Archive for Industry News

As Google Sites Surpasses 10 Billion Video Views, Do TV Networks Still Matter?

September 29th, 2009 • Industry News, Studies & Research
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YouTubeDo traditional TV networks still matter? Recent attempts by networks to find online video business models has revealed the tension between the networks’ willingness to experiment and their desire to control how their content is distributed.

In August, online video reached another all-time high with more than 25 billion videos viewed during the month, according comScore. With YouTube accounting for 99% of its video views, Google was able to rake in more than 10 billion video views in total for the month of August in the U.S. — an increase of more than a billion views in just one month. comScore also credits the internet giant with nearly 40% of the total market share for all online video views. Other notable findings from August 2009 include:

  • The average online video viewer watched 582 minutes of video, or 9.7 hours.
  • 120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube.com (82.6 videos per viewer).
  • 44.9 million viewers watched 340 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
  • The average Hulu viewer watched 12.7 videos, totaling 1 hour and 17 minutes of videos per viewer.
  • The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.

The comScore findings underscores the growth and importance of online video. A recent poll of nearly 300 media execs by JackMyers Media Business Report and Teletrax predicts that 40% of all video consumption will occur outside of the television set by 2012.

While user-generated video continues to be popular, there has been a dramatic increase in both the number of online video providers as well as the amount of professionally produced video available online. The frenetic wheeling and dealing for digital distribution of TV programs — just as the fall season is gearing up — reflects the television networks’ attempts to find Internet business models that can be profitable and still protect both their intellectual property and their brand identity.

Twitter’s Latest Valuation: $1 Billion

September 25th, 2009 • Industry News, Social Networks
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Image via TechCrunch

(Image via TechCrunch)

Twitter, the hot microblogging service, is set to close a round of financing of around $100 million that values the three-and-a-half-year-old start-up at $1 billion, according to The New York Times.

Twitter’s last round of financing, raised in February, valued the firm at $250 million, meaning Twitter has quadrupled in value in less than a year.

The news of the new valuation was first reported last week by the blog TechCrunch. This morning, details about some of the new investors and the timing were added by the Web site of The Wall Street Journal.

So, faithful readers, is Twitter worth all of the fuss? No one has quite figured out a business model for Twitter yet, but obviously the company is generating a lot of buzz. It was just a few years ago no one could understand why Twitter was getting so much coverage, but now it’s raising money with a billion dollar valuation. Did the early explosion of coverage make that happen? Or was the early coverage simply serving as a predictor that it would eventually happen?

Microsoft Tests Social Media Monitoring Product

September 24th, 2009 • Emerging Technology, Industry News, Measurement
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Looking GlassMicrosoft has developed a social media analytics tool that’s designed, among other things, to improve a marketing organization’s ability to adjust to social media phenomena on the fly.

Called “Looking Glass,” the product is still in prototype and will only be available to a few companies in the near term. It sends e-mail alerts when social media activity picks up considerably. The sentiment (i.e., negative or positive) of that chatter and the influence level of the content creator are reported in the alert. Digital flow charts show what days of the week generate the most activity on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and other social media sites.

But interweaving social media data with reporting from other campaign channels may turn out be Microsoft’s most significant contribution to the already mature field of social media analytics. Feeds from social media sites can be connected to other business elements like customer databases, CRM centers and sales data within an organization. The data integrate via Microsoft’s enterprise platforms like Outlook and Sharepoint.

A handful or so companies will begin testing Looking Glass in the coming weeks. According to a spokesperson, the company hopes to release it to the broader marketing public sometime next year.

While testing the system during the past nine months, Marty Taylor Collins, a group marketing manager for Microsoft, said the information acquired on at least two occasions saved her department from a serious misstep. First, the tool halted her team’s plan to discontinue an ad campaign when it helped them discover that a lead character had quietly become popular. In another instance, a PR disaster was averted during the beta-test release of Windows 7, after a system crashed just after launch.

“We love to push out content and [social media] is a great channel for that,” she said. “But if you are not using it as a listening tool, then you are really not getting the complete benefit of a Twitter or a Facebook because a part of [your] job is to watch the conversations on the wall.”

As a possible example for everyday organizational uses, an electronics manufacturer could find out if an angry blogger is at all connected to one of its bigger distributor or retailer customers. Or an automaker could overlay its sales and support data information in the tool and analyze those factors with what’s being said about its brand or car models at Facebook.

More on the Microsoft blog.

Swift Response to Net Neutrality Proposals

September 24th, 2009 • Industry News, Legal Issues
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The chairman of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission on Monday proposed stricter rules to ensure that wireless and wireline Internet providers don’t block or slow traffic over their networks, a widely anticipated move that drew swift criticism from the telecommunications industry.

In a speech before the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., Julius Genachowski outlined plans to codify and expand “open Internet” guidelines first endorsed by the FCC in 2005. The Obama appointee said that instances of carriers obstructing online telephone services, intentionally degrading peer-to-peer file sharing and preventing access to political content, threaten to stifle technical advances and compromise the free flow of information.

“We have an obligation to ensure that the Internet is an enduring engine for U.S. economic growth, and a foundation for democracy in the 21st century,” Genachowski said.
Telecom trade associations and free market groups generally portrayed the announcement as unnecessary government meddling with the potential to undermine investment and complicate the legitimate need to manage traffic, spam and malware.

The FCC’s original policy stated that network operators can’t stop users from accessing lawful Internet content, applications and services or prevent them from connecting “non-harmful” devices, such as smart phones. On Monday, Genachowski advocated additional rules to prevent broadband providers from discriminating against particular types of content or applications, by for instance degrading service, and to ensure that carriers are transparent about the way they manage their network.

Open access advocates and online companies like Google Inc. of Mountain View have long argued that allowing carriers to throttle traffic based on sites or applications creates de facto gatekeepers with the power to pick online winners and losers. They applauded the announcement on Monday.

“This is a pivotal moment for the future of the Internet,” said Ben Scott, policy director at Free Press, on a conference call today.

In particular, he said the rules would the stop telephone and cable companies from pursuing their stated intention of beginning to sell “prioritization or quality of service” to companies. “Under such a model, the carriers would essentially say: ‘We can’t guarantee your application will work unless you pay us and then we’ll make sure yours work at the expense of others.’ That business model of pay for play . . . replicates the commercial market power that we have in every other dominant media form (including radio, television, magazines and newspapers). It reverses the most exceptional and dynamic thing about the Internet, which is that it is open.”

The net neutrality debate has heated up in the wireless arena in recent weeks, as controversy swirled over Apple Inc.’s decisions to block various applications from its popular iPhones. Notably, it denied the Google Voice app, a potential competitor to Apple’s carrier partner, AT&T Inc. Similar disputes have arisen over smart phone makers discouraging the use of their devices as wireless modems for laptops. How the proposed rules would affect these issues will depend on their final form.

Genachowski invited feedback from the industry, consumers and others, and said the FCC will hold public workshops as it begins the rule making process.

“This is not about government regulation of the Internet,” Genachowski said. “It’s about fair rules of the road for companies that control access to the Internet.”

Read more here.

Pssst…. Have You Heard the Buzz? Word of Mouth Continues To Grow Despite the Economy

August 25th, 2009 • Industry News, Word of Mouth
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In the midst of the worst economic and media recession in more than a quarter-century, Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing has continued to flourish despite ad spending cuts across most media.

WOM activities have played a bigger strategic role as marketers are seeking cost effective ways to engage in conversations with consumers. Word of mouth marketing is one notable sector that has bucked the trend and continued to grow, increasing 14.2 percent to $1.54 Billion in 2008, according to PQ Media.

WOM is still a relatively small sector, but growing fast. PQ Media estimates that WOM spending this year will reach $1.7 billion, up 10 percent from 2008, at a time when outlays in most of the key media sectors are down, reports Ad Week.

By category, consumer package goods marketers spend the most on WOM campaigns, accounting for more than 17 percent of spending in 2008, according to PQ. Other leading product categories were food and drink, finance, business-to-business services, electronics, telecommunications and retail, per PQ. The researcher said that the automobile sector likely would have been a top-five WOM category last year but for the financial woes that beset the industry. PQ projects that spending next year in the WOM sector will reach $1.9 billion, up 13 percent. For the five-year period leading up to 2013, PQ forecasts that annual spending will climb an average 14.5 percent, reaching $3 billion.

Why the surge in WOM? Ed Keller, CEO of the Keller Fay Group, a New Brunswick, N.J.-based market research firm that specializes in WOM, explains it this way: “The number-one way that consumers make decisions is through word of mouth. Brands realize that consumers are willing to engage with them in conversation, and they realize that they have no choice but to participate if they want to be a part of the consumer decision making process.”

According to research conducted by the firm, some 3.5 billion brand-related WOM conversations take place daily in the U.S.

Some of My Favorite Things: Musical Flash Mobs Brighten My Day

August 24th, 2009 • Fun, Industry News, Uncategorized
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Let’s face it: I’m tired of people being mean online.

I’m tired of the cynicism of Perez Hilton’s blog, the overexposure of pseudo-celebrities tweeting, and just the overall schadenfreude of the online culture. Now granted, I do admit that I snicker at the occasional YouTube video that features the celebrity flavor-of-the-month falling on her face, but sometimes I miss the cheesy innocence of how entertainment used to be (“The Cosby Show” anyone?). When did everyone get to be so mean?

At the risk of sounding really, really old, I miss the sweet innocence of the good old-fashioned musical. Yes, I like the predictable “boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl-through-a series-of-mishaps-and-misunderstandings, and boy-gets-girl” formula. Don’t waste my time with thinly-veiled political message musicals; I love the saccharine Rodgers and Hammerstein dreams-can-come-true musicals. I am a romantic at heart.

So that’s why I love the YouTube sensation “Break Out in Song.” Break Out in Song is a New York arts organization that unexpectedly performs musical theater selections in outdoor public spaces. By combining flash mobs and YouTube with some song and dance, Break Out in Song brings Broadway to the street and surprises random onlookers to a free show. Its guerilla-style performances show us what it might be like if everyone actually knew the words to songs… and the dance moves.

So, is someone going to strip away my social media “cool” card because I openly admit that I really like Break Out in Song’s impromptu bursts of musical happiness? Go ahead. I’m tired of online bullies who endlessly spew venom to entertain legions of anonymous online fans. I want to bring “nice” back to social media*. Social media should be about connecting with others, building up others instead of knocking them down, and sharing in a way that helps others. Because, quite honestly, these are a few of my favorite things.
*Granted, there are major exceptions, such as war, poverty, political and social inequities, etc, but bear with me because I’m only focusing on “entertainment” here. Those other important and serious issues should be addressed separately in a different forum.

Twitter Has Hollywood Quaking in Its Jimmy Choos

August 20th, 2009 • Industry News, Social Networks, Tools & Resources
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The weekend is almost here, so you decide that you want to go to the movies this Saturday. Do you make your movie pick based on advertising or do you ask a friend for recommendations?

Your friend, of course. And, as we know, the loose definition of “friend” now encapsulates social media peers. With the rise of social networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook, word of mouth now moves at the speed of an iPhone. Think about it – as soon as someone leaves the movie theatre he or she can tweet instant raves — or pans — to hundreds of people just minutes after the credits roll. This phenomena has Hollywood quaking in its Jimmy Choos.

Gone are the days when TV commercials and newspaper ads dominated movie marketing. According to Nielsen’s “Trust in Advertising” study, only 14 percent of people trust advertisements whereas 78 percent of people trust the recommendations of their friends. Empowered consumers now have a greater ability to influence companies, brands, and yes, even movies.

Studios are trying to gauge the impact of an avalanche of tweets and how it affects the staying power of a movie. This summer, movies such as “Brüno” and “G.I. Joe” have had unexpected tumbles at the box office — just within their opening weekends — while “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” survived blistering critical reaction to become a blockbuster, reports The Washington Post.

What’s the learning from this? Word of mouth — particularly with turbocharged social media channels – is a real and powerful force that can’t be stopped. Studios now have the opportunity to engage in conversations and directly engage with consumers. People want real-time news, and suddenly a studio can give it to them in a first-person way. Also, this may prompt studios to create quality movies instead of shoving garbage movies down people’s throats through aggressive marketing campaigns.

MySpace “Owning” Music through iLike Aquisition is a Smart Move

August 19th, 2009 • 3 comments Industry News, Social Networks, Strategy
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MySpace is reportedly set to buy iLike, Facebook’s leading music application — for about $20M USD, reports TechCrunch. That purchase would put the application’s future at Facebook in jeopardy, while solidifying MySpace’s musical pedigree, one of the few domains where MySpace tops Facebook. For Facebook, who was hoping to advance in this realm, the purchase is seen as a huge problem for because iLike is so deeply integrated into the Facebook experience. Nearly 10 million Facebook users use the iLike application every month, and MySpace is now going to own that traffic.

iLike, which launched in late 2006, is a social music recommendation service that now has more than 50 million registered users. It tracks what you listen to and like and gives you recommendations on new music based on that data as well as what your friends are listening to. It’s the top music application on Facebook, Bebo, Hi5 and just about every other social network other than MySpace, which has MySpace Music. iLike also hosts band pages which are second in popularity only to MySpace Music.

From humble origins in 2003, MySpace turned the music industry on its head by changing the way a generation communicates. But even having 200 million friends and Rupert Murdoch as a boss won’t help when your website is no longer flavor of the month. MySpace’s loss of status is reflected in its usage metrics: MySpace had 124 million monthly unique visitors last month, a decline of 2 percent, according to comScore. Facebook, by contrast, had 276 million unique visitors, an increase of 16.6 percent.

By acquiring iLike, MySpace solidifies their already leading position as the most popular online identity for bands and perhaps stop the bleeding as Facebook continues to dominate the social media space.

SEC Fumble: Social Media Ban Revised

August 19th, 2009 • Industry News, Legal Issues
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The Southeastern Conference (SEC) has been tackled by the very social media channels it has been trying to ban.

The Southeastern Conference told The Charlotte Observer that the conference is revising its restrictive policy on social media. Why? Because of the negative reaction in the media and on social media. Previously, the SEC wanted a conference-wide ban on social media, such as Twitter, Facebook, and TwitPic.

“I know what’s being written,” said SEC conference spokesman Charles Bloom. “The thought process is to get it loosened up a bit.” Bloom expects a revision to be finished in a day or two.

Bloom also told the Observer that the main concern is video. That’s perfectly understandable — if not enforceable — considering the conference has a $3 billion, 15-year deal with CBS and ESPN. While video will still be off-limits, it looks like tweets, Facebook status updates, and even pictures will be acceptable, so long as they are for non-commercial use.

In contrast, the Big 10 also recently released a social media policy, but invites fans to take an active part of games. With this policy, the fans win.

What’s Your Social Media Mojo?

August 14th, 2009 • Fun, Industry News, Tools & Resources
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To launch their new home page, Yahoo! has created a fun word of mouth promotion called “Know Your Mojo” that uses Yahoo uses an algorithm to analyze your tweeting behavior. Once you’ve received the result, you can tweet your result, update your FB status and also receive ideas for new content to add to your personalized Yahoo! homepage.

Ranging from “Name Dropper” to “Wallflower,” the app makes conclusions about your tweeting behavior. So, what about my (lynneastep) social mojo? According to the result, my social mojo is “BFF”: “Your volume of @replies makes you everybody’s best bud.” Accurate? Well, I am pretty friendly if I do say so myself.

Though the “secret algorithm” is facetious (it’s about as scientific as a Cosmo quiz), it’s a fun way to spark word of mouth about their new homepage.

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What is com.motion?

com.municate + com.mit + com.pel = com.motion

com.motion [kuh-moh-shuhn] is a full-service, integrated social media and word of mouth (WOM) agency. We use social media channels and traditional marketing tools to drive bottom-line results. com.motion helps businesses and brands amplify their marketing messages through the effective use of online communications channels in the U.S. and Canada.

To learn more about how we can help your brand or organization, contact us.

Leadership Team

Lynn Eastep
Senior Vice-President, com.motion North America

With more than 15 years of digital communications experience, I've delivered award-winning and sophisticated marketing solutions for Fortune 500 corporations, major government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and household-name consumer brands. I ensure the successful execution of digital and social media business strategies to build profitability and grow market share on behalf of our clients. I stay abreast of relevant new technologies in the Web 2.0/social media space in order to contribute a point of view while remaining focused on ROI to drive the right message to the right people at the right time.

I'm connected to the industry and trends, intuitive about people, a strategic thinker with intense curiosity, an eclectic user of information, and an engaging storyteller with strong interpersonal skills. I’m a team player who is passionate, curious, positive, and courageous. I have provided senior-level strategic counsel for clients such as Nestle, Bayer, AT&T and Visa.

eastep [at] causeacommotion.com


Ed Lee
Managing Director, com.motion Canada

I’ve been working in or around the social media revolution since 2005 and I am grateful to be exploring this new media landscape with com.motion’s clients. As managing director, my role is to guide our clients through the use of new technologies and to provide innovative ways to engage their stakeholders online. Shiny new Web 2.0 toys are great to play with but our recommendations are always strategic and focused on reaching the right people, with the right message across the right channels.

lee [at] causeacommotion.com

I was interviewed with Bob Pearson on BNN about the importance of social media for business. Watch the video here:


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