Stanford University sits right in Silicon Valley’s backyard — so it seems like no coincidence that its graduates generate $2.7 trillion in revenue annually, according to a new study.

Stanford entrepreneurs have created more than 5.4 million jobs in the form of tech giants like Google, Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems, according to the study. The study, led by two Stanford professors, consisted of a massive survey of Stanford degree-holders from the 1930s to the present, of which there were more than 27,000 responses.

Even a small section of the alumni list reads like an A-list fantasy football draft for entrepreneurship: It’s not surprising that a huge chunk of these graduates stay in Silicon Valley. One-quarter of entrepreneurs who graduated after 1990 formed their companies within 20 miles of the university, according to the study. Within 60 miles, that number grows to 39%.

Fujifilm to cease production of cinema film as digital continues

to take over movie industry

Fujifilm has decided that the time has come for it to move on from film for motion pictures after 78 years. Starting in March of 2013, the last Japanese producer of negatives (for shooting) and positives (for projection) will cease sales of the majority of its film products for movies. Specifically, that means both color and black and white positives and negatives, intermediate film, sound recording film, and processing chemicals (the latter only in Japan, for now) will no longer be available from the company — essentially a complete pull out from the market. Rather surprisingly, Fujifilm thought it necessary to reaffirm that it will continue to sell film for still photography.

Fortunately, Fujifilm will continue to offer its archival film — rated for 500 years — which is still one of the best ways to preserve movies for future generations. Additionally, the company will remain in the movie industry, offering its array of lenses for filming and projection as well as its on-set color management system. For those who want to continue to shoot on film, there are still options out there, but the loss of a major player is another clear sign that the industry is moving on.

Ustream has hired two media veterans to expand its content strategy, the live streaming company revealed. Cybil Wallace and Scott Roesch are joining respectively from CNN.com and Viacom to serve as Ustream’s Executive producer and Head of news & entertainment, business development.

This announcement comes only a few weeks after the company unveiled its new home page, also known as Ustream Broadcast Network. Rather than one single live player, it now features multiple videos. According to Ustream’s CEO, Brad Hunstable, the company’s recent hires are directly related to this shift and to the need for curation it generated.

“When you look at TV in the US, 95% of the top 50 shows on TV in 2011 were live. My fundamental belief is that live broadcast will also be big on the Web, because it has the potential to be more interactive. When we broadcast Mars Rover landing on Ustream, 4 million people tuned to watch it – more than on CNN,” Hunstable proudly points out.

In other words, the Internet could well be live broadcast’s new home – and the fact that Ustream managed to poach Wallace is quite telling. ”After working for the Associated Press and CNN.com, I was really looking for the new thing in our industry, and there is nothing more exciting than curating around live events, because possibilities are infinite,” she says.

Online Video Replacing Some Pay TV

Now there's something else for pay TV operators to worry about: about one-fifth of people believe online video can be a replacement for pay TV channels. A new report from ABI Research says nearly 20% of online consumers consider online video a replacement for monthly subscription TV services. The authors say this represents a significant risk to the traditional TV operator business, which amounts to some $16.8 billion in the U.S.

ABI notes that U.S. pay TV household penetration from traditional cable, satellite and telco TV programming services will slowly decline -- at a rate of 0.5% per year through 2017. In this regard, ABI believes that so-called over-the-top services [OTT] as well as online services -- especially ones that focus on movies -- will gain market share.

For many consumers, a transition from pay TV to other services is becoming easier. The study says 30% of online consumers who have subscription TV have a "foundation" in place for OTT and other services. Their recommendation to halt some of this migration is for many traditional pay TV operators to offer "lightweight" pay TV services. In addition, that pay TV operators build a business that leverages OTT components.
Says Sam Rosen, practice director, TV and video for ABI: “While many OTT services focus on movies, the goal of lightweight pay TV packages should be to introduce customers to the brand and tease customers with premium content offerings.”
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/185644/online-video-replacing-some-pay-tv.html?edition=52708#ixzz2A4Sr5TD1

Traditional filming technique seen in 'Batman,' 'Fight Club' loses war to digital method

Since the beginning of modern filmmaking, these marks could be found on every reel of film. However, eagle-eyed moviegoers might have noticed that in the past couple years, these marks have slowly but surely started to disappear. Soon they may be gone entirely.

This is all part of a major shift that is happening in both filmmaking and film projection: a transition from the use of film and celluloid to exclusively digital cameras and projectors. Most moviegoers might not even be aware that it’s happening, yet it is perhaps the most significant change since color beat out black and white. This shift is painstakingly explored in the fascinating new documentary “Side by Side,” which is available for rental in the iTunes store. In this film, producer/star Keanu Reeves interviews some of the most important names in the business — David Lynch, Christopher Nolan, Martin Scorsese and David Fincher — about the pros and cons of this important moment in film history.

There are two main differences between film and digital. The first is the economic one. Filming digitally is much cheaper, and when filming a particular scene takes longer than expected, the only thing being wasted is time. With film, there is the constant issue of money going through the camera. Each frame costs something. With digital, these pressures are pretty much nonexistent.

Studios Manage DVD Death With Profits on Digital Rights

Film premieres get all the attention in Hollywood while the cash cow for years has been selling those silver DVDs to a home video market far more predictable -- and profitable -- than the hit-or-miss theatrical release game. That’s why it was widely thought the movie business would take it on the chin as disc ownership gave way to digital distribution of content, just as the music business has been decimated by the shift to MP3s.

Yet Hollywood is discovering there’s life after the DVD. With Netflix Inc. (NFLX), Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), and soon Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) and Coinstar Inc. (CSTR)’s Redbox bidding for rights to stream movies on Kindles, iPads, and TVs, the studios are enjoying a boomlet that’s taking the edge off declining disc sales and rentals, Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Sept. 17 issue.

Studio-backed pay-TV channel Epix became the latest to strike gold earlier this month when it signed a multiyear agreement with Amazon to supply such films as “The Hunger Games” and “Marvel’s The Avengers” for Amazon’s Prime Instant Video service.

Mobile Viewers Three Times More Likely To Watch Product Videos, Buy Products

When it comes to retail and commerce, mobile site visitors are three times more likely to watch a video than traditional visitors. That’s the result of a research study conducted by Invodo, which provides video commerce solutions for brands and retailers. In studying more than 100 retailer and brand clients and surveying consumers, Invodo found that only 5.5% of its traffic comes from mobile devices, but that mobile visitors account for 14.3% of all video views.

Mobile video viewers are also more likely to buy. Mobile site visitors who watched a video were three times more likely to purchase a product than a visitor who didn’t watch a video. As a regular caveat, any study should be taken with a grain of salt. But these results are potentially useful for other brands, agencies and technologists too. Invodo is agnostic and focuses on the video solution, not the devices on which the video is played. So what can a brand or publisher divine from this information?

“This leads us to conclude that mobile users, even more than traditional users, view video as an exceptionally valuable piece of the shopping experience. This makes sense considering that browsing a mobile website requires significant effort in terms of zooming and panning when compared to the ease of clicking and viewing a video….Even more surprising was that of the clients we looked at there was not a single instance where the mobile view rate was less than that for traditional (laptop/desktop) devices,” Invodo said.

mediapost.com/publications/article/183057/mobile-viewers-three-times-more-likely-to-watch-pr.html?edition=51159#ixzz26ZZnzdvB

Silicon Valley isn't sharing Facebook's misery

By most indications, tech companies in this hub of innovation are humming along, even as two of its rising stars endure steep declines in their stock prices that have wiped out more than $60 billion in wealth over the past six months.

Companies catering to mobile devices, business software and data management products are thriving, while veterans such as Apple and Google remain among the most revered brands in the world.

"Nothing has fundamentally changed about the opportunities that are possible," said Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, an online data-storage company based in Los Altos, California. The optimism can be seen in a variety of ways in this area that covers roughly 40 miles (64 kilometers) from San Jose to San Francisco:

—Silicon Valley startups raised $3.2 billion from venture capitalists during the April-June quarter, far more than in any other part of the U.S as tracked by the National Venture Capital Association. Venture capital flowing into Silicon Valley increased by 4% from the same time last year, while it dropped 12% nationwide.

Meanwhile, a slew of unsexy, business-focused tech startups are raising big money from prominent venture capitalists drawn to the companies' stability and predictable business models. "Facebook is yesterday's story. People are looking at the next thing," said Terry Connelly, dean emeritus at Golden Gate University's Ageno School of Business in San Francisco. usatoday.com/money/industries/technology/story/2012-09-10/silicon-valley-stock-facebook-zynga/57733056/1

Movies suffer worst box-office slump in a decade

With only a couple of new releases to tempt movie fans, horror movie "The Possession" pulled in an estimated $9.5 million in the United States and Canada. That's the first time since 2008 that no film took $10 million or more at the domestic box office.

Early September is historically sluggish. After blockbuster releases over the summer, Hollywood studios reserve their big films for the November and December holidays. But revenues for the three-day movie-going weekend were particularly low, with the total gross for all films expected to be $65-$68 million.

If the numbers hold when final figures come in on Monday, it could make the weekend the worst since September 21-23 2001 - two weekends after 9/11 - when revenue topped out at $59.7 million.

"It is pretty scary when the top movie comes in at only $9.5 million," said Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst at Hollywood.com.

"This is one of the worst-grossing weekends of the last 10 years. In the summer, single movies had opening weekends bigger than this entire weekend gross," he added.

Wind of change blows towards Silicon Valley

After initially basing manufacturing in the heartland of the American IT industry, companies switched to cheaper bases overseas. But now it could all come full circle, writes Tony Glover The days when California's Silicon Valley was an information technology (IT) manufacturing h withhulking chip-making factories are long gone. This is largely as a result of local companies such as Apple increasingly outsourcing manufacturing to other countries.

But there is growing evidence the area is again becoming a manufacturing hub. According to a study by the Brookings Institution, based in the United States, Silicon Valley, in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, has the country's highest manufacturing wages and the second-highest concentration of production jobs in big US cities.

More evidence grows over multitasking multiscreen viewing. Almost two-thirds of tablet owners -- 63% -- watch TV while using their tablets, per a study from GfK MRI.

The research says this is significantly more than any other activity done concurrently with tablet usage. Overall, 41% of tablet owners’ total TV viewing time comes from this type of two-screen viewing. What kind of attention? Thirty-six percent of concurrent TV/tablet users said their primary focus was on their tablet, 36% say the focus was equal between the TV and tablet; and 28% said their primary focus was on the TV screen.

Most activity on a tablet during TV time? Social media. Thirty-four percent posted comments on Facebook, Twitter, a blog or another site regarding a show. Other TV-related stuff: 25% visited a network or show’s Web site, fan site or app; 21% looked for information of a TV show being watched; 16% watched a video clip about a show; 11% voted in a contest/event for a TV show; and 9% chatted live about a TV show.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/183056/multiscreen-tv-tablet-viewing-soars.html?edition=51159#ixzz26ZaGRXDw

What’s Coming Out of Silicon Valley

Randall Stross, the Digital Domain columnist for The New York Times, has been following Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley start-up incubator, for more than a year. His book, “The Launch Pad: Inside Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s Most Exclusive School for Startups,” will be published next month by Portfolio/Penguin.

He got a rare insider look at all of the incubator’s fledgling start-ups in robotics, mobile apps, e-commerce services and software for companies. Here is his exhaustive, but not exhausting, special report for Bits on the current crop of companies Y Combinator has produced.

Fox offers downloads of newer films before issuing them on DVD

Film Is Dead? Long Live Movies

How Digital Is Changing the Nature of Movies

IN the beginning there was light that hit a strip of flexible film mechanically running through a camera. For most of movie history this is how moving pictures were created: light reflected off people and things would filter through a camera and physically transform emulsion. After processing, that light-kissed emulsion would reveal Humphrey Bogart chasing the Maltese Falcon in shimmering black and white.

More and more, though, movies are either partly or entirely digital constructions that are created with computers and eventually retrieved from drives at your local multiplex or streamed to the large and small screens of your choice. Right before our eyes, motion pictures are undergoing a revolution that may have more far reaching, fundamental impact than the introduction of sound, color or television. Whether these changes are scarcely visible or overwhelmingly obvious, digital technology is transforming how we look at movies and what movies look like, from modestly budgeted movies shot with digital still cameras to blockbusters laden with computer-generated imagery. The chief film (and digital cinema) critics of The New York Times, Manohla Dargis and A. O. Scott, look at the stuff dreams are increasingly made of.

More long-form premium TV and movie content continues to get heavy play from online consumers.

Premium video content -- movies, TV and sports programming -- now accounts for more than 60% of total time Internet users spend watching video online. This data comes from Ooyala, the digital video technology company, which looks at research from 200 million online viewers from the second quarter of this year. Growth of video continues on tablets and PCs: The time that tablet viewers spent watching long-form videos grew 47% in the second quarter. Also in the period, PC viewers tuned in to see live videos for an average of 33 minutes.

Long-form video content is still very important to viewers in this digital age -- even when it comes to new technology attached to their big screens. When using smart TVs, set-top boxes and gaming consoles, viewers spend 93% of their time watching movies, TV shows and other long-form videos, says the report. mediapost.com/publications/article/182487/premium-video-viewing-soars.html?edition=50841#ixzz25vUEobje

Blue-chip outfits venture into valley

MENLO PARK -- New York, London and Hong Kong are common addresses for blue-chip multinationals. Now Silicon Valley is, too.

From downtown San Francisco to Palo Alto, companies like American Express and Ford are opening up offices and investing millions of dollars in local startups.

This year, American Express opened a venture capital office in Facebook's old headquarters in downtown Palo Alto. Less than three miles away, General Motors' research lab houses full-time investment professionals, recent transplants from Detroit.

"American Express is a 162-year-old company, and this is a moment of transformation," said Harshul Sanghi, a managing partner at American Express Ventures, the venture capital arm of the financial company. "We're here to be a part of the fabric of innovation."

The companies are raising their profiles in Silicon Valley at a shaky time for the broader venture capital industry.

The mobile-payments race is heating up, with several big retailers announcing Wednesday that they have formed a company called the Merchant Customer Exchange (MCX) to create a platform that will allow mobile payments plus offers and promotions.

The news comes on the heels of last week’s unveiling of a piping-hot payment partnership between Square and Starbucks, which at least one analyst hailed as “the day mobile payments went mainstream,” according to an article by the Mercury News’ Peter Delevett. Tech columnist Larry Magid likened Square’s leadership in making mobile payments more common — the San Francisco company says it now processes $4 billion in payments a year — toNetflix‘s pioneering efforts in streaming video.

Big-bucks estimates have come in from research outfits such as Gartner, which predicts mobile payments will reach $600 billion by 2016, according to the Wall Street Journal. But nagging questions about mobile payments persist, some of which GMSV asked a year ago: What about security? And with a growing number of choices popping up, how do consumers decide which service to choose?

Apple cuts YouTube from new operating system

A YouTube app will not be included in the new operating system for iPhones and iPads, in another indication of a growing split between Google and Apple.

There’s been no love lost between the two Silicon Valley tech titans since Google began making its own Android phone handsets to compete with the iPhone. Recently, Apple announced it would stop using Google Maps for its phones and tablets and would replace it with its own mapping service.

Now, the rift has apparently extended to YouTube. Apple’s mobile operating system has included a YouTube app since the first iPhone launched in 2007. But the app was missing from a test version of its new iOS6 operating system that was just released to developers, according to the New York Time

s. Apple issued the following statement to the Times: “Our license to include the YouTube app in iOS has ended, customers can use YouTube in the Safari browser and Google is working on a new YouTube app to be on the App Store.”

Why McKinsey Values Social Economy At Up To $1.3 Trillion

Impact of public social media is important, but McKinsey study sees two-thirds of the value coming from social business collaboration within and between businesses.

Maybe it's time for collaboration technologies to step out from the shadows of their sexier social media cousins.

A just-published McKinsey study, "The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies," estimates that social technologies could pump $900 billion to $1.3 trillion per year in new value into the economy, based on an analysis of four key industries. Two-thirds of that value will come from improved social collaboration within or between companies, which will translate into a 20% to 25% improvement in the productivity of knowledge workers, according to McKinsey.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations said Tuesday that overall circulation, including subscriptions, was just about flat. But single-copy sales, which are more closely watched -because publishers make more money from them- continued to fall. Subscriptions are typically sold at a discount.

Yahoo's IntoNow 3.0 Syncs With TV

Yahoo is making a bid to be a pacesetter in media companies’ burgeoning emphasis on developing second-screen experiences, where TV viewing content is synced in real-time with what’s available on a tablet or other device. The company is referring to its renewed effort as IntoNow 3.O, which will have a focus on social media and music. Driving Yahoo’s efforts and its competitors in the space is simple consumer behavior. The company says 80% of TV watchers do so with a mobile device or tablet in hand. The IntoNow free app works with the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.

“iOS devices are pervasive in our living rooms, and second-screen behavior is now commonplace,” stated Adam Cahan, who founded IntoNow, which Yahoo acquired. Yahoo said the 3.0 version will offer a TV-music sync, where the system can identify music played during a broadcast and direct viewers to make a swift purchase via iTunes or an opportunity to watch a music video on YouTube.
mediapost.com/publications/article/179925/yahoos-intonow-30-syncs-with-tv.html?edition=49617#ixzz22NRGzwwg

Few places on Earth invoke the kind of economic envy that Northern California’s Silicon Valley does. So much so, that hopes of being the “next Silicon Valley” have spawned scores of wannabes worldwide such as Silicon Oasis (Dubai), Silicon Cape (Cape Town) and Silicon Sloboda (Moscow). In the U.S., “Silicon Beach” is coveted by five cities, among them Miami.

Obviously, all these places share the same ambition: to attain the lucrative concentration of fresh talent, disruptive ideas and venture capital that has driven Silicon Valley’s technological innovation and financial success over the past 50 years. The problem is that there’s only one, and will always will be only one, Silicon Valley.

Social media, until recently a hot sector, faces growing skeptics

Social media, until recently the hottest sector in Silicon Valley, is now getting the cold shoulder from investors, downgrades from analysts and criticism from some fans.

But while the hype around social networking companies has deflated, the industry is no where near a bust, experts say. Unlike the dot-com bubble more than a decade ago, when companies with no profits and scant revenues saw soaring valuations, many social media companies are pulling in millions in revenues as they change the way people work, play and communicate.

"The reality is, they are going through amazing growing pains," said Tim Bajarin, president of Creative Strategies. Many social media companies burst onto the Internet as culture-changing enterprises Now, though, some are being hammered by Wall Street. Investors are dismayed with Facebook and Zynga. Twitter, meanwhile, triggered a public relations disaster when it shut down a British journalist's account after he criticized Twitter's Olympic partner, NBC -- and then reversed itself. And some advertisers are skeptical that social networks are the right platform for their ads.

Digital Upgrade Threatens Small Movie Theaters

Dramatic changes are coming to your local movie theater over the next 18 months.

You won't notice them at the snack bar or the ticket window, but you will if you take a peek into the projection booth.

The industry is doing away with 35mm film and going all-digital and theaters have to purchase expensive new equipment to make the switch.

It's a technological leap forward, but the costs, which can be as high as $100,000 per screen is threatening some small Vermont theaters.The films that screen at the Playhouse Theater in Randolph were made using some very high tech wizardry. But the 35mm projector used to show them is circa 1940.

As the film industry moves from celluloid to digital, this single screen theater in a town of 5,000 will have to make the switch, too, or shut its doors. Tammy Tomaszewski who owns the theater with her husband says the cost of a new digital projector is far beyond their means. "We make enough money to make repairs every year, small ones. But nothing major like a $100,000 movie projector."

The Tomaszewski's have decided the only way to keep the theater in business is to turn it over to a community run cooperative they hope will be able to raise the money for the digital transition. Some theaters have already made the change. Fred Bashara and his family own two theaters in Central Vermont. Bashara spent $700,000 for the conversion. He says many big theaters have already made the switch. "Probably 70 percent or more have already done it."

Emmy-Award winning director Greg Yaitanes decried Hollywood’s approach to Silicon Valley in a keynote speech for the Social TV Summit at the Bel-Air Country Club on Wednesday.

Yaitanes, who was one of the main directors on “House” and a director for Cinemax’s upcoming “Banshee,” told the audience of executives and reporters that anti-piracy bill SOPA fostered antagonism where progress was being made. “We should be working hand-in-hand with Google, Facebook and Twitter,” Yaitanes said. Rather than thinking of Hollywood and Silicon Valley as two separate businesses, Hollywood should recognize "we are in the same business."

Having spoken with the various powers up north, from YouTube to Twitter, Yaitanes has stressed that the process of a new show is similar to that of a start-up in its evolution. Of the two, it is television that has room to improve. "What TV could learn is the streamlining of trusting the people you hired," Yaitanes said. "On the broadcast side, there is a feeling of a growing group of redundancy -- studios owning networks, networks owning studios."

Hollywood, Silicon Valley At War in Sun Valley

As leaders of Silicon Valley and Hollywood debark from their G6s in Sun Valley, a traitor has brought Bravo to nerdville. And with reality TV invading Palo Alto’s privacy, the competing economic interests of the likes of Facebook (FB) and News Corp. (NWSA) will battle this week on the grounds of Allen & Co.’s summer camp for moguls.

Hollywood producers have shareholders who expect a return on the money they invest. Ironically, reality TV shows — like Silicon Valley — lower the cost since real people don’t get paid as much as actors, if they get paid at all. And writers do much less writing than for scripted shows, but the thing that would really tip Silicon Valley to appreciate what Hollywood is trying to do would be if Silicon Valley started to produce its own content. And in 2012, NPR reported, Google started to spend money for Hollywood and New York writers and producers to create YouTube channels.

If Google decides that the cost of producing original content is so high that it needs to be compensated for it by getting people to pay directly — rather than through advertising — then it might move closer to Hollywood’s position. But if Google finds that additional advertising more than offsets the cost of producing original content, it is likely that the business model gap between Silicon Valley and Hollywood will persist.

Three "hacker hostels" have cropped up in Silicon Valley, The New York Times reports. Coders, designers and scientists can spend the night packed like sardines in rows of bunk beds for $40. The hostels are all run by the same management company, Chez JJ, with accommodations in Menlo Park, Mountain View and San Francisco.

Most of the hostel tenants are 20-somethings who are currently building startups or are in search of inspiration. Every new comer is given a blanket, pillow, towel and sheets. There's no TV. Every once in a while food is cooked for the group.

Not just anyone can stay at the hostels. Like any startup incubator, you actually have to be working on something to be accepted. Tenants are screened by hostel captains, all of whom are women, to make sure they'll contribute to the hacker community. Tenants also have to have a good attitude or they're kicked to the curb. businessinsider.com/silicon-valley-hacker-hostel-2012-7#ixzz1zuDGamvD

Ah, This Is Where the Real Silicon Valley Hackers Are theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/07/ah-where-real-silicon-valley-hackers-are/54247/

Tech investor Peter Thiel is looking for 20 of the biggest innovators in Silicon Valley under the age of 20, offering $100,000 to contestants so they can further develop their projects. In a CNBC special called “20 Under 20: Transforming Tomorrow,” the two-part series follows the journey of 20 young men and women who aim to become the next Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

The show, which airs on August 13 and August 14 at 10:00 p.m. ET on CNBC, will show contestants pitching concepts to a room for of Silicon Valley investors and entrepreneurs, including Sean Parker and Elon Musk. (It was originally scheduled to air in July).

Amazon Cloud Hit by Real Clouds, Downing Netflix, Instagram, Other Sites

Digital cloud services aren't immune to the impact of real clouds, and that meant some bad news this weekend for the folks at Amazon and sites that rely in its web services.

Severe storms that wiped out power to more than 2 million people across the eastern United States Friday night also took down Netflix, Pinterest, Instagram and other sites due to an outage of Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud in northern Virginia.

According to Amazon Web Services, at 8:21 p.m. PDT it was "investigating connectivity issues for a number of instances" in the East region. By early Saturday morning, Amazon said it was "continuing to work to recover."

Yahoo was a focus of Friday's technology news, as the Sunnyvale Internet company announced a deal with Facebook that will cease the Silicon Valley companies' dueling patent lawsuits and seemed to narrow its CEO search down to a single candidate thanks to attrition.

Facebook and Yahoo jointly announced the agreement Friday afternoon, saying in a news releasethat they will cross-license their patent hordes and deepen their advertising relationship in largely undefined ways. One of the few specific partnership agreements the companies announced was a focus on big events, which Business Insider reported was a direct assault on Twitter's efforts in that arena.

The announcement brought to a close a surprise assault by Yahoo on a close partner: The two companies had worked closely together on Facebook's "Open Graph" project, which had helped boost Yahoo's visitors. The assault, a lawsuit focusing on 10 patents that mostly focused on advertising, was parried by Facebook's countersuit on 10 patents and purchase of more than 1,000 patents from IBM and Microsoft.

AllThingsD writer Kara Swisher broke the news Friday morning Pacific time, hours before the official announcement, and reported that Yahoo would also be the first Facebook partner to be allowed to feature the social network's users' "Likes" in advertising. She also sat down for an interview with the two executives she reported originally pushed for the settlement talks, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.

Shares of video rental company Netflix Inc. have shot up more than 10 percent since CEO Reed Hastings said this week that customers viewed more than 1 billion hours of streaming video in June.

Online video has moved out of Silicon Valley and across the globe. More and more, people are watching TV shows and movies on their laptops or the latest viral video on their smartphones. ComScore’s recent “Surviving the Upfronts in a Cross-Media World” report found that more than four out of five Internet users consume online video in a given month and that the number of Americans who watch online video in an average day has increased 30% in the past year. The firm also reported that one in every 10 tablet users are viewing video almost daily on their device.

With digital video advertising spanning across four screens -- computers, smartphones, tablets and connected TVs -- the potential for advertisers is enormous. In fact, NPD DisplaySearch’s Global TV Replacement Study revealed that 70% of people are now engaging with video content outside of the traditional TV set. To better understand how advertisers perceive this shift to multiple platforms, I’d like to highlight some of the findings from our annual U.S. and inaugural Germany advertiser surveys on digital video advertising attitudes in the U.S. and Germany. The reports uncovered digital advertising trends, along with advertiser perspectives highlighting key similarities and differences between the U.S. and Germany, which serve as a strong market indicator for Europe and beyond.

BBC Future Media director outlines connected media strategy

BBC Future Media director Ralph Rivera, in a speech to the BBC’s online staff, says digital media is still basically being used as a distribution medium for old media formats — just like when television first launched and was basically a way of transmitting radio. “The iPlayer, as great as it is, is still television online,” he says.

“I think we are still just scratching the surface of what Internet as a medium is going to be…. How do we combine the creativity of storytellers with the innovation of technologists?”

The answer, he says, is taking a connected, creative “studio” approach. “We are going to have a connected strategy to drive connected experiences, experiences that enable us to take advantage of the medium itself. And we are going to do this within the context of a connected studio.”

He says this is not about experimentation. “It’s about creating experiences.”

Why smartphones are the future of social networking

In case you have any doubts that the future of social networking is mobile, a new report from comScore shows that both Facebook and Twitter users spend more time using those networks on mobile devices than they do on traditional computers or laptops.

Facebook mobile users spent more than 7 hours engaging via browsers or apps in March, as compared to six hours via the computer (according to CNET). Twitter mobile users, meanwhile, spent more than 2 hours engaging on mobile devices, as compared to just 20.4 minutes on Twitter.com (with the caveat that doesn’t track usage on third-party desktop clients like TweetDeck).

Social networking proved to be a particularly popular activity on smartphones with several brands demonstrating exceptionally high engagement, in some cases higher than the corresponding time spent by users via traditional web access.

Facebook once again led the pack among social networking brands, with the average Facebook mobile user engaging for more than 7 hours via browser or app in March. The 25.6 million Twitter mobile users (excluding usage via third-party apps) had an average engagement of nearly 2 hours during the month.

By comparison, people visiting on their computers spent just 20.4 minutes on Twitter.com, highlighting the importance of mobile engagement for mobile-centric brands.

Digital Media Flourishing Despite Global Economic Uncertainty

Global Study of Journalists Finds Increased Investment in Streaming Video, Mobile Apps and Infographics as Online Audiences Grow

NEW YORK, NY -- (Marketwire) -- 06/21/12 -- Media brands around the world utilize a wider range of digital assets, support more mobile devices and rely on digital sources in their reporting more than at any time in the last five years, according to results of a global journalism study (www.oriellaprnetwork.com/research) announced today by HORN (www.horngroup.com), a top digital communications agency.

The study, now in its fifth year, is conducted by the Oriella PR Network, a global alliance of communications firms co-founded by HORN. More than 600 journalists from 16 countries in Europe, Asia-Pacific and the Americas participated in the study and provided insight into publishing, newsgathering and reporting practices, along with journalism standards worldwide:

"Digital is fundamentally changing media and reporting on a global level," said Sabrina Horn, President and CEO of HORN. "For brands communicating internationally, the findings in our fifth annual study provide a blueprint for the content, strategies and tactics now required to engage with media, wherever they are in the world."

Silicon Valley lands Patent Office bureau

Fulfilling one of Silicon Valley's longtime goals, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office is expected to announce Monday that it will open one of its first satellite bureaus in San Jose, potentially slashing the amount of time it takes local entrepreneurs to patent their ideas.

The move is a significant win for the region's businesses and elected officials, who pushed hard to have one of the Patent Office's new bureaus here. Packed with technology firms large and small, Silicon Valley accounted for 12 percent of all patents registered nationwide in 2010, according to an annual survey.

New YouTube Platform Connects Brands and Advertisers to Popular Content Creators

Last week, YouTube announced a new platform that gives advertisers, small businesses and brands direct access to YouTube’s most popular content creators. Called the Video Creation Marketplace, the new platform’s purpose is to link brands and agencies to YouTube partners, who can serve as resources to brands and agencies looking to create video ads or content. The hub will also notify advertisers about the most popular videos on YouTube, which are potential sources of media dollars. "The creativity coming out of YouTube rivals that coming out of creative agencies any day of the week," YouTube group product manager Baljeet Singh said. "And we already know that their content performs really well on YouTube."
mediapost.com/publications/article/178046/new-youtube-platform-connects-brands-and-advertise.html?edition=48601#ixzz1zVQXZTEZ

Disappearing Ink

Digital media is here to stay. There's no question that technology – and consequently economics – have already made printed journalism a dinosaur that mostly exists to service a shrinking market driven by increasingly uncommon habitual preferences, and perhaps a bit of nostalgia. The industry seems to be in agreement that printed products will be little more than a niche in just a few years.

Think about it; if someone were to show up from another planet and were given an Ipad, on which they were taught to access everything from the morning newspaper to Wikipedia, to the latest edition of Rolling Stone, not to mention sites like Living Social and Groupon, they might be a little surprised were we to tell them that we also slice up our trees into ultra-thin sheets to print the same information on them before transporting the dead tree slices, non-digitally, in giant fossil-fuel powered vehicles. It would probably seem like an epic waste of dwindling, non-renewable resources for an extinct purpose.

Anyone who claims that they know how the news media will look in five years better have a crystal ball, and it's worth noting that television was viewed by many as a vastly inferior product with little chance of competing with print when it first emerged. We just might see the day when newspapers enjoy a digital rebirth, even more capable of doing what they do best. But the day we start believing that a free and independent press is a quaint and outdated notion, or that freedom can be preserved without a network of skilled and experienced journalists shining a light in the dark places where tyranny and fascism lurk, we will be taking the first steps on a road to ruin. thebradentontimes.com/news/2012/07/01/opinion/disappearing_ink/

Four-fifths of viewers watched content from YouTube as 163 million unique US video viewers streamed over 26 billion videos and spent about six hours on average watching online video during May 2012.

Overall, according to Nielsen’s latest investigation of the US online video market, there were 163,478,000 video views taking 26,167,111,000 video streams, an average of 160.1 streams per viewer. Inevitably, YouTube dominated proceedings, amassing 136 million unique viewers during the month, over over three times more than Yahoo! who had 45.336 million users; VEVO with 42 million; AOL, 25.6 million; MSN, 24 million. The highest ranked commercial video service, Hulu, amassed online 15.48 million users.

In terms of total streams, the picture was somewhat different. You Tube took an iron grip with 16.5 billion streams or 121 streams per viewer. Even though Hulu assed a fraction of YouTube’s total streams at 968 million, the OTT service amassed on average 62 streams over the month. That is, unlike YouTube, 62.5 paid for streams.

Next in line was VEVO with 727 million streams, 17 stream per viewer; Yahoo! on 434 million/ 9.6. Hulu’s arch rival Netflix accounted for 300 million total streams and the Dailymotion online video service adding 229.4 and the ESPN Digital Network with 219 million streams.

Tech Execs See Shift From Silicon Valley to China

The one business story that has most captured the world's attention for at least the last three years is the rise of China as a formidable rival to the U.S. While in the past those stories have mostly focused on matters finance and trade, the emphasis is increasingly shifting to the notion of China as a technology powerhouse. Now a new survey of global executives claims the center of tech innovation will shift from Silicon Valley to China in a mere four years.

Polling 668 business executives based in Europe, the Americas, the Asia Pacific region, Africa, and the Middle East, KPMG's 2012 Global Technology Innovation Survey found that 44 percent believed the world's tech innovation center of the world will soon shift from Silicon Valley to China. "China's anticipated parity with the U.S. tech sector shows the significant challenge facing the United States to retain its position as an innovation leader, as other key countries will continue to take steps to boost technology innovation and attract tech entrepreneurs as well," said KPMG partner Gary Matuszak.

In terms which technologies will lead the global innovation shift, cloud computing appears to be the space that most are looking to for significant growth. "It is clear that technology leaders in countries where technology innovation is thriving believe that the cloud represents a technology tidal shift. They are placing a huge bet on cloud," said Matuszak.

In fact, just about a year ago I myself had an extended meeting with Gartner Japan president Nobuhiko Hidaka at the firm's Tokyo office about IT research and trend analysis. According to Hidaka, the sector that will dominate the future of technology in Asia, even ahead of mobile, is the shift from personal computers to the cloud, a view shared by many tech execs in Asia.

And while the idea that Silicon Valley will be overtaken by China anytime soon is unrealistic to most observers stateside (only 28 percent of the U.S. survey respondents thought such a shift is underway), there are small signs everywhere that the world is preparing for China's ascendance. pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2406373,00.asp

Web pioneer Yahoo Inc. has signed another multi-year digital radio deal with Clear Channel expanding on its strategy of striking content-sharing deals with traditional media brands. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Clear Channel is the biggest player in U.S. terrestrial radio, with a reach of more than 237 million monthly users in 150 markets. Clear Channel’s iHeartRadio boasts of a monthly audience of about 45 million and offers live digital feeds to more than 1,000 radio stations.

Per the deal, Yahoo will use Clear Channel's iHeartRadio platform as its official digital radio service. Both Yahoo and Clear Channel content will be cross-promoted on iHeartRadio.com, local radio station websites, Yahoo! media network, and other Yahoo properties, including its entertainment sites such as Yahoo movies, music and omg!.The deal will also include partnering on live events. Yahoo will carry nearly a dozen live Clear Channel events annually as well as live video from this year's iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas.

Who's the Boss? There Isn't One

Like many tech companies, Valve Corp., a videogame maker in Bellevue, Wash., boasts high-end espresso, free massages and laundry service at its offices. One thing it doesn't have: bosses

Valve, whose website says the company has been "boss free" since its founding in 1996, also has no managers or assigned projects. Instead, its 300 employees recruit colleagues to work on projects they think are worthwhile. The company prizes mobility so much that workers' desks are mounted on wheels, allowing them to scoot around to form work areas as they choose.

Welcome to the bossless company, where the hierarchy is flat, pay is often determined by peers, and the workday is directed by employees themselves. So, how does anyone get things done?

"It absolutely is less-efficient upfront," says Terri Kelly, chief executive of W.L. Gore, the Newark, Del., maker of Gore-Tex and other materials. Her title is one of the few at the company.

"[But] once you have the organization behind it…the buy-in and the execution happen quickly," she adds.

Yahoo’s Levinsohn Strategy Gets Some Lionizing in Cannes by P&G

Even if the board of Yahoo is taking its sweet time in naming him as permanent CEO — and it isas it conducts what appears to be a serious search effort to find the unicorn leader it has never found yet — the media-focused strategy of its interim CEO Ross Levinsohn was getting some love from a big advertiser in France at the Cannes Lions creative festival this week.

In a panel discussion at the event yesterday with Publicis Groupe Chairman Maurice Lévy and Mark Pritchard, the top marketing exec for consumer goods powerhouse Procter & Gamble, the man who would be lion-haired king of Yahoo talked about the Silicon Valley Internet giant, but first had to listen to the obvious joke about fake resumes.

But it was Pritchard who gave Levinsohn a needed boost, noting, in part, “a successful Yahoo is good for P&G, as well as the industry.”

Putting in a plug for Levinsohn’s clear preference for a strategic direction toward content and not so much tech at Yahoo, Pritchard also added that solid media offerings online would be the key to success in the future with big-spending companies like his.

“Technology can be matched but not creativity,” he said. “What I see Yahoo as is a technology-driven media company.”

Hong Kong digital media consultant and South China Morning Post Digital Development Editor Stephen Quinn was part of a panel discussion on “Media Innovation and Future Trends in Asia, the Pacific and U.S.” on June 22, 2012, at the East-West Center’s International Media Conference in Seoul. The Australian-born Quinn took a moment at the conference to answer a few questions.

What is the most challenging aspect of your work?
Transforming a print-focused company into thinking and acting digitally.

How has social media changed the way your newspaper covers China?
The editor of our China section tells me up to half of the stories they cover each day come from monitoring social media, especially Weibo, as a source of story ideas and trends. The main China bureau has two people who start at 6 am and do nothing but monitor social media and email ideas to other reporters.

Chinese people are actively looking for reliable information. They go online and onto social networks daily – partly, I suspect, because they do not necessarily trust the mainstream media. This explains the massive growth of social networks, with 300 million active Sina Weibo users. Consumers in China have many sources of information but little clarity. People go online for information so they can make decisions in their lives.

One complaint often heard from reporters today is that in addition to writing text articles, they need to blog, tweet and shoot video. As someone who teaches mobile reporting to journalists, what is your take on that? Is it the future of journalism?
Not everyone is required to multi-task. My paper does not require people to tweet or blog; it is voluntary. We have dedicated video reporters. Sometimes we ask reporters, at the end of an interview, to take a mugshot of the person they interview with their mobile phone and email it back to the office. The future of journalism is a big question. A likely scenario is smaller staff at mainstream media, and a lot more use of freelance material.

Silicon Valley Is the New Motown in a Web That's a Hit Factory

The debate as to whether or not Silicon Valley is in a bubble might be missing the point. We might better ask if the fundamental principles of tech investing are shifting as technology becomes more of a consumer phenomenon. For all the talk of the long tail, the big money is in sites and services that capture a large user base. So how does venture capital and angel investing change to support this model? And should it?

Success in this realm isn’t like success in the old-school Silicon Valley world of building chips or enterprise software. The product still matters, but the audience isn’t the few tech- or business-savvy experts at a large company who evaluate your wares for a multimillion-dollar deal. Today it’s about selling to a billion people on Facebook, hoping enough of them will give you a click, a tweet, or five minutes of their time to be monetized in the form of ads.

Maybe if you’re good, you can build a business selling apps, but the game is still driven by hits. The Internet has become a wasteland of lame-duck startups and acqui-hires that couldn’t make it to the next level in popularity. The winners are those that rise to platform status—and it seems that for many segments of the Web, much as inThe Highlander, there can be but one. Facebook has won out in social networks while Foursquare is hoping to be the darling of location. Meanwhile the battle plays out for a mobile-commerce site, as well as a winner in travel, gifts, gaming (where there may be more than one), and so on.

In a research note, Citi Analyst Mark Mahaney says YouTube will generate $3.6 billion for Google in 2012. Last year, the Wall Street analyst had forecasted the video-sharing site’s 2012 revenue at $1.7 billion. Why is he now twice as bullish? Because YouTube’s traffic is growing at a 20 percent clip per quarter, according to comScore, and it is steadily placing more ads inside videos.

New media brings cult of individual

"The focus on individuality is increasingly powerful," Deakin University communication and creative arts head of school Prof David Marshall said.

"Technology can now throw an individual's voice across the room, like a ventriloquist. It's a presentation of the self.

"Technology in the 19th century related to communication. Now, we have the ideology of individualism. We've changed from representational media to presentational media. Something shifted and we have moved into an area of persona, which has manifested itself in politics, public culture, everything."

Prof Marshall's well-attended lecture, "The Era of Persona: Presentations and Representations of the public self", examined the role of social media in changing public perception.

"Technology is a bridge between the collective and the individual. It's a connection. In the past, celebrity was established by the news media and press, television and film produced that public personality system.

"Now, with internet and social media like FaceBook and Twitter, there is instant celebrity. Social media is the village of celebrity. It's the elevation of individuals as forms of representation of ourselves. It's an apparatus, but it is in us to have these connections. There are twin needs; the ideology of the individual and the ideology of the collective," he said.

Media & Entertainment Venture Capital Industry: VCs look to the leading companies

The US Media and Entertainment Venture Capital industry is set to gain ground over the next five years, with industry revenue is expected to jump 8.5% per year to $1.4 billion by 2016, according to latest report from IBISWorld, the nation’s largest publisher of industry research. More initial public offerings (IPO) will take place over the same period, prompting many industry players to pour more money into early stage companies. Heightened stock market activity will pave the way for more investment in the market, increasing the amount of funds available for industry players to invest and the management fees earned from doing so. Following the wave of interest in new media during the past five years, more new firms will start up, providing new ways to consume media and entertainment. For this reason, industry research firm IBISWorld has added a report on the Media and Entertainment Venture Capital industry to its growing Alternative Financing report collection. prweb.com/releases/2011/12/prweb9032602.htm

Tuning in...INTERESTING NOTE ON THIS REPORT...TO BUY THE RESEARCH REPORT IS $825.00

A shift in the way media is consumed has triggered increased interest in providing funding for ventures in the media and entertainment space. Consumers have broadly shifted away from engaging in traditional media (television, newspapers and radio) to digital entertainment (online, mobile and social media), changing the way new media companies conduct business. With this shift, venture-capital companies have dedicated more funds to new media ventures as many consumers switch over to the digital media sector and engage in more digital content. As these trends continue and the economy recovers, the industry is forecast to improve substantially in the coming years...

Bing, Yahoo Redesign Image Search

Microsoft Bing rolled out an update to its image search feature on Thursday, just weeks after redesigning its search results page. The company said images make up about 7% of searches. Bigger pictures now replace tiny thumbnails.

The suggestions tool offers refinements on queries for specific topics to make it easier to filter images by color, layout, size and type. Microsoft is not the only engine to make changes to image and video search. Yahoo said it partnered with stock photo agency Getty Images to alter its image and video search engine. Through the partnership, Yahoo will connect searchers to more than 20,000 photos daily.

Getty photos will become available in Yahoo search results within minutes of being uploaded. The full-screen viewing option -- HTML5 technology -- also supports a tiled thumbnail view that displays larger content when the cursor rolls over the image. The video will start to play when the cursor hovers over it, similar to the option in Microsoft images.

Baby Boomers Are Big Video Consumers-- (INTERESTING VISION INTO THE PARADIGM SHIFT)

A new wave of digital TV users has arrived: video consumers 50+. A study from the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) and research concern Chadwick Martin Bailey found that nearly 40% of the 50+ crowd have viewed a premium TV show or movie in the past week.

This represents a significant demographic shift, while younger viewers have hit a plateau, according to the study. Research comes from 1,500 U.S. broadband consumers ages 16-75, who watched at least two hours per week of TV shows or movies. Even with the growth of digital video, there is plenty of confusion -- especially when it comes to what TV shows and movies are available.

For example, 53% of those surveyed said they were unfamiliar with the cloud; 43% didn't know why some movies are available online before others; 42% were not familiar with the reasons that apps are used for TV viewing; 39% didn't know why there was limited availability of movies online; and 21% didn't know the difference between streaming and downloading. “CTAM has observed that baby boomers are fast followers of technology,” noted CTAM President and CEO Char Beales. “They have to be convinced the tool has staying power, and then they embrace it in a big way.”

mediapost.com/publications/article/177159/baby-boomers-are-big-video-consumers.html#ixzz1ybggIJeM

Jobs bio pic being shot at co-founder's 1970s home

Actor Ashton Kutcher and a movie crew have been filming this week at the Los Altos home where the Apple co-founder launched what would become the storied computer company.

Kutcher has the starring role in "JOBS," a flick that is said to focus on the part of its leading character's life when he was living with his family in the 1970s and hatching schemes with co-founder Steve Wozniak, who is being played by Josh Gad. So it would be understandable for neighbors and Kutcher fans gathered in the neighborhood to think they had been transported back more than 40 years, with vintage autos lining their streets and people dressed in disco era clothes strolling around.

How Do We Shape Future Media Leaders?

The media landscape is changing before our eyes. You don’t have to read Henry Blodget’s piece on Business Insider about the “imminent collapse of television” to know that our industry is transforming fast, as technology and changes in consumer behavior disrupt incumbent media companies -- newspapers, magazines, TV and radio broadcasters -- and create opportunities for new companies to have their moment in the sun: Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter, etc.

VCs are starting to move funds into content, as their investments in tech and platforms have become saturated. In fact, while online video continues to grow in terms of user adoption and popularity, industry revenues have failed to match forecasts and the exits have been fairly rare. Video isn’t immune to this reality: location hasn’t lived up to the hype and online media in general remains small, especially when benchmarked to the total investment in the sector.

Early on investors shunned content creation models for aggregation and curation, with a focus on scaling and cost minimization; but as marketers demanded quality, credibility and authenticity, then WatchMojo’s deep catalogue of 7,000 premium, professionally-produced, evergreen, brand-safe videos has come in greater demand. The videos’ popular topics appeal to distributors; their brand-safe nature pleases advertisers; and their quality draws academic and educational publishers that seek new tools for teachers and students alike.

New research into the world's top startup hubs shows once again why Silicon Valley remains the global hub of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Startups here raise more money, have a bigger ecosystem to tap into, are more successful, create more jobs and are more likely to be designed to change the world than simply make money.

So says the Startup Genome Project, a research effort begun last year that aims to help make startups more successful.

Here’s more proof that video and social media are growing ever more inextricably linked. Turner Broadcasting tapped six tech startups for a 12-week incubator program this summer, and many of those companies include social and video components. That’s not surprising -- given that Turner is, of course, in the TV and video business. Nevertheless, we can follow along and track their success to see if Turner is good at making bets on the next big thing -- companies that may shape the future of media via their work in social TV and transmedia storytelling.

Each company receives one-on-one mentorship with TV and film execs from Turner, HBO and Time Warner as well as the chance to “commercialize their business to Turner’s entertainment, news, sports and animation networks,” Turner said.

Cisco: The Internet Will Be Four Times as Large in Four Years

Cisco released its annual Visual Networking Index (VNI) Forecast (2011-2016), the company's ongoing analysis of Internet Protocol (IP) networking growth and trends worldwide.

1. An increasing number of devices - the proliferation of tablets, mobile phones, and other smart devices as well as machine-to-machine (M2M) connections are driving up the demand for connectivity. By 2016, the forecast projects there will be nearly 18.9 billion network connections - almost 2.5 connections for each person on earth - compared with 10.3 billion in 2011

2. More Internet users - by 2016, there are expected to be 3.4 billion Internet users - about 45 percent of the world's projected population according to United Nations estimates.

3. Faster broadband speeds - the average fixed broadband speed is expected to increase nearly fourfold, from 9 megabits per second (Mbps) in 2011 to 34 Mbps in 2016.

4. More video - by 2016, 1.2 million video minutes - the equivalent of 833 days (or over two years) - would travel the Internet every second.

5. Wi-Fi growth - by 2016, over half of the world's Internet traffic is expected to come from Wi-Fi connections.

Facebook's New York engineering boss, Serkan Piantino, is already trashing Silicon Valley

“The reason people don’t want to be in Silicon Valley is because while it’s awesome for the tech community, [and] is so deep in terms of people thinking about technology, that’s all there is, right?” Piantino told Wired. “You don’t have the fashion industry, or the media industry, or even finance. Those things make it so you get this variety of experience in New York that’s kind of lacking in Silicon Valley."

Kutcher taking a gamble on digital media

Ashton Kutcher wants to do for digital media what Robert Redford did for independent film. Google gave Kutcher’s
production company one of YouTube’s 100 new original channels, which he has titled “Thrash Lab.” In an interview with
Bloomberg TV’s Gigi Stone, Kutcher said he thinks, “These new channels are going to be synonymous with ABC, NBC, Fox,
CBS and Bravo.” When asked why he is taking this risk, he responded, “If you’re not trying to replace something that you’re
working on with something that is the future . . . eventually you’ll get replaced.” Sounds like the recent brownface ad furor hasn’t
damaged his confidence.

Filmmakers turn to internet to promote films (India)

As with most things in life, the internet has become the new buzzword for film producers looking at an instant connect with their audiences. From releasing the poster or a trailer of a forthcoming film first online, to raising money for funding films, digital media is the most-sought after platform for filmmakers.

According to the Q1 Global Video Index Report from Ooyala, Long-form content, videos longer than 10 minutes, accounted for half the total time people spent watching online video in Q1, and the growth trend is expected to continue.

Viewers are watching more videos on their tablets and mobile devices, and for longer periods. The overall share of time watched on smartphones grew by 41% last quarter. The share of time watched on tablets grew by 32%.

Tablet video viewing rises on weekday mornings as people prepare for the day and commute to work, then falls off during work hours as PC viewing picks up. On weekday evenings, tablet video surges as people watch streaming video to end their day. A third of tablet video plays occur between 7pm and 11pm, while only about 17% of PC plays take place over that same window.

RadioShack teams up with firm in China

RadioShack is continuing an expansion into Asia by forming a joint venture with a Chinese company to open consumer electronics stores in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.

According to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Fort Worth-based retailer will invest $2.94 million and own 49 percent of the venture, with Cybermart owning 51 percent. Cybermart is a wholly owned subsidiary of SMS Marketing Service.

RadioShack spokesman Eric Bruner said it's not known how many stores might be opened. The first store is set to open in July in Shanghai.

"We're focused on testing the business model in Shanghai this year," Bruner said. "We're in the early stages, and the pace of future expansions will be based in part on available real estate and some other factors."

Marketers Shifting Ad Spend Mix to Digital Media

Almost 3 in 10 marketers say they have shifted at least half of their marketing spending from traditional to digital advertising over the past 3 years, according to June 2012 survey results from RSW/US. The data also shows that 2 in 3 have moved at least 30% of their budgets from traditional to digital, while just 4% have not changed their spending mix. These findings align closely with March 2012 results from a DataXu survey, which found about one-third of CMOs saying that more than half of their budgets have shifted from traditional to digital marketing in the past year, with an additional 23% reporting a shift of between 26% and 50% to digital.

44% Allocate At Least Half of Budgets to Social & Digital

As a result of this shift in spending, 44% of marketers report that they are now spending at least half of their budgets on social and digital media. This represents a 42% increase from 31% spending that amount on digital and social media in 2009. This year, just 5% remain digital and social holdouts, allocating none of their marketing budgets to these channels.

In response, agencies report dramatically heightened activities in these spaces. 52% say that at least half of the work they perform for their clients is in social and digital media, an almost 80% increase from 29% in 2009.

Streaming video on a budget

If you're not already streaming movies and TV shows straight from the Internet to your TV set, you're running out of excuses. You used to need an expensive videogame console or Blu-Ray player for this sort of thing, or perhaps a $99 Apple TV unit. But you can now buy a good Internet video streamer at the local Walmart for less than $50. For households with broadband Internet connection, it's one of the best bargains in entertainment.

The MovieNite can connect to your broadband service either with an Ethernet cable, or with Wi-Fi wireless networking. Setting it up is a bit of a chore; you must use the little remote control to type all the necessary passwords onto a virtual keyboard that appears on screen. But after that, it's easy. The device has hot buttons that instantly connect you to the free video streams at YouTube and free music at Pandora. Or you can choose the Netflix subscription video service, which offers tens of thousands of movies and TV shows at $8 a month. There's also Vudu, where you can get pay-per-view access to recent Hollywood hits. boston.com/business/technology/appsampler/2012/06/tech_lab_plus_for_june_4_2012.html

Longer Internet video viewing -- particularly that of full-length TV shows -- continues to climb at the expense of short-form video content.

During the first quarter of this year, more long-form video content was consumed (longer than 10 minutes) on the Internet than shorter videos, which continue to decline. Research conducted by online video analytics company Ooyala says this is the first time this has occurred. A dramatic increase in viewers of Web-connected devices is partly responsible for the shift. Jay Fulcher, CEO for Ooyala, stated: “The spike in tablet and smartphone viewing during weekend nights and commutes shows how the living-room experience is fragmenting across devices.”

Ooyala says on a typical weekday, a full third of tablet video plays occur in traditional prime-time viewing time periods -- between 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., while only about 17% of computer plays take place over that same period. Also, viewers on connected TVs watch nearly a third more video between 4:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. on Saturdays than on a typical weekday evening.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/175809/rise-in-tv-shows-viewed-online-on-mobile.html#ixzz1wnYDBI00

Nearly 800 million people consumed Web videos last year -- a total that will close to double in four years to 1.5 billion, according to networking services giant Cisco.

On an individual level, nearly all of those people will be consuming more video than they are today. Meanwhile, online video already accounts for more than half of all Internet traffic. The data comes from the latest installation of Cisco’s annual Visual Networking Index, which claims that by 2016, worldwide data consumption will reach 1.3 zettabytes. One zettabye is equal to 1 billion terabytes.

Prime Time Is Mobile Time; Studies Show Mobile Online Video Use Skyrocketing

Online Film Viewing in U.S. to Top Discs in 2012, IHS Says

Online movie viewing in the U.S. will exceed digital video disc and Blu-ray use for the first time this year, according to researcher IHS Screen Digest. Legal online viewings of films will more than double to 3.4 billion this year from 1.4 billion in 2011, IHS said today in a statement. Physical viewings of DVDs and Blu-ray discs will shrink to 2.4 billion from 2.6 billion, according to the forecast.

Unlimited-streaming subscription plans, including those offered by Netflix Inc. (NFLX) and online retailer Amazon.com (AMZN)’s Prime service, accounted for 94 percent of all paid online movie consumption in the U.S. last year, Englewood, Colorado-based IHS said. Streamed movies have been replacing video discs, much as streamed music is overtaking compact audio discs.

“We are looking at the beginning of the end of the age of movies on physical media like DVD and Blu-ray,” Dan Cryan, IHS senior principal analyst, said in the statement. “But the transition is likely to take time: almost nine years after the launch of the iTunes Store, CDs are still a vital part of the music business.” bloomberg.com March 2012

Google Chrome Overtakes Internet Explorer

Google’s Chrome is now the most popular Web browser worldwide, surpassing Microsoft’s Internet Explorer for the first time, according to the latest figures from StatCounter. After years of slowly chipping away Internet Explorer’s market share, Chrome took the lead with 32.76 percent share, while IE dipped to 31.94 percent.

Just a year ago, Internet Explorer was leading the Web browser market share with 43 percent, followed by Mozilla Firefox with 29 percent, and Chrome was third with 19 percent. Twelve months later, IE has lost 12 percent of the browser market share while Chrome gained 13 percent to the detriment of IE and Firefox, which also lost about 4 percent of its users and now comes in at just over 25 percent. pcworld.com/article/255886/google_chrome_overtakes_internet_explorer.html#tk.nl_dnx_h_search

Earlier this week, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes and News Corp. COO Chase Carey urged their media company peers to roll out TV Everywhere services as urgently as they can. TV Everywhere refers to any service that grants pay-TV subscribers access to TV content on Internet-connected devices. Broadcast and cable networks and pay-TV operators are the purveyors of TV Everywhere services.

“We’ve just got to do it faster,” Bewkes said. He and Carey were speaking on a panel at The Cable Show in Boston on Wednesday. Carey agreed that “it should go faster,” adding: “we get too hung up on protecting the rules of the past.”

Bewkes also took a swipe at pay-TV operators, suggesting that Silicon Valley companies are better equipped to give consumers the interfaces they want. “We can’t develop the best, world-class interfaces at the scale that a distribution company has. Silicon Valley, the Internet industry, is a global industry and that’s what they do. We should harness that….Don’t try to hold that back. Consumers won’t allow it.”

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/175590/time-warner-news-corp-urge-faster-adoption-of-tv.html?edition=47346#ixzz1w38AlCiq

Some 181 million U.S. Internet users watched nearly 37 billion online content videos in April, and video ads represented nearly 9.5 billion, about 1 in 5 videos viewed online for the month, according to comScore Video Metrix.

Google Sites generating the highest number of views at 17 billion, followed by Hulu with 901 million and Yahoo Sites with 742 million. The average viewer watched 21.8 hours of online video content, with Google Sites at 7.2 hours and Hulu at 3.8 hours, earning the highest average engagement among the top ten properties, according to comScore.

mediapost.com/publications/article/175195/adobe-primetime-bridges-gap-from-tv-to-online-vide.html?edition=47141#ixzz1vrPD1lRG

David Armano: The future of digital media

CHICAGO, May 16, 2012 — David Armano is one of the most respected voices in digital media. Six months ago, he listed the "Six Social Media Trends for 2012" in Harvard Business Review. All six are becoming increasingly more relevant.

Airing honest feedback in advertising, more awareness of our own digital influence, gamification, social sharing, increased social integration into television and crowdsourcing are all trends that are becoming more prevalent.

1. What is the future of digital media? What will we be talking about 12 months from now?

At a macro trend level, digital keeps creeping into our lives. It's increasingly mobile and social. At a micro level, I believe we will be talking about things like "social entertainment" in the not so distant future. We've been seeing how social is becoming connected to how we watch TV for example. In fact, "buzz" on social networks generated via programs is essentially a more pure form of ratings. If a program isn't getting a lot of chatter which can be measured via social, it's likely not doing all that well. In fact, we might even have to look at the whole ratings system based upon the potential to measure social data. Nielsen should look out. On that note, it's not just television. Sports and live entertainment events are tied to social media and as people "watch"—they also participate. Social is not a spectator sport, and entertainment will finally reflect this.

At Network TV’s Gathering, Web Is Central

Hollywood, Digital Media Players Unite to Launch L.A. Incubator

A new digital incubator and co-working company is targeting the space where the entertainment business and technology converge.

It helps that Hollywood-based io/LA, which opened in April, was founded by a trio of businessmen with strong ties to the two fields: producer-actor Donovan Leitch, who is making a documentary about Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom; MySpace co-founderAber Whitcomb; and actor Chris Gartin (True Blood,Shameless).

Io/LA plans to invest a total of $500,000 in as many as 25 startup companies that are concentrated in areas such as gaming, technology and digital content. The fledgling firms will be given offices at io/LA's 8,800-square-foot headquarters, which separately serves as a co-working facility where members pay a monthly fee for use of the space.

"It is all about the convergence of tech and entertainment and aligning storytellers with technologists," said Leitch, the son of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame singer-songwriter Donovan. Leitch has produced several films, including the 1993 political documentary The Last Party.

Why Facebook Is Killing Silicon Valley

Facebook and Social Media
Facebook has adroitly capitalized on market forces on a scale never seen in the history of commerce. For the first time, startups can today think about a Total Available Market in the billions of users (smart phones, tablets, PCs, etc.) and aim for hundreds of millions of customers. Second, social needs previously done face-to-face, (friends, entertainment, communication, dating, gambling, etc.) are now moving to a computing device. And those customers may be using their devices/apps continuously. This intersection of a customer base of billions of people with applications that are used/needed 24/7 never existed before. The potential revenue and profits from these users (or advertisers who want to reach them) and the speed of scale of the winning companies can be breathtaking.

TBS, TNT to become “branded video destinations”

Turner-owned nets TBS and TNT are to undergo “a major transformation” over the next two years, execs said at the channels’ upfront presentations in New York, evolving from linear TV networks into “branded video destinations.”

The news came as the nets also unveiled a host of unscripted series in development. Steve Koonin, president of Turner Entertainment Networks, said the transformation strategy “is designed to confront the challenges of an ever-growing media universe by focusing on the strength of our brands, the power of our programming and the ability to deliver branded video content that can be enjoyed anytime, anywhere and on any device.”

Among the TNT unscripted series in development, American Troubadours is a reality competition series from American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe and actor Matthew McConaughey, which seeks to discover the best unsigned bar band in America, searching out the singer/songwriter bands that represent “the greatest tradition of rock and roll.”

There's Retail Magic in Silicon Dust

The growth of online retail and wider use of smartphones as shopping tools are among the drivers forcing brick-and-mortar stores to revamp their businesses, experts say. In today's topsy-turvy retail world, sites such as Amazon and eBay now compete directly with Walmart, Macy's, and other industry stalwarts. Mobile apps, online marketing, and social media are as essential to sales strategies as print ads, direct mail, and in-store sales.

"Retail is facing a paradigm-shift moment the likes of which it hasn't seen since scanning reached mass adoption [in the mid-80s]", observes Brian Kilcourse, managing partner at the Miami-based Retail Systems Research. Consumers now routinely use multiple channels—the Web, mobile, social media, and stores—to conduct transactions, he explains. "The big challenge for retail in the next year or two is going to be how to blend the digital and the physical selling experiences into one harmonious experience for the consumer," he says.

A recent poll by The Hollywood Reporter and found that 90% of Facebook and Twitter users (13-

49) surveyed see social media as “a new form of entertainment.” Given the slant of THR, the questions focused on social media as a multi-tasking activity during the watching of TV and movies, but I think it’s fair to say that for many people, social media and the web have become more than a companion to traditional media—they are how we consume media altogether.

Kevin Spacey Is Producing a TV Show For E! About ‘Silicon Valley’s Digital Gold Rush’

Randi Zuckerberg isn’t the only enterprising producer trying to bring Startupland to the small screen. Over the weekend, Deadline Hollywood reported that Kevin Spacey will be executive producing a new drama on E! Entertainment Television called “Upstarts” about “Silicon Valley’s digital gold rush.” Michael De Luca, the Oscar-nominated executive producer behind The Social Network will also be executive producing the show. Considering that film was Patient Zero for startup fever, we expect a similar outbreak from the TV version.

But before area bloggers start wagging their fingers–warning! entrepreneurial life may be more dramatized than it appears–”Upstarts” isn’t trying to fan the flames of “whether we’re currently in a tech bubble” by calling it a gold rush. Rather, the go-go billion dollar valuations “Upstarts” will be covering are set in the late nineties dotcombubble. “Fueled by power, money, sex and politics, these three will stop at nothing to earn a spot atop the digital food chain,” goes the pitch. Hmm, we sense some subversive tactics a foot. They say the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was to convince the world it was in a bubble by televising the last one.

Upfronts 2012: YouTube Announces New Channels

YouTube has announced the launch of three new channels devoted to original content about the lives of women, a spotlight on U.S. Olympians and one that comes from the organizers of the Tribeca Film Festival.

The announcements came ahead of YouTube's participation in Digital Newfronts, a new two-week event where big online giants hold TV industry-style pitches to ad buyers. YouTube's event, which it is calling "Brandcast," is being held at the Beacon Theater in New York City and will feature the company's top content and sales executives as well as performances by Jay-Z, Pharrell Williams, Flo Rida, and the Neon Trees.

YouTube, which counts more than 800 million visitors watching 3 billion hours of video per month, is extending the channels initiative it introduced last autumn. On top of the some 50 niche channels the company has already launched on its platform, the video hub is rolling out at least three new channels, saying that by the end of July, there will be 25 hours of new original content on the website. The company also announced at the Brandcast that it would be spending $200 million to promote the channels.

The question for the traditional broadcast TV networks this upfront season is, how do you compete with 25 hours of original programming on YouTube’s Awesomeness TV, and Netflix’s ever-popular replays of entertainment, kids and even sports cable programs?

While the typical upfront advertising market of predictable rivals is becoming a thing of the past, still the arsenal broadcast networks will rely on to retain viewer ratings and advertising revenues looks a lot like their old bag of tricks. Just how long can that go on while Google, Netflix, Microsoft, Yahoo and other new-media players aggressively take their case to Madison Avenue?

While it may take years for digital and online media to make a sizable collective dent in broadcast and cable networks’ roughly $20 billion upfront spending patterns, the process is clearly underway. Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP Group, indicated in a recent CNBC interview that the global advertising agency will likely spend more than $2 billion on Google this year, which could exceed the $2 billion of advertising it buys from News Corp. media properties annually.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/174506/new-media-players-challenge-broadcast-nets-during.html#ixzz1unu2ZUHq

If This Doesn't Persuade You To Put Campaigns On Mobile, Nothing Will

How massive is mobile? Absolutely huge. More than you even think. A new analyst report reveals that mobile devices have now achieved greater market penetration worldwide than bank accounts, safe drinking water and electricity. That's right. More people can access a cell phone than have electricity.

Bonus fact: mobile now represents 50% of consumer budget for information technology. Mobile industry analyst Chetan Sharma has a whole downloadable deck that examines the global mobile marketplace. Well worth a read if you're wondering where to invest for the future

William Morris Agency Sells 31 Percent of Agency to Silicon Valley Investor, Plots

Tech firm Silver Lake is providing an unspecified investment that “will accelerate WME’s transformation into a technologically innovative entertainment and media company,” the agency says.

New digital video services should be permitted to operate on a level playing field with broadcasters and other traditional programming services, says former TV and movie studio executive Barry Diller.

In speaking to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportation, Diller, the chairman/CEO of IAC and investor in Aereo, a new digital video service, said: “It will take vigilance to make sure that Net neutrality is to be safeguarded." This includes Internet services such as Aereo.

Aereo is a new digital video service delivered over the Internet to individual virtual "antennas" for consumers. Because it uses “antennas,” it is akin to what consumers do with their TV antennas to get a “broadcast” station. In that regard, the company claims, it should not be subject to making retrans deals with TV stations. Broadcasters have filed lawsuits against Aereo.

Despite the onslaught of camera phones — the iPhone 4 has this year become the most popular device for posting snaps to the photo-sharing website Flickr — cameras are still being sold. Japan, the world's largest manufacturer, shipped nearly three times as many cameras in January as it did in the same month of 2003, when the camera phone was still in its infancy.

"For several years, it has been predicted that smartphone adoption would cut into digital camera sales," said Prashant Malaviya, Associate Professor of Marketing at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business. "In fact, the exact opposite has happened."

You’d think Google would be buying every startup in sight looking to fix this issue, but it’s not. Instead, it’s paying $100-200 million up front for content. YouTube doesn't needs more brand-unsafe content being watched.
In fact, a conspiracy theorist would almost argue that YouTube will move away from technology-driven discovery in favor of good old-fashioned (read: human-based) programming and the funding of content.

Let’s face it, left to their own devices, human beings will only watch more violence, news that might be unsafe for brands, raunchy humor, sex, etc. A wise man once reminded me that human beings have a tendency to like “bad” things: wine, cheese (food gone bad, basically). Content consumption is no different. Video – the combination of sight, sound and motion – is especially susceptible to that. Viewers have to be force-fed brand-safe content. But over time, YouTube imported executives like Robert Kyncl from Netflix (you can argue Netflix isn’t a content producer, but for YouTube, that’s as good as it will get at this stage of metamorphosis). While YouTube is a distribution partner of my company, we didn’t get any of the upfront opportunities -- so you might assume that I would say that YouTube doesn’t get it, but au contraire, YouTube certainly does:

1. It’s all about content;
2. Content – like advertising – has a negative ROI early on;
3. But if you want to sign up Fortune 500 advertisers, you have no choice but to be a content company.

mediapost.com/publications/article/173029/is-youtube-betting-its-future-on-content-or-techno.html?edition=46118#ixzz1tPHxT5qw

Sony Corp. will probably put songs by Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston online in Japan through its streaming music service. The trouble will be finding listeners who haven’t bought them from Apple Inc. in the past seven years.

Sony said it will introduce Music Unlimited, a cloud-based catalog of 15 million songs, in its home market by the end of December after rolling it out in 16 other countries first. The company hopes flat fees, unlimited listens and accessibility through mobile and gaming devices will help close the gap with iTunes, which started offering downloads in Japan in 2005.

The Future Of TV Is In Broadband

With television and broadband "now intertwined,.. from a regulatory perspective the fight will now be about who holds the power in terms of relationships with consumers and in terms of their relationships with content companies," she continues. "On one side, we have the broadcast industry and the ISPs, which also own broadband and in many cases pay TV service access. On the other are the startups and online behemoths that want to deliver TV to the consumer when and where they want it using a variety of business models. In the middle are content creators trying to walk the line between finding an audience today and finding one tomorrow. And consumers just want to pay for exactly what they want, when they want it without spending money on superfluous channels or content."
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/173180/the-future-of-tv-is-in-broadband.html?print#ixzz1tPLBOC00

SAN DIEGO, April 26, 2012 -- /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Electronics is teaming up with higher education institutions in a new program called Sony Digital Media Academy – a collaboration between Sony and academic institutions to foster and fuel innovative approaches and facilitate new expressive applications of digital media technologies.

The SDMA program connects Sony's unique digital media strengths with academia's innovative culture. Initial projects are primarily supported by Sony consumer electronics, and areas of research include high-definition mobile media production, new storytelling methods, innovative digital media processes, 3D cinema and augmented reality.

Microsoft readying cross-platform Xbox music service, report says

The service won't require any browser plug-ins, according to the report, and could work on Android, iOS, and Windows 8, among other platforms

Silicon Valley’s war for the mobile web

If you work at a major Silicon Valley tech company and that company isn’t Apple, you’ve got skin in the mobile web game. But advocating for and working on the mobile web is becoming increasingly politicized and divisive.

On the one side, you have Facebook drumming up a consortium of heavy hitters, including the vocally pro-mobile-web Mozilla, Microsoft, Verizon, Samsung, and around 25 other companies, to work within a W3C community group establishing benchmarks for the industry. On the other side, you have Yahoo and, even more conspicuously, Google, which are not participating in the community’s mobile web love-fest, but which have an incredible amount of weight to throw around in this arena.

Official statements from all of these companies show the same thing: They believe in the power and potential of the mobile web to flourish and eventually become more prevalent than native platforms.

Katie Couric, Jeff Goldblum among new Yahoo Web shows

Yahoo Inc. reportedly told advertisers Wednesday that it plans new Web video shows with TV anchor Katie Couric, Jeff Goldblum and others.

Couric's weekly show, called "Katie's Take," starts Tuesday. It will be produced by Walt Disney Co.'s ABC network and will feature the newscaster talking about news and trends, with an emphasis on nutrition, parenting and health. Actor Goldblum's talk show is reportedly one of several Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) is aiming at a male audience.

The Sunnyvale online content hub previously said it would feature a Tom Hanks sci-fi show this summer called "Electric City." The Wall Street Journal reports that Yahoo, Google Inc. and AOL are all adding TV-type shows aimed at attracting more advertisers to their websites. bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2012/04/26/katie-couric-jeff-goldblum-among-new.html

Intel has taken the wraps of its latest game-changing third generation of Intel Core processors developed on 22nm manufacturing process using 3-D tri-gate transistors. The new chips, ready for desktop, notebook and ultrabooks, promise twice the HD media and 3D graphics performance.

YouTube partners with MGM, adds 600 titles

YouTube announced Monday that it is continuing to ramp up its rental titles, adding more than 600 movies to its list of available rentals. Titles include films such as “West Side Story,” “Moonstruck,” “The Terminator,” “Robocop,” “Rain Man” and “Rocky,” according to a company blog post from Jonathan Zepp, the manager of TV and film content partnership

Startup lets Web surfers pay online using Facebook, Twitter

BRUSSELS -- A one-click online payment system using Facebook and Twitter that could boost Internet sales for newspapers, music vendors and other low-priced goods and services is being tested by a major European media company, according to its developer.

The Internet poses an increasingly urgent problem for newspaper publishers who want to make money from the articles they put on their websites, but who are worried they will deter visitors by asking them to take out a full subscription.

The new system, developed by a start-up company in Belgium, means Internet surfers can pay to read a single article or download a piece of music without having to fill out forms or enter their credit card details on the website.

A week after launch, Ustream’s Facebook Timeline brings huge growth

Just one week after launching a new Facebook Timeline app, live video streaming service Ustream has doubled the number of new user signups per day, from 10,000 to more than 20,000, the company tells VentureBeat.

The new Timeline app allows users to share any live videos they’re watching on Ustream within their Facebook Timeline. Provided they have permission, all of your Facebook friends can also watch along in real-time, which is likely to boost the level of conversation about said video in the same way it would for a room full of people crowded around a TV screen.

Ustream confirmed the major social activity increase, telling VentureBeat that it generated more than 10 million impressions of Timeline shares on Facebook during the first week the app was live. Mind you, this is traffic that otherwise didn’t exist prior to launching the Timeline integration. That’s quite an impressive boost, especially considering the higher rate of new users registering for Ustream accounts.

Dallas-based Parks Associates says more than 25% of all video viewing in U.S. broadband homes now occurs on platforms other than the television, such as PCs, smartphones and tablets.

In addition, in over one-third of U.S. homes with broadband access, a TV shows has been streamed over the last 30 days. Parks Associates’ survey said the average broadband user watches 36 minutes of video on a tablet. The company did not reveal a break down types of video: premium TV shows, user generated, advertising, and other forms.

Brett Sappington, director of research of Parks Associates, stated: "Proliferation of connected CE [consumer electronics] is both an opportunity for and a potential threat to traditional pay-TV services.” He added: “New companies are entering this space, offering alternative services and business models that are attractive to consumers. To keep their edge, service providers have to address consumption on these platforms with a clear value proposition."

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/172339/tv-now-viewed-cross-platform.html#ixzz1rxwPk4Kr

A new economy is under construction in San Francisco based on apps, retail, tech and the vitality of the city.

By now it's well-known that Zynga has a cool new headquarters at 650 Townsend St. and that Shorenstein Properties is building out the new Twitter art deco palace at 1355 Market St. By what about the Twitters and Zyngas of tomorrow? What about Instagram, which Facebook bought this week for $1 billion? What about Airbnb and Path and Airtime? Where are they located? Where exactly is this technology boom -- some say bubble -- taking shape?

LinkedIn passes 100 million members

LinkedIn Corp. said Tuesday that membership on its professional networking site had reached 100 million members worldwide, two months after the company filed for an initial public offering.

In a blog post on its site, LinkedIn said it is growing at a rate of about 1 million members per week. The company emphasized that its growth is global, with the site used in more than 200 countries and territories. It boasts 44 million members in the United States and 56 million members abroad, with the fastest growth seen in Brazil, Mexico, India and France.

Mountain View-based LinkedIn has been pushing international expansion. It announced the opening of an office in Paris earlier this month, adding to its European offices in London, Amsterdam and Dublin, Ireland.

Here's why Silicon valley is still best for startups

New research into the world's top startup hubs shows once again why Silicon Valley remains the global hub of innovation and entrepreneurship. Startups here raise more money, have a bigger ecosystem to tap into, are more successful, create more jobs and are more likely to be designed to change the world than simply make money.

So says the Startup Genome Project, a research effort begun last year that aims to help make startups more successful The results of the comparison of the world's top startup locations was published Wednesday on TechCrunch.

— The support system for startups in Silicon Valley is three times bigger than New York City, 4.5 times bigger than London, 12.5 times bigger than Berlin, and 38 times bigger than Boulder.

— That raises the likelihood of success. Silicon Valley startups succeed (defined as reaching scale stage) 22 percent more than they do in New York City and 54 percent more than in London.

— There is more money raised by startups here, 2 to 3 times more than anywhere else.

— Startups create more jobs here: 11 more than in New York and 38 percent more than in London.

Apple is negotiating for further incentives related to the $304 million campus is is planning to build in Austin, Texas. Texas Gov. Rick Perry had previously announced that the company will receive a $21 million investment over the next 10 years from the Texas Enterprise Fund (TEF), noting that the project is expected to create 3,600 new jobs.

Today the Austin American-Statesman reported that the surrounding Travis County is considering giving Apple an 80 percent rebate on its tax bill for 10 years, which would be worth about $7.4 million. In exchange, the county wants guarantees that an undisclosed percentage of its employees will be “economically disadvantaged” local residents.

Rise of new media spurs major change in Bollywood’s India

India’s Bollywood stars have turned to new media in huge numbers to be closer to their fans as part of a radical transformation of the industry in its quest for greater audiences.

Google CEO Larry Page discusses his year, vision for future

“Since becoming CEO again, I’ve pushed hard to increase our velocity, improve our execution and focus on the big bets that will make a difference in the world,” Page wrote. “Google is a large company now, but we will achieve more, and do it faster, if we approach life with the passion and soul of a start-up.”

Over the last year, he has pushed Google to be more aggressive and to counter the growing threat posed by Facebook's immense popularity on the Web.

Google unveiled Google+ nine months ago. It now has more than 100 million users, and it’s helping Google learn more about its users.

Facebook, with 845 million users, has the richest hoard of personal information any company has ever had, giving it insight into people's relationships, lives and interests and the ability to precisely target ads.

In his update, in which he sets out his vision for the future, Page touches on “next-generation search,” in which search results are more tailored to individual users; defends changes to the company’s privacy policies; signals Google’s intention to make hardware devices when it completes its $12.5-billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility Holdings; and highlights the company's work on cars and other bold experiments.

He also pushes back against the notion that Google had abandoned its old slogan “Don’t be evil.”

Bravo plans ‘Silicon Valley’ reality TV show with the help of Randi Zuckerberg

NEW YORK — Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook’s founder, is working with Bravo on a TV show about Silicon Valley. Bravo says “Silicon Valley” is a working title for the show, which follows young professionals in real life working to create the next big thing in tech. Going by a short preview on Bravo’s website, this involves drinking, driving fast cars and bragging about money.

Walmart Converts DVDs To Cloud Service

Looking to bridge the business of DVD movie ownership to digital movies, Walmart is starting up a disc-to-digital cloud service in a deal with the five major movie studios. Using its digital video platform Vudu, where consumers can currently buy or rent movies and TV shows, Wal-Mart has struck a deal with the five major movie studios' home entertainment divisions: Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Universal and Paramount.

The essence of the service will allow consumers to bring their movies on DVDs into Wal-Mart stores and have them converted into a digital cloud service accessed by Vudu. In addition, standard-definition movies can be upgraded to HD films. Prices for a standard-definition or Blu-ray conversion of a disc into one's personal cloud service will be $2 for a single DVD, Converting one SD disc to access in a HD cloud service is $5, and converting one HD DVD movie into cloud HD service of that movie is $2.

"This will give consumers confidence in buying physical DVDs," says John Aden, executive vice president of general merchandising for Walmart U.S, speaking at a press conference in Hollywood on Tuesday. "They can future proof their purchases."

Cisco to buy video technology company NDS for $5B

San Jose-based Cisco Systems said buying NDS will accelerate the delivery of its Videoscape entertainment platform and help it grow in emerging markets such as China and India, where NDS already does business.

NDS, based in the United Kingdom, is jointly owned by News Corp. and private equity firm Permira. Its software helps cable and satellite TV companies deliver content to subscribers' digital video recorders and other devices.

"Our strategy has always been driven by customer need and on capturing market transitions," said Cisco CEO John Chambers in a news release. "Our acquisition of NDS fits squarely into this strategy."

The Silicon Valley networking giant has been narrowing its focus and has called video one of its five priorities. In October, Cisco bought BNI Video, a Boston-area company whose video-streaming technology it said it would integrate into Videoscape. In 2010, it bought Norwegian teleconferencing company Tandberg.

Networks are in a race to bridge the experiences and re-engage the viewer through transmedia storytelling. Look for a proliferation of Dual Screen apps that will act as dashboards for enhanced viewing. They’ll aggregate ancillary content, bonus footage, and social media feeds to offer likes, check-ins, comments, and even one touch voting (for reality competition series).

Some will feature sound-to-sync technology, where the show’s audio “fingerprint” will trigger an experience at a precise moment in the storyline, regardless of when/where it’s being watched. Last year, we saw the first rush to trial of these applications, with mixed success, but 2012 will see improved technology, providing real value to the viewer and advertiser. The new CONAN app from Turner and AT&T is a good example.

The tablet will also contribute to viewers’ increasingly “shifty” behavior -- giving them the ability to time shift and place shift like never before. Consumers want access to the best content any time, anywhere; services like Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, HBO Go service that need.

Content owners such as Time Warner and Disney have embraced the TV Everywhere philosophy, and consumers can gain often gain access with a simple authentication. More networks will join the revolution. Cable/Satellite/MVPD providers will also offer solutions, although some anchored to home Wi-Fi access only.

“Social” has now begun to replace “search” as a leading focus of online activity, as the new “contextual Web” takes the place of the data-driven Web of the early 21st Century. This is bad news for Google, even though the company still sold $36.5 billion in advertising last year, ten times more than Facebook. Despite the revenue gap, Facebook poses an existential threat to the continued hegemony of the Internet search giant by constantly amassing vast new amounts of information valuable in targeting ads more precisely to its 800 million users. With Facebook walling off and withholding that advertiser-friendly information from search engines, Google has been forced to play catch-up in the ever-more competitive social network space.

Announcing new and renewed female-targeted video programming,Yahoo and YouTube are going after cable TV's "golden goose": "low-cost reality lifestyle programming aimed at female audiences – from Hoboken cake bakers to pro house flippers," according to Daniel Frankel.

New endeavors include two shows on Yahoo starring Cat Deeley from "You Think You Can Dance," and fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff; and on YouTube, Meredith Corp.'s "DIGS, a home- and garden-themed lifestyle channel similar to cable’s DIY Channel," writes Frankel. "For programmers targeting the female lifestyle segment, partnering with video portals like YouTube provides a lower cost barrier to entry than the now largely unionized world of basic cable production."

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/171782/yahoo-youtube-gear-up-to-battle-cable-tv.html#ixzz1rDQTnRNH

In Berlin, Startups Steer Clear of Facebook

“We often get startups wanting to build things within Facebook, like a marketplace for local services in Facebook or a file management system in Facebook,” he says. “We’re always saying that’s the wrong way to go because you’re cluttering your own use case and Facebook’s use case.”

Earlybird’s team has been hitting Berlin’s streets, restaurants, and bars to meet founders and invest as early as possible. Berlin has a high density of artists and musicians, so many entrepreneurs there have backgrounds very different from the typical Silicon Valley technologist. For example, SoundCloud—Berlin’s startup poster child—was founded by a sound engineer and a developer, both of them active musicians.

Earlybird is also looking to get away from the unwieldy Facebook social networking model to promote small, manageable options. As an example, he points to the Berlin startup Readmill, which lets people take notes on their e-books and share them with friends for a communal reading experience. “Startups need to become smarter at using social, really understanding the relevancy set, and finding ways to make social useful again instead of just adding to the noise,” he says.

International Conference on New Media, Memories and History Much of these contents are generated through narratives, stories, pictures and even videos, which also provide a remarkable possibility in fostering and facilitating the production of memories and histories. Furthermore, the Internet’s capability for information storage and sharing has afforded people platforms to impart their recollections of the past. As such, the intersections involving new media, memory and history are attracting academic interest from scholars in Sociology, Geography, History, Communication, Cultural Studies and Information Studies, who are drawing upon various theoretical and methodological approaches in examining the juxtaposition between new media, memories and histories.

memories and production of historical knowledge in a new media age. Suggested themes for papers in the conference will include (but not limited to):

(1) New media, memory and popular culture
(2) Digitizing memories of wars, trauma and disaster
(3) New media and the production of historical knowledge
(4) Virtual museums and memory
(5) Digital storytelling and memory
(6) Social networking sites and their impact on memories
(7) Nation-building through memories in the digital age
(8) Digital memories and cultural heritage

The first step toward understanding the new media is to recognize media's many changes. At one end of the spectrum lie traditional communication channels, like direct mail and broadcast television. These channels are going interactive, exploring digital media to drive two-way customer conversations.

At the same time, channels that were born interactive, such as social media and computer games, are maturing and moving from consumer to business use. New channels continue to emerge, stirring the pot with technologies like location-based services and augmented reality.

Customers are embracing this channel diversity at lightning speed; so quickly, in fact, that businesses are having a hard time keeping pace. The sales of smartphones and tablets have exceeded sales of PCs and laptops, and four out of five adults now participate in social media. Even so, many Fortune1,000 marketing budgets continue to favor conventional media such as magazines and broadcast.

Overall home rentals of DVD and Blu-ray disc continue to drop. But one segment of the business, kiosk rentals, continues to grow.

Rentals in big stores and elsewhere dropped 3.4% to $5.65 billion in 2011. Worse news for the industry: Rentals were down 21.3% in the fourth quarter of 2011, per Rentrak Home Video Essentials report. But fourth-quarter rental business at kiosks grew by 28%.

"The demand for film cameras on a global basis has all but disappeared," says ARRI VP of Cameras, Bill Russell, who notes that the company has only built film cameras on demand since 2009. "There are still some markets--not in the U.S.--where film cameras are still sold, but those numbers are far fewer than they used to be. If you talk to the people in camera rentals, the amount of film camera utilization in the overall schedule is probably between 30 to 40 percent." New York City rental house AbelCine, Director of Business Development/Strategic Relationships Moe Shore says the company rents mostly digital cameras at this point. "Film isn't dead, but it's becoming less of a choice," he says. "It's a number of factors all moving in one direction, an inexorable march of digital progress that may be driven more by cell phones and consumer cameras than the motion picture industry."

Verizon Pitches Mobile Video

Verizon Communications Inc. Chief Executive Lowell C. McAdam said the company could have a wireless video service by year-end that lets pay-TV subscribers see some content on their mobile devices if regulators approve a proposed cable partnership.

Mr. McAdam said an "integrated" service could be made available to customers of Verizon Wireless, Verizon's pay-TV service and its new cable-company partners. "We could have something out that would be the beginnings of an integrated offering in time for the holidays," he said. Verizon is seeking approvals from the Federal Communications Commission and the Department of Justice for $3.9 billion in deals ...

Variety Up for Sale: Sad End for a Storied Brand

When I joined Variety in 2007 from The Hollywood Reporter, where I had launched their first blog, Risky Business, I was moving from the second-rung Hollywood trade to the dominant Tiffany publication. THR had been going through Draconian cutbacks; spending was tight; we all had to account for every penny and earn our keep or face losing our jobs. Variety was noticeably fatter and more expansive, with a larger staff putting out not only five dailies a week but Weekly Variety. They sent a far bigger cadre of editors and writers to Cannes and other festivals. Variety under the leadership of Peter Bart was editorially superior to THR but way behind them in terms of online sophistication. They were late to the Internet and were still playing catch-up.

Hulu Tops In Video Ads

Thanks to YouTube, Google still dominates online video. Video advertising is a different story. Hulu and its premium content now attract the bulk of video ad impressions -- more than 1.5 billion in February alone, according to new data from comScore.

By contrast, Google sites (including YouTube) generated about 1.1 billion video ads during the month. Trailing Hulu and Google, Adap.tv generated 706 million video ad impressions in February, followed by BrightRoll Video Network with 683 million, and Specific Media with 611 million impressions. Among all video properties, consumers also spent the most time watching ads on Hulu -- 650 million minutes in February. Overall, time spent watching video ads totaled nearly 3.2 billion minutes. What’s more, video ads accounted for 16.6% of all videos viewed, and 1.3% of all minutes spent viewing video online.

In total, video ads reached 50% of the total U.S. population an average of 49 times during the month. Hulu delivered the highest frequency of video ads to its viewers with an average of 48, while ESPN delivered an average of 26 ads per viewer. Ads aside, Google still leads the way with 147.4 million unique viewers in February, followed by Yahoo Sites with 60.9 million; VEVO with 52 million; Facebook.com with 43.6 million; and Viacom Digital with 43.2 million.

Nearly 38 billion video views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 16.7 billion, followed by Hulu with 951 million and Yahoo Sites with 721 million. The average viewer watched 21.8 hours of online video content, with Google Sites (7 hours) and Hulu (3.8 hours) demonstrating the highest average engagement among the top ten properties.
mediapost.com/publications/article/170381/hulu-tops-in-video-ads.html?print#ixzz1q6GxUCjw

“The entertainment world of course, has to keep up with the emerging tech, and to bridge those two is just so important, and sometimes more important than some might think,” said Dushku.”It’s been amazing walking around the floor and just seeing all of the ways that the tech companies are paying attention to the fact that people more and more want to create their own content.” Eliza Dushku

Social TV Grows 91% From a Year Ago; Animated Shows like American Dad Hot on Facebook

February was a big month for social TV chatter, driven by events like the Oscars, the Super Bowl and the Grammys. In addition, the amount of conversations and check-ins around TV shows has grown 91% year over year, said social TV tracking service Trendrr.tv in a recently released white paper.

The last year has seen a slew of programmers from Discovery to Showtime release new and additional social TV apps to promote synchronous viewing, some of which include online video. Plus, there’s been ample attention by media agencies to startups that can track and quantify social buzz around shows and commercials. Such insight can help marketers better understand the true level of engagement and passions fans have in a particular show.

Interestingly, audiences for different shows “buzz” about them in various ways, Trendrr.tv found. While Twitter is often the focal point for social chatter, many animated shows find the most activity on Facebook, such as Fox’s comedy “American Dad,” according to Trendrr.tv. “Knowing this helps advertisers and programmers better focus their production efforts or marketing and advertising dollars to the appropriate platform,” Trendrr.tv said.
mediapost.com/publications/article/170383/social-tv-grows-91-from-a-year-ago-animated-show.html?edition=44870#ixzz1puOQBknz

Online Film Viewing in U.S. to Top Discs in 2012, IHS Says

The number of online video ads viewed by Web consumers doubled year over year. In February, Americans saw 7.5 billion video ads, according to comScore’s just-released February online video figures. That’s up from 3.8 billion total video ads a year ago. And while there are variations in the number of ads delivered month by month – 5.6 billion ads delivered in January; 7.1 billion served in December, for instance – the overall trend is positive.

However, the number of overall videos seen online has remained fairly steady over the last several months. Despite the million of views that Super Bowl ads garnered online, overall online viewing dipped slightly in February compared to the prior two months. About 179 million Web users checked out nearly 38 billion online videos in February. That’s a slight dip from January’s figures, which saw 181 million Web users watching nearly 40 billion videos. Back in December, about 182 million Internet users viewed 43.5 billion videos.
mediapost.com/publications/article/170522/number-of-online-video-ads-doubles-year-over-year.html?edition=44781#ixzz1pjUTMMtr

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Over-The-Top, TV Everywhere Threaten Movie Theaters

Over-the-top TV options and TV Everywhere could be the biggest threats the movie business has ever faced. The quality of shows from AMC to CBS to HBO has become so engaging and chances to watch cheaply with a simple click-and-play has become so enticing, that a trip to the multiplex seems increasingly unappealing. (As Marcus noted “Harry Potter” and blockbuster animated films should still attract families.)

The new pastime is sitting on the couch and watching episode after episode of “Mad Men” on Netflix or “Boardwalk Empire” on HBO Go. How many spent New Year’s Day with a hangover not watching “The Hangover,” but gorging on season one of “Downton Abbey” or engaging in other catch-up viewing?

Theaters have the captivating big screen and are going all digital and offering “premium” experiences. Yes, the iPad is small, but it's a pretty bright, crisp screen. Hooking up the computer to the massive HD screen isn’t that tough and connected TVs, with the easy access to online streaming services, are gaining scale.

So, with that bounty available and consumer behavior changing, what’s to stop a Warner Bros. or Disney from making a corporate decision to cut investment in film and shift it to TV production?

And, what about those ticket prices? Miles of Regal Entertainment said two-thirds of its patrons spent $10 or less last year to view a film. “You probably have a skewed perspective on ticket prices” if you live in certain urban markets, she said.

The bet is more than a few TV executives spent Wednesday analyzing every word of a Wall Street Journal piece with the diligence of a lawyer parsing through a court decision hoping to find grounds for appeal. This, after all, was a Q&A with the top marketer at the company that has long controlled much of the advertising market and the subtext wasn’t exactly “tell us why you love TV so much.”

Procter & Gamble, which fills sportscasts with all kinds of Gillette ads and might fund a reality series if a brand can be a “character,” has been making noise about cutting its massive marketing budget by perhaps $1 billion over the next five years. And, the implication has been savings aren’t coming by shifting dollars from broadcast to cable, but slicing TV budgets altogether -- while looking for cheaper, more accountable alternatives such as YouTube videos or Facebook stunts. “Leaning more heavily on lower-cost digital marketing and easing up somewhat on pricey broadcast ads,” the WSJ suggested.
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/170198/pg-to-cut-tv-budgets-hard-to-believe.html#ixzz1pA2L6BLy

As the importance of new content-business-models increases, so, too do TV and digital distribution deals that push continued convergence across platforms.

Original content deals across all platforms are the new norm, with You Tube for one, quietly changing the terms for some channel producers to encompass an “everywhere model,” and with CBS exploring direct-to-Netflix content deals.

It now looks as if a U.S. digital window, with international TV distribution, can and is working.

With the Netflix original series “Lilyhammer” licensed in a digital “first-window” type model in the U.S., and traditional and digital TV distribution across Europe, this shows a huge shift -- that online as a pay window for Web originals can and will play as “TV everywhere.” videoinsider.com

YouTubers Watch 4 Billion Videos per Day

YouTube visitors are watching an average of four billion videos per day, according to a post on the video platform’s blog, which represents an increase of 25% over eight months ago, double the volume in May 2010, and four times the volume in October 2009.

The music and video capabilities of mobile phones are more important to prospective buyers than the social networking features, according to comScore's hefty new mobile report released late last week. "Demonstrating the importance of the ecosystem experience, smartphone owners rated selection of apps and music/video capabilities as significantly more important than the total mobile market. Meanwhile social networking features were less important, falling outside of the top purchase factors for smartphone buyers, despite the overall popularity in accessing social networking sites on mobile devices," comScore said.

Global advertising spending will climb 4.9% to $465.5 billion in 2012, predicts Strategy Analytics. The big gainers? Online advertising -- still on a strong growth trajectory -- will rise 12.8%, to $83.2 billion, and will account for 18% of overall global ad spending.

New Service Will Stream Local TV Stations in New York

Barry Diller, who created the Fox television network almost 30 years ago, now wants to free it and other networks from the chains of what he calls the “closed cable-broadcast-satellite circle.”

On Tuesday, at the Manhattan headquarters of his company, IAC/InterActiveCorp, he introduced Aereo, an Internet television service that he said “pries over-the-air broadcast television out of that closed system.” Aereo is one of the most ambitious attempts to date to distribute television over the Internet, potentially posing a new threat to the cable and satellite distributors that control a vast majority of TV viewing in the United States.

IAC led a $20.5 million round of financing for Aereo, and Mr. Diller is joining the start-up’s board.

Aereo takes advantage of the rapid rise in broadband Internet access to stream broadcast television. When it becomes available in New York City in mid-March, the service will stream all of the programming of the major networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC) to phones, tablets and Internet-connected TVs. nytimes.com

First and foremost, marketers can expect consolidation, big infusions of venture capital and significant rebranding among online video companies as the segment continues to explode. To wit, in the last two weeks alone we saw: online video content creator Alloy acquiring production-management company Generate; News Corp’s Shine unit buying web video producer ChannelFlip; MDC Partners acquiring branded entertainment company RJ Palmer; video ad company Unruly adding $25 million to its coffers; and TidalTV rebranding as Videology.

All these companies are taking steps to better position themselves to get their clients in front of the 195.5 million people that eMarketer says will be watching video online by 2015. Marketers need to beware the loss of focus that can sometimes occur in the wake of consolidation and make sure their online video partners have proven capacity and scale to craft the strategies that earn the eyeballs. And here’s fair warning: if those strategies have entertainment or advertising at their core, which is what most of the aforementioned companies specialize in, they’re probably not going to deliver the engagement or the reach you’re looking for.

Technology advancement is another trend, and everyone’s excited about rich media and other bells and whistles that can be incorporated into online video. The focus on technology enhancements will not only help marketers achieve the scale they need, but also, the measurement capabilities to prove ROI.

“Branded entertainment” is all the rage these days. According to an eMarketer report, 39% of companies anticipate branded-entertainment spending to rise in the coming year. But consumers aren’t searching for entertainment -- they’re searching for information. Online videos that provide information about the topics consumers are online and actively searching for will always earn better engagement and more views, enjoying a longer lifespan than videos that focus solely on entertainment. onlinevideoinsider

Gone are the days when kids rushed home from school to catch their favorite show only to fight over the remote control. Instead of sacrificing life and limb for control of the TV, people now view videos on multiple screens -- computers, smartphones, and tablets. In fact, according to Nielsen App Playbook, more than half of the audience multitasks on the Internet while watching TV.

As a result, traditional TV advertisers are looking to make online video a more integrated part of their overall media plans, and for good reason. A recent Nielsen/IAB study found that people who saw a video ad across all four screens, (TV+PC+Phone+Tablet) correctly recalled the ad 74% of the time, an increase from 50% ad recall when they saw the video on TV only.

The data show that the question is not whether advertisers should allocate some of their budget to digital, but rather, how much of their budget should be allocated to digital. As the industry has evolved, this question is becoming easier to answer. videoinsider.com

LinkedIn is already in the content aggregation business, and think it’s a matter of time before it starts producing articles and videos (or simply acquiring a company to get into content creation). Facebook has apoached Dan Fletcher, the former social media director at Bloomberg, to be its managing editor. With Facebook’s impending IPO and a war chest of over $10 billion, it’s a safe bet that some of that money will go into its content strategy, whatever it may be. Twitter, meanwhile, is putting on DJ sets with the likes of Tiesto live from CES (HP and Intel were the sponsors). mediapost.com

The company soon closed a $40 million round of funding from blue-chip venture capitalists including Andreessen Horowitz.

Such is the allure of big data, a buzzword that refers to the newfound ability to collect and analyze massive amounts of information on almost every dimension of the human experience. In sectors ranging from retail to healthcare to social media, the promise of Big Data has venture capitalists salivating. "The best themes are the ones you can see everywhere and big data is everywhere you turn," said David Hornik, a partner at August Capital.

That's Entertainment: Screen Size Doesn't Matter

When it comes to watching entertainment programming, it turns out size doesn’t matter as much as people previously thought (or hoped).

According to a new study conducted by Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB), consumers are using their tablets and smartphones to stream video programming at an increasing rate, and they’re doing it in their homes, where televisions are available. According to the survey of nearly 1,500 consumers, 58% of people who viewed programming on a tablet did so in their homes -- and of these, 63% did so even though the program they were watching was available on their televisions.

“The big media companies have been comforted in this notion that the biggest available screen is always going to win in any situation,” Peter Fondulas, founder of Fondulas Strategic Research, which worked on the project with CMB, tells Marketing Daily. “That may have been true a while ago, but people have become more open to devices and may even prefer [smaller screens] in some situations.”

The survey found significant members of all demographics have watched video programming through a device other than their televisions. While 74% of consumers ages 16-29 had watched programming online, 39% of consumers 50-75 had also watched a television program or movie online. And their preferred method of watching such programming is either through a network Web site (27%) or Netflix (24%). Only 12% of consumers said they watched through their TV provider’s Web portal (such as Comcast’s Xfinity.com).

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/167850/thats-entertainment-screen-size-doesnt-matter.html?print#ixzz1mijonmoM

31% of Broadband Homes Use Web to Watch TV, Movies

Strong sales of the Roku streaming player and Apple TV in the fourth quarter contributed to 13% penetration among broadband households for Internet-connected video media players in 2011, according to a new report.

Dallas-based Parks Associates estimates that 14 million media players will sell in 2012, underscoring increased consumer demand for access to video entertainment via non-traditional sources such as the Internet. Indeed, 31% of U.S. broadband households regularly watch movies and TV shows from the Web, according to a recent Parks survey.

“In the 2011 holiday season, 4% of households bought one of these inexpensive, single-function devices, which enable households to view over-the-top (OTT) video from Internet-based services such as Amazon Prime Instant Video and Netflix,” said Kurt Scherf, VP and principal analyst with Parks Associates. “Nearly 20% of these holiday-season buyers are over 45 years of age, so these devices have achieved relatively broad appeal among multiple consumer segments.”

Apple, which just reported its best-ever fiscal quarter, generated 2.8 million unit sales of Apple TV in fiscal 2011, including 1.4 million units sold in the holiday fourth quarter. Roku sold 1.5 million devices in 2011, bringing the number of media players the company has sold to 2.5 million, since helping to launch the streaming video business with a branded Netflix player in 2008.

The "entertainment device" could be a new version of Google TV which hopes to take advantage of the faster Wi-Fi standard in order to make moving media and other large files around a household network more seamless by employing 802.11ac. The forthcoming protocol has been nicknamed "5G Wi-Fi" for its ability to also carry Bluetooth and Near-Field Communication data at speeds up to 433Mbps per stream, a bit less than the theoretical 600Mbps of 802.11n but with the advantage of being able to support and merge multiple MIMO streams. One three-stream Broadcom chipset claimed combined speeds of up to 1.3Gbps. In theory, the ac protocol could handle up to eight streams.

Read more: http://www.electronista.com/articles/12/02/03/residential.gateways.may.lead.to.ubiquitous.wi.fi/#ixzz1lg2iEZ00

Google launches new YouTube app for Google TV

A new YouTube app for Google TV will see the addition of YouTube channel pages, make it easier for users to find content and will give viewers more control over their internet-TV experience.

"First you’ll notice the app works faster with smoother navigation for a better experience. Next, we’ve added a new feature called Discover, which lets you browse YouTube channels by categories. Whether you’re looking for hilarious comedy, delectable cooking content, or the latest news, you can find great channels for any of your interests,” said Google Product Manager Jurek Foryciarz in a February 12 post on the Google TV blog.

Google is pushing forward with its goal of marrying web-based content viewing with live TV and -- more importantly for viewers -- making it easier to sit back and enjoy the content without the need to constantly interact with the remote.

LinkedIn is already in the content aggregation business, and think it’s a matter of time before it starts producing articles and videos (or simply acquiring a company to get into content creation). Facebook has approached Dan Fletcher, the former social media director at Bloomberg, to be its managing editor. With Facebook’s impending IPO and a war chest of over $10 billion, it’s a safe bet that some of that money will go into its content strategy, whatever it may be. Twitter, meanwhile, is putting on DJ sets with the likes of Tiesto live from CES (HP and Intel were the sponsors).

Kodak Shutters Camera Business

More than a century ago, Eastman Kodak Co. got into the camera-making business with the slogan, "You press the button, we do the rest." Soon, the buttons are going to be made by someone else.

On Thursday, Kodak said that it will stop making digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames, a move that will separate the struggling company from the camera business it was founded to pursue. Instead, it will license its brand to other manufacturers.

The decision to shutter the business, which Kodak says will save it more than $100 million a year, is the strongest symbol yet of the sea change in consumer electronics and decades of missteps that forced the former blue-chip company to seek bankruptcy protection last month.

Forget candies and flowers. For Valentine’s Day buy her a Blu-ray Disc player.

At least that’s the suggestion via a Consumer Electronics Association study, which finds that in just the last five years women, in general, are more interested in consumer electronics products than ever before.

Today eight in 10 women express an interest in CE products, with 41% saying they’re “very interested,” an increase of 10% since 2007. Men continue to spend more, but that gap has shrunk, with men spending an average of $728 in the past year, compared to $667, a difference of $61. In 2007 that gap was closer to $200.

Characterizing it as a “development to watch,” Nielsen issued a new report to clients Wednesday showing that the number of U.S. households that bypass cable or satellite TV and subscribe only to broadband Internet access has grown dramatically in the past year, and not surprisingly, they spend dramatically more time watching TV over the Internet.

The Nielsen report said it is too soon to determine whether these households are so-called “cord-swappers” -– swapping the cable/satellite TV cord for the broadband Internet cord -– but they are growing faster than any other segment of the “cross-platform” television marketplace.

Technology increasingly blurs the lines between computer, television, phone and tablet. Online video options grow almost by the hour. A screen, in the era of cyber choice, is a screen is a screen.

You can now plug the Internet straight into the newest TVs. You can buy gadgets that will bring the Web to your old set. Or you can use your phone, tablet or other electronic gizmos to tap into the Internet to give you TV on the go.

Still, to fill your screen with popular sports, comedies and dramas from the brands that dominate your television, generations-old economic models will have to be rearranged for the wild, wild Web. Some entrepreneurs are toying with new models that tap into an Internet specialty - the ability to tailor choices to the individual viewer - that might give advertisers a better platform on the Internet than they have in one-size-fits-all cable TV audiences.

But true Internet TV is facing a big obstacle: It's the old-school cable and cable-like services, after all, that have got the makers of programming locked up in mega-contracts.

"There's technology, and then there's commerce," said Jim Barry of the Consumer Electronics Association. "The technology is ahead."

Commerce, meanwhile, hasn't fully figured out the best way to make a buck off Internet video.

Report: Smartphone shipments exceeded those of PCs last year
Global smartphone shipments increased 63% last year, which propelled the devices past PCs for the first time, even with tablets included in the computer arena, according to Canalys. Phone-makers shipped 487.7 million smartphones -- 158.8 million in the fourth quarter -- compared with 414.6 million and 120.2 million for computers. Canalys also says shipments of Android phones were strong in 2011: The phones accounted for 48.8% of the devices sold, including 52% in the fourth quarter, while Apple's iOS platform had a 19.1% market share for the year. mediapost.com

Definition 6, which Monday evening was recognized as the “Viral Video Agency of the Year” during OMMA magazine’s Agency of the Year Awards in New York, unveiled a new app that is likely to create a viral video-sharing frenzy among Facebook users, by instantly transforming the history of their Facebook profiles and posts into the scripts of personalized mini movies.

The application, called the Timeline Movie Maker, was developed on behalf of Facebook, and it enables users utilizing its Timeline interface to instantly turn it into a customized cinematic experience. Utilizing a “one-click curation” option, Definition 6 said the application can “create a highlight reel of their lives in a one-minute video.”

In much the way that Facebook’s algorithm sorts and ranks users’ personal and posted data, friends and likes based on personal relevance and importance, the Timeline Movie Maker automatically sorts and evaluates the content a user shares with their friends and then “identifies the most engaging, relevant content and life moments to build a chronological story for their customized mini-movie.”
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/166850/definition-6-makes-facebook-users-the-stars-of-the.html?edition=42894#ixzz1lCD8K7WP

The future of your mobile phone

A major change Brand expects to see with smartphones and tablets in the coming years is the way they are used in education. Coming off the back of Apple’s highly ambitious iBooks 2 launch and its dealings with major education publishers in the US, the tablet could become a new way to teach.

"Tablets in general are going to dominate the way education is rolled out. There are going to be winners - it could be Apple, it could be Android." "If you look at it from a developing market point of view, it’s going to take years for it to trickle down into developing markets. That’s where we are going to rely on very basic methods; notebooks with mobile connectivity, SMS type services, feature phones."

If schools' relations with tablets were to truly take off, we expect they would remain the preserve of only the wealthiest establishments for a good while. The alternative is to do what Android has done with the smartphone market and make decent enough technology highly affordable.

"Somebody is going to come up with a cheap Android tablet and win the education battle."

Photography pioneer Kodak files for bankruptcy

(Reuters) - Eastman Kodak Co, the photography icon that invented the hand-held camera, has filed for bankruptcy protection and plans to shrink significantly, capping a prolonged plunge for one of America's best-known companies.

The Chapter 11 filing makes Kodak one of the biggest corporate casualties of the digital age, after it failed to quickly embrace more modern technologies such as the digital camera -- ironically, a product it invented.

Kodak once dominated its industry, and its film was the subject of a popular 1973 song, "Kodachrome," by Paul Simon.

The bankruptcy may give Kodak, which traces its roots to 1880, the ability to find buyers for some of its 1,100 digital patents, a major portion of its value. Kodak now employs 17,000 people worldwide, down from 63,900 just nine years ago.

The cloud is coming to Hollywood, and leaders are starting to emerge

Apple’s launch of iCloud has sparked a huge amount of attention, and companies like Microsoft and Google are aggressively staking their claims in the cloud as well.

Why all the hype? In an otherwise gloomy economy, the emerging cloud computing industry is one of the few bright spots. According to IDC, the industry is currently worth about $20B year, and is expected to grow by 27% per year through 2014. This makes it the fastest growing industry worldwide, ahead of others like biotech, solar energy, and even video games.

While much of the attention may be focused on big players like Apple and Google, there’s also a quieter revolution that’s happening in Hollywood – and it’s profoundly changing the way that films and TV shows are being made.

The cloud is coming to Hollywood, and it will forever change the world of film and television production...

At CES in Las Vegas last week, connected TVs were the talk of the show. It seemed everyone was making an announcement – Yahoo rolled out new features and partners to its connected TV business, Panasonic partnered with Myspace to launch Myspace TV on the Viera Connect Smart TV platform, and Google announced that LG will join the list of companies supporting Google TV.

There is substantial consumer demand for streaming television content, evidenced by virtually every major TV manufacturer rolling out Web-connected TVs in the past year. Companies are placing bets on connected TV for good reason. NPD DisplaySearch predicts that connected TV shipments will account for 47% of all flat-panel TVs in 2015.

Connected TV is still in its infancy, but its digital marketing potential is huge. Millions of videos that were previously only accessible online are now available to consumers via their TVs. Online video to date has been focused on “snacking,” but the living room consumer has more time for longer-form content and the substantial ad inventory that accompanies it. It’s not hard to imagine literally thousands of “channels” of professional and “prosumer” niche content.

While the promise of this is exciting, it also feels very familiar. We’re cresting the peak of inflated expectations. Brace yourselves for another ride on the hype cycle for the video ad business.

NPD In-Stat: Wi-Fi devices to approach 600 million in 3 years

The number of Wi-Fi devices is forecast to reach nearly 600 million in 2015, according to NPD In-Stat, as wireless connectivity reduces or eliminates the need for Ethernet connections to the Internet. "Wi-Fi has moved from a nice-to-have feature to a must-have feature as it provides the connectivity necessary to support IP-based video content," said Frank Dickson, the market research firm's vice president of research.

CEA: 53% of Online Americans Watching Video

Fifty-three percent of online Americans watch some form of streaming or downloaded video in the home, according to a new study from the Consumer Electronics Association, or CEA. Americans prefer streaming (51% of respondents) over downloaded content (15%), with those streaming also spending nearly double the time watching (two hours) as those who download.

“Technology allows consumers to access almost any content they desire instantaneously on Internet-connected devices,” said Chris Ely, manager of industry relations for CEA. “The rise of mobile broadband has resulted in the emergence of connected devices that are able to stream content directly from the Internet, and services that allow consumers to store and access content without the need of a hard drive.”

Mark Cuban, Ryan Seacrest, live entertainment impresario AEG and Creative Artists Agency will rebrand Cuban's small cable network HDNet into a bigger new music-entertainment-lifestyle channel. The new network called AXS TV (pronounced "access") is scheduled to debut this summer, building on the content of AEG’s live events, run in more than 100 venues worldwide.

TV programming will include behind-the-scenes access to live concerts and music festivals, red carpet premieres, award shows, parties, pop culture events and in-depth interviews. The new network will meld content with HDNet’s existing programming -- HDNet Fights, "Inside MMA," "Dan Rather Reports," Sunday concert series and other nonscripted series.

The announcement says the agreement will included an expanded deal with Dish Network, which will count a variety of unique music services for Dish subscribers. The new network, along with existing TV distribution deals, will get AXS TV into 35 million U.S. TV homes

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/166098/high-def-channel-gets-new-definition-mark-cubans.html?edition=42402#ixzz1k4SNmSJH

eMarketer just released an updated ad forecast predicting that online would surpassing print ad spending this year. "U.S. online advertising spending, which grew 23% to $32.03 billion in 2011, is expected to grow an additional 23.3% to $39.50 billion this year, pushing it ahead of total spending on print newspapers and magazines," the research aggregator and analyst projects in its updated forecast, which projects taht ad spending is expected to fall to $33.80 billion in 2012 from $36.00 billion in 2011. "Despite concerns about the troubled economy among agencies and marketers, total ad spending in the U.S. is expected to rebound in 2012 after rising 3.4% to $158.90 billion in 2011," the report also predicts, noting that total U.S. media ad spending will grow an estimated 6.7% to $169.48 in 2012, boosted by the national elections and summer Olympics in London. While quadrennial-boosted TV ad budgets will rise 6.8% to $64.80 billion this year, emarketer projects that "digital remains the sole bright spot" for print-based newspaper and magazine publishers. eMarketer estimates U.S. digital newspaper ad revenues grew 8.3% to $3.30 billion in 2011. Print advertising revenues at newspapers fell 9.3% to $20.70 billion in 2011. At magazines, US print ad revenues are expected to rise 0.5% to $15.34 billion in 2012, up from $15.30 billion last year. U.S. digital advertising spending at magazines grew 18.8% to $2.70 billion in 2011.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/166141/stop-the-presses-again-online-to-surpass-print.html#ixzz1jzHUOpp7

It’s no secret: online video advertising is exploding. Recent data from eMarketer estimated that in 2011, more than 158 million U.S. Internet users will be watching video content online each month, a number it expects to increase nearly 24 percent, to 195.5 million, by 2015.

Not surprisingly, this growth is expected to create a corresponding impact on spend for online video advertising. eMarketer has projected that video ad spending will increase from $2.16 billion in 2011 to $7.11 billion by 2015. So what will be the driving force behind this growth? Simple: online video will be an integral part of every website, large and small. That said, now is the time for publishers of all sizes that do not have a video strategy to start thinking about it. http://us.mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=1fe2m1nr49jc4

DISH Network plans to close more Blockbuster stores than it previously announced when it paid $320 million to acquire the video rental chain out of bankruptcy last year. DISH, which initially said it would keep 1,500 Blockbuster stores open, now plans to shutter unprofitable locations and turn some of them into customer-service operations, CEO Joe Clayton said.

Hulu will create 2 original shows
Online video network Hulu plans to launch two original programs and bring back director Morgan Spurlock's "A Day in the Life" for a second season. The move comes as more independent producers and studios look for ways to create content for the Web.

Google and LG Electronics are in negotiations on providing LG with early access to the next generation of the Google TV software, Bloomberg reports, citing people with knowledge of the project. Such talks could give LG a leg up in developing a television set with Google TV 3.0 technology, much like how HTC and Samsung Electronics were able to make mobile phones with the latest version of the Android operating system

TiVo says research shows that DVR-equipped viewers are watching more recorded TV and TV from over-the-top TV services like Netflix than live TV.

Nearly two-thirds of the viewing on Web-connected TiVo units is now delayed television or on-demand video via broadband service. Only 38% of viewing is live. TiVo says the research comes from anonymous usage across some 2 million TiVo devices on a second-by-second basis.

These TiVo units provide access to Netflix, YouTube, Hulu Plus and other video options. Among those TiVo subscribers that used these services, live viewership is even lower at 27%. Tom Rogers, president and chief executive officer of TiVo, added: "The reduction in time spent watching live TV has huge implications for commercial ad delivery, how consumers search and find programs, and the role of networks in the carriage of shows, all of which require the industry's increased focus."

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/165672/tivo-dvr-viewers-watch-more-recorded-than-live-tv.html#ixzz1jOfaEY6q

Murdoch: we screwed up MySpace 'in every way possible'

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, has tweeted about how his company “screwed up MySpace in every way possible”.

Murdoch has spoken out before about how difficult owning MySpace was, after finally selling it off to advertising company Specific Media and Justin Timberlake last year, for approximately $35m (£22m) – just six per cent of what News Corporation paid for the business. Murdoch’s business is understood to have retained a small undisclosed stake in the social network, but is not involved in the day to day running of it.

In October 2011, during an annual shareholder meeting he admitted: “I made a huge mistake…We bought it [MySpace] for $600 million. We could have sold it for $6 billion a month later.” Instead, Murdoch’s company continued to try and battle against Facebook for users and advertising dollars for six more difficult years, relaunching several times and going through three chief executives.

The next challenge for the popular service, which already has 800 million viewers a month, is to make YouTube a more central part of these viewers' lives, said Robert Kyncl, YouTube vice president in charge of content partnerships.

"What we want is for viewers is to spend more time on YouTube," Kyncl told Reuters in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Kyncl, who moved from online rival Netflix a year and a half ago, comes to the consumer electronics showcase each year to check out connected devices because the more gadgets available with Internet access, the more ways consumers can watch YouTube. "We're a huge benefactor of what consumer electronics companies are doing with their devices, which is building Internet connectivity into them," he said. "It's allowing us to get in front of more consumers."

2011 was a breakout year for online video. It grew in both importance and prevalence largely because of the abundance of video content coming online from video streaming sites like Amazon, Hulu, Netflix and VEVO -- and the fact that the quality and quantity of content has dramatically improved in just a short time.

By investing $450 million in Facebook at a $50 billion valuation -- and helping Facebook raise as much as another $1.5 billion, as the NYT reported -- Goldman Sachs got a little extra: It's now in the driver's seat to eventually take Facebook public. Beyond whatever it makes on its investment, the fees will be a great bonus.

Goldman Sachs has reached out to its wealthy private clients, offering them a chance to invest in Facebook, the hot social networking giant that is considering a possible public offering in 2012, according to people familiar with the matter.

On Sunday night, a number of Goldman clients received an email from their Goldman broker, offering them the opportunity to invest in an unnamed “private company that is considering a transaction to raise additional capital.” Another person briefed on the deal said that Goldman clients would have to pony up a minimum of $2 million to invest and would be prohibited from selling their shares until 2013.
Read more: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/goldman-invests-in-facebook-at-50-billion-valuation/

Cord-Cutting Grows: 22% of Consumers Have or are Considering Ditching Cable

A just released report from Deloitte on the state of the media business said that 9% of U.S. consumers have ditched their cable or satellite service and another 11% are considering canceling. The reason? They can watch the shows they like online. What’s more, another 15% of respondents say they will most likely watch movies and TV shows via online video options in the near future, suggesting that consumers are becoming more willing to try out new ways to watch shows.

Those numbers will likely keep growing because viewers are simply more conversant watching TV shows via other devices. Deloitte also found that 22% of consumers had watched a TV show from a free online source (such as Hulu) in the last six months, while 21% had watched from a show’s Web site; both figures are on par with the year before. About 9% of consumers used a gaming console to watch TV, up from 6% in 2010; and 6% had used a smartphone, up from 5% a year ago. About 3% are watching TV on tablets. Meanwhile, about 42% of respondents had streamed a movie online, up from 32% a year ago, and 28% in 2009.
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/165251/cord-cutting-grows-22-of-consumers-have-or-are-c.html#ixzz1j8CKUusA

Pasadena, Calif -- NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt was honest about the network's continued viewership doldrums.

"We had a really bad fall -- which I kind of expected," he says, speaking at the Television Critics Association meeting here. Greenblatt took over the network early in 2011, coming from Showtime. Blame, he says, goes to the scarcity of good lead-ins, some departing high-profile talent, among other reasons. The good news is that new owners, Comcast Corp., are in it for the long haul, he says. They are investing in programming and have patience.

YouTube 2.0 helping new stars redefine TV

"YouTube isn't just a video platform; it's really a social networking site, a place to show like-minded people what you're up to," says Jutagir, 36. "I've been totally amazed at the response." Perhaps no more so than the folks at Google-owned YouTube, the Web's dominant video site with nearly a half-billion unique visitors a month.

If YouTube 1.0 was about showcasing random clips, YouTube 2.0 represents a quest to become a genuine entertainment destination. The company has become so convinced that grassroots content creators such as Jutagir are the key to this metamorphosis that last week it sent him and 24 others to its first-ever Creator Camp in New York.

During the past year alone, the site's hold on viewers rose 20%, from 33 million minutes per month to 40 million (about 28,000 days), according to the online-data firm comScore. By comparison, Hulu plus the top network-TV sites combined totaled 8 million minutes.

Matt Farber, who founded MTV’s Logo channel and was a top program executive at MTV2 and Fuse, has entered a new arena: connected platforms. DoubleBounce, his 6-month-old digital content company, secures cable TV pilots from successful production companies and then transforms long-form projects into short-form mini Webisodes -- tailored to advertisers. Two big digital media companies just signed on as clients: Yahoo and AOL.

Stanford Entrepreneur Companies Generate $2.7 Trillion in Revenue Annually

Fujifilm to cease production of cinema film as digital continues

to take over movie industry

Online Video Replacing Some Pay TV

Traditional filming technique seen in 'Batman,' 'Fight Club' loses war to digital method

Studios Manage DVD Death With Profits on Digital Rights

Silicon Valley isn't sharing Facebook's misery

Movies suffer worst box-office slump in a decade

Wind of change blows towards Silicon Valley

What’s Coming Out of Silicon Valley

Fox offers downloads of newer films before issuing them on DVD

Film Is Dead? Long Live Movies

How Digital Is Changing the Nature of Movies

Blue-chip outfits venture into valley

Business News

Theaters going digital or die

Tablet use as nearly as big as laptops, desktops for Web purchases

Apple cuts YouTube from new operating system

Why McKinsey Values Social Economy At Up To $1.3 Trillion

Yahoo's IntoNow 3.0 Syncs With TV

Social media, until recently a hot sector, faces growing skeptics

Digital Upgrade Threatens Small Movie Theaters

Hollywood, Silicon Valley At War in Sun Valley

Ah, This Is Where the Real Silicon Valley Hackers Are theatlanticwire.com/technology/2012/07/ah-where-real-silicon-valley-hackers-are/54247/

Amazon Cloud Hit by Real Clouds, Downing Netflix, Instagram, Other Sites

BBC Future Media director outlines connected media strategy

Why smartphones are the future of social networking

Digital Media Flourishing Despite Global Economic Uncertainty

Global Study of Journalists Finds Increased Investment in Streaming Video, Mobile Apps and Infographics as Online Audiences Grow

Silicon Valley lands Patent Office bureau

Disappearing Ink

Tech Execs See Shift From Silicon Valley to China

Who's the Boss? There Isn't One

Yahoo’s Levinsohn Strategy Gets Some Lionizing in Cannes by P&G

Silicon Valley Is the New Motown in a Web That's a Hit Factory

New media brings cult of individual

Media & Entertainment Venture Capital Industry: VCs look to the leading companies

Bing, Yahoo Redesign Image Search

Baby Boomers Are Big Video Consumers-- (INTERESTING VISION INTO THE PARADIGM SHIFT)

Jobs bio pic being shot at co-founder's 1970s home

How Do We Shape Future Media Leaders?

Cisco: The Internet Will Be Four Times as Large in Four Years

Filmmakers turn to internet to promote films (India)

RadioShack teams up with firm in China

Marketers Shifting Ad Spend Mix to Digital Media

44% Allocate At Least Half of Budgets to Social & Digital

Streaming video on a budget

Prime Time Is Mobile Time; Studies Show Mobile Online Video Use Skyrocketing

Online Film Viewing in U.S. to Top Discs in 2012, IHS Says

Google Chrome Overtakes Internet Explorer

David Armano: The future of digital media

At Network TV’s Gathering, Web Is Central

Hollywood, Digital Media Players Unite to Launch L.A. Incubator

Why Facebook Is Killing Silicon Valley

TBS, TNT to become “branded video destinations”

There's Retail Magic in Silicon Dust

Kevin Spacey Is Producing a TV Show For E! About ‘Silicon Valley’s Digital Gold Rush’

Upfronts 2012: YouTube Announces New Channels

If This Doesn't Persuade You To Put Campaigns On Mobile, Nothing Will

Tech firm Silver Lake is providing an unspecified investment that “will accelerate WME’s transformation into a technologically innovative entertainment and media company,” the agency says.

The Future Of TV Is In Broadband

Microsoft readying cross-platform Xbox music service, report says

Silicon Valley’s war for the mobile web

Katie Couric, Jeff Goldblum among new Yahoo Web shows

YouTube partners with MGM, adds 600 titles

Gen Y: The Digital Divide Gets Deeper

Startup lets Web surfers pay online using Facebook, Twitter

A week after launch, Ustream’s Facebook Timeline brings huge growth

LinkedIn passes 100 million members

Here's why Silicon valley is still best for startups

Rise of new media spurs major change in Bollywood’s India

India’s Bollywood stars have turned to new media in huge numbers to be closer to their fans as part of a radical transformation of the industry in its quest for greater audiences.

Google CEO Larry Page discusses his year, vision for future

Bravo plans ‘Silicon Valley’ reality TV show with the help of Randi Zuckerberg

Walmart Converts DVDs To Cloud Service

Cisco to buy video technology company NDS for $5B

Google vs. Facebook: The New Media Showdown

In Berlin, Startups Steer Clear of Facebook

Verizon Pitches Mobile Video

Variety Up for Sale: Sad End for a Storied Brand