"I believe that I will never shoot another film... on film."    George Lucas

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Americans Are Crazy For Digital Devices, Time Consumption Is Up

Americans own an average of four digital devices (including high-definition TVs) and spend 60 hours a week consuming media across them collectively. 

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Mobile Video To Grow 14 Times By 2018

Cisco also reported that mobile video use peaks in the evening, which is something most advertisers know already. What’s noteworthy is that the busiest mobile video times are growing at a faster rate than other dayparts. Advertisers can use this insight to target their mobile video campaigns by time of day.

These findings dovetail with  Nielsen’s just-released report on digital consumer habits. Nielsen said Americans own four digital devices on average and spend 60 hours a week consuming content on those devices. About 65% of homes own a smartphone, and in the past year consumers have upped the time they spend on apps and browsers by about 10 hours more a month, making phones second only to TVs for media consumption.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/219586/mobile-video-to-grow-14-times-by-2018.html

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Comcast To Buy Time Warner Cable For $45.2 Billion

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Second screen recognized as permanent part of viewing experience

The second part of the NATPE/ CEA survey into second-screen usage has revealed 'tremendous potential' in content designed for synchronous viewing and the simultaneous usage of both a primary screen and second device.

The first part of the report from Research from the US Consumer Electronics Association and National Association of Television Program Executives found that broadcasters have some way to go to fully realise the potential of second-screen services, with synchronised content available for TV programmes not generating strong positive perceptions, and only 13% indicating that it makes their viewing experience "much more enjoyable." In addition it showed that despite four-fifths of second-screen users accessing their connected device while watching TV programming, only 42% tried synchronising their content experience to live TV and almost

Part two has revealed a more positive view of the second screen, with a general consensus that it is as an inevitable part of the future. Even though some believe there are strong opportunities for synchronous viewing going forward, producers were found to be still searching for the best solutions to optimise technology to create a seamless experience for the viewer.

Read more: Second screen recognised as permanent part of viewing experience | Rapid TV News http://www.rapidtvnews.com/index.php/2014012832006/second-screen-recognised-as-permanent-part-of-viewing-experience.html#ixzz2tTAussK7

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US connected TV penetration passes 60%

Driven by services such as Netflix and Pandora becoming commonplace, more than three-fifths of US households now have at least one net-connected TV in their home, according to data from The Diffusion Group (TDG).

The universe of connected TV devices surveyed in Benchmarking the Connected Consumer, 2014 includes TVs connected to the Internet either directly as in a smart TV, or indirectly via ancillary net-to-TV devices like game consoles or Internet sticks such as Google Chromecast.

The 63% penetration revealed represents significant year-on-year growth from the 53% at the same period in 2013. Furthermore, among broadband households with a net-connected TV, average ownership is 1.6 units, meaning a large portion of users own multiple net-connected TVs. In fact, 42% of connected TV owners were found to have two or more such configurations.

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Digital Stats Foretold Which New Movies Would Fall Flat

How performance on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Google could have predicted recent box office successes and failure

http://variety.com/2013/digital/news/digital-stats-american-hustle-wolf-box-office-bomb-47-ronin-1201012895/

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Google overtakes Intel as world's biggest 'dealmaker'

Google has made more deals than any company in the world over the past three years, according to Bloomberg

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China’s hi-tech emperors

From a global online 'anything store’ to high-end smartphones challenging Apple, a generation of billionaire entrepreneurs is rising in the East

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10550932/Chinas-hi-tech-emperors.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

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Comcast to buy Time-Warner Cable for $45 b

http://www.siliconvalley.com/news/ci_25129305/comcast-buy-time-warner-cable-45-billion

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Silicon Valley Economy Back at Dot-Com Era Highs

The annual Silicon Valley Index report shows a sizzling economy that will only get hotter, thanks to high-tech companies, but perils coexist with prosperity. Silicon Valley boasts the highest growth sectors, but "rising tides do not lift all boats." A growing divide between rich and poor is driven by an overwhelming demand for housing.

"The economy is sizzling any way you slice it and it's about to get hotter, but having said that, we are quick to point out there are perils with our prosperity," said Russell Hancock, president of Joint Venture Silicon Valley, which released its annual Silicon Valley Index in conjunction with the philanthropic Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

The region added nearly 47,000 jobs in 2013, up 3 percent over the previous year, and the total number of jobs has surpassed pre-recession levels. Many are high wage jobs -- 45 percent of households now earn more than $100,000, and per capita income is above $70,000 a year, much higher than the state average of about $44,000.   http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_id=01200000NIQC

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Hollywood urged to match content with tech innovation

Hollywood has been urged to ramp up the pace and redesign its content strategy to keep up with technology. Addressing the annual Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (SMPTE) technical conference and exhibition in Hollywood, Thomas Gewecke, chief digital officer and executive VP for strategy and business development at Warner Bros. Entertainment, said: “this is no longer science fiction. The technology is there; the product is not.”

Echoing an emerging theme of the conference, Gewecke called for urgent action, stating, “the change is measured in months and quarters, not in years. The challenge for a company of our size is to move fast enough.”

A key factor for the industry to consider, Gewecke suggested, was to put content distribution at the top of the agenda including defining what the product actually is and how to best find its target audiences. “We need to make our content as ubiquitous as possible. It needs to be in as many places as possible so consumers have a legitimate way to access it,” he said.    http://www.whatech.com/iptv/18415-cbt407-hollywood-urged-to-match-content-with-tech-innovation

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Stop Putting About Tech's Next Big Thing, It's Here

It's easy to get jaded when you cover the technology industry. Silicon Valley's giants are constantly belching wisps of marshmallow-thick hype, and any reporter looking to cover the beat has to be constantly on guard against unproven claims about this or that algorithmically-abetted amazing advance.

So when Christopher Mims of Quartz recently declared 2013 to be a "lost year for tech"—one in which, he says, the industry produced nothing of great value—I could see where he was coming from. I feel the same way some days; when I'm covering some new me-too social-media product or a great new way to target ads, I hang my head in despair.

But then I read a couple of rebuttals to Mims by Daring Fireball's John Gruber and Om Malik, of Gigaom. They argued that the industry's biggest advances have occurred beneath the media's radar, and that the industry, as a whole, is anything but stagnant.  I side with these more positive takes. Here's my roundup of reasons to break out of your tech funk and be optimistic about tech in 2014.

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Spotify streaming surge boosts record labels

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/10544587/Spotify-streaming-surge-boosts-record-labels.html

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Change is good - just look at the entertainment industry

This year, spending on digital music, films and video games could well surpass physical sales

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/mediatechnologyandtelecoms/digital-media/10546191/Change-is-good-just-look-at-the-entertainment-industry.html

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Young users see Facebook as 'dead and buried'

A study of how teenagers use social media has found that Facebook is “not just on the slide, it is basically dead and buried”, but that the network is morphing into a tool for keeping in touch with older family members

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/10539274/Young-users-see-Facebook-as-dead-and-buried.html

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Facebook Becomes No. 2 Digital Ad Seller, Google Still Reigns

Fueled by its push into mobile advertising, Facebook this year will account for 7.4% of U.S. digital ad spending, making it second only to Google in market share. 
Facebook jumped ahead of Microsoft and Yahoo in 2013 in its share of digital ad dollars, but remains well behind Google’s hefty 40.9% slice of spending, according anupdated eMarketer forecast.

The research firm had previously forecast that Facebook would remain slightly behind Yahoo this year, but the rapid expansion of its mobile business -- which in the third quarter amounted to half of its total ad revenue -- changed the outlook. Yahoo’s share is projected to fall to 5.8% from 6.8% last year.

Microsoft won’t see as steep a decline, dipping from a 6.2% to a 5.9% share. Its $2.53 billion in ad revenue includes not only sales related to its Web properties, but also from its Xbox and Skype services. Twitter may have garnered much attention because of its IPO this year, but the microblogging service this year will account for only 1% of digital ad spend.

Looking ahead, Google is expected to maintain its digital ad dominance through 2015, when it will claim 42.3% of U.S. digital ad revenues -- across desktop computers, smartphones and tablets -- while Facebook will take in 9%, Microsoft 5.4%, Yahoo, 5% and IAC, 2.2%. One looming question is how much additional revenue the rollout of video advertising will drive for Facebook in 2014 and after.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/215942/facebook-becomes-no-2-digital-ad-seller-google-s.html?print

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Advertisers Have a Better Idea About Online Video Than Many Content Creators

There’s so much about 2014 to figure out, and in the video business so much is sometimes delightfully transitory. What has happened in 2013 was old news as soon as it happened. But here’s where we are now as 2014 comes into view: Video is now becoming the focal point of the Internet, and at the same time, the people who create it and sell it are still close to clueless about the way it's all going to shake out. They aren't sure how to make it work for consumers or advertisers, or I guess, the betterment of mankind.  

The business still doesn’t know the best  ways to present advertising, or to make sure it's actually viewable. It doesn’t know how to monetize “quality” content. And there is the content: The Internet is filled with amateur content that at once gives it its largest audience, creates its image of cute kitties and novelty musical videos--and keeps it imprisoned in unimportance. It also gives the world unexpected gems, but a lot of what is on the Web is there to capture eyeballs and with no greater purpose than that. And, as a pretty brilliant piece on The Washington Post's Wonkblog points out, the Quest for Virality can result in lots of page views of ...nothing. 

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/215994/advertisers-have-a-better-idea-about-online-video.html?print

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Media Devices Hit 140 Million, Smart TVs Push Increase

Internet-enabled TV devices will witness rapid growth over the next year -- but a huge portion of those devices will not be online connections.   U.S. homes will see a 44% rise to 202 million media devices -- up from 140 million at the end of 2013, per NPD Group's Connected Home Forecast. Home devices include connected TV, all streaming media players, Blu-Ray players and gaming consoles.   Not all Internet-enabled devices sold will be connected to the Internet.

The NPD study says 65% of those Internet-enabled devices will get connections by 2015 (131 million connected; 71 million unconnected) -- up from 56% of those devices in 2013 (78 million connected; 62 million unconnected).  Smart TVs will help push this activity. NPD estimates that by 2015, there will be 23 million smart TV sets installed and connected in homes. In addition, the introduction of add-on TV devices such as Chromecast will help push connected media players to 31 million by 2015.

“As consumers connect TVs to the Internet, they are not only using streaming services such as Netflix, they also switch from linear and on-demand TV programming to TV network apps such as HBO GO or WatchESPN,” said John Buffone, executive director, industry analyst, NPD Connected Intelligence, in a release.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/216063/media-devices-hit-140-million-smart-tvs-push-incr.html?edition=68190

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2013

Yahoo Remains Top U.S. Web Site

Yahoo remained the No. 1 U.S. Web property in November, extending its lead over Google by about 2 million monthly visitors to 194.6 million, according to the latest comScore data.  Google had 192.7 million visitors, followed by Microsoft with 177.5 million, Facebook (141.4 million) and AOL (120.2 million). Keep in mind that those figures include only desktop activity.

Yahoo overtook Google as the top site in July for the first time since May 2011 and has not yielded the top slot since. The company’s CEO Marissa Mayer has made a point of highlighting audience growth during her tenure -- noting that in September, for example, the number of active monthly users worldwide topped 800 million.

But so far, those gains haven’t translated into revenue growth for Yahoo, which fell further behind Google and Facebook in display ad share this year, according to an eMarketer estimate. While both its main rivals have ramped up their mobile ad businesses, Yahoo’s still doesn’t contribute a significant amount to its overall sales.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/216165/yahoo-remains-top-us-web-site.html?edition=68236

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Tribune Buys Gracenote, Expands Music Data

Looking to deepen its entertainment data business, Tribune Company has acquired Sony Corp’s Gracenote -- the big source of music data.
Tribune will purchase the company for around $170 million.  Tribune will look to combine Gracenote with Tribune Media Services (TMS), a major provider of TV and movie metadata, used to provide electronic TV program guides.

Gracenote has data on more than 180 million music tracks, and services 550 million music “look-ups” each day and more than 16 billion every month. Gracenote technology works with thousands of mobile apps; 50 million cars have been equipped with Gracenote. It has data for 1 million movies and TV shows across 30 countries.  Shashi Seth, president of Tribune Digital Ventures, which includes oversight of TMS, stated: "Both companies have substantial digital footprints and are well-respected leaders in their areas globally.  http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/216139/tribune-buys-gracenote-expands-music-data.html?edition=68226

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Online/Digital Media Growth Lifts Ad Revenues

Faster growth in online/digital advertising revenues will drive that faster overall growth, increasing at a 13.8 percent CAGR from $26.5 billion in 2013 to $44.5 billion in 2017. That compares with a CAGR of 0.1 percent during the same period for traditional advertising revenues, which will remain flat, growing slightly from $106.4 billion in 2013 to $107 billion in 2017.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/214162/onlinedigital-media-growth-lifts-ad-revenues.html?edition=67362

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Google Highlights TED 2014 Ad Award Candidates

As the TED 2014 "Ads Worth Spreading" campaign gets under way, Google's YouTube unit is helping showcase the most creative and innovative video advertisements before the award winners are determined and announced in March 2014. The awards, which are in their fourth year, are presented by the group that puts on TED Conferences (Technology, Education, Design), which are devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading, according to the organization, to celebrate creativity and emotional power in advertising. The 2014 TED video ad competition, with the help of YouTube, will make all the contending ad videos available to online viewers so they can see the best of the best before the votes are counted, Tara Levy, managing director of ads marketing for Google and YouTube, wrote in a Nov. 20 post on The Official YouTube Blog. - See more at: http://www.eweek.com/cloud/google-highlights-ted-2014-award-candidates.html/#sthash.NAtMMBk4.dpuf

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Major Newspaper Chains Continue Revenue Slide

Judging the overall health of the newspaper industry became a bit harder in September, when the Newspaper Association of America announced that it would no longer be reporting quarterly results in favor of annual results, in order “to produce a more comprehensive report to properly reflect the evolving nature of the newspaper industry and its revenues.”
 
However, many publicly traded newspaper companies still release quarterly results, and a survey of 10 such companies of varying sizes shows a continued downward trend in line with the industry’s trajectory to date.
 
All 10 publishers surveyed -- A.H. Belo, E.W. Scripps, Gannett Co., Gatehouse Media, Journal Communications, Lee Enterprises, McClatchy Co., New York Times Co., News Corp., and Tribune Co. -- saw total revenues decline at their newspaper publishing divisions, with an average percentage decline of 3.8%.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/213735/major-newspaper-chains-continue-revenue-slide.html?edition=67023

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'Despicable Me 2' Delivered to Mexican Cinemas Via Satellite

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Digital Cannes: Meet the IMDb guy – Colin Needham

Yahoo's $800 Million Bid for Hulu: Safe, Boring, and Brilliant

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Global TV Ad Spend Up 4.2%, Internet Ads Skyrocket

Worldwide TV advertising spending grew modestly -- low-single-digit percentage gains -- in the first half of 2013, while Internet advertising continued to rocket higher with big double-digit percent hikes.Nielsen says TV grew 4.2%, now at a 57.6% market share for the first six months of the year. The second-largest media in terms of advertising spending -- newspapers -- sank 2%, now at a 18.9% share. Magazines gave back about the same amount -- 1.9% -- now with 10% share of all media spending.
The next-biggest media -- radio, with 5.4% global ad share -- drifted 0.9% lower.
Internet advertising was again the star of worldwide advertising spending -- climbing 26.6% during the period. Asia-Pacific and Latin American countries continue to fuel its growth -- rising 43% and 38.5%, respectively.  While Internet advertising overall continued to shine, only outdoor advertising -- with a 3.5% share -- grew in all regions during the first half of year -- up 5%.
Randall Beard, global head, Advertiser Solutions for Nielsen, stated: “It’s clear that advertisers are wisely maximizing their opportunities to reach consumers across platforms with TV ad dollars showing no signs of slowing and noteworthy increases in Internet ad spend.”
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/211792/global-tv-ad-spend-up-42-internet-ads-skyrocket.html?edition=66077#ixzz2jHRUCZYa

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With the new SEC rules on crowdfunding and the proven popularity of Kickstarter, more startups are emerging to help innovators get their ideas funded.

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission voted to propose rules that will allow companies to offer securities through online crowdfunding. Under the law created by last year's JOBS Act, small companies can raise up to $1 million a year through accredited investors. The public has 90 days to comment on the SEC proposed rules.

The new crowdfunding laws—along with the overall success of sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo—are leading more startups and existing companies to roll out their own crowdfunding platforms for small businesses and startups. Though it may take the SEC more than six months to put out final rules, many sites are already helping businesses connect with and vet prospective investors and donors.

Here are five sites that have recently started offering crowdfunding to entrepreneurs:

1. Upstart.com. Founded by ex-Google employees, the site helps everyone from startup entrepreneurs to college students needing tuition to raise money. How it works: Funders provide capital today and then receive a percentage of future income for five or 10 years. To be funded, a project must raise at least $10,000.

2. PlumAlley.co. Launched originally as an e-commerce site featuring products designed by women, the site unveiled plans last week to begin offering crowdfunding for women entrepreneurs.

3. JumpstartFund.com. In beta stage, the site plans to offer startups resources—such as connecting with potential co-founders and collaborating on ideas—as well as the ability to attract accredited investors. Among the first projects: SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s plans for high-speed, solar-powered inter-city transportation, Hyperloop.

4. DragonInnovation.com. The well-known Boston-based manufacturing firm recently launched a crowdfunding platform exclusively for hardware entrepreneurs. The site charges a $5,000 “prep fee” in exchange for help getting set up with manufacturing and other consulting services, according to Forbes. (The high startup fee on the site has sparked some criticism.)

5. HatchFund.org. Created by a nonprofit called AIM, the new site helps artists showcase their work and attract donations. One Indiana dance major, Kristin Dowdy, has raised more than $2,000 for her plans to host a performance called CityScapes that explores “the different personalities of cities, the people, and the landmarks within those cities.”

For businesses reluctant to find investors or donors online, there are other emerging options. LendingClub.com, a peer-to-peer lending network, recently announced it would begin offering small-business loans.

https://www.openforum.com/articles/move-over-kickstarter-5-new-crowdfunding-sites-for-entrepreneurs/?extlink=of-syndication-sb-p

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Magisto Lands $13 Million Investment for Polished Home Movies on Your Phone

All those videos that we shoot with our iPhones and Android devices and upload to YouTube and Facebook are great, but they’re pretty raw. Editing them and making them look a little more polished — indeed, telling something of a story — still takes time and attention to editing, which more often than not means uploading the video first to a computer and then mucking around with cuts and transitions in the video-editing platform of your choice.

An Israeli startup called Magisto is aiming to change that with a video platform that automates the process of editing and sharing home videos. From various clips stored on your phone, the service uses artificial intelligence to pick the best bits of video, stitch them together and set the whole thing to music. The company calls it “video storytelling,” and it claims some 13 million customers.

Today, Magisto said it had landed a $13 million strategic investment from Qualcomm Ventures, the investment arm of the wireless chip company, and SanDisk Ventures, the flash-memory manufacturer. Existing investors Magma Venture Partners and Li Ka-shing’s Horizons Ventures also participated.

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Netflix Flirts With a New Idea: “Big” Movies at Your House, the Same Day They’re in Theaters

“What we’re trying to do for TV, the model should extend pretty nicely to movies. Meaning, why not premiere movies on Netflix, the same day they’re opening in theaters? And not little movies — there’s a lot of ways, and lot of people to do that [already]. Why not big movies? Why not follow the consumers’ desire to watch things when they want?”

Netflix made a splash this year by creating its own TV shows and delivering them over the Web. Now it’s toying with the same idea for movies.

This summer, the company announced that it in addition to TV shows like “Orange Is the New Black,” it would start spending money on modest movies — documentaries and stand-up comedy specials — which would debut on the service.

Now Netflix is floating the idea that it will foot the bill for a “big” movie, which would appear in theaters and on Netflix at the same time.

During the company’s earnings call last week, content boss Ted Sarandos said the company was interested in breaking into movies, and that investors should “keep [their] mind wide open to what those films would be and what they would look like.”

This weekend, Sarandos got more explicit. In a speech hosted by Film Independent, the nonprofit behind the indie film Spirit Awards, Sarandos said Netflix could start delivering new movies to its subscribers by doing the same thing it has done with its original TV shows, and becoming a first-run distributor.

http://allthingsd.com/20131028/netflix-flirts-with-a-new-idea-big-movies-at-your-house-the-same-day-theyre-in-theaters/

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Netflix to movie theaters (and vice versa): You're killing the movies

The old-fashioned movie theater is inNetflix’s crosshairs.

Ted Sarandos, chief content officer at the on-demand video service, tore into movie theater owners over the weekend at the Film Independent Forum in Los Angeles. At issue: their widespread resistance to same-day on-demand / theatrical releases.

“Theater owners stifle this kind of innovation at every turn,” Sarandos said. “The reason why we may enter this space and try to release some big movies ourselves this way, is because I’m concerned that as theater owners try to strangle innovation and distribution, not only are they going to kill theaters — they might kill movies.”

The idea that Netflix will do an end-run around the theater owners—given their success at original programming with House of Cards andOrange is the New Black—ought to send chills up many a proprietor’s spine.

Indeed, Sarandos’ words touched a nerve in a big way. John Fithian, president and CEO of the National Association of Theater Owners, fired back in an interview with Deadline Hollywood     http://upstart.bizjournals.com/companies/media/2013/10/28/netflix-takes-on-movie-theater-owners.html

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Pinterest Does Another Massive Funding — $225 Million at $3.8 Billion Valuation 

According to several sources, Pinterest has completed another enormous funding, this time nabbing $225 million with late-stage investor Fidelity Investments in the lead.

The new infusion of cash — which comes on the heels of a very recentand massive funding in February of $200 million that valued the social scrapbooking company at $2.5 billion — pegs the latest valuation of Pinterest at $3.8 billion.

That’s obviously a whole lot of pins.   http://allthingsd.com/20131023/pinterest-does-another-massive-funding-225-million-at-3-8-billion-valuation/

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Movie Biz Survival Strategy: Focus On Home Viewer

More and more, distributors are green-lighting and financing projects based on P&L statements instead of the old-fashioned way of taking a calculated bet on whether a film could jump out at the box office. There is no more betting! The decisions are basically being made by the accountants, not the executives.

Some of this is due to the drop-in demand of DVDs -- far from over, by the way -- but much of it has to do with the disruption of the movie distribution model in general. The home theater is clearly taking over the share of the market once controlled exclusively by the movie theater.

The release windows in the movie business have been continually shrinking, as technology and consumer demands change. The business has hit a wall.

It is time now for the major studios to shorten the windows to no more than a month, and in many cases a few weeks. Fans who want to see a specific film will still line up at midnight, and those who love the theater experience will still continue to go out. But an even bigger upside is that this model will drive sales of more televisions and tablets for users eager to watch movies at home.        http://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=ah4grdvka5j3f#mail

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The rise of documentary film

 The Documentary is an example of a new breed of theatrically-minded, more commercially viable documentaries that are contributing to the genre’s increasing success. Recent British Film Institute data show that the number of documentaries released in British cinemas has grown steadily every year over the last decade, from a measly four in 2001 to 86 last year. Documentaries now also account for about 16% of the Cannes film marketaccording to its director, Jerome Paillard, compared with 8% five years ago. Netflix, an online streaming service that also makes television series, recently announced that it will soon be producing documentaries for the next wave of its original content drive.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2013/08/rise-documentary-film

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http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/206992/mobile-advertisers-driving-foot-traffic-and-site-t.html#axzz2cXsN8EyZ

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Craigslist Costs Local Newspapers $5 Billion In Lost Ad Revs

By offering buyers and sellers a free alternative to paid listings in newspapers, online classifieds site Craigslist saved users about $5 billion from 2000-2007, while costing local newspapers the same amount in lost classified advertising revenues, according to a new study by professors at the NYU Stern School of Business and Harvard Business School.

The study, titled “Responses to Entry in Multi-Sided Markets: The Impact of Craigslist on Local Newspapers,” explored the impact of Craigslist by analyzing newspaper publisher results over time, focusing on their degree of reliance on classifieds and the timing of Craigslist entry in their market, among other factors. 

Newspapers that were more reliant on classified revenues saw a bigger drop-off after Craiglist entered their markets.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/206729/craigslist-costs-local-newspapers-5-billion-in-lo.html?edition=63391#ixzz2c10pHlTB

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Time Magazine Branches Out Into Documentary Films

As most print news outlets scramble to find greater profits in a punishing media market by adding more online video content, they are trying to figure out exactly what kind of video content they want to provide. Do they produce short, televisionlike broadcasts? Clips from the latest news events? Or do they try something more ambitious?

Time has decided to venture into documentary films and recently started a new unit called Red Border Films, named after the magazine’s red border. The division will produce one 10-minute film a month and two longer, more ambitious projects each year. While some of these projects will tie in to articles in the magazine, other videos will stand alone.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/206729/craigslist-costs-local-newspapers-5-billion-in-lo.html?edition=63391#axzz2bzuI292J

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As most print news outlets scramble to find greater profits in a punishing media market by adding more online video content, they are trying to figure out exactly what kind of video content they want to provide. Do they produce short, television like broadcasts? Clips from the latest news events? Or do they try something more ambitious?

Time has decided to venture into documentary films and recently started a new unit called Red Border Films, named after the magazine’s red border. The division will produce one 10-minute film a month and two longer, more ambitious projects each year. While some of these projects will tie in to articles in the magazine, other videos will stand alone.

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Content Marketing Potpouri

But wait, there’s more. The included Infographic from the Wishpond site, titled "The State of Content Marketing 2013," showing how companies are using content marketing and how consumers interact with it, is summarized in this Research Brief as text to keep with your VFOGI (vast fund of general information). Content sources are included following the text.

A Salesforce Blog says that a search of “start content marketing” yields 369,000,000 queries, but here is a selected potpourri of data showing how companies are using content marketing to sell, and how consumers interact with it.

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The New York Times wants to add more video to its website.  That step may be a  reaction to continued lower advertising results, with revenues down 6% from all platforms, and digital revenues down 2.7%.

Much is to blame, including programmatic systems pushing down ad prices. Even some video CPMs are going down, although those prices are still much higher than digital display prices.

Much of this original video might not be on the level of so-called “premium” video – such as off-network repeats of big popular shows like ABC’s “Modern Family,” CBS’ “NCIS” or Fox’s “The Following.”

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/206432/glut-of-video-inventory-could-get-even-bigger.html?edition=63266#ixzz2c1ZctmFT

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Viacom Inks VMA Ad Deals Integrated Into Twitter

Viacom is moving to take advantage of the ad opportunity that comes with video links integrated into a Twitter stream, which viewers can watch without leaving the social network site. The company has inked deals with Degree and Pepsi that use the Twitter Amplify platform in relation to the Aug. 25 “MTV Video Music Awards.”

Viacom is selling the Amplify option as part of larger packages linked with the annual music awards show, where Miley Cyrus and Kanye West will perform.
Viacom will attach brands to videos seen leading up to and during the VMA broadcast that might include highlights of memorable moments on stage, backstage clips, red carpet interviews and other content. A pre-roll ad before the content is one possibility as are other integrations.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/206740/viacom-inks-vma-ad-deals-integrated-into-twitter.html?edition=63415#ixzz2c0A0pO3R

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On Wednesday, AOL announced that it would buy video programming company Adap.tv for $405 million. With Internet video bringing in more viewers than traditional television, AOL hopes the acquisition will enable them to jump ahead of the trend and grab ad dollars that would be spent on television.    August 2013

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Biggest Video News Stories Of The Half-Year

Six months into the year, the level of corporate development activity on YouTube-related channels has been nothing but breathtaking:
-- Bertelsmann invested in StyleHaul.
-- Time Warner invested in Maker.
-- Dreamworks acquired AwesomenessTV for $33 million guaranteed, and up to $123 million total 
-- Cherning Group and Comcast invested in Fullscreen
- RTL invested in Broadband TV.

Whether or not these investments bear fruit remains to be seen. It’s clear, however, that the general multichannel network (MCN) strategy is anything but a slam-dunk.

Diversification is the Name of the Game

In fact, while YouTube remains the main game in town, many MCNs have hatched strategies to build an off-YouTube business to improve their fortunes and diversify.

All Quiet on the Western Front?

Under Ross Levinsohn's brief tenure, Yahoo made content and video a central pillar of its strategy.  Yet under Marissa Mayer, the focus shifted to tech, mobile and apps.  That doesn't mean Yahoo's been inactive in video: commanding a large enough video audience to matter for the foreseeable future, it remains a major producer of branded entertainment for marketers. 

Dawn of Fat Content Startups

It's not just MCNs that are getting funded. We have finally seen venture capitalists give in to temptation and invest in content: Business Insider ($19 million), Buzzfeed ($46 million), Cheezburger ($37 million), VOX Media ($40.5 million), Sugar Media ($46 million), BuzzMedia ($58 million) and Bleacher Report ($40.5 million) being some of the more notable ones.

While overall online video advertising keeps growing, it's not growing fast enough (especially relative to television advertising), nor are CPMs going in the right direction.  In fact, with 100 hours of content being uploaded onto YouTube every minute now and more advertising showing comfort around some UGC, the industry is holding out for a miracle solution to make the production of content a viable one.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/203659/biggest-video-news-stories-of-the-half-year.html#axzz2YchpELpK

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Digital Seen Surpassing TV In Capturing Our Time

It's finally happening, folks. This year, the average time Americans spend with digital media each day will surpass traditional TV viewing time. That's according to eMarketer's latest estimate of media consumption among adults.

The average adult will spend more than five hours per day online and on non-voice mobile activities (read: texting, apps, games). That's compared to an average four hours and 31 minutes each day of TV watching

Facebook attracts more 18- to 24-year-olds during prime-time viewing hours than any of four major television networks, according to a Nielsen study commissioned by Facebook and cited by Bloomberg News.

.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/08/04/208353200/digital-seen-surpassing-tv-in-capturing-our-time

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Google Plus is Growing as fast as Facebook

Last December 6, Google announced that Google Plus now has 135 million active users, users that log on to their plus accounts on a monthly basis. Last September, that number was around 100 million, which means that Google is growing as fast as Facebook when it had the same number of active viewers.

Google publicized these latest statistics together with the announcement of the new Google Plus Communities feature and the newest improvements to Snapseed, a mobile photo application by Google.  September 17 was the last time Google Plus had a user count. Apparently the social networking site obtain 35 million new active users in just two and a half months. Furthermore, that means Google Plus has been adding 14 million active users each month – that is comparable to Facebook stats.

http://socialbarrel.com/google-plus-is-growing-as-fast-as-facebook/47716/

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Google Inc. is taking over WiFi service at Starbucks coffee shops, claiming its Internet access will be as much as 10 times faster than predecessor AT&T's.

The coffee giant said Wednesday it would partner with Google Inc. to bring a faster, free Internet connection to its 7,000 U.S.-based, company-operated stores over the next 18 months. Google announced the Starbucks news on its blog. Starbucks Corp. will begin the rollout next month.

With Starbucks a de-facto second office for most professionals, complaints sometimes ran rampant about AT&T's load times in the increasingly digital world.

Starbucks chief digital officer Adam Brotman told CNET the Seattle-based company's partnership with Google was about providing faster downloads.

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Twitter’s social media volume does have an “significant” effect on live TV show ratings -- about a third of the time.

A new study from Nielsen looked at 221 broadcast prime-time episodes that analyzed minute-by-minute trends. Using Nielsen’s SocialGuide, social media unit, the findings show the volume of tweets caused “statistically significant” changes in live TV ratings among 29% of the episodes.

Conversely, the study also showed live TV ratings had a statistically significant impact on “related tweets” among 48% of the episodes sampled.

Paul Donato, chief research officer of Nielsen, stated: “Using time series analysis, we saw a statistically significant causal influence indicating that a spike in TV ratings can increase the volume of tweets, and, conversely, a spike in tweets can increase tune-in.”

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/206199/twitter-has-solid-impact-on-live-tv-ratings.html?edition=63112#ixzz2bEJmTYYb

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Silicon Valley’s Bid for $100 Billion Slowed by Hollywood

Armed with billions in cash and promising advanced features, Intel Corp. , Google Inc. , Apple Inc. and Sony Corp.  are gunning to take on cable, phone and satellite companies by offering pay TV via the Web.

The tech giants plan to use existing cable, fiber and wireless networks, just as Netflix does, to offer Web-based TV in living rooms and on tablets and smartphones. In just the latest sign of change in TV viewing, Google last week introduced Chromecast, a $35 device that lets mobile-phone and tablet owners watch YouTube and Netflix on their TV sets.

“In music it was getting stolen and then Steve Jobs came to them and said, ‘Let me sell songs at 99 cents and you’ll get paid for something,’” said Laura Martin, a Needham & Co. analyst in Los Angeles. “But that unbundled the album, which has been disastrous.”

TV networks are “deathly afraid,” of the same outcome, said Martin. That’s why they are refusing to unbundle their channels for Silicon Valley companies, which want to offer TV to a new generation of viewers already accustomed to finding shows on the Internet.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-30/silicon-valley-s-bid-for-100-billion-slowed-by-hollywood.html

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Aereo’s CEO wants to turn TV on its head (and Big Media wants his head)
 

Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia would probably be one of the last guys to get a dinner invitation from any of the big TV networks or cable companies. His upstart company has irked them so much that Fox wants to take their ongoing legal battle all the way to the Supreme Court, while they continue to move forward with plans to fan out across the country and try to chuck some dirt onto older methods of live TV consumption. In a one-on-one interview with Digital Trends, he tells us why and how.

In a nutshell, Aereo provides a tiered service wherein local over-the-air (OTA) broadcast television is delivered over the Internet so its users can view TV programs on their computers and mobile devices. It also provides a cloud DVR service so content can be recorded and played back at users’ discretion. 

The news has been good for Kanojia and co. lately. Aereo won another victory over the networks after a federal appeals court denied a motion to hear the case that it originally ruled on in April. And PlayOn announced that it would support Aereo on game consoles, Google TV and Android devices to go with its support for other channels and content providers.

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While advertising in the tech spending rose, Nielsen reported that total spend across all

industries declined 1% during the same period.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/204743/advertising-investments-rise-at-tech-companies.html?edition=62354#ixzz2Zd2zmEff

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Online Video Is the Ultimate A La Carte Mode, Needham Analysts' Report Points Out,

And That's a Challenge

A new report from Needham & Co. LLC’s Laura Martin and Dan Medina is getting some news coverage because it reinforces  the contention that cable couldn’t exist as we know if it tried a la carte programming. 

But the report has a lot of great insights about online video that makes it really worth the read. 

Like, try this disconnect.  “The rapid shift toward viewing on mobile devices implies that the length of premium digital content must shorten, since approximately 86% of videos viewed on mobile devices in 1Q13 were less than five minutes long,” the report notes.

“Online video is the most unbundled form of video content,” the report states, referencing the way cable services are delivered to consumers.  “Online premium video is the extreme of a la carte because each show is viewed separately.  A key economic problem with this form of a la carte is that after the consumer watches a video, it takes an action to watch the next show. This heightens abandonment, since typical viewers have several demands on their time. This call to action reminds viewers of the 20 other things they should be doing with the next 20 minutes. This shortens average viewing lengths and limits ad revenue upside.”

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/204756/online-video-is-the-ultimate-a-la-carte-mode-need.html?edition=62354#ixzz2Zd1wqBmg

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'Despicable Me 2' Delivered to Mexican Cinemas Via Satellite

Contenido Alternativo, Latin America’s first alternative digital distributor, delivered Despicable Me 2 to 281 Cinepolis theaters ahead of the picture’s Friday release here in Mexico. Contenido Alternativo has previously worked with Cinepolis in distributing live digital content to its theaters via satellite.

The new satellite technology is quicker and more efficient.

“It took only a few hours to deliver the film, compared to three or four days that it usually takes to copy and distribute hard drives to all the theaters,” said Contenido Alternativo head Juan Manuel Borbolla.   Additionally, satellite movie distribution dramatically reduces costs. Cinepolis, Latin America’s leading theater chain, has gone 100 percent digital in preparation for the new cost-efficient technology.

The digital transformation has allowed exhibitors to gradually phase out pricey celluloid copies. Industry experts believe this could be the last year that film prints are distributed in U.S. theaters.             http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/despicable-me-2-delivered-mexican-581142

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Yahoo's $800 Million Bid for Hulu: Safe, Boring, and Brilliant

Yahoo's recent acquisition of youth-centric site Tumblr grabbed all the headlines. But for anyone who wants to understand Yahoo's strategy--and "Web 3.0″ in general--it's the company's recent bid for video streaming site Hulu, reportedly worth $600-$800 million, that matters more.

By contrast with Tumblr, there is nothing exciting about buying Hulu. The video site's current owners are a bunch of utterly traditional media companies that provide much of the video for it, including Walt Disney, Comcast, NBCUniversal and News Corp. (Hulu has been on sale since March, and there are quite a few buyers vying for the company.)

But Hulu has 4 million subscribers--double the number just a year ago--who pay $7.99 per month each. That's due entirely to Hulu's ability to strike deals with various US television networks, including ABC, Fox, NBC and CBS for their current shows and/or libraries of old episodes. Throw in advertising revenue, and the site brought in $695 million in 2012. (Tumblr, which has only a limited advertising business, was reported as having made just $13 million last year, and may have made only $5 million.)  http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/yahoos-800-million-bid-for-hulu-safe-boring-and-brilliant/276270/

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Digital Cannes: Meet the IMDb guy – Colin Needham

CANNES, France –  Just like it has newspapers, magazines, and television, digital technology is poised to change the way people consume movies. The Netflix-ization of your favorite films means that more and more, you can stream what movies you want, when you want, straight to whatever device you want.

The principals of several digital companies working to do this with independent and foreign films – Filmbuff, Indieflix, and Fandor – gathered at the American Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival for a talk on 'Digital Hollywood,' but the star of the show turned out to be strictly old school -- the person who started the first website ever for dedicated film buffs.

That's right – the IMDb guy!

"I’ve been doing this for 30 years now," said Colin Needham, 46, the founder of the Internet Movie Database, the Internet’s largest source of information about films.

Needham was an engineer for Hewlett-Packard in England when he and some friends had an idea – why don’t we put all of the information about all of our favorite movies in one place on this new thing called the Internet?

"I found some like-minded people online and wrote some software in 1990, got a website in 1993, at a time when you could count the number of websites launched each day on one hand," Needham said.

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Marissa Mayer’s startup shopping spree continues with PlayerScale acquisition

Another day, another acquisition from Sunnyvale-based Yahoo. The Internet giant on Thursday announced it was buying Belmont-based gaming infrastructure startup PlayerScale. Terms of the deal were not released.

Today’s news comes just days afterMarissa Mayer’s $1.1 billion acquisition of Tumblr, and marks Yahoo’s 12^thacquisition under Mayer’s tenure.

The PlayerScale acquisition differs from Mayer’s smaller acquisitions, because the company’s Player.IO platform will continue running for the immediate future. Player.IO is a toolset that helps developers port their games over to other social, mobile and Web platforms.

“We have spent the past four years growing a three-person startup into a product that powers games played by over 150 million people worldwide and we are adding over 400,000 new users every day,” PlayerScale CEO Jesper Jensen wrote in apost online. “With Yahoo!’s backing, we can crank out awesome products and improvements to our platform faster than 

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/05/23/marissa-mayers-startup-shopping-spree.html?ana=e_sjo_tf&s=newsletter&ed=2013-05-23&u=11966923814f8763d9a825efb4c403&t=1369713841

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Online Content: Hey, That's Not So Inferior!

Here’s another stunning confirmation of what would seem to be a no-brainer:  It doesn’t matter much where content comes from if people like the content.  Online video is no less enticing than the stuff you can see on everyplace else, from ABC to Viacom’s cable channels.

Starcom’s latest headline-maker, reported here yesterday by Gavin O’Malley, says that while consumers believe TV fare is better, it “found no statistical relationship between quality or likability scores and whether consumers believed content was from the Web or TV.”

Katie Koval, vice president of Integrated Insights at Starcom, told MediaPost that it might be that online video benefits from our presumed low expectations by associating online video with user-generated-content of the ubiquitous kitty-kat videos.
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/201042/online-content-hey-thats-not-so-inferior.html?edition=60341#ixzz2UZRgCXKZ

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Amazon CFO: Prime Instant Video Usage Up ‘Dramatically’

Amazon Jan. 29 said consumers streamed TV shows and select movies in greater numbers in the fourth quarter as members of the Prime loyalty program.

CFO Tom Szkutak, in an analysts’ call to discuss fiscal results, said consumer adoption of Prime Instant Video subscription video-on-demand remains strong. Again, Szkutak provided few specifics regarding actual SVOD usage since viewers are technically a component of the Prime discount shipping program.

“The percentage of Prime customers who are watching free content through Prime Video has gone up dramatically year-over-year,” Szkutak said. “We’ve also increased Prime membership dramatically.

The CFO said consumers are also purchasing more digital content, including movies and episodic TV shows. He added that a new program that includes a cloud-based MP3 file of a music CD is going well.

“I can’t give specifics for [consumer] attach rates, but the business is making progress on the video content side,” Szkutak said.

Amazon heralded new Prime Instant Video licensing agreements in 2012 with Turner Broadcasting, Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution and A+E Networks for television series including “Falling Skies,” “The Closer,” “Pawn Stars,” “Storage Wars” and “Dance Moms,” expanding its catalog of title offerings for Prime Instant Video subscription video-on-demand service to more than 36,000 movies and television episodes.

When asked specifics on original programming via Amazon Studios and expanded license deals for Prime Instant, Szkutak said Amazon would continue to up content selections for both the SVOD and transactional VOD platforms in a variety of ways — which, of course, he wouldn’t elaborate on.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/amazon/amazon-cfo-prime-instant-video-usage-dramatically-29487

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comScore Shows Record Growth in Online Video Consumption

comScore has released data from the comScore Video Metrix service showing that 182.5 million Americans watched 39.3 billion online content videos in March 2013.  Not surprisingly, the number of video ad views reached an all-time high at 13.2 billion.

comScore says that more than 39 billion video content views occurred during the month, with Google Sites generating the highest number at 12.8 billion and Facebook reaching an all-time high for the second consecutive month with nearly 706 million.

Google Sites had the highest average engagement among the top ten properties, the report shows.

http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com/comscore-shows-record-growth-in-online-video-consumption-32271/

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Netflix CEO weighs on future of Internet TV

As more companies hitch their futures to the Internet video stream business, Netflix has the distinction of being there first, having pioneered app-based TV. Hastings, in Toronto Tuesday to give the keynote speech at the Canadian Digital Media Network 3.0 conference, predicts the future of Internet TV will be filled with apps — and he can’t wait to duke it out.

“We are now in 40 countries around the world, so people are starting to watch Internet video and you can start to see the outlines of what TV will be like in the future,” he said. “The simplest explanation is if you take your iPad and you stretch it out to be two metres and hang it on a wall that’s what it will look like. It will be beautiful, it will have all kinds of applications and it’s constantly getting better.”   http://metronews.ca/news/canada/673341/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-weighs-on-future-of-internet-tv/

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Netflix, Reed Hastings Survive Missteps to Join Silicon Valley's Elite

On a normal weeknight, Netflix accounts for almost a third of all Internet traffic entering North American homes. That’s more than YouTube, Hulu, Amazon.com , HBO Go, iTunes, and BitTorrent combined. Traffic to Netflix usually peaks at around 10 p.m. in each time zone, at which point a chart of Internet consumption looks like a python that swallowed a cow. By midnight Pacific time, streaming volume falls off dramatically.

Netflix has more than 36 million subscribers. They watch about 4 billion hours of programs every quarter on more than 1,000 different devices. To meet this demand, the company uses specialized video servers scattered around the world. When a subscriber clicks on a movie to stream, Netflix determines within a split second which server containing that movie is closest to the user, then picks from dozens of versions of the video file, depending on the device the viewer is using. At company headquarters in Los Gatos, Calif., teams of mathematicians and designers study what people watch and build algorithms and interfaces to present them with the collection of videos that will keep them watching.

Netflix is one of the world’s biggest users of cloud computing, which means running a data center on someone else’s equipment. The company rents server and storage systems by the hour, and it rents all this computing power from Amazon Web Services, the cloud division of Amazon.com, which runs its own video-streaming service that competes with Netflix.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-09/netflix-reed-hastings-survive-missteps-to-join-silicon-valleys-elite

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Tablets will drive mobile content sales to $65 billion 
A surge in tablet ownership will drive revenues from mobile content purchases from $40 billion this year to $65 billion by 2016, according to a Juniper Research report. "What’s particularly interesting is the way in which advertising has now become a fully-fledged content monetization model on the mobile," said Juniper analyst Windsor Holden. The report points to content that consumers are particularly comfortable paying for and notes that streaming video will play a major role in generating revenues

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Mobile Marketing Spend Hits $6.7B In 2012, Forecasts Soar

The mobile marketing ecosystem generated $139 billion in additional sales within the U.S. economy last year, with that figure expected to grow 52% annually to $400 billion by 2015. The vast majority of mobile’s sales impact -- at least 85% -- is taking place offline rather than through m-commerce transactions.

Separately, spending on mobile marketing (across mobile phones and tablets) in 2012 totaled $6.7 billion, with that amount projected to reach nearly $20 billion by 2015.

The findings come from a new study commissioned by the Mobile Marketing Association designed to provide what it calls the first overview of the mobile marketing industry and its contribution to U.S. economic performance. The MMA’s “Mobile Marketing Economic Impact Study,” was released Thursday at the trade organization’s New York Forum.  mediapost.com/publications/article/199935/mobile-marketing-spend-hits-67b-in-2012-forecas.html?edition=59745#ixzz2SsDF3lAt

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Lots of younger people abandoning broadcast, cable or satellite TV

My son and daughter, both in their 20s, are part of a growing group of people who have "cut the cord" and no longer watch video via broadcast, cable or satellite TV. The apartments they live in are among the more than five million U.S. homes that, according to a recent Nielsen study, have "zero TV." That's up from just over 2 million in 2007.

But as the report points out, zero TV doesn't mean zero video, nor does it mean that they never sit in front of a TV set. More than 75 percent of these homes still have at least one TV that's being used for DVDs, video games and -- in some cases -- watching Internet video.  As you'd expect, the Nielsen study found that younger adults were much more likely to live in zero TV households than people over 44. 

http://www.siliconvalley.com/larry-magid/ci_22801831/magid-lots-younger-people-abandoning-broadcast-cable-or

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Amazon CFO: Prime Instant Video Usage Up ‘Dramatically’

Amazon  said consumers streamed TV shows and select movies in greater numbers in the fourth quarter as members of the Prime loyalty program.

CFO Tom Szkutak, in an analysts’ call to discuss fiscal results, said consumer adoption of Prime Instant Video subscription video-on-demand remains strong. Again, Szkutak provided few specifics regarding actual SVOD usage since viewers are technically a component of the Prime discount shipping program.

“The percentage of Prime customers who are watching free content through Prime Video has gone up dramatically year-over-year,” Szkutak said. “We’ve also increased Prime membership dramatically.

The CFO said consumers are also purchasing more digital content, including movies and episodic TV shows. He added that a new program that includes a cloud-based MP3 file of a music CD is going well.

“I can’t give specifics for [consumer] attach rates, but the business is making progress on the video content side,” Szkutak said.

http://www.homemediamagazine.com/amazon/amazon-cfo-prime-instant-video-usage-dramatically-29487

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OTT Video Market Forecast To Hit $20B By 2015

Worldwide over-the-top video revenue continues its sharp growth -- with Netflix, Hulu, Apple, and Amazon pushing the business.

The OTT market is now $8 billion as of 2012, growing at a near 60% clip over the previous year. Continued rapid growth will push the market past $20 billion by 2015, per ABI Research.

Much of this will occur as traditional entertainment content providers become more comfortable with new media distributors/platforms. “The shift to digital and OTT distribution is accelerating, particularly as content providers increasingly warm up to these channels,” stated Michael Inouye, senior analyst at ABI Research.

ABI Research say the three biggest markets -- North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific -- had year-over-year growth in excess of 50% in 2012.

Subscription Video On Demand (SVOD) services, like Netflix, will continue to dominate the OTT business. But newer business/consumer models will also gain ground. In 2012, ABI says 58% of OTT video revenue came from subscription services. It estimates that subscription's share of the business will drop to less than 32% in five years.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/197855/ott-video-market-forecast-to-hit-20b-by-2015.html?edition=58776#ixzz2QVhxgELW

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Netflix 'Most Watched' Cable Network In Viewing Time Per Day

By one measure, Netflix could equate to being the biggest U.S. cable TV network -- in terms of viewing time per day, per its subscriber universe.

Following up on his July 2012 estimate, Richard Greenfield, media analyst for BTIG Research, says the subscription video-on-demand service in the first quarter of this year has streamed some 87 minutes of video per subscriber per day. This is up from 79 minutes of streaming video per subscriber per day in June of 2012.

"Netflix is now likely the most-watched cable network," he says -- similar to viewing levels of the Disney Channel. Netflix's streaming only goes into 28.1 million homes in the U.S. -- far less than 100 million or so homes for the Disney Channel and many other veteran networks, including ESPN, USA Network, TNT, and TBS.

Reed Hastings, Netflix CEO, has said in his blog that Netflix has exceeded 4 billion hours of streaming video content in the first quarter of 2013. 
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/197915/netflix-most-watched-cable-network-in-viewing-ti.html#ixzz2QVgwpjnw

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YouTube reaches 1bn monthly visitors as Gen C drives mobile viewing

More than 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, 500 years of video watched on Facebook every day, and more than 700 YouTube videos shared on Twitter each minute, ensuring there is always video trending on the web. And, this week, YouTube celebrated reaching a milestone of over 1bn unique visitors per month.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/31960-youtube-reaches-1bn-monthly/

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Movie studios sign on for satellite-based digital delivery to theaters

We doubt we'll see any reduction in ticket prices, but the process of bringing new movies to theaters could get easier very soon as five major studios have signed on with the Digital Cinema Distribution Coalition (DCDC) to use its satellite distribution network. Lionsgate, Universal, Disney, Warner and Paramount are all on board with the scheme, which says it will provide participants access to "a host of delivery options" as digital projection becomes increasingly common. The Hollywood Reporter quotes spokesman Randolph Blotky saying the network is expected to reach 300 locations when it launches this summer, all of which will be equipped with an appliance from video distributor KenCast. The satellite end of things is being handled by EchoStar/Deluxe, and once it's rolled out should make things much easier than the current system of shipping hard drives back and forth. Of course, what we're not hearing so far is if/how this upgrade will reach smaller, older theaters that are facing pricey upgrades from film-based equipment, but with theater chains like AMC, Regal and Cinemark forming the DCDC along with Universal and Warner, those considerations are probably a little further down the list.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/03/08/movie-studios-sign-on-for-satellite-based-digital-delivery-to-th/

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AOL wants to be an 'arms dealer to Silicon Valley'

FORTUNE -- To AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, Silicon Valley is a "pig pile" where every company is copying every other company. "Everyone is putting out the same services, the devices have become more commoditized, and the platforms are the same," he said Thursday during a presentation at the Paley Center for Media in New York.

Sounding a bit like a Web-media executive from 1998, Armstrong basically put forth the idea that, as a lot of people said back then, "content is king."

That might sound a bit quaint in this era of ad rates falling with breathtaking speed and many Web publishers stretching the limits of propriety to draw page views and generate revenue. But Armstrong is a true believer, and he believes that "content," more than gadgets and more than platforms, will be what drives communications technology. AOL's aim is to be the "arms dealer to Silicon Valley," he said.

http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/03/08/aol-wants-to-be-an-arms-dealer-to-silicon-valley/

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Amazon CFO: Prime Instant Video Usage Up 'Dramatically'

Fourth-quarter media sales up 13%, topping $2.9 billion

Amazon Jan. 29 said consumers streamed TV shows and select movies in greater numbers in the fourth quarter as members of the Prime loyalty program.

CFO Tom Szkutak, in an analysts’ call to discuss fiscal results, said consumer adoption of Prime Instant Video subscription video-on-demand remains strong. Again, Szkutak provided few specifics regarding actual SVOD usage since viewers are technically a component of the Prime discount shipping program.

“The percentage of Prime customers who are watching free content through Prime Video has gone up dramatically year-over-year,” Szkutak said. “We’ve also increased Prime membership dramatically.  The CFO said consumers are also purchasing more digital content, including movies and episodic TV shows. He added that a new program that includes a cloud-based MP3 file of a music CD is going well.

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Online gambling: How long until it's legal everywhere?

It used to be you had to go all the way to Las Vegas to play the slots. But soon, you may be able to gamble on your smartphone.  Thanks to improvements in technology, a change in federal rules and shifting political calculations, a push to legalize online and mobile gambling is picking up steam. Three states already have moved to allow it, and Silicon Valley tech companies, including San Francisco-based social gaming giant Zynga, are rushing to cash in.

"It's inevitable that this spreads pretty quickly," said Doug Walker, who studies casino gambling as a professor of economics at the College of Charleston in South Carolina.  Last month, the governors of New Jersey and Nevada signed laws to legalize online gambling in their states. And earlier this year, Delaware, which legalized online gambling last summer, solicited bids from companies to run the service that will oversee online gambling there.

Similar legalization proposals are being promoted in numerous other states, many of which are searching for new revenue to replace tax dollars wiped out by the Great Recession. In California, state Sen. Roderick Wright, D-Inglewood, has introduced a bill that would legalize all online gambling in the state, while state Sen. Lou Correa, D-Santa Ana, has proposed a bill that would legalize only online poker.

It's not just cash-strapped state governments that see a potential jackpot in

siliconvalley.com/ci_22732338/online-gambling-how-long-until-its-legal-everywhere?source=most_emailed

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Placed study reveals how Amazon is impacting brick-and-mortar retailers

Online shopping has brought upon a new phenomenon called showrooming, a term describing the act of browsing brick-and-mortar stores and then later making the purchase it online often at a cheaper price. With the abundance of smartphones, showrooming is taking place around stores more than ever and companies like Target and Best Buy have already implemented year-round price-matching programs.

Perhaps there has been no company that’s cashed in on this more than Amazon. Now, thanks to Seattle location analytics startup Placed, we have some data on exactly how much Amazon is affecting physical stores.

Placed used 14,925 U.S. survey respondents and combined that with nearly one billion U.S. location data points to measure customers of Amazon and their path in the physical world.

“Placed Aisle to Amazon is the largest study to date quantifying the impact of showrooming for brick-andmortar retailers,” David Shim, founder and CEO of Placed, said in a press release. “The study clearly shows that showrooming is more than media hype, and a real problem that retailers need to address. By putting a number to showrooming, retailers can start to better understand the impact, and take action based on data versus anecdotes and assumptions.”

http://www.geekwire.com/2013/amazon-placed-brick-mortar-retailers/

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YouTube may launch music streaming

YouTube is expected to launch a streaming music service later this year and will be separate from the service rumored to be coming to Google Play.  According to Fortune, the service will allow users to listen to music for free, but that a paid subscription will "unlock" other features and likely remove ads.

A YouTube spokesperson told Fortune that "while we don't comment on rumor or speculation, there are some content creators that think they would benefit from a subscription revenue stream in addition to ads, so we're looking at that."   Warner Music Group is rumored to have partnered with Google on the service, according to the report.

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2013/03/06/youtube-may-launch-music-streaming.html?ana=e_sjo_rdup&s=newsletter&ed=2013-03-06&u=11966923814f876309231428afd6ba

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BROADBAND LAGS IN THE USA...OR NOT?

Study after study has shown that the U.S. lags behind other countries when it come to broadband. Not only are fast connections more expensive in the U.S. than abroad, but many people only have a choice of two broadband providers: their cable company or telecom. Some people don't even have that; an estimated 19 million Americans live in areas that lack all access to broadband, the Federal Communications Commission reported last year.

The sorry state of high-speed Web access in the U.S. has led the FCC to conclude for three years in a row that broadband isn't being deployed in a "reasonable and timely" fashion.

What does this mean in dollars and cents? Consider this stat from the New America Foundation: In Seoul, residents can obtain triple-play Internet-TV-phone service with broadband speeds of 50 Mbps in both directions for less than $33 a month; in New York City, Time Warner subscribers pay around $112 a month for triple-play service with download speeds of 15 Mbps.

http://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=9eoiqk4rlj94m#mail

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CBS Coming Close to Putting Local Stations on Mobile?

That big sweet spot of commerce and media must still be at the wild intersection where video meets local meets mobile meets live. It appears CBS stations in New York and Los Angeles are leaping to get there.

A story at TVNewscheck.com today says WCBS in New York and KCBS in Los Angeles have been testing mobile video streaming of their signal to a select group of about 100 people in each city. The big news, especially to broadcasters, is that the system it’s using from Syncbak would allow mobile customers to watch CBS --without using an antenna or any other device.  The legal hoop stations have to jump through is that they are contractually allowed to air programs only within their own markets.

The Syncbak system apparently does that, leaving customers at the curb when the mobile user ventures outside the station’s assigned area, usually a radius of about 50 miles or so around the center city.
Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/193552/cbs-coming-close-to-putting-local-stations-on-mobi.html?edition=56677#ixzz2LN8tqDPf

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Video Viewing Rises, But Growth Rates Slow

If you’re watching more premium video online it’s because, well, you are. Total video views for rights-managed programming jumped 23% year over year, according to the recently released report from online TV technology company FreeWheel, which tracked about 52 billion video ads and 43 billion video ad views in 2012.

But premium programmers shouldn’t rest on their laurels. While video viewing is still rising, the growth rate is slowing each quarter. Video viewing volume rose 23% in the fourth quarter compared to a year ago, but only rose 7% in the third quarter compared to the fourth quarter. On the other hand, the growth rate for video ad views is more than double that of video views.

“This trend has been consistent for several quarters, and presents a real revenue risk to content owners,” FreeWheel said in the report. “If new opportunities for distribution and syndication aren’t created and more content isn’t made available online, advertising revenue potential will stall, as there is a limit to the number of video ads that can be placed in a single piece of content.”  Programmers then need not only to focus on selling ads, but also on continuing to drive viewership of online video across the Web.

http://us-mg6.mail.yahoo.com/neo/launch?.rand=9eoiqk4rlj94m#mail

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How Will That Connected TV Future Look? Hard to Imagine

We’ve gone from calling TV the “idiot box” to hoping for its future as a “smart TV.”  The bet is that millions of video consumers and the advertisers that support them will make this whatever-screen-you-choose universe happen.  But like every other change in media, connected TV and smart TV probably won’t work in ways we know about yet.

One thing is for sure.  “The death of TV has been greatly exaggerated,” says Waikit Lau, senior vice president of business development for Tremor Video, who, among other impressive credits, is a member of the advisory board of Harvard’s Digital Community and Social Networking Group.  “A short term evolution has been overestimated, but I also think the longterm evolution will be underestimated.” (In the very long term, he thinks the TV will control every function of a household from heating to security.)

What we are seeing now are signals of change of a connected TV future, but not much change. Lau says, for example, “I think in the last few years you see the cord-cutting that’s happened and  I think all those figures have been exaggerated.”

Those cord-cutters, often young, will probably be back, even as we suspect that absolutely everything young consumers do augurs a trend rather than a phase.  But it’s possible that when they rejoin the TV viewing world it will be on different terms.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/193113/how-will-that-connected-tv-future-look-hard-to-im.html?edition=56454#ixzz2KQpiyGti

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Really Big DATA

It’s a marketing term like “clouds” which are really great big storage farms sitting by a river (for cooling) or in a cheap power area with content, data, information being constantly sent to them.  IDC projects that by 2020, we’ll exceed 40 zettabytes or 5,200 GB of data for everyone on the planet - including the baby that was just born. Data will more than double every two years through 2020.  It includes everything from your mobile phone images/videos, YouTube uploads/downloads, emails, social media updates, searches, contacts/calls, phones looking for towers and stuff. 

In One Day:

-          Enough data to fill 168 Million DVDs is created

-          294 million emails sent (it would take 2 years to process that much paper mail)

-          172 million people visit Facebook

-          40M Twitter, 22M LinkedIn, 20M Google, 17M Printerest

-          4.7B minutes on Facebook, 532M updates

-          250M photos uploaded to Facebook, as tall as 80 Eifel Towers

-          22M hours of old TV, movies watched

-          864,000 hours of videos uploaded to YouTube, 89 years of non-stop cat movies

-          18.7M hours of Pandora music streamed, a computer streaming Pandora 1 A.D. still streaming

-          1288 new apps, 35M downloaded

-          iPhone sales outpace births – 378,000 iphones sold, 371,000 kids

Most of the data won’t be produced by people but by machines talking to each other over data networks.

Data Growth – People and devices keep compiling more and more data on everything and anything. By 2020, there will be the equivalent of 5,200 GB of data somewhere for every man, woman, child on the planet. 

Hundreds of millions of connected people, billions of sensors and trillions of transactions now work to create data--unimaginable amounts of information.

Only a tiny fraction of the data being produced has been explored for its value through the use of data analytics.

 Source – IIDC’s Digital Universe Study, sponsored by EMC

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A Video Player On Every Page

Today’s online publishers have to work much harder to keep audiences engaged and to earn revenue from advertising. Not only do they have to offer interesting content in as many media formats as possible, but they also need to generate revenue from every space of their property. Publishers who can manage this balance will likely enjoy larger, more engaged audiences and happy advertisers. Unfortunately, the most lucrative and engaging medium – video – is often left out. And, I don’t mean having a video section or a few videos that accompany articles. I’m talking about having a video player on every page.

It seems that publishers are hesitant to follow this philosophy. But when you look at properties of Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL, every page seems to have a video player. BabyCenter is a prime example of a mid-market publisher that understands the importance of video for both content and advertising. (No, we have no relationship with the company; we just thought its video approach was exemplary).

In addition to an entire section devoted to videos, BabyCenter incorporates one (sometimes more) video on every page. On the homepage alone, you’ll notice a featured video on the upper right-hand corner, which, if played, runs an ad that generates real revenue for the publisher, and also provides the visitor content.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/193000/a-video-player-on-every-page.html?edition=56454#ixzz2KQtRqj91

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At the end of last year, APPLE was sitting on $137 billion --and the heap keeps growing.

Corporations normally don't hoard cash the way Apple (AAPL) does. They keep enough around for immediate needs, and either invest the rest in their operations or dole it out to shareholders in the form of dividends or stock buybacks. If they need more cash for, say, an acquisition, they borrow it.

Apple has never explained why it is salting away so much money --other than to say the company is preserving its options.

The money belongs to shareholders, so Apple is limited in what it can legally do with it. Leaving legality aside, here are some things Apple could do with $137 billion:

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LinkedIn hits 200 million members, majority outside U.S.

MOUNTAIN VIEW -- Professional networking service LinkedIn announced Wednesday that its membership rolls now surpass 200 million people, as international expansion has helped the company double its user base in less than two years.

The new tally is "an important and exciting milestone for the company," Deep Nishar, senior vice president for products and user experience at LinkedIn, wrote in a blog post.

"This milestone is more than just a metric -- it's a reminder of the global footprint and the scale of impact our network has each day," Nishar wrote.

LinkedIn passed 100 million users in March 2011, and has focused on other countries to grow that number, adding 13 new languages in the interim. Now offering its service in 19 different languages, LinkedIn says that more than 64 percent of its users live outside the United State

http://www.siliconvalley.com/ci_22339896/linkedin-hits-200-million-members-majority-outside-u?source=most_emailed

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BlackBerry looks beyond business with entertainment push

BlackBerry apparently recognizes that a fully realized app store is required to win over devoted Android and iOS users. Its music and movie offerings, while not as extensive as what its competitors can boast, are still plentiful. Prices are competitive, ranging from 99 cents to $1.49 for a song and from $8.99 to $11.99 for a popular album. By way of comparison, individual songs at Apple’s iTunes store range from 99 cents to $1.29 (with some tracks available for less).

BlackBerry also partnered with eight major movie studios and the large TV networks to offer a wide selection of streaming content.  To highlight its commitment to content, BlackBerry called on singer-songwriter Alicia Keys. She’s now a global creative director of the company. BlackBerry is working with Keys, film director Robert Rodriguez, and author Neil Gaiman to showcase how its new phones, the Z10 and Q10, can be used to create content.  “I’m going to work with people in the entertainment and music business to inspire creative projects,” Keys said during BB10’s Tuesday launch event in New York City.

BlackBerry’s Keep Moving Projects, featuring Rodriguez, Gaiman, and Keys, will follow the artists as they use the new BlackBerry phones. Rodriguez plans to collaborate with fans on a filmmaking project, Gaiman is using BlackBerry to connect with readers and create art, and Keys will be shooting music videos on her smartphone in each city she plays on her upcoming “Set the World on Fire” tour.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2026715/blackberry-looks-beyond-business-with-entertainment-push.html#tk.nl_today

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Technology is Disrupting the Media Industry, but Digital Media Demand is Being Driven by Hispanics

As I walked the 2013 International CES floor last week in Las Vegas wondering what the biggest trends are at this year’s show, I heard a lot being discussed:

I’d argue however, that while all of these are noteworthy, the most important trend of the New Year is the impact of U.S. Hispanics on the digital marketplace. Seventy percent of Hispanics in the U.S. own a smartphone; their consumption of online video has soared 282 percent over the last five years; 60 percent of U.S. Hispanics desire more in-language digital video and say they would likely share this content with friends; and, Latinos are more receptive to messaging through mobile and social means than other demographics (more than 70 percent are more likely to purchase products they see advertised on their cell phones than non-Hispanics). In fact, Andy England, CMO of MillerCoors, recently told Forbes: “Given that Latinos are the fastest growing segment of the U.S. population, and that they are extremely digitally active, my prediction is that marketers will become increasingly focused on Latino Digital.”

At CES, I spent a lot of time talking with leading Hispanic advertising executives about the opportunities that this disruption provides. Two groups of people stand at the epicenter of this: content creators and Hispanic consumers, who as Adweek writes, “are disproportionately inclined to use smartphones, tablets and other connected devices.”  Hispanics, in addition to using these devices at a higher rate than the average American, are demanding that more digital content – news, sports and entertainment, and  of course, telenovelas – be available to them wherever and however they want to consume it. The importance of Hispanic consumers really resonated on the Vegas Strip.

Read more: http://blog.ce.org/index.php/2013/01/16/technology-is-disrupting-the-media-industry-but-digital-media-demand-is-being-driven-by-hispanics/#ixzz2IDVXl2m3

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Fourth-quarter media sales up 13%, topping $2.9 billion at Amazon

Amazon Jan. 29 said consumers streamed TV shows and select movies in greater numbers in the fourth quarter as members of the Prime loyalty program.

CFO Tom Szkutak, in an analysts’ call to discuss fiscal results, said consumer adoption of Prime Instant Video subscription video-on-demand remains strong. Again, Szkutak provided few specifics regarding actual SVOD usage since viewers are technically a component of the Prime discount shipping program.

“The percentage of Prime customers who are watching free content through Prime Video has gone up dramatically year-over-year,” Szkutak said. “We’ve also increased Prime membership dramatically.

The CFO said consumers are also purchasing more digital content, including movies and episodic TV shows. He added that a new program that includes a cloud-based MP3 file of a music CD is going well.   http://www.homemediamagazine.com/amazon/amazon-cfo-prime-instant-video-usage-dramatically-29487

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What We Did Right and Hollywood Did Wrong

by Gary Shapiro CEO of CES

Today, Congressional advocates for the anti-innovation legislation Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) formally declared defeat and said they would pull the legislation from consideration. I had confidentially and publicly predicted this result in early December.

With this victory fresh in mind, I want to make sure the CE.org audience knows my view of how this happened.

First, many of you know (especially if you have been around for a while or read my book The Comeback), I have spent more than 30 years fighting for innovation and against efforts to restrict it. Often this meant going head to head with the copyright lobby, who always wanted to ban, restrict, and/or tax almost every CE innovation. Think of the VCR, DAT, minidisc, DCC, PVR and even the Internet. We won many battles in Congress and the courts, but there is no question that the content lobby has in every case spent much more than us on lobbying; given more in campaign contributions; and had a more single-focus on copyright legislation while we cover other issues like the environment, labor, trade, etc. Indeed, Politico recently estimated that we have recently been outspent by a factor of 10 to one.

Read more: http://blog.ce.org/index.php/2012/01/20/what-we-did-right-and-hollywood-did-wrong/#ixzz2IGLqQ73k

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How Kickstarter stole CES: the rise of the indie hardware developer

While corporate giants hog the floor space, indie gadgets are getting the rave reviews

They said the wristwatch was dead, but they were wrong. Forward-thinking watches are making a big splash at this year’s CES, the largest technology trade show in the country, and two watches stand out: the ultrathin, ultrasimple CST-1, which looks like a metal slap bracelet with giant numbers, and the Pebble smartwatch, which interfaces with the owner’s smartphone and can also run apps of its own.

Those two watches have something else in common: the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter. Pebble raised $10.2 million from 68,929 people, making it by far the largest Kickstarter campaign to date. Pebble held a press conference at CES this week to announce that the product would begin shipping on January 23. Then on Tuesday, the two engineers behind the CST-1 launched a Kickstarter campaign of their own, which hit its $200,000 goal in under 48 hours.

Kickstarter has really changed the dynamics at CES. This year, independent developers are getting as much attention as the big companies that usually dominate, and many of them built their products with crowdfunded cash.     http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/10/3861406/kickstarter-at-ces

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CNET parent CBS bans Dish from CES awards, any product under lawsuit from future reviews

On Friday, news broke that CNET had been forced by its parent company CBS to remove the Dish Network's Hopper set-top box from its "Best of CES" awards due to ongoing litigation between the two companies. CBS has been battling the Dish Network in court over the Hopper's ability to skip past commercials automatically (NBC, ABC, and Fox are also taking action).

CBS Interactive representatives told The Verge that the Hopper with Sling had been "withdrawn from consideration" from the "Best of CES" awards due to CBS's lawsuit with Dish; that the ban on coverage is limited only to specific products implicated in ongoing litigation with CNET's parent company; and that the ban only applied to product reviews and that news coverage would be exempt. That policy appears to have been hastily put in place. Prior to the move Friday, CNET had reviewed the Hopper and written extensively about the device.

But the problems may go deeper than that. The Verge has now learned that the facts of the case are somewhat different than the story CNETand CBS had previously shared with the public. According to sources familiar with the matter, the Hopper was not simply an entrant in the Best of CES awards for the site: it was actually chosen as the winner of the "Best of Show" award (as voted by CNET's editorial staff).

Apparently, executives at CBS learned that the Hopper would win "Best of Show" prior to the announcement. Before the winner was unveiled, CBS Interactive News senior-vice president and General Manager Mark Larkin informed CNET's staff that the Hopper could not take the top award. The Hopper would have to be removed from consideration, and the editorial team had to re-vote and pick a new winner from the remaining choices. Sources say that Larkin was distraught while delivering the news — at one point in tears — as he told the team that he had fought CBS executives who had made the decision.

Apparently the move to strike the Hopper from the awards was passed down directly to Larkin from the office of CBS CEO, Leslie Moonves. Moonves has been one of the most outspoken opponents of the Hopper, telling investors at one point, "Hopper cannot exist... if Hopper exists, we will not be in business with (Dish)."       www.TheVerge.com

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Social Media Predictions for 2013

2012 was another exciting year for social media, including the “Social Media Olympics,” the rise of Pinterest, Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram, and the growing role of social media in political ferment around the world. There were also plenty of not-so-spectacular moments, like Facebook’s busted IPO, LinkedIn’s security breach, and Instagram’s terms of service fiasco. And of course it ain’t over: looking ahead, 2013 is certain to be just as interesting, in both the positive and negative senses, for this fast-growing, fast-changing industry.

I’m not sure why human beings love to issue predictions, considering that it’s basically begging to be proven wrong; I guess if the predictions come true, we think it makes us look smart (rather than just lucky, considering many issues basically boil down to a 50-50 chance). But New Year’s is prediction time, so here are some of my predictions for social media in the coming year, and an invitation to share your own in the comments section.

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/190171/social-media-predictions-for-2013.html#ixzz2Gm8dvjAk

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Growing Influence Leads Reader Interests at Market Daily

Technology wielded its influence over nearly every sector of marketing, but none was of more interest to Marketing Daily readers than the world of social, which was enabled more than ever by the widespread penetration of smartphones and tablets. 

Technology has become a central point in people’s lives, illustrated by consumers’ increasing average monthly spending on cable TV, home Internet, mobile phone and digital subscriptions (including streaming video) to $166 a month, equivalent to 17% of their monthly mortgage or rent payment. Additional costs such as downloading songs, apps and other products averaged an $38 more a month. The findings, from the AICPA, suggested that spending would only increase as households added more devices. 

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/190124/growing-influence-leads-reader-interests.html#ixzz2Gm91I7uP

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Cisco Report Proves 2012 Was Another Very Good Year for Professional Online Video Fare

Did you get or give a DVD for Christmas this year? Probably not, given the crowd that is likely reading this, but you probably would have given the same answer if you weren’t somehow connected to The Biz.  In fact, though home video sales had a comparatively good year, cresting at $18.7 billion, that’s the best it’s done since 2009. It’s far off the torrid $21.4 billion the home video industry grabbed in 2004 when it seemed like there was a future for it.

Double-digit declines in DVD sales ended in 2012, but no one is predicting a lot of uptick for the industry. Rick Newman, US News & World Report chief business correspondent, asked industry research firm IBIS World to predict the 10 Worst Industries of 2013. “Recordable media” came in tied for first with “Photofinishing,” --what do you know, it’s a photofinish!—with both predicted to have a 15% decline in jobs.

“DVD and video game rental stores are becoming scarce, and the DVD-by-mail business, which seemed revolutionary a decade ago, is now becoming more and more antiquated with each passing day,” Newman wrote.  It’s no surprise a lot of those former DVD consumers are still watching films and TV shows, but either streaming or downloading them,

Read more: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/189926/cisco-report-proves-2012-was-another-very-good-yea.html?edition=54877#ixzz2Gm5Km3Gk

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Silicon Valley’s Embrace With China Gets Tighter

While President Barack Obama and his Republican presidential rival Mitt Romney take turns bashing China, Silicon Valley’s relationship with the world’s second-largest economy is blooming like never before.

 Virtually every day, a Chinese government delegation arrives in the region with offers of business deals, partnerships and cash for investments. On Saturday, officials from Peking University’s Science Park came to San Jose to officially open an office at the new incubator operated by Beijing-based Hanhai Investment, which oversees tech parks across China, and Zhongguancun Science Park

 Beijing-based TusPark is one of many tech parks in China — also known as Z-Park — China’s largest tech park that is run by the government. The Hanhai Z-Park incubator — whose mission is to encourage cross-Pacific business opportunities — was launched during a ceremony in Washington D.C. in February attended by Vice President Joe Biden and China’s Vice President Xi Jinping, the presumptive heir to President Hu Jintao.

“The two great countries — the United States and China — may have their differences, but they also have a lot of similarities,” said Geng Chen, president of the Peking University Science Park. “That is why our relationship is getting closer and closer. Politicians may use this relationship for their own benefit during campaigns. But that won’t stop the relationship from becoming closer and closer.”

That relationship has great economic benefits for Silicon Valley and California.  Wang sees his role as providing a “window” into Silicon Valley for Chinese investors, both government and private, desperate to create more innovative companies.

Wang said Hanhai also wants to work with U.S.-based companies hoping to crack China’s market.

http://www.siliconbeat.com/2012/10/22/silicon-valleys-embrace-with-china-gets-tighter/