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New York Times, LinkedIn Enter Content Partnership
In a brilliant move that's sure to make both newspapers and social networks around the web jealous, the New York Times and LinkedIn, the leading US social network for professionals, are announcing a content partnership tonight that could substantially increase the value for users of both sites. The announcement will be made at the top of the hour, but the integration is live now.
LinkedIn users are now being shown personalized news targeting their industry verticals on the Business and Technology sections of NYTimes.com and will then be prompted to share those stories will professional associates.
We're big on LinkedIn here at RWW and though a wide open developers platform has yet to emerge, moves like this are inspiring. The deal is an important step beyond the previous integration of sharing hooks on NYTimes.com from other services.
A number of other social networks and bookmarking services have "share this story" links on NYT stories, but it's unclear how much traction those links alone are getting. Last month we wrote about one of those services, social news site Mixx, that's still seeing fewer than 1 million unique visitors per month despite "share this on Mixx" buttons on a long list of the biggest news sites in the world, including NYTimes.com.
How much more compelling is this partnership? We think it's a lot more compelling; check out the screenshots below and imagine the feedback loop this could create between the NYT and LinkedIn. LinkedIn has 25 million registered users and the NYT sees 17 million + unique visitors per month, but the partnership will need none the less to introduce more people to LinkedIn in order to really be a home run. See this NYT page for an "introduction to LinkedIn." That's pretty classy, though it's unclear yet when that link will be displayed and when it won't.
We'll see how the recommendation process works; we hope it doesn't rely exclusively only on explicitly shared links, but we'll see. This certainly gets the mental juices flowing about any number of other integration and recommendation possibilities.
One question we have is about money changing hands. There has been extensive discussion around the web of late about LinkedIn using partnerships as a revenue source and it wouldn't surprise us if the NYT is paying for this integration. LinkedIn may not be a huge social network, but its user demographics are some of the most financially desirable in the world.
We expect to see more partnerships like this emerge, perhaps from a chastised Facebook attempting to relaunch its Beacon program in a more acceptable fashion.
New York Times API Coming
As print circulation continues its slide at most newspapers, one of the United States' most respected newspapers, the New York Times, is taking steps to boost online readership. The paper is already the third most cited web site on Techmeme, and the first on Memeorandum, proving that bloggers at least pay attention to its reporting. Now, the Grey Lady is working on an API that aims to make the entire newspaper "programmable."
In addition to the API, New York Times CTO Marc Frons told mediabistro.com that internal developers at the paper will use the platform to organize structured data on the site. Following that, the paper plans to offer developer keys to the API allowing programmers to more easily mash up the paper's structured content -- reviews, event listings, recipes, etc. "The plan is definitely to open [the code] up," Frons said. "How far we don't know."
The API itself should be done by the time summer arrives in the US, with more significant chunks available to the public within 6 months.
The New York Times has taken a lead in bringing newspapers into the digital landscape over the past year. In 2006, the company launched its specialized RSS reader built on the Microsoft WPF platform, but it was this past fall that things really started to heat up on the digital side of the Times.
The paper put out a Facebook application, which has been a modest success with about 1,500 daily active users. They followed that in October with the controversial decision to put reader comments on the main page of the paper's web site.
In November, the Times took Techmeme full on by launching its own news aggregator powered by the Blogrunner technology it had acquired. Blogrunner "is our answer to Techmeme, integrated with our main site. It is technology we've built ourselves, based on Blogrunner, a company we bought last year," NYT Tech Editor Saul Hansell told us at the time.
Then in January, the company made an investment in Wordpress, the popular blogging engine that powers their own blogs.
Conclusion
An API is a logical next step for newspapers. It will give developers access to their vast amounts of well-researched data, and allows the paper's brand to be spread easily across the web. More access to Times content and the ability to mash it up in new and interesting ways can only be a win for both readers and the paper.
"The web of the near-term future isn't about pages any more," wrote Marshall Kirkpatrick in his massive post on APIs in March. "It's about data, flying around, hopefully under the control of users, and offering a world of possibilities that few of us could have imagined just a few years ago."
The New York Times seems to understand that. Says Aron Pilhofer, the paper's interactive news editor, the goal of an API is to "make the NYT programmable. Everything we produce should be organized data."
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Old school content has value...again
Every day it seems we are reading about the power of social networking to transform the Internet and how we communicate online and also consume and discover new content. While that is true and clearly changing the consumption habits of online users, today seems like a flashback to the old school Internet days where traditional content was king. First IAC announced the acquisition of Lexico Corp which owns dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, and reference.com and then CBS announced the acquisition of CNET. With $400+ million of revenue in 2007, it seems like a good buy for CBS at a little over 4x trailing revenue. So looking at the fact that people are recognizing that social networks are not as easy to monetize as previously thought and the understanding that old school content can still be monetized, I wonder what other old school content companies may be in play in the future (can anyone say the Knot.com or the thestreet.com - full disclosure, i bought shares of these companies for my own account during the last couple of months). Given the weakening ad spending environment and the fact that many of these small public Internet companies reported lower guidance for the rest of 2008, it is clear that now is a good time for strategics to buy and expand their uniques and ad inventory. As I have always said, when it comes to the web, scale matters! Also see Silicon Alley Insider for some comments from the CBS conference call regarding scale and the value of premium content:
CNET's been very disappointing for past few years. What are your strategy for improving CNET revenue growth, margins?
CFO: We think that they have the asssets to do that, they've revamped a number of the sites. Combining with us is good because there's very little overlap with our advertisers (auto, pharma, etc), but CNET audience demo very attractive to our advertisers. And then they reach advertisers (electronics, etc) that we don't. Other efficiencies: One public co instead of two. Combining some ad platforms, etc.
Given MSFT/YHOO, other consolidation, does this make you big enough on the Web?
Les: We just tripled our digital platform. Are there possibilities to do tuck-ins? But right now, we have taken a major leap forward. We are very happy with the cards we're holding now.
CFO: We're now a top 10 Internet company. Could we be a top 5 over time? Sure. But would be through growth, not acquisition.
Les: Remember! Premium content!
Internet TV News: Three More Netflix Set-Top Box Partners, New Hollywood JV, PS3 Movie Download Service
Lots more Internet TV-related coverage on our network blog last100 this week, including news of a new joint venture from Viacom, Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate; Netflix has secured three new set-top box partners who'll add support for the company’s ‘Watch Now’ video streaming service; more speculation surrounding Sony's forthcoming movie download service for the PlayStation 3; and Motorola is rumored to be planning a movie download service for its mobile devices.
Netflix’s ambitious Internet TV plans are forging ahead, with three new set-top box partners to integrate the company’s ‘Watch Now’ video streaming service into their products by the end of the year. Who those partners are, Neflix won't say, while speculation builds that Microsoft (XBox 360) could be one. However, we think it’s more likely that we’ll see Netflix compatibility added to a number of media streamers, such as those produced by D-Link and KISS (Linksys). The company has previously announced a partnership with Korean manufacturer LG Electronics to stream movies, TV shows, and other content to LG high-definition televisions or set-top boxes by the second half of 2008.
Viacom, Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate announced a joint venture to create a new premium TV channel and VOD service, which will be rolled out in the fall of 2009. The project will include a strong online component, according to Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman: “It will also meet the needs of varying distributors and take advantage of online distribution…innovative both in presenting the content and in distributing it.”
A new report surfaced this week on Sony's forthcoming movie download service for the PlayStation 3. Not much is yet known, except that negotiations with Hollywood studios are taking place — no word on pricing or if the movies and TV shows are for rent or purchase. One tantalizing tidbit, however, is being floated about: “Unlike closed networks such as Apple’s, Sony plans to embrace open standards that would make its offering compatible with a range of computers and hand-held devices, including the PlayStation Portable,” according to the LA Times.
Lastly, Motorola is rumored to be planning movie download service for its mobile devices. This is from a company that reported a $1.2 billion operating loss last year, and is considering splitting off or selling its handset division. Our advice: Worry about getting cool new phones on the market to compete with Nokia, Apple, Samsung, LG, and the highly-anticipated Google-powered Android phones. Otherwise, Motorola has bigger problems than the latest Hollywood releases.
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The Incredibly Shrinking Music Biz — EMI Shutting Down Some Asian Offices
EMI, one of the global music majors, is shutting down some of its offices in Asia. Offices in Thailand and Singapore have already been shuttered, while regional headquarters in Hong King are ready for the grim reaper, Music 2.0 reports.
All of this is part of the right-sizing moves EMI has been making; it had earlier announced plans to cut thousands of jobs worldwide. The big cuts in the region are going to come in June, Music 2.0 Blog asserts. It also offers up an in-depth analysis of how global music companies blew the big Asian opportunity: ringtones.
EMI’s move makes me wonder how long before the other three music labels — Warner, Universal and Sony-BMG — follow suit. EMI over the past few years has become the canary in the coal mine: It’s not the biggest of the music majors, and as a result, has been open to take more draconian measures to survive the music industry meltdown. Whether it was signing up for DRM-free music or ruthlessly cutting its payroll, EMI has been ahead of the curve, only to see its bigger brethren follow suit.
The Incredibly Shrinking Music Biz. EMI Shutting Down Some Asian Offices
EMI, one of the global music majors, is shutting down some of their offices in Asia. Music 2.0 Blog reports that offices in Thailand and Singapore have been shuttered. Regional headquarters in Hong King are ready for the grim reaper, Music 2.0 reports. All this is part of the right-sizing moves EMI has been making. It had earlier announced plans to cut thousands of jobs world wide. The big cuts in the region are going to come in June, Music 2.0 Blog asserts, and offers up an in depth analysis of how global music companies blew the big Asian opportunity: ringtones.
It is thus frustrating to note the column inches devoted to so-called innovative concepts in the US and Europe like Spiral Frog, Q-trax, Imeem and last.fm and their courting of major labels when Asian label executives themselves had been rebuffed for years by their head offices to approve similar deals in their home countries.
EMI’s move makes me wonder how long before other three music labels - Warner, Universal, and Sony-BMG follow suit. EMI over past few years has become the canary in coal mine: they aren’t the biggest of the music majors and as a result have been open to take more draconian measures to survive the music industry meltdown. Whether it was signing up for DRM free music, or ruthlessly cutting its payroll, EMI has been ahead of the curve, only to see its bigger brethren follow suit.
MP3tunes’ AutoSync Keeps PC Music Lockers in Tune
on this post - (1) PostsMP3tunes’ AutoSync Keeps PC Music Lockers in TuneSAN DIEGO, April 10 /PRNewswire/ — MP3tunes — http://www.mp3tunes.com– has launched AutoSync, new technology that makes it possible for peopleto automatically move their digital music between their own computers,without having to connect cables or portable drives or even burn CDs.Included with every MP3tunes Music Locker, AutoSync provides the music fanwith a powerful, yet easy-to-use, tool for managing their digital musiccollection.
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Direct ad sales and startups
I have recently met a number of startups with interesting consumer applications or services. As expected, many of these startups have a vision to rely on advertising to pay the bills. And like many startups, a number of these companies have plans to add a direct ad sales staff over time. That makes a ton of sense, but what I believe is that many entrepreneurs underestimate the direct capital and management costs necessary to build such a team. In many ways, building a direct ad sales team is similar to building an enterprise sales team. These thoughts may seem quite basic to you but here they are nevertheless. First, don't ramp up your sales team too quickly until you have a product to sell. That means if you don't have scale or enough eyeballs you are better off using Google Adsense. If you don't heed this advice you may quickly burn yourself out of business. Secondly, I know that many startups may not know what kind of ad units to sell but be careful of not having a standard product list or rate sheet when you go out to the market. Yes, I know you have to be creative if you have a new service and listen to your customers, but at the same time don't base your business on selling one-off ad units for each advertiser because this can be a huge drain on your technical resources over time. Next, make sure you never forget that what is right for your users is right for your business. Many times I have seen companies that are trying to meet the advertiser's inventory requirement make the ads much too prominent and sacrifice usability in the long run. While this may drive some initial short-term results, it may come to bite you in the ass in the future.
The bottom line is that Google Adsense works well for a reason-it has scale-it has tons of eyeballs, it has a huge customer list of advertisers, and is therefore more likely to get you great pricing and ad targeting. Yes, I don't disagree that over time you want your own sales team and don't want to solely rely on one partner for your revenue, but just go into this with your eyes wide open and don't ramp up before its time. The direct costs, management costs, and hidden strains on your infrastructure may be more than you can handle if you ramp up too quickly. Start slowly, figure out what it is that advertisers love about your service or product, figure out what kind of units deliver the best results, and then ramp. Here is an earlier post on ramping up an enterprise sales team as there are many similarities to direct ad sales and direct enterprise sales.
Who Needs Flash on the iPhone More: Adobe or Apple?
Syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog
Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen says that, with or without Apple's blessing, the company plans to develop a Flash player for the iPhone/iPod touch platform.
During yesterday's earnings call (see SeekingAlpha transcript), Narayen told investors that that Flash was "synonymous with the Internet and frankly, anybody who wants to browse the web and experience the web’s glory really needs Flash support".
Having evaluated the iPhone's official Software Developer Kit, Adobe can "now start to develop the Flash player ourselves", says Narayen. "...we think it benefits our joint customers, so we want to work with Apple to bring that capability to the device."
With new research suggesting that the iPhone has already established itself as the No.1 mobile browser in the U.S., and No.2 in the UK, Narayen would say that.
However, only a week or so ago, Apple CEO Steve Jobs poured cold water on the idea of Flash on the iPhone/iPod touch, saying that the version designed specifically for mobile devices - Flash Lite - wasn't good enough, and that Adobe's more powerful desktop offering runs too slowly on the iPhone. What was needed is a “missing product in the middle”, argued Jobs.
Is Adobe committing itself to building the missing version of Flash that Jobs demands?
Or does Adobe really believe it can go-it-alone?
Without Apple providing the hooks to enable Adobe to tap into the iPhone's Safari web browser, it's hard to see how a Flash plug-in could be implemented. Instead, Adobe might be able to create a work around: some kind of stand-alone Flash Player that opens full screen to play certain content. This would work best for playing Flash video but would be useless for viewing websites that integrate Flash with regular HTML components.
Therefore, presuming that Adobe needs Apple's support - which I think is almost certain - and that users want the kind of experiences that Flash supports, how long can Steve Jobs hold out before agreeing to work with Adobe?
The answer: quite a long time, if not indefinitely.
Firstly, the biggest user of Flash video - YouTube - already offers a non-Flash version of the site designed specifically for the iPhone/iPod touch.
Secondly, rather than utilizing Flash to build "rich" Internet-aware applications (RIAs) for the iPhone/iPod touch, Apple is providing developers with an official SDK that will enable them to build native clients for a range of Internet services (as an example, think of the Google Maps application for the iPhone).
And thirdly, in Safari, Apple has already raised the potential of web-based applications by providing a very capable mobile web browser that supports modern so-called Web 2.0 coding standards. In fact, Adobe's own Rich Internet Application Evangelist, Ryan Stewart, recently described the latest desktop version of Safari (3.1) as Apple's own RIA platform, "complete with video and animation support (and offline storage)." Since Safari mobile is built on top of the same codebase as the desktop version, we can expect to see those same improvements brought to the iPhone/iPod touch very soon.
This post is syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog covering Internet TV, digital music, Mobile Web and more. You can subscribe to last100 here.
A Good Day for Internet TV
Internet TV is on a roll today! For starters, the day began with Apple sending out emails to their Season Pass subscribers, offering them credits for missed episodes. Later on, there was breaking news from the OMMA Global Hollywood conference, an industry event dedicated to online media, marketing, and advertising - it seems that CBS wants to change the game and have online video consumption contribute to a show's ratings. Well, it's about time!
Apple Does the Right Thing - Gives Customers Credits
For some, today's big Apple news may be the release of Safari 3.1, but for others it's going to be the email from Apple that showed up in their inboxes this morning. The email informs Apple Season Pass subscribers that they will receive credit for the episodes they missed due to the Hollywood writer's strike.
According to the email, Apple will provide for the following:
- Any additional episodes broadcast for the 2007-2008 season will still arrive as iTunes receives them (I'm taking this to mean that they will still arrive, even if the season would have normally ended by now.)
- If the season winds up with fewer episodes than planned, a partial credit will be given for the difference.
- A credit for two free videos has been applied, which can be used for any two TV episodes, music videos, or short films on the iTunes Store.
So, not only will customers receive partial credits for their losses, they're also receiving bonus credits just because of the inconvenience caused by the strike, something which wasn't even Apple's fault. That's great customer service and sure to please Apple's customers.
CBS Shocker - Internet TV Viewing Should Count
Big media has been somewhat slow to change, but today's CBS news shows a promising shift for the television industry. Patrick Keane, Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for CBS Interactive, proposed a move to an aggregate ratings system, which would combine TV viewing with online video consumption. These combined ratings could then provide advertisers with a cross-platform option that is more detailed in terms of data, thanks to online metrics.
Keane cited internet darling "Jericho" as an example: the online viewers of one episode boosted the ratings from 4.2 to 5.1 - nearly a whole percentage point. Although Keane didn't mention the online campaign that did, in fact, save Jericho from cancellation, had these online ratings been taken into account from the beginning, desperate measures by hardcore fans would never have been needed.
Internet fans save Jericho
Another example Keane used was this year's Grammys. TV viewers accounted for 16.9 million of the viewers for the annual music awards show - down 15% from the previous year. But taking into account the web viewers, an additional 7.9 video streams could be added to that number, as well as 4.9 million page views, making the decline in viewership not as bad as previously thought.
Getting With the Program
As a correlation to yesterday's article (reading isn't down, it just moved online), it goes to reason that other activities have made the move online, too. More people are watching both TV and movies online as well as on portable devices. And while shows may suffer a little in number of live "real-time" viewers, why wouldn't the networks count all of a show's viewers towards the popularity of that program?
This shift has been a long time in the making; it was late fall of 2006 that should have been the wake-up call for TV broadcasters when a struggling new show called "The Office" was saved from cancellation after being put on iTunes. The show, which quickly became the number one downloaded show, surprised the NBC execs who realized that there actually was an audience for the program - they just happened to be online.
NBC's save of "The Office" may have been a turning point which prompted the networks to begin offering their content on iTunes, and on their own web sites as well. Unfortunately, it appears that even now, in 2008, the networks are still trying to figure out how to make the online viewings count for something.
"The Office" on iTunes
However, with today's news, not to mention the launch of sophisticated and well-executed sites like NBC/Universal's Hulu.com, it seems the networks are finally starting to figure what the pirates have known for years: the internet was made for content and it's what the people want. No matter what, the move to online media will change the television industry forever, so it's promising to see them headed in the right direction.
LimeWire Opens Music Store, Plans to Integrate with P2P: Have They Lost Their Minds?
LimeWire has just opened their online music store in beta form at store.limewire.com. The store which is reported to currently have a catalog of 500,000 tunes, features DRM-free MP3s encoded at 256 Kbps. Although the store is currently a standalone web site, the help section of the store's web site states, "In the future, LimeWire will be releasing a version of our file-sharing software optimized for integration with the Music Store. Stay tuned!" But how will LimeWire, still under attack from the RIAA, succeed where Napster has failed?
On the surface, LimeWire's online store looks sleek and shiny, like any other new web service site. The tunes are affordable, at 99 cents per song or you can sign up for the subscription service. There are even a handful of "big name" artists on board, like Barenaked Ladies and Sarah McLachlan, thanks to Nettwerk Productions and IRIS Distribution, the two distributors currently on board.
LimeWire Store
The site claims that they will be adding thousands more tracks per day, but the big question is: from where?
It wasn't that long ago that the RIAA went after LimeWire's P2P service, claiming "LimeWire has sat back and continued to reap profits on the backs of the music community." LimeWire countersued, claiming antitrust violations among other things, claims which the judge in the matter promptly dismissed.
And today, the RIAA case against LimeWire continues (Arista vs. LimeWire). The current status has fact depositions and expert reports as needing to be provided to the court by March 31st, 2008; rebuttal reports are to be provided by April 30th and expert depositions by May 31st. By the looks of it, this case will be ongoing for quite some time.
So where does LimeWire expect to get all the tracks from? It seems highly unlikely that the same industry that is still involved in a hot lawsuit against LimeWire's P2P software is going to hand over rights to songs that will soon be integrated with that very same P2P software.
Even Napster, which re-launched with support of the recording industry offering legit tunes, has yet to pull off a successful online store. As of January 2008, the company was showing a nearly $10 million loss in the most recent quarter, giving it only 18 months to until it will need another cash infusion or go bankrupt. (It's also a bad sign when the CFO resigns, as did Nand Gangwani in Dec. 2007).
So, LimeWire expects to not only do what Napster could not, but do so without the support of the record labels and while being sued? Who are they kidding?
My advice, stick with Amazon for your DRM-free tunes, but if you must sample LimeWire, at least forgo the subscription plan. Something tells me they aren't going to make it.
Revver Bought by LiveUniverse...and it's MySpace's Fault
LiveVideo.com, an online live video community that is a subsidiary of LiveUniverse, Inc. has now acquired 100% of Revver's stock. The acquistion will combine Revver's millions of visitors and 40 million monthly video streams with LiveVideo's social network, video, and live interactive offerings used by 200,000+ users per day. Both companies wil continue to operate their separate domains. Although Revver is happy by the deal and the promotion opportunities is will allow, Revver would have never been in this position if it wasn't for MySpace's decision to kill Revver in the first place.
By 2007, Revver was showing a good pattern of growth and was quickly heading towards becoming a profitable company. But then, in mid-January, something happened. All of a sudden Revver's video player that its users could embed on any web site or social network stopped working...but only on MySpace. Most of Revver's users never knew what happened. Maybe they thought the Revver player was poorly designed. Maybe they thought they did it wrong. It doesn't really matter, though - they just moved on, migrating over to other services like YouTube.
It was a small group of Revver users that learned the truth: Revver wasn't broken, MySpace was blocking them.
This group of Revver users and content creators, led by content producers, including the popular "Ask A Ninja" guys, led a PR campaign to save Revver. On the Ninja blog, they plea to their fans:
Ask A Ninja was created because we were in control of where we posted the videos. That's a big deal because if we're forced to put them on MySpace video then FOX could take the episodes and make money off of them without paying Douglas or me anything. Which isn't fair and takes away the incentive to create cool shows for you to watch. Why is this against Net Neutrality? Because videos from Myspace Video and Youtube are not effected. It's only these smaller, more innovative companies that haven't been sold for billions of dollars. Here's what you can do: Copy this bulletin. Repost it. Blog about it. Make Tom put up a little fix it bulletin saying he's sorry..
So the fans blogged, they complained, and they urged others to complain, but it was to no avail.
As 2007 drew on, it quickly became the year of MySpace playing the big bully, attempting to destroy small and medium-sized companies they felt were competitive with their offerings.
Other companies got Revver's same treatment - Stickam and imeem to name a couple. MySpace even blocked Photobucket for a while - long enough for other investors to walk away - and then swooped in to buy the company for themselves.
Several URLs are still blocked on MySpace (for a complete list of URLs and blocked code, check out this site). MySpace continues to block Revver to this day.
MySpace and MTV UK Team Up to Make a TV Show
MTV and MySpace have just announced a new joint venture to create a weekly TV show called "The MySpace Chart," which will be shown on MTV2 in the UK. The videos appearing on the show will be decided by votes from MTV viewers on the site's own website and by MySpace users on the show's MySpace homepage. This collaborative effort between the two properties could help launch some new, undiscovered artists from the MySpace social network since there will be some room on the show reserved for new musical talent.
The vote list for "The MySpace Chart" will consist of 35 to 40 videos from the MTV2 playlist plus five videos from new bands and artists which will be promoted on the MTV2 web site and the channel's homepage on MySpace. The web site and MySpace profile will go live on March 10 and the TV show will premiere on MTV2 on Sunday March 16.
"The audience for MTV2 and MySpace are incredibly similar," commented Philip O'Ferrall, VP of digital media, MTV Networks UK & Ireland. "Not only are they both incredibly passionate about their music tastes but they are powerful advocates for the latest up-coming artists, which both MTV and MySpace have a history of showcasing."
"The way that consumers are accessing music is changing. MySpace is the world's largest online music destination connecting bands and their fans," added Dom Cook, marketing director and head of music at MySpace UK.
This isn't the first time that MTV and MySpace have teamed up. The two previously collaborated in the hunt for a news presenter.
The partnership shows that MTV seems to be more interested in partnering with MySpace now, than trying to create their own social network and content. For example, just last month, MTV closed their own user-generated content based channel, MTV Flux and is now in the process of integrating the content into other MTV-branded channels instead.
The only question with the new show, "The MySpace Chart," is where is the U.S. version? The United States has more MySpace users and a bigger MTV audience...maybe the UK just has better music?
Web-to-TV Show 'Quarterlife' Bombs in NBC Debut - Or Did It?
Last November we reported that the web-based scripted drama "Quarterlife" was making the unlikely jump to primetime television. Last night, Quarterlife debuted on NBC in the 10pm time slot, and the results were disappointing by television standards. The web-turned-TV show pulled a 1.6 share among 18-34 year olds, and averaged just under 3.9 million viewers for the time slot, good enough for third place. Interestingly, one of the shows it trailed was the CBS drama "Jericho," which was rescued from cancellation due to a massive grassroots web campaign to save it.
By TV standards, that's a terrible debut. Especially considering how poorly it faired among the 18-34 year old set -- i.e., MySpace's key demographic. On the other hand -- what did they expect?
3.9 million viewers far outstrips the number of viewers the show attracted on MySpace. The top rated episode of Quarterlife on MySpace (episode 24) had 557,000 views over 3 months. That's an impressive number for a web-based series, but still a far cry from 3.9 million viewers. In fact, the total 4.3 million plays for the entire series on MySpace is only just above the number of viewers that the show pulled on TV (and that's plays, not unique viewers). The latest episode of the show, uploaded February 8, has just about 45,000 views.
Clearly, NBC was hoping that buzz on the web would translate to buzz on the tube, and along with traditional promotion and critical reviews (which were positive for Quarterlife), the show would do well. But it could be that they over estimated the power of the web buzz. Consider that Quarterlife's official MySpace page has 14,000 friends, while this clearly unofficial fan-made profile for Grey's Anatomy, a true TV hit, has over 20,000 friends. While Quarterlife's debut was a bomb by TV standards, it might not have been so bad by web-to-TV standards.
As Media Life Magazine points out, though, this was an experiment that likely didn't cost much for NBC. So look for more web-to-TV programming in the future.
What web-based shows do you think could make it on the traditional airwaves? Diggnation? Rocketboom? The ScobleShow? Let us know in the comments below.
Anonymous Music Execs Confirm Details of MySpace's Upcoming Music Service
According to an AP news story that ran yesterday afternoon, the upcoming MySpace Music service is definitely happening. Based on reports from music executives, who spoke only under the condition of anonymity, News Corp. has approached the four major record labels to discuss the launch of a music service that would operate via the MySpace social networking site. The executives also confirmed earlier rumors about the nature of the services that would be offered - according to them, the service will offer free streaming music, mp3 downloads, and a subscription plan. Can we say iTunes killer?
The four major record companies approached, sometimes referred to as "the big four," are Universal Music, Sony BMG, Warner Music, and EMI. These four companies would receive an equity stake in the new company, according to one of the anonymous executives cited in the news item.
According to initial plans being discussed, the new company, which will likely go by the name "MySpace Music," will offer MySpace's 68.6 million U.S. visitors an ad-supported music player, which could be embedded on other web sites or blogs. It's possible that this player could be from Snocap, since they are already powering the MySpace Music services that currently exist. There is also talk of a partnership with Amazon, in which Amazon would build a white-label version of their mp3 music store for MySpace, offering DRM-free downloads of tunes.
Although the initial reaction to hearing this news prompts most people to immediately think iTunes killer (which very well may be true), a secondary victim would be streaming music services and web radio services, like the currently popular Last.FM. Similar to the way that a Walmart comes into a town and mom-and-pops go out of business, I can see a possible impact on the smaller, niche streaming radio services...how will they compete when MySpace will offer it all - the big names artists and the independent artists?
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Blu-ray Wins Format War - Much Longer HD Download Battle Lies Ahead
Syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog
It's official: Toshiba, the leading partner in the HD DVD camp, has waved the white flag. The next generation DVD format war is over. Blu-ray wins.
The move to stop production of HD DVD players and recorders was an "agonising decision", according to Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida, but one that the company had to take after "judging that there is no way of winning the competition."
Looking back, the tipping point came when Warner Bros. decided to join Sony Pictures Entertainment, MGM, Disney, 20th Century Fox, New Line Cinema and Lionsgate, by defecting to the Blu-ray camp -- resulting in an estimated three quarters of new film releases being available exclusively on Blu-ray.
What followed was to some extent inevitable. Blockbuster, Netflix and Wal-Mart all dropped support for HD DVD, and Best Buy also said it would favor Blu-ray. The old adage, "follow the money", which in this case means content, applies.
"It shows what a highly competitive market it is. When it comes to video, it is the person with the most content that wins," says Gartner analyst Paul O'Donovan (BBC News).
The technical and commercial superiority of each format - HD DVD and Blu-ray - is likely to be debated for years, as is whether the consumer drew the short straw in all of this. But the fact remains that Blu-ray will be the disc format of choice going forward. (I'm feeling a little smug at this point having recently bought a PlayStation 3 with its built-in Blu-ray drive - for once I backed a winner!).
However, a much longer battle lies ahead - HD downloads - leading some to argue that the next-gen DVD format war is irrelevant. In the future consumers won't buy physical media, they'll purchase and download it over the Internet.
True but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.
High definition downloads from services such as iTunes, XBox Live and Vudu are in their infancy, and the competing standards of HD DVD and Blu-ray pale into insignificance compared with the many formats and DRM schemes that make up digital downloads. Moving to HD downloads also puts a greater strain on broadband speeds, bandwidth and storage. The latter isn't an issue for rentals but for those who like to own their movie collections, be prepared to bulk up on hard drive space.
Of course, the biggest lesson that the burgeoning HD download market can learn from Blu-ray's success, is also its biggest hurdle. Content wins. And this is where every HD download service currently falls short. Until the major studios treat HD downloads on par with physical media in terms of title availability and release windows, consumers will continue to vote with their wallets for DVDs and now Blu-ray.
This post is syndicated from last100, our digital lifestyle blog covering Internet TV, digital music, Mobile Web and more. You can subscribe to last100 here.
HD DVD Could Be Dead Sooner Than You Think
The high definition DVD format war has been raging for quite some time now, but it looks as though there may finally be a victor. The HD DVD camp, started by Toshiba and including heavyweight backing from Microsoft, has been gradually losing ground over the last year. Recent events, which we discuss below, make it almost certain that the HD DVD format will be joining Betamax in format heaven soon.
Even though Toshiba was able to keep the prices on their devices far lower than comparable Sony Blu-ray players, the lack of big studio backers