Though Google does not report YouTube’s earnings, it has hinted that it is hovering near profitability. Analysts say YouTube will bring in around $450 million in revenue this year and earn a profit.
YouTube now offers several types of ads, including display ads on its home page and on the video pages, ads that promote videos and ads that run in the video stream or pop up on the bottom of a video. When someone uploaded a recording of the Eminem song “Not Afraid,” for instance, instead of taking down the recording, YouTube ran pop-up ads that let people buy the song or the ring tone and shared the revenue with the copyright owner. Hundreds of these partners make more than $100,000 a year.
YouTube now has 160 million mobile views a day, almost triple last year’s number. When Google introduces Google TV later this year, people will be able to watch YouTube videos on Internet-connected televisions.
Read more at the New York Times.
Friday, September 3
Sunday, August 29
The Search Party is Over
(Google) is still growing at rates that would be the envy of the rest of the Fortune 500. But its core business is slowing, its stock is down, its Android mobile platform generates scant revenue, and competition (hello, Facebook) is fierce. Can Google find its footing in this brave new world? The Googlers certainly know this, but in classic Innovator's Dilemma fashion, the company seems unsure about how to move beyond the core search business that has brought it such massive success.
Social networking is likely to be a big push for Google and holds the most potential. The company is widely rumored to be pursuing a "Google Me" project to do battle with Facebook. They are sort of like the power company of the Internet. But what they lack is a sense of how people share and collaborate. You don't have friends on Google, you have contacts and tasks. These services reflect an engineering culture that's all about utility, but one that makes it hard for the company to create something that's friendly and social.
Read more at Fortune.
Social networking is likely to be a big push for Google and holds the most potential. The company is widely rumored to be pursuing a "Google Me" project to do battle with Facebook. They are sort of like the power company of the Internet. But what they lack is a sense of how people share and collaborate. You don't have friends on Google, you have contacts and tasks. These services reflect an engineering culture that's all about utility, but one that makes it hard for the company to create something that's friendly and social.
Read more at Fortune.
Western state-backed news in the developing world
The cold war was the state-backed broadcasters’ heyday, with big budgets for propaganda wars about the virtues and vices of capitalism and communism. Powerful short-wave transmissions required costly kit; getting hold of the frequencies required international arm-twisting.
New technology has cut costs and demolished most barriers to entry. Wavebands matter less than bandwidth. Even for those unable to watch or listen on the internet, satellite dishes and fibre-optic cable are hugely expanding the choice of programmes. Incumbents are struggling. In the past year the BBC World Service lost 8m viewers and listeners. Of the six American taxpayer-financed broadcasters that measure their reach, five see a decline.
Since 2006 China, France, Iran, Japan and Qatar have launched English-language TV news channels. China has committed $7 billion to international news. That is more than 15 times the annual budget of the BBC World Service. Last month it introduced a second English-language news channel, CNC World.
The new arrivals are conquering territory (and sometimes hiring staff) shed by established Western organisations. Short-wave radio is a signal example. Since 2000 Voice of America has cut the number of short-wave frequencies on which it broadcasts by 24%, to 200. The BBC has abandoned short-wave broadcasts to Latin America, North America and most of Europe. In the same period China Radio International has almost doubled its short-wave output (see chart). It even broadcasts from Texas. Meanwhile the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America, proposes to abolish the last of its short-wave transmitters in the United States.
Gobbling up short-wave audiences gains mostly older, poorer and more rural listeners. But the big battle is for urban opinion-formers, who consume their media chiefly by satellite and the internet.
Before 1990 Kenya had just one, state-owned, television station. It now has 20 television broadcasters and 80 licensed radio stations playing everything from rap to Christian sermons.
Read more at The Economist.
New technology has cut costs and demolished most barriers to entry. Wavebands matter less than bandwidth. Even for those unable to watch or listen on the internet, satellite dishes and fibre-optic cable are hugely expanding the choice of programmes. Incumbents are struggling. In the past year the BBC World Service lost 8m viewers and listeners. Of the six American taxpayer-financed broadcasters that measure their reach, five see a decline.
Since 2006 China, France, Iran, Japan and Qatar have launched English-language TV news channels. China has committed $7 billion to international news. That is more than 15 times the annual budget of the BBC World Service. Last month it introduced a second English-language news channel, CNC World.
The new arrivals are conquering territory (and sometimes hiring staff) shed by established Western organisations. Short-wave radio is a signal example. Since 2000 Voice of America has cut the number of short-wave frequencies on which it broadcasts by 24%, to 200. The BBC has abandoned short-wave broadcasts to Latin America, North America and most of Europe. In the same period China Radio International has almost doubled its short-wave output (see chart). It even broadcasts from Texas. Meanwhile the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees Voice of America, proposes to abolish the last of its short-wave transmitters in the United States.
Gobbling up short-wave audiences gains mostly older, poorer and more rural listeners. But the big battle is for urban opinion-formers, who consume their media chiefly by satellite and the internet.
Before 1990 Kenya had just one, state-owned, television station. It now has 20 television broadcasters and 80 licensed radio stations playing everything from rap to Christian sermons.
Read more at The Economist.
Western broadcasters losing influence in the developing world
Technology is cutting costs and stoking competition, eroding the Westerners’ advantages. Big transmitters were costly; podcasts and webcams, FM radio and cable television are cheap and often open to all. As the old signals fade, rival outfits are crowding the airwaves. Iran and Russia have both launched 24-hour English television-news channels. China added a second one last month.
In places like Myanmar, Somalia or Iran, too poor or too dictatorial to attract independent commercial media companies, providing solid news may be the best that the West can do. They also counter the propaganda from state media machines in places such as Russia and China. Without its own voice, the West’s case risks failing by default.
Read more at The Economist.
In places like Myanmar, Somalia or Iran, too poor or too dictatorial to attract independent commercial media companies, providing solid news may be the best that the West can do. They also counter the propaganda from state media machines in places such as Russia and China. Without its own voice, the West’s case risks failing by default.
Read more at The Economist.
Saturday, August 28
Barnes & Noble Up for Sale
The firm’s market capitalisation hit a low of barely $750m. Amazon, the online bookseller that has caused so many of its problems, is worth $57 billion. One of the attractions of taking Barnes & Noble private is that it will be easier to make a big bet on electronic books. Such heavy investment does not sit well with the short-term obsession of the stockmarket. Despite launching its own e-reader, the Nook, last year, to challenge Amazon’s Kindle, the Sony e-reader and now Apple’s iPad, Barnes & Noble is struggling to hold its own in what is surely the book market of the future.
In short, the industry is in flux. Barnes & Noble has a much-admired brand, but that is no guarantee of survival. Bricks-and-mortar bookstores look increasingly out-dated, except as venues for leisurely coffee and book signings. Whoever ends up owning Barnes & Noble faces a tough task: adapt to the Brave New World, or be consigned to the History section.
Read more at The Economist.
In short, the industry is in flux. Barnes & Noble has a much-admired brand, but that is no guarantee of survival. Bricks-and-mortar bookstores look increasingly out-dated, except as venues for leisurely coffee and book signings. Whoever ends up owning Barnes & Noble faces a tough task: adapt to the Brave New World, or be consigned to the History section.
Read more at The Economist.
Friday, August 27
USA Today: Mobile Devices over Print
The newspaper USA Today is making the most dramatic overhaul of its staff in its 28 year history as it de-emphasizes its print edition and ramps up its effort to reach more readers and advertisers on mobile devices. The makeover outlined to staffers on Thursday will result in about 130 layoffs this fall.
The newsroom instead will be broken up into a cluster of “content rings” each headed up by editors who will be appointed later this year.
“We’ll focus less on print ... and more on producing content for all platforms (Web, mobile, iPad and other digital formats),” according to a slide show presented Thursday to USA Today’s staff.
USA Today’s circulation has been plunging in recent years, dropping to an average of 1.83 million during the six months ending in March. That’s down from 2.3 million in 2007 when USA Today reigned as the nation’s largest newspaper.
Read more at the New York Times.
The newsroom instead will be broken up into a cluster of “content rings” each headed up by editors who will be appointed later this year.
“We’ll focus less on print ... and more on producing content for all platforms (Web, mobile, iPad and other digital formats),” according to a slide show presented Thursday to USA Today’s staff.
USA Today’s circulation has been plunging in recent years, dropping to an average of 1.83 million during the six months ending in March. That’s down from 2.3 million in 2007 when USA Today reigned as the nation’s largest newspaper.
Read more at the New York Times.
Thursday, August 26
Radio & TV Salaries
The latest Radio Television Digital News Association/Hofstra University survey of radio and TV newsroom salaries finds that radio news salaries in 2009 were flat with the previous year. In the 2008 survey, salaries were down 1.8 percent.
In TV, salaries overall rose by 2.5 percent in 2009, compared to a 4.4 percent drop a year before.
Read more at Radio Ink.
In TV, salaries overall rose by 2.5 percent in 2009, compared to a 4.4 percent drop a year before.
Read more at Radio Ink.
Wednesday, August 25
The ABCs of E-Reading
A study of 1,200 e-reader owners by Marketing and Research Resources Inc. found that 40% said they now read more than they did with print books.
While e-readers are still a niche product just beginning to spread beyond early adopters, these new reading experiences are a big departure from the direction U.S. reading habits have been heading. A 2007 study by the National Endowment for the Arts caused a furor when it reported Americans are spending less time reading books. About half of all Americans ages 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure, it found.
Some 11 million Americans are expected to own at least one digital reading gadget by the end of September, estimates Forrester Research. U.S. e-book sales grew 183% in the first half of this year compared with the year-earlier period, according to the Association of American Publishers.
It's too early to tell the reading lift will sustain after the novelty of the gadgets wears off, and the devices go mass market. But because e-book gadgets are portable, people report they're reading more and at times when a book isn't normally an option.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal.
While e-readers are still a niche product just beginning to spread beyond early adopters, these new reading experiences are a big departure from the direction U.S. reading habits have been heading. A 2007 study by the National Endowment for the Arts caused a furor when it reported Americans are spending less time reading books. About half of all Americans ages 18 to 24 read no books for pleasure, it found.
Some 11 million Americans are expected to own at least one digital reading gadget by the end of September, estimates Forrester Research. U.S. e-book sales grew 183% in the first half of this year compared with the year-earlier period, according to the Association of American Publishers.
It's too early to tell the reading lift will sustain after the novelty of the gadgets wears off, and the devices go mass market. But because e-book gadgets are portable, people report they're reading more and at times when a book isn't normally an option.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal.
Tuesday, August 24
Bringing Web Video to TVs
If you want to watch Internet video on most televisions, you need a gadget that pulls it in. And a growing number of technology companies want to sell it to you.
Sezmi, based in Belmont, Calif., offers a hybrid system that delivers content in several ways. The system, which sells for $150 at Best Buy, has a DVR and pulls in both over-the-air TV broadcasts and on-demand content from the Internet. Others companies, like Boxee, think they can draw a sizeable audience without having to offer prime-time programming. Then there are companies that are taking a more symbiotic approach. Roku, for example, makes a slim box starting at $70 that can wirelessly stream movies and TV shows from Netflix and other sources, but does not aim to be a cable replacement. A service called Kylo, introduced in February, is gearing up for a wave of Internet-connected television sets with free software that allows users to search for online video using a browser on their television screens.
Even Apple has struggled with Apple TV, a $229 set-top box that is its attempt to bring its iTunes software and store to the heart of home entertainment. And Google is diving in this fall. It has teamed up with several partners to develop its Google TV platform.
The Google software, which will pull together Web content and television channels in one programming guide, will be built into high-definition televisions made by Sony and set-top boxes from Logitech. It will be powered by a chip from Intel and by Google’s Android software, originally designed for smartphones.
Read more at the New York Times.
Saturday, August 21
Addicted Gamer Sues Game-Maker
A Hawaii man is suing NCsoft of South Korea because he is "unable to function independently" because of his addiction to the Lineage II. A federal judge is allowing his negligence lawsuit to proceed against the publisher of the online virtual-world game.
Read more at Wired.
Read more at Wired.
Friday, August 20
AOL Hyperlocal Journalism Project
AOL is working to reinvent itself, and as part of that, it is making a big push into hyperlocal journalism with a project called Patch. On Tuesday, it launched its 100th local news site. Patch says it will expand to 500 small communities by the end of this year, but it faces big competition and an uncertain future.
Read more at NPR.
Read more at NPR.
Thursday, August 19
Global Pay TV To Hit $312M
TV advertising revenues continues to show strength post-recession -- as do pay TV revenues. Revenues from global pay TV services -- cable, satellite, IPTV -- have climbed 9% in the second quarter to $58 billion, versus the same period in 2009, per the to New York-based market researcher ABI Research. For the year overall, the company has said global pay TV revenues will get to $312 billion in 2010 -- a 7% gain over 2009.
Read more at Media Post.
Read more at Media Post.
Wednesday, August 18
Confidence in News Low
Confidence in newspapers and television news is near record lows. The findings are from Gallup's annual Confidence in Institutions survey. Americans' confidence in newspapers and television news is on par with Americans' lackluster confidence in banks and slightly better than their dismal rating of Health Management Organizations and big business.
Read more here.
Read more here.
Time-Shifted More Than Doubles
Time-shifted TV viewing has more than doubled over the past year and over 40 percent of Americans now make plans to record their favorite shows and watch them later. That's the finding of a survey conducted for the No. 1 U.S. cable TV operator Comcast Corp found.
Read more from Reuters.
Read more from Reuters.
Sunday, August 15
Journalism Warning Labels
British comedian Tom Scott has created printable warning labels for news readers.
This article is basically just a press release, copied and pasted.
Medical claims in this article have not been confirmed by peer-reviewed research.
This article is based on an unverified, anonymous tipoff.
To meet a deadline, this article was plagiarised from another news source.
This article contains unsourced, unverified information from Wikipedia.
Journalist does not understand the subject they are writing about.
Journalist hiding their own opinions by using phrases like 'some people claim'.
To ensure future interviews with subject, important questions were not asked.
Read more here.
This article is basically just a press release, copied and pasted.
Medical claims in this article have not been confirmed by peer-reviewed research.
This article is based on an unverified, anonymous tipoff.
To meet a deadline, this article was plagiarised from another news source.
This article contains unsourced, unverified information from Wikipedia.
Journalist does not understand the subject they are writing about.
Journalist hiding their own opinions by using phrases like 'some people claim'.
To ensure future interviews with subject, important questions were not asked.
Read more here.
Tuesday, August 10
Shifting to Social News
The social network of a reader is quickly becoming their personalized news wire. That’s because in the last five years, a revolutionary shift has taken place in the way we consume news. We have gone from consuming news through traditional media and news websites to having the news broadcast to us by our social network of friends. In fact, 75% of news consumed online is through shared news from social networking sites or e-mail. Social news is finding us.
Jay Rosen, New York University journalism professor and media critic said, with credit to Clay Shirky, that “there’s no such thing as information overload, there’s only filter failure.. People can use the [Facebook] news feed and their Twitter streams as their editors,” Rosen said.
NPR decided to take a closer look at its more than 1 million Facebook fans with a survey. Do people really use their social network to get news? After more than 40,000 responses to the survey, 74.6% said that Facebook was a major way in which they received news and information from NPR, and 72.3% said they “expect” their friends to share links to interesting information and news stories with them online.
Read more at Mashable.
Jay Rosen, New York University journalism professor and media critic said, with credit to Clay Shirky, that “there’s no such thing as information overload, there’s only filter failure.. People can use the [Facebook] news feed and their Twitter streams as their editors,” Rosen said.
NPR decided to take a closer look at its more than 1 million Facebook fans with a survey. Do people really use their social network to get news? After more than 40,000 responses to the survey, 74.6% said that Facebook was a major way in which they received news and information from NPR, and 72.3% said they “expect” their friends to share links to interesting information and news stories with them online.
Read more at Mashable.
Monday, August 9
Gaming Industry Evolution
From plummeting sales to a shift to social networks, critics love to endlessly debate what ails the gaming business. Sales of games for PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 and popular handheld consoles slumped a whopping 15 percent to $531 million in June, according to market research firm NPD. Credit the rise of new technologies -- from downloadable games to smartphone apps -- streaming "cloud" games and social network titles. People are finding experiences and products elsewhere, and different businesses are emerging that large infrastructure companies aren't used to adapting to, and a lot of them won't be able to adapt to.
Read more at CNN.
Read more at CNN.
Thursday, August 5
Google Kills the Wave
Google has announced it is ending development on Wave, the cross-platform communication tool it launched with much fanfare at its I/O developer conference in May 2009. Google said in a post last night that "Wave has not seen the adoption we would have liked" and that elements of Wave's technology, including drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are now as open source so users can "liberate their content from Wave".
Read more here.
Monday, August 2
Time Spent on Facebook, Gaming Surges
The time Americans spent on social media has surged 43% in the past year, leading a substantial shift in how the country spends its online time. That time spent online has also sent e-mail to third behind gaming, according to research by Nielsen Co. Online video and search also scored modest gains in share of online time. Time spent on internet portals such as Yahoo declined faster than anything but e-mail, according to Nielsen. Instant messaging also lost share of time at the PC, which was likely a result of increased use of mobile texting in part. Social-media usage also appears to be usurping some of the communications needs once reserved for e-mail and instant messaging.
Read more at Advertising Age.
Read more at Advertising Age.
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