MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

American teenagers send an average of 10 text messages per hour they are not in school or sleeping. By analyzing more than 40,000 monthly US mobile bills, in Nielsen new study determined American teens sent an average of 3,146 texts a month each during Q3 2009. Their counterparts 9-12 sent an average of 1,146 monthly texts each, or four per hour not spent asleep or in school.

In comparison, the average number of monthly texts sent by all mobile users combined was a little more than 500. In Q4 2009, users 9-12 increased text usage by 8% and almost doubled their text message volume.

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Context is King: How Videos Are Found And Consumed Online

Editor’s note: This is the third in a series of posts by guest writer Ashkan Karbasfrooshan.Previously, he wrote about the State of Online Video, and 12 Surprising Things Holding Back Online Video Advertising.  In part 3 today, he examines how videos are found and consumed online. Karbasfrooshan is the founder and CEO of WatchMojo , a producer of premium, informative and entertaining video content. The company’s catalog of 5,000 videos has generated over 110 million streams since 2006.

To try to understand—let alone guess—the future of video advertising, one needs to start by looking at the biggest trend in media over the past few decades.  In November 2006, Bear Stearns Cable and Satellite analyst Spencer Wang published a study called “Why Aggregation & Context and Not (Necessarily) Content are King in Entertainment”.  While Bear Stearns has since beenacquired by JP Morgan and is now a mere footnote in business books, the study’s findings are more relevant than ever.  Let’s examine 8 key factors behind online video consumption

Factor 1: Media is Fragmenting

According to a recent NY Times article, in the 1952-53 season, more than 30% of American households watched NBC during prime time, according to Nielsen.  In fact, up until twenty years ago, you could buy a 30-second spot on CBS, NBC or ABC and reach “everyone.”  Today, NBC’s prime time reach is 5%.  Sure, NBC is lagging CBS and ABC, but neither the Tiffany network nor Disney’s counterpart is faring much better.  The secret’s out: fewer people watch TV and teenagers spend every waking minute connected to the Internet, increasingly through the mobile web.

The Kaiser Family Foundation has the results in from its latest media usage study, and it was enough to shock the authors.

The last time the Foundation looked at the media usage of 8- to 18-year-olds was five years ago, when they were at just shy of six and a half hours of media consumption per day. At that point, the study authors felt that they must have hit a ceiling on media usage.

Not so, according to the latest study, which puts the average up more than an hour to upwards of seven and a half hours per day. Plus, for the first time, time spent watching TV actually dropped in favor of other forms of media, including listening to music, using a computer, playing video games, reading print publications and watching movies.

Moreover, because so many of the kids are multitasking by consuming multiple forms of media at the same time, they actually end up consuming closer to 11 hours’ worth of media content within that seven and half-hour span. Nor does do those hours include the time kids are spending talking on their cell phones (half an hour) or sending text messages (an hour and a half).

Director of the Center on Media and Child Health and Boston pediatrician Dr. Michael Rich pointed to the ubiquity of media usage as an indicator that it may be too late to continue debating the question about whether media was a positive or negative influence on children’s environment. Instead, media may have become essentially “like the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat.”

What do you think of the study results? Parents out there — have you noticed your children consuming more media over the past five years? Do you set any limitations or place any guidelines surrounding your kids’ media usage?

via Kids Spend Every Waking Minute in Front of a Screen [STUDY].

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Web 3.0 is all about recommendations, free services, intelligent (semantic) searches, and information that’s no longer random data, but tailored, highly intuitive and delivered in real time. Identifying some broad trends that dominate the new crop of Web tools and services which are in tune with the next generation of the web – Web 3.0 site worth bookmarking.

Mobile applications have long been aimed at giving subscribers information specific to their whereabouts, but now we’re seeing even more intelligent ideas. Loopt.com is a new one this year that blends our love of social networking with location-based services. It’s has been described as a ‘social compass’ as it detects not only where you are on the map, but also pinpoints your mobile friends in the vicinity. Loopt is US-centric at present, but the company says it working on looping up Europe. I personally have become a fan of FourSquare and I’ve gone many associates addict to it.  

Maps: Google street map hit the news early this year with its controversial drive-by views of people’s front doors and people themselves. But, Google doesn’t have a monopoly on innovative mapping. Openstreetmap.org is about people mapping everything from great hiking routes to off-piste ski runs or and wine tours, and it’s mapping the world.

Personal organizers: There’s no shortage of web services aimed at helping us organize our lives. But however digital our way of living, a lot of us still print out paper when we travel, particularly on business. Tripit.com & Dopplr.com solves your travel paper trail by being your ‘personal, full-service travel assistant’. They compiles your itinerary, from transport modes to dinner dates, and adds in weather reports, suggested local attractions and more. They are worth a glance if you travel and have a busy agenda; useful too for family holiday plans.

Collaboration: Slideshare.net is a useful resource for anyone in business seeking latest thinking on an area of interest and reading it in succinct, generally well-put-together PowerPoint slideshows that are rated and commented on by users. 280slides.com operates in the same field, but is a ‘Cloud’ computing application at its best. It lets you create, collaborate on, share and store a slidedeck on the Cloud (their remote server), so you can access it anywhere in the world. You’ll never be caught short again on a business trip without your slidedeck to hand.

Audio: Everyone loves audio-visual on the web, so it’s little wonder that this area is seeing new applications each day. Two that seem to fill a market gap are Songkick.com and Blip.fm. Songkick tells you where your favorite group’s next gig is based on your music library. It’s called the world’s biggest concert database, and let you ‘never miss a gig again’. Meanwhile, Blip.fm is billed as a kind of ‘twitter for music’ as it lets you create a social network based on your music choices and recommendations.

Social Media Intermediaries: There’s now an ever-growing range of tools to help us make sense of, filter and manage our Twitter world. Tweetag.com, which is billed as a search engine for ‘tweets’. With millions of people adding content each day, the Twittersphere is a morass of information and comment, some useful and some useless. Tweetag helps you search tweets for trends. It also edges towards Web 3.0 semantic search by offering up a tweetag cloud and organizing search results according to whether other Twitterers have ‘re-tweeted’ – in a sense seconded – an idea.

via Kenradio.com

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Image by Getty Images via Daylife

2009 saw a few newspapers change their business model to an online focus or shut down completely. 2010 will most likely see the same struggle and, perhaps, new business models emerge for these media entities. One thing is clear, the era of Americans reading a daily newspaper each and every day is coming to an end. Just two in five U.S. adults (43%) say they read a daily newspaper, either online or in print almost every day. Just over seven in ten Americans (72%) say they read one at least once a week while 81% read a daily newspaper at least once a month. One in ten adults (10%) say they never read a daily newspaper, according to a new Harris Poll survey.

2009 saw a few newspapers change their business model to an online focus or shut down completely. 2010 will most likely see the same struggle and, perhaps, new business models emerge for these media entities. One thing is clear, the era of Americans reading a daily newspaper each and every day is coming to an end. Just two in five U.S. adults (43%) say they read a daily newspaper, either online or in print almost every day. Just over seven in ten Americans (72%) say they read one at least once a week while 81% read a daily newspaper at least once a month. One in ten adults (10%) say they never read a daily newspaper, according to a new Harris Poll survey.

One reason for the dying of the daily newspaper is the graying of the daily readership. Almost two-thirds of those aged 55 and older (64%) say they still read a daily newspaper almost every day. The younger one is, however, the less often they read newspapers. Just over two in five of those aged 45-54 (44%) read a paper almost every day as do 36% of those aged 35-44. But less than one quarter of those aged 18-34 (23%) say they read a newspaper almost every day while 17% in this age group say they never read a daily newspaper.

One potential business model that newspapers are exploring is charging a monthly fee to read a daily newspaper’s content online. This model, however, seems unlikely to work as three-quarters of online adults (77%) say they would not be willing to pay anything to read a newspaper’s content online. While some are willing to pay, one in five online adults (19%) would only pay between $1 and $10 a month for this online content and only 5% would pay more than $10 a month.

There is a slight regional difference in who would pay for online content. Over four in five online adults in the Northeast (81%) say they would not be willing to pay anything to read a daily newspaper’s content online. Those across the country, however, are more willing. While seven in ten Westerners (71%) still say they would not pay, almost one-quarter (24%) of Westerners would pay between $1 and $10 a month to read a paper’s content online.

The struggles of the daily newspaper will continue as Americans have more and more ways to find the news content they need and want. The challenge for newspapers will be discovering a way to get their content to people and make money doing so. One area they were intently exploring was charging for online content, though it appears they need to find another way.

via Kenradio.com

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Sky News — a 24-hour UK news site owned by News Corp. — is changing up their entire newsroom to focus more on Twitter.

The organization is installing Tweetdeck on staff computers to stimulate news gathering via social media, according to reports from a UK blog.

The Tweetdeck rollout to staff is scheduled to be completed within the month. While journalists using Twitter is pretty commonplace, an organization-wide rollout is significant. The decision signals a change in ideology around conventional news gathering, and points to the need for journalists to use Twitter to keep pace with the flow of news.

Julian March, executive producer of Sky News Online, made the following statement to Journalism.co.um on the Tweetdeck rollout:

“The big change for us in 2010 is evolving how social media plays a role in our journalism. We no longer ghettoise it to one person, but are in the process of embedding throughout the whole team.”

For those of you who work in more traditional work environments, you can appreciate the significance of software installs on company machines, typically regulated to lock down or limit employee downloads. The vetting of Tweetdeck as an application worthy of a serious news organization is one that should not be overlooked.

via Tweetdeck Infiltrates the News Room.

Want to snag Pearl Jam’s new single “Just Breathe” without having to pay for it? No problem. You can do an old-fashioned switch-a-roo and swap one of your tweets in exchange for an iTunes download of the track.

The band is using Culture Jam’s custom Twitter application to manage the Twitter whuffie track exchange, so retrieving your free copy of the live recording is a simple-three step automated process.

Click the “Connect to Twitter” button on the application landing page, grant the application access to your Twitter account and tweet as instructed. You can then redeem your music download using the provided iTunes gift code and the I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine deal is complete. Should you also want to take home one of 15 White Vinyl LP editions of the Backspacer album, you can enter to win that as well.

Pearl Jam’s Twitter giveaway is by no means unique, but it does signify that giving away free tracks via the microblogging site is a trend that here’s to stay. Obviously more and more artists are realizing the power of a message spread through Twitter’s real-time digital airways.

via The Price of Pearl Jam’s New Single: One Tweet.

In what will be called one of the most monumental milestones in TV and broadcast media’s battle with the Internet for content, viewership, and advertising, Pepsi has decided not to join the Super Bowl's massive advertising spectacle this year, instead opting to place its money along strategically placed spots on social media sites and platforms.

This is the first time in 23 years that Pepsi’s high-production spots won't be found in the commercials for the biggest sporting event of the year. Between 1999 and 2009, Pepsi spent over $142 million on Super Bowl ads, but that number won’t be growing anymore come February, according to ABC News.

Instead, Pepsi will put over $20 million into The Pepsi Refresh Project, a social media advertising campaign set to launch in 2010. On January 13, Pepsi will begin accepting requests from the community for project proposals by which Pepsi can “make the world a better place.” The winning project by number of votes (voting starts February 1) will receive up to $20 million to make the project a reality.

Before the rocket launch rise of social media, the Super Bowl’s ability to sit down over 95 million viewers (42% of TV-equipped US homes) seemed like the best possible avenue to reach people. Even a 30-second spot during the commercials would draw in a massive number of potential customers.

On the other hand, 85% of people aged 18-34 use popular social media sites. Facebook is the biggest, with 350 million users worldwide. Just tapping into a percentage of that kind of advertising potential could easily earn Pepsi more viewership than would the Super Bowl.

via VatorNews – Pepsi drops Super Bowl for social media.

Right in line with this new report, I just added an old laptop into my living room media mix. The laptop is pared down to basically a browser with preset bookmarks for Hulu, Netflix, Last.FM, Vevo, Amazon VOD and YouTube.  Seriously considering reducing my cable service to the lowest level and saving some money.

More than ever before Internet users in the United States want to be able to connect their TV to the Internet. Research firm Deloitte says 65 percent of Internet users want online content available on their televisions, with Millennials (14-26 year olds) leading the way; some 74 percent said they want to connect their TVs. But they weren't alone in their desires, said Deloitte in its “State of the Media Democracy (4th edition).” Gen Xers (71 percent), Boomers (59 percent) and Matures (46 percent) also contributed to the 7-percentage point uptick from a year ago.

The economic downturn that has plagued the nation may have contributed to an increase in TV viewing by Internet users as well, with viewing topping 18 hours per week in 2009. Deloitte said about 4 percent of respondents said they watched some of their favorite shows on sites like Hulu, with another 3 percent saying they watched post-broadcast episodes of their favorite shows on the show’s website.

via Survey shows increased desire for TV-Internet convergence – FierceOnlineVideo.

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Now, more than ever, we need to shake things up.

Now, more than ever, we need a different way of thinking, a useful way to focus and the energy to turn the game around. I hope a new ebook Seth Godin has organized will get you started on that path. It took months, and he thinks you’ll find it worth the effort. (Download here).

Here are more than seventy big thinkers, each sharing an idea for you to think about as we head into the new year. From bestselling author Elizabeth Gilbert to brilliant tech thinker Kevin Kelly, from publisher Tim O’Reilly to radio host Dave Ramsey, there are some important people riffing about important ideas here. The ebook includes Tom Peters, Fred Wilson, Jackie Huba and Jason Fried, along with Gina Trapani, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber.

Here’s the deal: it’s free. Download it here. Or from any of the many sitesaround the web that are posting it with insightful commentary. Tweet it, email it, post it on your own site. Seth thinks it might be fun to make up your own riff and post it on your blog or online profile as well. It’s a good exercise. Can we get this in the hands of 5 million people? You can find an easy to use version onScribd as well and from wepapers. Please share.

Have fun. Here’s to a year with ideas even bigger than these.

Here’s a lens with all the links plus an astonishing array of books by the authors.

The media industry goes into 2010 with a sense of cautious optimism, but there’s no hiding the casualties that were left behind in 2009. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, there were 1,025 media and entertainment company insolvencies in the two years to the end of Q309.

paidContent reported on a whole host of company collapses this year, from Setanta to Shiny Media and Borders, and some in the past few weeks. But the worst appears to be over…

—There were a total of 1,025 entertainment media company collapses from Q307 to Q309, including 305 publishing companies.

—The worst period was Q109, when 203 companies went into administration.

—From January to October this year, publishing companies falling into administration jumped 25 percent year on year, accounting for a third of all business failures.

—Books, software, journals and periodicals were worst hit: the “migration of readers from print to digital media” is the main culprit, says PwC.

And PwC has some words of warning for consumer media companies looking to launch online subscription-based content models to increase recevnues in 2010: make sure you know what you’re doing. Financial services practice director Peter Simon says: “In many cases, launching new payment systems is not the same as making money… It brings a whole deal of complexity that many media companies will not have had to deal with before.”

Specifically, he says businesses need a system that’s user friendly and has a fool-proof IT infrastructure—and don’t forget the cost of building your paywall: “Even seemingly simple decisions such as fixed or variable fee setting, geographic scope, mobile solutions or customer loyalty offers can create significant cash flow issues.”

via PwC: 1,025 UK Media, Entertainment Companies Folded In Last Two Years | paidContent.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

70% of publishers are paying more attention to the mobile market this year than last. And 20% are giving it their same attention. Print publishers are focusing on the market as a prime opportunity to expand their brands, reach new audiences and generate additional revenue while offering advertisers the chance to reach locally targeted, engaged audiences. Publishers recognize the growing importance of mobile devices in consumers' daily lives and are actively embracing mobile, according to a study by Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Some Survey Highlights

* More than 80% of newspaper and magazine respondents believe people will rely more heavily on mobile devices as a primary information source in the next three years

* Nearly 70% of respondents agree that mobile is receiving more attention at their publication this year than last. More than a third believe their publication already has a well-developed plan for attacking and conquering the mobile market

* 44% of respondents who track mobile's impact on their Web site traffic said the devices increased visits by up to 10% today. Half believe mobile traffic to their Web sites will increase by five to 25% in the next two years

Additional findings of the survey:

* 56% of senior said their publication has plans to develop a smartphone application in the next 24 months, in addition to the 17% already have an app in production.

* While 55% believe that digital delivery of their publication is important to their strategic future, 75% believe that their publication will be available in a print form five years from now.

* More than half of the survey respondents believe that the future business model of mobile content will be supported by both advertising and subscriptions.

* Nearly a third believe that mobile will have a significant impact on their publication's revenue in just three years.

With text and multimedia messaging, branded mobile apps, content sponsorships, display advertising, paid search, and location-based targeting, the platform becomes an integral component of the overall marketing strategy.

Survey Conclusions:

* It's early, but there are positive signs, the mobile market is definitely receiving more attention than ever before

* Mobile will drive Web traffic. Most respondents believe that mobile will be responsible for a five to 50% increase in Web site traffic in the next three years.

* Publishers are betting on both smartphones and e-readers and are actively exploring the vitality of both as a new distribution channel.

* Early business models will be based on a combination of advertising and subscriptions. Publishers agree that the mobile market will be both ad- and subscription-supported

Respondents agree that independent third-party auditing would increase mobile's credibility and is likely to be demanded by advertisers as ad spending increases in this area

via KenRadio – World Technology Roundup – Daily Technology News on High Tech Industry – How Publishers Are Preparing for the Digital Market.

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Image by William Hook via Flickr

Live television is still tops with kids. But when it comes to activities after that, younger kids generally go to DVDs and DVRs, while older kids head to the Internet.

Almost half of kids 6-11 use the Internet, versus one-fifth of those ages 2-5. Not surprisingly, the biggest time slots are weekends, after school and after dinner, according to the Nielsen Company.

Kids 2-5 spend 25 hours per week watching TV and 4.5 hours a week watching DVDs or playing video games. Throw in another 90 minutes for time-shifted DVR programming. Older time-shifting technology is also still a factor: They spend 45 minutes a week with the VCR.

Overall, the 2-11 group averages 28 hours a week, 2.5 hours for DVDs, an hour for DVR, and 18 minutes for VCR usage.

Nielsen found that about half the kids 2-11 use TV, while the other half uses both TV and the Internet. Nielsen says 60% of teenagers and older adults are simultaneous users of TV and the Internet.

When it comes to personal electronics, homes with kids have more technology than homes without kids.

This includes large-screen TVs, portable and in-home video game systems, DVRs, HD TV sets, MP3 players, broadband internet service, and mobile smartphones, according to Nielsen's Home Technology report for the first quarter of 2009.

For example, large-screen TVs were in 72.6% of homes with kids, 57.8% in all homes; broadband service appeared in 82.4% of kid-homes, 66.1% in all homes.

The biggest disparities between households with kids and overall households: In-home video game systems (67.7% for kid homes; 32.1% for all homes); portable game devices (53.8% for kid homes; 21.7% for all homes); and MP3 players (71.8% for kid homes; 41.9% for all homes).

Almost 30% of children in homes list an MP3 player as part of their electronics, with 17% regularly looking at short-videos online. About 16% of homes with young children have a broadband Internet connection.

via MediaPost Publications Kid Media Consumption: TV Tops, But Internet Big Draw 12/14/2009.

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If novelty is your thing, then you’ll be pleased to discover that Coca-Cola has finally launched their Coke Zero Facial Profiler.

As you may recall, we covered the announcement of the facial experiment back in October, and were intrigued by the application’s premise: using Facebook to find your digital double.

Now that app is live, we put it to the test and found that it works as promised. Once you connect your Facebook account with the Coke Zero Facial Profiler, the app will scan your photos (you can also use your webcam to snap a beauty shot) and use facial recognition software to match your face against others in their database.

Once the matching process is complete, voilà, there’s your digital twin staring back at you. You can then share your match on Facebook or TwitterTwitter or grab a URL to share with your friends (here’s my match). Should you be so bold, you can also contact your match on Facebook.

While the premise itself is kitschy, the application experience is pretty slick and some of the matches are surprisingly so dead-on that you might even do a double take. Try it out for yourself, and let us know your thoughts.

via Find Your Digital Twin on Facebook.

Despite the fact that “sexting” (trading steamy text messages) has become quite the problem in schools today, James Lipton has managed to get a laugh out of us with his PSA warning kids to refrain from trading pictures of their junk.

It’s common knowledge that teens are all about getting textual, but there’s been a recent rash of coverage in the media dealing with how the under-21 set is misusing the technology. In short: while you used to steal away under the bleachers for a quick…you know…today’s kids are letting their fingers do the talking–on their iPhone keyboards.

Naturally, LG turned to Lipton — of Inside the Actors Studio fame — to remedy the problem via their Give it a Ponder campaign. The result is a hilarious, if not slightly creepy, video that is likely to have absolutely no effect on today’s youth, who have no idea who Lipton is.

via LG PSA Warns Teens: Don’t Text Pics of Your Junk [VIDEO].

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