Thursday, May 6

Most Trustworthy Source of Daily News

Here's what Americans said was their source for trustworthy daily news, according to a 60 Minute/Vanity Fair Poll:

CNN - 32%
Fox News - 29%
The big three networks - 13%
New York Times - 8%
Wall Street Journal - 7%

Read more at 60 Minutes.

Monday, May 3

News Articles Written by Computers

Below are the opening lines of three stories written about a recent college baseball game. Two are from schools' sports information departments. The other was produced by software that takes box scores and spits out news articles. Which one was done by machine?

a) "The University of Michigan baseball team used a four-run fifth inning to salvage the final game in its three-game weekend series with Iowa, winning 7-5 on Saturday afternoon (April 24) at the Wilpon Baseball Complex, home of historic Ray Fisher Stadium."

b) "Michigan held off Iowa for a 7-5 win on Saturday. The Hawkeyes (16-21) were unable to overcome a four-run sixth inning deficit. The Hawkeyes clawed back in the eighth inning, putting up one run."

c) "The Iowa baseball team dropped the finale of a three-game series, 7-5, to Michigan Saturday afternoon. Despite the loss, Iowa won the series having picked up two wins in the twinbill at Ray Fisher Stadium Friday."

The correct answer: b). It was composed by the computers of Narrative Science, a five-month-old company in Evanston, Ill., that specializes in "machine-generated content."

Read more at Business Week.

Flocking to Smartphones

Owners of iPhones and other smartphones are actually watching long episodes and sometimes complete films, so a growing number of media companies are vying for people’s mobile attention spans. The mobile video audience is tiny today, but a range of companies, from Hollywood studios to local TV stations, all foresee an increasingly wireless world — and they don’t want to be cut out of the picture.

Joining the wireless equivalent of a land rush, last month some of the biggest local TV station owners in the United States announced a joint venture to transmit their content to viewers on the go. It is most likely years away from operation. The stations would transmit to phones over the airwaves, much like Flo TV, a unit of Qualcomm, which has invested about $1 billion in mobile video distribution. The service sends channels like ESPN, Fox News and MTV to phones.

Later this year, Bitbop, a product of the News Corporation’s Fox Mobile Group, will stream TV episodes to smartphones for $9.99 a month. Blockbuster, the beleaguered movie rental chain, started selling movies for phones in the last month.

While the audience for mobile TV is small at the moment, it is growing rapidly. Roughly 17.6 million people in the United States watched video on their phones in the fourth quarter of last year, according to the Nielsen Company, up from 11.2 million 12 months earlier. They watched an average of three hours and 37 minutes of mobile video a month. By way of comparison, Americans who watch television watch on average 153 hours of traditional TV a month.

Read more at the New York Times.

Sunday, May 2

The Shift to Online Video

One in eight consumers will eliminate or scale back their cable, satellite or other pay-TV service this year, according to a new study released by Yankee Group.

A number or recent transactions and new items point to a shift in consumer thinking. Just as mobile phones have replaced many customers' land-line service, on-demand Internet video will soon whittle that 90% figure of U.S. households subscribing to some form of pay TV.

More devices are coming pre-installed with Netflix or Internet connections, so people can stream videos right onto their televisions. Apple and Wal-Mart are expected to launch streaming video devices this year.

Read more at CNN.