting with Roy Disney and Stanley Gold, the two former board members who waged a proxy fight against him, was how he handled public relations.

“The way the company handled it, and the way I was advised to handle it, was to stonewall it,” he says. “I got very, very busy, and I got isolated. I went against my normal instincts in terms of dealing with the press. And then all the internal people, the lawyers, are telling you to be careful.”

Mr. Eisner’s tenure at Disney was so long — 21 years — that his persona became synonymous with the brand, even though he was a hired gun, not a founder.

“I always felt, up until the somewhat difficult ending, that I was the owner,” he says. “I felt like I was the owner. I tried to act in the long-term interest, like Rupert” — referring to Rupert Murdoch, the chairman of the News Corporation — “and not focus on meeting the quarter.”

But now, away from that world, Mr. Eisner is having more visible fun than his corporate friends — people like Mr. Nardelli, who last week went before Congress to ask for a bailout for the auto industry, and his former colleagues in the media industry, who are dealing with a financial crisis and swooning stock prices.

Robert A. Iger, Mr. Eisner’s successor at Disney, says his former boss is serious about his new business ventures but doesn’t take himself too seriously. “He’s not crowning himself as some new media mogul,” Mr. Iger says.

“He seems comfortable with both his place in the world and his place in business.”

NATPE Alters Opening-Day Plans

Hello everyone! I am lead blogger this week & I found a pretty good article, NATPE Alters Opening-Day Plans. The were supposed to have a seminar on an executive management program entitled "Managing Change in a Turbulent Media Landscape" however, the cost of the program & budgetary pressure because of the weak economy led to the cancellation. I thought it was a good article because Dr. Pitts is pretty involved in NATPE & we have discussed it in class. I think it was a good management move for NATPE to not try & have the seminar anyway. Some companies don't care about the weak economy & are still spending like they did when the economy was booming.

NATPE Alters Opening-Day Plans
By Andrew Krukowski
Plans for the first day of the 2009 NATPE convention, which had been slated to feature a daylong training seminar, have been shelved, leaving NATPE officials searching for an alternative.
Originally announced in early October as an executive management program entitled “Managing Change in a Turbulent Media Landscape,” the event was to have been held in conjunction with the USC Marshall School of Business. The cost of the program and budgetary pressure due to the weak economy forced the cancellation, NATPE CEO Rick Feldman said.
A separate registration and fee would have been necessary for the daylong seminar and the financial burden was considered too great on attendees who already were concerned about costs, he said. A truncated, two-hour session is now being planned for Thursday of the conference at no additional cost to attendees. The show runs Jan. 26-29 at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.
The cancellation leaves a void on Monday, Jan. 26, and Mr. Feldman said NATPE is currently reviewing its options. The group still plans to have something to replace the seminar, he said.
The daylong training seminar replaced last year’s first day, which focused on mobile content. (Editor: Baumann)

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Google’s First Phone

BLAKE O'NEAL HERE, I'M THE LEAD BLOGGER THIS WEEK. MY FRIEND RECENTLY BOUGHT ONE OF THESE AND WHAT THIS THING IS ACTUALLY CAPABLE OF IS FRIGHTENING. I THOUGHT I'D LOOK INTO IT A LITTLE MORE. THIS IS T-MOBILE'S CRACK AT THE iPHONE, AND IT IS PRETTY AMAZING. THE ARTICLE IS A LITTLE LENGTHLY, BUT DEFINITELY WORTH READING. AFTER SEEING THIS THING I AM CONFIDENT THAT ONE DAY PHONES WILL BE ABLE TO DO PRETTY MUCH ANYTHING.



A Look at Google’s First Phone

The Google phone is real, and it’s finally here. Stand clear of popping corks.

Actually, to be completely accurate, there isn’t anything called “the Google phone.” You can’t buy “the Google phone,” any more than you can buy “the Windows PC.” Google makes the software (called Android), and it’s up to the phone manufacturers to build cellphones around it.

What has its debut on Oct. 22, therefore, is a Google phone, the very first one: the T-Mobile G1 ($180 with two-year contract). Others will follow in the coming months.

The G1 is quite obviously intended to be an iPhone killer. Assessing its success, however, is tricky, because it’s the sum of three parts. Google wrote the software, HTC made the phone and T-Mobile provides the network. What you really need is separate reviews of each.

The software. The Android software looks, feels and works a lot like the iPhone’s. Not as consistent or as attractive, but smartly designed and, for version 1.0, surprisingly complete. In any case, it’s polished enough to give Windows Mobile an inferiority complex the size of Australia; let’s hope Microsoft has a good therapist.

The Home button opens a miniature computer desktop, with a background photo of your choice. A sliding on-screen “drawer” contains the icons of all of your programs; you can drag your favorites onto the desktop for easier access, or even into little folders. You can park playlists, single-purpose “widgets,” Web pages or address-book “cards” there, too, just as on a real computer (which this is).

The Home screen scrolls sideways to reveal more desktop area. You’ll need it once you start downloading programs from the online Android Market.

Like the iPhone store, this market is a gigantic development, rich with possibilities; as programmers everywhere create new programs, mostly free, this “phone” will turn into something vastly more flexible — and patch many of its feature holes.

Better yet, Google insists that its store will be completely open. Unlike Apple, it will not reject software submissions if they don’t serve the mother ship’s commercial interests. For example, Apple rejects programs that would let you make phone calls over the Internet, thereby avoiding using up cellular airtime. Google and T-Mobile swear they would permit such a thing.

One crucial improvement over the iPhone: a Menu button. It summons a panel of big buttons for functions related to what you’re doing. It’s the equivalent of right-clicking a computer mouse.

This panel offers commands like Hold, Mute and Speaker when you’re on a call; Archive and Delete when you’re working with e-mail; or Rotate and Share when you’ve taken a photo. If you can just remember to tap that Menu button, you’ll rarely flounder trying to find your way around.

Android comes with built-in programs like Contacts, Calendar, Calculator, Music, Google Maps, a YouTube module and chat and text-messaging programs. The Web browser uses the entire, glorious, 3.2-inch screen (480 by 320 pixels); unfortunately, it offers no Flash video. Worse, you have to do a lot of zooming in and out, and the onscreen + and - buttons are much fussier to use than pinching on the iPhone’s multitouch screen.

There are a bunch of minor glitches. For example, you have to deal with two different e-mail programs: one for Gmail accounts, one for other accounts. The Gmail program can view Microsoft Office attachments; the other one can’t. And when you’re using the non-Gmail mail program, hitting Reply puts the cursor in the To box (which is already filled in), rather than the body of the message.

You can’t get from one message to the next without returning to the Inbox list in between. There’s no Visual Voicemail (voice mail messages appear in a written list) or Microsoft Exchange compatibility, either.

Where Android really falls down is in the iPod department. There’s no companion program like iTunes to sync your photos, music and videos to the phone; you’re expected to drag these items to the phone manually after connecting via USB cable to your Mac or PC. More time-consuming fussiness.

Nor is there an online store for music, TV and movies. T-Mobile has worked out a deal with Amazon’s music store, which is a start, although you can download songs only when you’re in a Wi-Fi hot spot. Out of the box, Android can’t play videos at all, although a video-playing program is available from the Android Market.

Some of the goodies in Android will reward the iPhone holdouts: voice dialing, picture messaging, built-in audio recording and the ability to turn any song into a ring tone are all included — no charge.

Those who are Google haters won’t want an Android phone. A Gmail account is required and your calendar and address book don’t sync with anything but Google’s online calendar and address book services.

The phone. The G1 has Wi-Fi, GPS (but no turn-by-turn directions) and a mediocre camera (for stills — no video recording). The dedicated Send, End and Back buttons, and the tiny trackball for scrolling, make the G1 more flexible than the iPhone, but also more complicated.

The big news is the physical keyboard. As on a Sidekick phone, the screen pops open with a spring-loaded click to reveal a tiny thumb keyboard underneath, much to the relief of people who can’t abide on-screen keyboards.

It’s not pure joy, though. The keys don’t click down much. Worse, you have to keep turning the phone 90 degrees from its customary vertical orientation every time you need to enter text. That gets old fast.

There’s also a removable battery. Good thing, too — when all the G1’s guns are blazing (Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and so on), the juice is gone in about 3.5 hours of continuous use.

Unfortunately, the keyboard and the removable battery make the phone a lot thicker, heavier and homelier than the iPhone. Nobody looks at G1 and says, “Ooooh, I gotta have that.”

And it’s bizarre that, even though the phone contains a tilt sensor like the iPhone’s, it’s not hooked up to the screen. Turning the phone 90 degrees to get a wider look at a photo or Web page doesn’t rotate the image. You have to do that manually, using a menu or by popping open the keyboard, which makes no sense.

Finally, there’s no headphone jack. (Hello?!) If you want to use headphones, you have to buy and carry a special adapter that connects to the USB jack.

The G1 has very little built-in storage for photos, music and programs. Instead, it requires a MicroSD card (it comes with a 1-gigabyte card). To match the storage of the base-model $200 iPhone, you need an 8-gig card (about $30); to equal the storage of the 16-gig iPhone, well, you’re out of luck.

The network. G1 plans start as low as $55 a month for unlimited Internet use and 300 minutes of calling.

But T-Mobile also has one of the weakest networks. You iPhoners complain about AT&T’s high-speed 3G Internet network? T-Mobile’s fledgling 3G network covers only 19 metropolitan areas so far, compared with AT&T’s 320. And outside of those areas, Web surfing on the G1 is excruciatingly slow — we’re talking minutes a page.

(Then again, the Android mantra — “open”— may yet be the G1’s savior. After 90 days, you can request a T-Mobile unlock code that lets you use it on any GSM network, like AT&T’s or the ones in Europe.)

So there’s your G1 report card: software, A-. Phone, B-. Network, C.

But get psyched. Although the ungainly T-Mobile G1 is the first Android phone, it won’t be the last; Android phones will soon come in all shapes and sizes, and on all kinds of networks.

With so many cooks, it’s unlikely that any of them will achieve the beauty, simplicity and design purity of the iPhone. And it’s certain that none of them will inspire the universe of accessories — car adapters, cases, speaker systems and so on — that makes the iPhone fun to own.

Even so, Android itself is very successful. Clearly, there’s a sizable audience for phones that have the touchy, easy-to-navigate fun of an iPhone, without such an extreme philosophy of feature minimalism. If that’s you, then you should welcome the Android era with open eyes and ears.

Television alternative

I read the previous article about how to invigorate television and how personalized advertisements might keep audiences tuned in during commercials, but the thought I had about invigorating television, was to make it a completely independent medium, funded by the people and not government or advertisements or corporations. Obviously the idea might sound good, but there probably are a lot of arguments to the idea. Here is the mission statement of independent world television that is starting to do this concept, it can be found at http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=38&Itemid=88:
==================================
What's Real About Us

We won't blindly follow wire services or official press releases that attempt to set the news agenda. We will cover the big stories of the day, but we will broaden the definition of what's important.

The Real News will investigate, report and debate stories that help us understand the critical issues of our time.

The movements for the rights of working people, women, children, immigrants, indigenous people, for freedom of religion and conscience, for moral and spiritual values and for peace and against racism are news. The health of our planet will be a story, day after day.

The Real News will give important stories the attention and sense of urgency they deserve.

Who's a Newsmaker?

We will cover people in high office, but we won't limit our news to official positions or the partisan horse race for power. We think that people who fight for human rights and work for solutions are newsmakers.

Targeting a Mass Audience

We will make stories that matter dramatic and engaging. We will combine sizzle with substance, understanding that craft and entertainment values are critical to winning a large audience.

Daring Debate

Many sides of an issue will be explored, taking debate beyond narrow partisanship. Guests will have deep knowledge and investigated opinions. Debate will be lively and witty and will resist personal attacks, talking points and empty rhetoric.

Bias, Accountability and Transparency

We all have interests. We recognize that bias will affect the elements in a story we choose to highlight, the facts we consider important and the sources we decide to trust. To be human is to have bias. The answer is transparency; The Real News will create forums for questioning, debating and criticizing our work.

Back to Basics

The Real News relies on verifiable journalism, seeking truth without bowing to pressure and fearlessly following the evidence wherever it leads.

Viewer Support

The Real News will be financed by the economic power of thousands of viewers like you around the world. Just 250,000 people paying $10 a month will make it happen.


Join us in making The Real News a reality.

Monday, November 17, 2008

Addressable Ads Could Reinvigorate TV

Advertisements are still the key to profits in the broadcast television model... but more and more people are finding ways around them, and it's always been debatable how effective they may actually be for a select product. When times are changing, the industry needs to find ways to adapt in order to survive. This is just one of the ways they're trying to adapt the advertising model. Personally, I'm not sure if I'm any more likely to respond to "personalized advertisements", as I tend to plan exactly what I want to purchase far in advanced... but then again, I don't yet have money to toss around either...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Better Targeting Would Improve Efficiency, but Scale Remains a Major Hurdle

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- Satellite-TV firm Dish Network and ad-tech firm Invidi struck an agreement last week that involves "advanced receivers," "targeted advertising delivery" and "dynamic commercial insertion." Behind the tech talk is something media executives such as Group M's Rino Scanzoni believe is nothing short of "the renaissance of the TV business."

The Dish-Invidi pact calls for developing of the ability to sell ads that can be sent to specific households based on geographic and demographic information.

Rather than bombarding millions of TV viewers with the same ads for things many of them may not be looking to buy, marketers could in the next two to three years send different ads to different households -- making certain, for example, that Procter & Gamble wouldn't have to pay for Pampers ads watched by a couple with no wee tykes and General Motors wouldn't have to show ads for its Hummer vehicles to a house full of Prius enthusiasts.

Addressable TV ads -- which many believe are the simplest solution for advertisers wringing their hands over ad skipping and DVR viewing -- are currently being buoyed by developments on several fronts. Canoe Ventures, a consortium of the nation's biggest cable providers, will soon be able to offer advertisers the ability to digitally tweak their commercials so they can send one version to one audience and a different execution to another. The group expects the technology, known as "creative versioning," to be available to advertisers in 60 million homes in the first quarter of 2009. Earlier this year, Microsoft acquired Navic, a technology firm that helps media buyers buy local cable ad time based on the behavioral characteristics of audiences.

The progress is encouraging to those trying to figure out what can replace the beleaguered 30-second TV ad. "We believe that if you increase the relevancy of the advertising, you can reduce the tendency to avoid the messages," said Mr. Scanzoni, chief investment officer for WPP Group's large Group M consortium of media-investment firms.

Scale
These are small steps, to be sure, and don't solve the one hurdle advertisers face when it comes to beaming an interactive ad to the TV screen: scale. Setting up an addressable ad that can be seen by a majority of U.S. TV viewers remains nearly impossible because of the various cable, satellite and other intermediaries that control the devices that make the commercials work.

Still, the audience is there. Interpublic's Magna forecasts that more than 17 million U.S. households -- at least 15% of the total -- will be able to receive addressable ads by the end of 2008. The worldwide market for addressable advertising will pass $680 million during 2011, according to In-Stat. But that's still a far cry from the more than $64 billion annually spent on TV overall.

With DVRs expected to be in more than 36% of TV households by 2012, according to Interpublic Group's Magna, marketers have to find a way to thwart the desire to avoid commercials. And while consumers still will be able to blast past ads, an emerging school of thought posits that consumers will want to watch ads for products and services they really need or in which they have a deep interest. "We believe it's the best hope for television to reinvent itself," said Tracey Scheppach, senior VP-video innovation director at Publicis Groupe's Starcom USA.

Here's the theory: On the computer, surfers are often enticed by ads that carry entreaties specific to their needs and likes, such as a Google search ad for fish food that pops up when someone seeks information on nutrition for fish, or a Facebook ad for a new CD from an up-and-coming band that sounds an awful lot like the musicians the user has listed in his or her profile. Those ads can sometimes make people stop and click, and advertisers take those responses as proof their commercials resonate with potential customers.

This line of thinking has its detractors, and with good reason. Results of earlier tests have not demonstrated overwhelmingly that a particularly relevant commercial will defeat the urge to channel surf for a majority of the audience. In a test started in December 2006 and conducted by Comcast and Starcom MediaVest Group in Huntsville, Ala., ads from marketers including General Motors, Discover Card, Hallmark, Kraft Foods, Mars, Miller Brewing Co. and Procter & Gamble were delivered across eight popular cable networks. The spots were addressed to different anonymous groups of households based on general characteristics selected by the advertisers. Comcast and SMG found that, overall, homes receiving addressable advertising tuned out 38% less of the time available than homes that received nonaddressable advertising. Ms. Scheppach noted that viewers did not have DVRs recorders available to them in the trial.

Limited applications
Technological limitations also will keep addressable ads from holding sway, at least in the short term. At present, much of the inventory available comes from the two minutes an hour cable- and satellite-TV providers have under their control. "If only a small percentage of inventory is enabled with addressable capabilities, then if you're a brand who can survive and thrive on reaching a small segment of the market, then this is a great thing," said Brian Wieser, senior VP-director of industry analysis at Magna. "If you need to use network TV and broadcast TV to accomplish the bulk of your objectives, this is nothing more than an experiment."

For now, of course. But the day when viewers watch the bulk of their TV during prime time has begun to wane. If marketers can use TV to mine demographic niches, there might even be room for a discussion about whether those ads should come at a higher cost, according to media buyers. This technology is in its embryonic stages but certainly opens the door to larger thoughts about how TV ads are bought, sold and deployed. "This is really, we believe, going to change the television landscape and, clearly, make ... television much more competitive with the digital platforms," Mr. Scanzoni said.

~ ~ ~
Contributing: Andrew Hampp


http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=132585

Sunday, November 16, 2008

If Oprah Goes, Time Slot War Starts

Hey it's Beth and I'm lead blogger this week. I found an article discussing what stations are going to do in 2011 if Oprah doesn't renew her contract, which is what the industry is predicting will happen. According to the article, Oprah occupies a prime slot. Her show, which attracts both young and old audiences, leads into local newscasts, and it brings a lot of viewers. Networks are most concerned about the younger viewers Oprah brings to their newscasts. The big question is what to replace The Oprah Winfrey Show with. If it's replaced with news, the stations might lose the younger viewers. The article focuses mostly on the ABC owned stations running Oprah.

If 'Oprah' Goes, Time Slot War Starts

Syndicators, stations ponder life without The Oprah Winfrey Show, whether to fill her slot with first-run replacement or local news

By Paige Albiniak -- Broadcasting & Cable, 11/15/2008 9:00:00 AM

In this story:
3 YEARS = 5 MINUTES

Whether The Oprah Winfrey Show will remain on the air after its contract expires in fall 2011 is an open question. By 2011, the Discovery-owned Oprah Winfrey Network will be two years old, and Discovery chief David Zaslav indicated during his company's Nov. 7 earnings report that he expects Winfrey's syndicated show to wrap after her current deal expires. It's a question that both syndicators and stations are pondering anew.

For years, producers of first-run syndicated programming have salivated over the day when Oprah's afternoon time slots—particularly those on the 10 big-market ABC-owned stations—would open up. But if Oprah indeed does leave the marketplace in 2011, some stiff competition is emerging: There's a good chance many key Oprah time slots will go to local news.

“Right now, I think that Walter Liss [president of ABC Owned Television Stations] is thinking that if Oprah goes away, it will be news that goes in there. He's very public about that,” says Brian Frons, president of daytime for the Disney-ABC Television Group. Liss did not respond to requests for comment.

While replacing Oprah with local news may seem like a radical notion, it's the financially conservative bet in a belt-tightening era, and brass at Disney's ABC-owned stations have told syndicators they are considering it. Adding another newscast to the lineup isn't too costly for stations that are already news-heavy, and ABC's local newscasts win most of their markets and time periods. The sets, talent and production staffs are already in place, so it's relatively simple to keep the cameras rolling and the copy coming in for another hour.

Oprah is expensive. Stations generally are not able to earn back the show's high license fee just by airing the show alone. In fact, stations usually draw from their news revenues to pay for Oprah. “If you look at [Oprah] in isolation, the math doesn't really work,” says one station executive.

But Oprah also brings a huge audience to stations' local newscasts that is much younger than any newscast draws on its own. This is one of the biggest arguments syndicators make to stations for replacing Oprah with first-run.

“If you put news in those slots, you are going to disenfranchise the younger viewers,” says Jim Paratore, executive producer of Warner Bros.' Ellen, Bonnie and TMZ and formerly president of first-run powerhouse Telepictures. “As a producer, I would want to be in there making the case that if we had the right product, it would be the better way to go.”

While the big market clearances are important to first-run success, there are some 200 non-ABC-owned Oprah stations that would also have open time slots should the show sign off, so there are plenty of targets for a possible first-run replacement. That's an opportunity syndicators should be planning for now, say both station and syndication executives.

3 YEARS = 5 MINUTES

“If I'm a syndicator, I'm all over this situation right now,” says another station executive. “Three years from now is really five minutes from now, so if you are a syndicator, you need to have a game plan and you need to be in heavy development. But I'm not seeing that from anyone. I'm seeing a lot of little shows, but no big shows.”

That's how Frons sees it as well, while admitting he sees the challenges. “For something that will do a real number with that audience five days a week, 52 weeks a year, it's not so easy,” he says. “I don't see Oprah's replacement on the air right now, nor have I seen Oprah's replacement on tapes I've been given to look at. Even if you go back and look at the early days of that show, you see somebody who is representing a voice that wasn't on TV in that moment in time.”

Janice Marinelli, president of Disney-ABC Domestic Television, and Frons say that should Winfrey leave the syndication world, the company will work together to find the right solution.

“The ABC stations are our partners,” Marinelli says. “As time rolls on and Oprah makes her decisions and Walter makes his decisions, we at Disney-ABC Domestic Television and the ABC TV Stations are going to make the right decision for The Walt Disney Co.”

With Melissa Grego

http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6614881.html?desc=topstory

Friday, November 14, 2008

Stations combining newsgathering efforts

It's Brian posting in a off-week for me (it's not my turn...)

I found this article interesting to think that competing stations in a large market are joining forces to save money with their newsgathering options. Even though they compete for viewers, they are now going to share video and resources to cut costs.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/business/media/14news.html?_r=2&ref=media&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

2 Fox and NBC Stations to Pool Video News Gathering

By BILL CARTER
Published: November 13, 2008
In a move intended to save money in the economically pressed business of local television news, two stations in Philadelphia owned by NBC and Fox are combining some of their video operations with a plan to provide the service to all the stations owned by each company.

Executives from NBC and Fox compared the arrangement, announced Thursday, to the pool coverage that news outlets use to report on certain events, or to what wire services provide to newspapers.

“It’s really taking pool coverage and expanding it to day-to-day news coverage,” said Jack Abernethy, the chief executive of Fox Television Stations. He said stations could save significantly in such an arrangement, adding that individual stations would not have to each send out “a truck that costs $250,000 or a crew with lights and tripods that cost $40,000 to $50,000.”

Local television stations have experienced sharp decreases in their profit margins as the Internet has cut into their reach with local viewers and many reliable local advertisers, like auto dealers, have been in a severe downturn.

“It’s a tough operating environment,” said John Wallace, the president of NBC Local Media, “This is about cost savings, but it’s also about being smart about local television news.”

The stations involved, NBC’s WCAU and Fox’s WTXF, entered into a pilot arrangement last summer. The idea, Mr. Wallace said, was to create what he called “an independent news gathering group” that would provide video footage to the stations over which they would have editorial control.

The stations will write their own news copy to accompany the pool footage and edit it as they choose, Mr. Wallace said. He added, “It will free up the stations to do more enterprise reporting.”

But it will also enable the stations to cut some staff and curtail other costs. For example, the news service will have its own helicopter, meaning stations will not necessarily have one of their own. “The capital savings will be significant,” Mr. Abernethy said.

The plan is for the service to begin operations in Philadelphia by January and then to expand it to other cities where both companies have stations, like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas and Washington.

Mr. Abernethy said the idea has already attracted interest from competing stations. “We expect to have a template that we could roll out nationally,” Mr. Abernethy said. “Take what we learn in Philadelphia and begin a business around the country.”

Mr. Wallace added, “We see no downside on this.”

Al Primo, a news director in the early days of Eyewitness News at WABC in New York and who now consults on local television issues, said, “I think this is inevitable. It’s a sea change.”

He said that such pool coverage would probably mean a reduction in certain kinds of additional reporting on events that might have the same visuals, like a mayor’s news conference. A station would not be able to add to the pool coverage of the mayor’s comments by interviewing an aide at the scene without also sending a separate truck and crew, which would undermine the cost-savings strategy.

“It’s not ideal,” Mr. Primo said, “but it’s the new reality.”

Get Right with Copyrights On Line, On-Air

Hey guys, I found this article and I thought it was a topic that is applicable to many people. it has do with copyrighting laws and how to avoid getting into issues by breaking them in today's media. It especially applies to music, in which law suits are continual and monitoring of use is constantly necessary.

Get Right with Copyrights On Line, On-Air



By Mary Collins
TVNEWSDAY, Nov 14 2008, 5:43 AM ET

With current market conditions placing even greater focus on expense control, broadcasters and production companies are finding that "fair use" of copyrighted materials can help them save thousands of dollars in production expenses. However, the best way to realize those savings is by avoiding penalties for not conforming with the rights governing the use of other people's content.

"When Fair Means Free," an article appearing in the November/December issue of MFM's The Financial Manager (TFM) magazine, describes the general conditions that permit media companies to use portions of a work protected by copyright without the written consent of the copyright owner.

Written by Thea Kerman, an attorney who specializes in media and entertainment industry issues, the article delves into the gray areas of copyright law. Illustrating the challenges associated with interpreting "fair use" laws, Kerman contrasts the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld 2 Live Crew's right to legally copy the first line and famous bass riff of Roy Orbison's Oh, Pretty Woman with lawsuits that punished two news organizations for using small segments of a copyrighted video shot by a couple covering a major news story.

Kerman suggests that one general principle concerning fair use was provided by former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, in the 2 Live Crew case. "Take not from others to such an extent and in such a manner that you would be resentful if they so took from you."

Another perspective was provided by Justice David Souter. In commenting on the same case, Souter used the popular comment from English author Samuel Johnson that "no man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money."

In addition to outlining the four factors that need to be considered in determining "fair use" of copyrighted material, Kerman shares a few principles of her own. They include not using more of the copyrighted work than is absolutely necessary for making your point and not relying too much on any single source.

With that in mind, I encourage you to consult with your counsel or an expert like Kerman before making a decision about whether your planned use of copyrighted material would be considered "fair use." Meanwhile, MFM members (and other TFM subscribers) may also read a few more of Kerman's insights in the current issue of our magazine.

Music Rights

Music is one category of copyrighted material that requires constant monitoring. Keeping in compliance with music rights is getting increasingly complex, as television stations move to create content for use on new media platforms.

While stations are free to distribute their original programs like local news and sports shows over the Internet or a video-on-demand service, they may not have the rights to use the music that accompanies those programs. In addition, broadcasters need to be diligent concerning the use of music that's included in advertising or viewer-supplied videos.

To provide the latest developments concerning music rights, MFM has asked David Oxenford of the law firm Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, to moderate a Distance Learning Seminar on the subject. Scheduled for next Tuesday, from 4 to 5 p.m. ET, the tele-seminar will discuss the rights required for using music in connection with the operation of broadcast and cable companies, in both the traditional media and in digital applications. Specific topics of interest to video companies that Oxenford will cover include:

  • Productionof videos using music.
  • Theuse of music in commercials.
  • Musicin station promotions, downloads and Web site user-generated content.

More information about the CPE teleconference, which is open to non-members of MFM, may be found on MFM's web site, at http://www.mediafinance.org/index.aspx?PageID=378.

Of course, in today's economy, we need to evaluate every dollar we plan to spend. So, let me help you put together a quick ROI analysis to justify investing a little time and money on educating yourself about copyright issues.

If you favor the stick approach as motivation for spending, you can consider "PRO IP" — the Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property Act of 2008 that President Bush recently signed into law.

In addition to allowing three times the assessed damages to be awarded against those who counterfeit protected goods, it strengthens criminal laws relating to IP infringement and allows the government broad authority to seize any materials or goods relating to infringement investigations. Treble damages, not to mention the time (and money) spent preparing your defense can put a sizable hole in both your budget and your reputation.

Moreover, it creates a position for an "Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator," a presidential appointee who will coordinate IP investigations among government agencies, and it provides additional funding for investigations into alleged copyright infringement.

So, if copyright compliance isn't keeping you awake at night, it's likely that some federal employees, who are also working for an organization that's in need of revenue generation, will be burning some midnight oil over the issue.

If, like me, you are a "half-full" kind of person and prefer the carrot approach, there is still a compelling ROI for investing to ensure that your organization is complying with copyright requirements.

As attorney Thea Kerman pointed out in her article, knowledgeable lawyers can save companies thousands of dollars in rights payments. The second reason is that it's essential for our industry. The industry's success depends upon the talented creators and performers whose work allows us to create the audiences advertisers want to reach.

As Justice Souter and Samuel Johnson remind us, these creators of valuable content are not blockheads. And we certainly aren't, nor can we afford to be.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Internet Penetratoin Now 16%

These articles demonstrate how small the internet is still in use. According to statistics internet penetration is at 16% which means out of 6.7 billion people living on the earth .96 billion people use the internet at all. Here are the statistics:

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/world_internet_penetration_sept06.php
Interestingly North America has 5.1% of the world's population but 68.6% of the world's internet penetration, whereas Africa has 14.1% of the world's population but 2.6% of thw worldd's internet penetration. This goes to show that the internet is still and elitist activity. Not everyone can still participate in it. And the percentage of daily internet users is probably even smaller. Asia is constantly on the rise but even they with 56.4% of world pop. can only get about 10.4% of the internet penetration.

M-I-C...K-E-Y...M-O-U-S-E!

Have you ever read something and the first thought rushing to your head is "How completely unnecessary!"?? I get it, cell phone companies, and Disney, and pretty much everyone else in the world, are looking to make money in new and enticing ways for the consumer to buy into it. I'm sorry, the last time I went to Disney Land, which coincidentally was last year, I didn't need an interactive map via my cell phone to enjoy it, and I certainly was okay without hearing clips of Goofy or Mickey saying hi. If I wanted to hear them, I could have waited in line with all the little kids in Toon Town. But I bet it makes money...


Can You Hear Me Now, Mickey Mouse?

by: Laura M. Holson

Hey Mom! It’s Mickey Mouse calling!

The Walt Disney Co. and Verizon Wireless are teaming up to offer Verizon customers voice messages from beloved characters like Goofy and Buzz Lightyear, as well as interactive maps of the entertainment company’s theme parks.

Why? According to Scott Trowbridge, vice president of creative research and development at Walt Disney Imagineering, Disney will offer a downloadable application which will help visitors to navigate Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., and Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla. The application will include interactive maps, give customers real-time show information, allow them to access mobile games and receive messages from characters. Verizon users too will have access to calendars to plan their stay and a place to store and share photographs from their Disney vacation.

For Disney, it is a way to engage customers using new interactive technologies, a priority of Robert Iger, Disney’s chief executive. Verizon, for its part, hopes it will make their wireless service that much more attractive to parents and mobile phone-toting kids.

Neither Disney nor Verizon have determined what the application will cost. (Disney will offer a stripped-down version for free to all wireless customers.)

Verizon and Disney plan to offer the new service in the first quarter of 2009. Talks between the companies started about ten months ago and will require Verizon to bolster its network capacity.

As part of the agreement, Verizon said it would place more cell towers closer to the parks to ensure customers have good reception while riding the Mad Tea Party teacups.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Google Uses Searches to Track Flu’s Spread

Google Uses Searches to Track Flu’s Spread

SAN FRANCISCO — There is a new common symptom of the flu, in addition to the usual aches, coughs, fevers and sore throats. Turns out a lot of ailing Americans enter phrases like “flu symptoms” into Google and other search engines before they call their doctors.

That simple act, multiplied across millions of keyboards in homes around the country, has given rise to a new early warning system for fast-spreading flu outbreaks, called Google Flu Trends.

Tests of the new Web tool from Google.org, the company’s philanthropic unit, suggest that it may be able to detect regional outbreaks of the flu a week to 10 days before they are reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In early February, for example, the C.D.C. reported that the flu cases had recently spiked in the mid-Atlantic states. But Google says its search data show a spike in queries about flu symptoms two weeks before that report was released. Its new service at google.org/flutrends analyzes those searches as they come in, creating graphs and maps of the country that, ideally, will show where the flu is spreading.

The C.D.C. reports are slower because they rely on data collected and compiled from thousands of health care providers, labs and other sources. Some public health experts say the Google data could help accelerate the response of doctors, hospitals and public health officials to a nasty flu season, reducing the spread of the disease and, potentially, saving lives.

“The earlier the warning, the earlier prevention and control measures can be put in place, and this could prevent cases of influenza,” said Dr. Lyn Finelli, lead for surveillance at the influenza division of the C.D.C. From 5 to 20 percent of the nation’s population contracts the flu each year, she said, leading to roughly 36,000 deaths on average.

The service covers only the United States, but Google is hoping to eventually use the same technique to help track influenza and other diseases worldwide.

“From a technological perspective, it is the beginning,” said Eric E. Schmidt, Google’s chief executive.

The premise behind Google Flu Trends — what appears to be a fruitful marriage of mob behavior and medicine — has been validated by an unrelated study indicating that the data collected by Yahoo, Google’s main rival in Internet search, can also help with early detection of the flu.

“In theory, we could use this stream of information to learn about other disease trends as well,” said Dr. Philip M. Polgreen, assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Iowa and an author of the study based on Yahoo’s data.

Still, some public health officials note that many health departments already use other approaches, like gathering data from visits to emergency rooms, to keeping daily tabs on disease trends in their communities.

“We don’t have any evidence that this is more timely than our emergency room data,” said Dr. Farzad Mostashari, assistant commissioner of the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene in New York City.

If Google provided health officials with details of the system’s workings so that it could be validated scientifically, the data could serve as an additional, free way to detect influenza, said Dr. Mostashari, who is also chairman of the International Society for Disease Surveillance.

A paper on the methodology of Google Flu Trends is expected to be published in the journal Nature.

Researchers have long said that the material published on the Web amounts to a form of “collective intelligence” that can be used to spot trends and make predictions.

But the data collected by search engines is particularly powerful, because the keywords and phrases that people type into them represent their most immediate intentions. People may search for “Kauai hotel” when they are planning a vacation and for “foreclosure” when they have trouble with their mortgage. Those queries express the world’s collective desires and needs, its wants and likes.

Internal research at Yahoo suggests that increases in searches for certain terms can help forecast what technology products will be hits, for instance. Yahoo has begun using search traffic to help it decide what material to feature on its site.

Two years ago, Google began opening its search data trove through Google Trends, a tool that allows anyone to track the relative popularity of search terms. Google also offers more sophisticated search traffic tools that marketers can use to fine-tune ad campaigns. And internally, the company has tested the use of search data to reach conclusions about economic, marketing and entertainment trends.

“Most forecasting is basically trend extrapolation,” said Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist. “This works remarkably well, but tends to miss turning points, times when the data changes direction. Our hope is that Google data might help with this problem.”

Prabhakar Raghavan, who is in charge of Yahoo Labs and the company’s search strategy, also said search data could be valuable for forecasters and scientists, but privacy concerns had generally stopped it from sharing it with outside academics.

Google Flu Trends avoids privacy pitfalls by relying only on aggregated data that cannot be traced to individual searchers. To develop the service, Google’s engineers devised a basket of keywords and phrases related to the flu, including thermometer, flu symptoms, muscle aches, chest congestion and many others.

Google then dug into its database, extracted five years of data on those queries and mapped it onto the C.D.C.’s reports of influenzalike illness. Google found a strong correlation between its data and the reports from the agency, which advised it on the development of the new service.

“We know it matches very, very well in the way flu developed in the last year,” said Dr. Larry Brilliant, executive director of Google.org. Dr. Finelli of the C.D.C. and Dr. Brilliant both cautioned that the data needed to be monitored to ensure that the correlation with flu activity remained valid.

Google also says it believes the tool may help people take precautions if a disease is in their area.

Others have tried to use information collected from Internet users for public health purposes. A Web site called whoissick.org, for instance, invites people to report what ails them and superimposes the results on a map. But the site has received relatively little traffic.

HealthMap, a project affiliated with the Children’s Hospital Boston, scours the Web for articles, blog posts and newsletters to create a map that tracks emerging infectious diseases around the world. It is backed by Google.org, which counts the detection and prevention of diseases as one of its main philanthropic objectives.

But Google Flu Trends appears to be the first public project that uses the powerful database of a search engine to track a disease.

“This seems like a really clever way of using data that is created unintentionally by the users of Google to see patterns in the world that would otherwise be invisible,” said Thomas W. Malone, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at M.I.T. “I think we are just scratching the surface of what’s possible with collective intelligence.”

Google Uses Searches to Track Flu’s Spread

Hey guys, this article is from yesterday's New York Times. It is about how Google uses their Google Trend tool to track what words people type in to searches. They collect this data and are now using it to predict and track the spread the flu in the U.S. They say that the data over the last 5 years has matched up with the reports from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but they are able to get the information out faster. Do you think that Google reporting their findings on infections diseases will be a great service to the public or do you think it could be potentially dangerous if the information is false? Also, does this technique of tracking search topics bring up the issue of privacy or can that be sacrificed for the health of the users?

Monday, November 10, 2008

Circuit City files for bankruptcy

Sorry, I know it is not my week to post something, but I thought since we have talked about this company a lot from Good to Great it was worth posting. In Good to Great, Circuit City had a level five leader and was doing great in the stock market - and just to think about seven years later (good to great was published in '01) they would be filing for bankruptcy. So, good news for all of those who are shopping for electronics this holiday season - look for a store that is closing; Circuit City spokesman Jim Babb says that it is safe to say that one can find a great discount on TV's, as well as other products in the store.

Circuit City to stay open in bankruptcy

Beleaguered No. 2 electronics retailer urges budget-conscious consumers not to shun its stores for holiday gifts.

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By Parija B. Kavilanz, CNNMoney.com senior writer

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NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Circuit City Stores Inc., the No. 2 electronics seller after Best Buy, filed for bankruptcy protection Monday, hoping the move will allow it to stock its shelves in time for the crucial holiday shopping season.

The move comes about a week after Circuit City said it would close 155 stores as it deals with a worsening economic downturn that has left more consumers with less money to shop. The company intends to keep its remaining stores open through the bankruptcy procedings.

Circuit City (CC, Fortune 500) said it decided to file for bankruptcy at this time to ensure that it would have "adequate merchandise flow to stores during the important holiday season."

The retailer said consumers should continue to shop at its stores.

"Chapter 11 is not a closing or liquidation," the company said in an e-mail to CNNMoney.com. "We remain committed to doing a better job of taking care of our guests, and making it easier to shop at Circuit City."

For anyone that's on the hunt for a sweet deal on a flatscreen TV, Circuit City spokesman Jim Babb said it's "safe to assume" that consumers can expect deep discounts on TVs and other products in those Circuit City stores that are being liquidated.

In the rest of its stores, Babb said the company's prices will remain competitive with the market over the coming weeks.

Circuit City said it is seeking approval from the bankruptcy court to honor customer programs such as returns, exchanges and gift cards. "Approval of such programs normally is granted," the company said in the e-mail.

The electronics seller said it will still accept credit cards, including Circuit City-branded credit cards, which the company said are not be impacted by its bankruptcy.

Circuit City also said it will continue to honor its warranty plans, including its Circuit City Advantage Protection Plans.

Despite these measures, one industry watcher remained unconvinced that Circuit City could still attract shoppers from here on and especially through the holiday season.

"Consumers will be skeptical about buying a $1,000 or $2,000 flatscreen TV with a warranty at Circuit City," said Craig Johnson, retail analyst and president of Customer Growth Partners. "In their mind, there's no guarantee that the company will still be around in the future."

"Regarding gift cards, if you are buying a $50 gift card for Christmas, where would your comfort level be higher? At a Circuit City or a Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500)?" Johnson said.

The company's bankruptcy filing was also made at a crucial time of the year for merchants who are preparing for the year-end holiday shopping season.

The November-December period can account for 50% or more of retailers' annual profits and sales. But this year, many Americans have clamped down on their shopping habits amid a weak economy and a shaky job and credit market.

Industry analysts warn that retailers will have to do whatever they can this year if they hope to have at least decent holiday sales.

Will stay in business for now

According to the company's Chapter 11 filing with the U.S. bankruptcy court in Richmond, Va., Circuit City has 566 operating stores in the United States and will continue to do business and pay its workers while it restructures debt and its business operations.

In announcing the store closings last week, Richmond-based Circuit City said it would cut about 17% of its 40,000 domestic workers.

Johnson said Circuit City's problems are partly its own making. On the external front, the retailer's competitive landscape has became much more formidable as Best Buy continues to enhance its product offerings and service.

Circuit City has also felt the squeeze from discounters like Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) who has aggressively expanded into electronics over the last few years.

More importantly, Johnson believes Circuit City shot itself in the foot when the company decided last year to fire more 3,000 of its highest-paid sales staff and replace them with lower-paid workers.

"This was a huge strategic blunder," said Johnson. "People want a knowledgeable sales person when they are spending $2,000 on a TV. They don't want to buy it from some kid at Wal-Mart," he said

The company said it has negotiated a commitment for a $1.1 billion credit line to supplement its working capital. The company said the credit line will replace the company's $1.3 billion asset-based line provided by its lenders.

Circuit City said the credit line will give it immediate liquidity while it works to reorganize the business and enable it to pay its vendors and employees.

"We recently have taken intensive measures to overcome our deteriorating liquidity position," James Marcum, Circuit City's acting president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.

"The decision to restructure the business through a Chapter 11 filing should provide us with the opportunity to strengthen our balance sheet, create a more efficient expense structure and ultimately position the company to compete more effectively," he said. To top of page