How Apple became a cult in Hollywood

Apple's gadgets were discussed or shown 891 times on TV in 2011, up from 613 in 2009, according to researcher Nielsen. In the same year, iDevices appeared in more than 40 percent of the movies that topped the weekly box office, according to Brandchannel, which tracks product appearances. That's nearly twice the penetration of the next most common brands in Hollywood - Dell, Chevy and Ford.

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iHeartRadio Hits 10 Million Users Faster Than Facebook or Twitter

Digital radio platform iHeartRadio announced its user stats for the first time ever on Thursday, citing growth in an eight-month period that was faster than other popular services including Facebook and Twitter when they first opened up registration.

The growth of its new registration occurred more quickly than other platforms from Facebook and Twitter to Pandora, Spotify and Instagram right out of the gate. Although those services reach far more than 10 million users now, iHeartRadio said it reached the milestone faster than any other service.

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Video games could help identify security threats

The government is spending millions of dollars to determine whether video games can be designed as instructional tools for intelligence analysts, who help compile reports that U.S. officials use to identify potential threats from emerging foreign powers.

Officials said they view the multiyear research program, known as Sirius, as an effort to improve analyst training for college students, who could become tomorrow’s analysts.

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Amid Media Upheavals, Television Holds Sway

Brian Wieser, an analyst with the Pivotal Research Group who was once the top advertising forecaster for the Interpublic Group of Companies (says) “The durability of television,” despite its flaws, stems from something “most observers forget,” Mr. Wieser said, that “advertising on television satisfies most large marketers’ goals better than alternatives, and its advantages hold as more consumers watch more TV more often than any other medium.”

“Advertisers use television because they need to make everyone aware of the differences in brand attributes” between their products and those sold by competitors, Mr. Wieser said. “And as long as TV is viewed as the primary driver of brand awareness, TV will grow its revenue base.”

And grow it has. According to Nielsen, television ad revenue in the United States last year totaled $71.8 billion, up 5 percent from 2010. It was larger than for any other medium and was perhaps the first time the figure has topped $70 billion.

“As long as you have advertisers in these oligopolistic categories, operating on a national scale and looking to drive awareness for massive audiences, TV keeps growing,” Mr. Wieser said. “The growth of the Web will come mostly at the expense of print.”

Read more in the New York Times.

Release of big-name games could revive sales

etailer GameStop reported last week that first-quarter sales fell 12.5% on a drop in store traffic due to fewer blockbuster titles. Overall April retail sales were $630.4 million, down 32% from $930.9 million in April 2011, reports market tracker the NPD Group.

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