MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

Montreal-based Brandfame has launched itself as a product placement agency for YouTube and other online video sharing platforms, connecting makers of online videos with brands that want to be integrated into the next viral video blockbuster.

Advertisers can list products they’d like to have featured in videos, and search for upcoming videos by producers to find a match for their brand. Producers indicate which productions they’re willing to integrate products into, and can search for brands or products they’d like to work with. Once a deal has been made, the advertiser pays the producer, and Brandfame takes a cut. The startup is also working on an auction system for advertisers to bid on product placement in new videos by hot producers.

Brandfame is just getting started, and has only signed up a handful of producers and advertisers. But its aim is to become a premier marketplace for product placement in video-sharing websites. As online video’s share of the entertainment market expands, opportunities for advertisers, producers and facilitators like Brandfame are taking off. Watch this space!

Cell phones and the internet are becoming more and more an essential part of our daily lives. So essential, in fact, that the majority of 1,011 people when asked how long they would feel OK without online access, 15% of respondents said just a day or less. 21% said a couple of days and another 19% said a few days. Only a fifth more said they could go for a week. Men were more likely to say they could not go without the internet with 59% choosing one of the three options above; vs. 50% of women. Response did not vary significantly among age groups. Similarly 48% of respondents agreed that, “If I cannot access the Internet when I want to, I feel like something important is missing.”

Some other trends discovered in the survey results:

More than a quarter of respondents (28%) admit they spend less time socializing face-to-face with peers because of the amount of time spent online or otherwise occupied with their gadgets-a full 20% said they’re spending less time having sex.

Mobile phones promise to revolutionize event marketing and let sponsors reach visitors in uniquely personal ways that would be impossible with conventional media. Witness V Festival, held this August in Weston Park and Hylands Park. The festival gave its namesake sponsor, mobile network provider Virgin Mobile, a chance to show off some innovative phone uses and bond with thousands of attendees.

Besides watching popular bands like the Foo Fighters and Primal Scream, attendees could download a ‘Mobile Festival Survival Kit’ onto their phones. Each kit contained a grab bag of concert-enhancing applications. Among them, according to Mobile Marketing Magazine: brightly coloured, flashing screensavers that let visitors find each other in crowds, flame-like graphics designed to take the place of the lighters concert goers wave during ballads, and lighted cell-phone displays that acted like flashlights. People were also able to sign up for text alerts warning them when a concert was about to begin.

The survival kit was developed for Virgin by Mobster Media a UK marketing communications firm. Mobster’s V Festival survival kit is just one example of how event marketers can use mobile devices in unique ways. This August, for example, Springwise reported on a portable laundromat set up by denim brand Wrangler at the Lowlands music festival in the Netherlands. A text message informed patrons when their clothes were ready for to be picked up. Lots more possibilities exist. Merged with GPS, mobile devices could help event-goers find one another. Web cams could show where lines were shortest at concession stands and onstage performances could be supplemented by song lyrics to let audiences join in.

By Belinda Goldsmith

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Surfing the net has become an obsession for many Americans with the majority of U.S. adults feeling they cannot go for a week without going online and one in three giving up friends and sex for the Web.

A survey asked 1,011 American adults how long they would feel OK without going on the Web, to which 15 percent said a just a day or less, 21 percent said a couple of days and another 19 percent said a few days.

Only a fifth of those who took part in an online survey conducted by advertising agency JWT between Sept 7 and 11 said they could go for a week.

Venturebeat: A Silicon Valley company co-founded by a 12-year-old has just raised $6.5 million in venture capital.

PlaySpan, based in Santa Clara, Calif. says it offers game publishers a technology that lets users make payments and shop for other items. It calls itself the first “publisher-sponsored in-game commerce network.”

Arjun Mehta, a 6th grader, says on his Web site that he is passionate about software that can make the game experience more “rewarding,” and that he started the company last year in his garage. He paid for it from earnings made from selling online game items he won from quests he fought.

According to a comScore recent release, nearly 75 percent of U.S. Internet users watched an average of three hours of online video during the month of July, with  Americans viewing more than 9 billion videos online.

Google Sites ranked as the top U.S. video property with nearly 2.5 billion videos viewed (27.0 percent share of videos), 2.4 billion of which occurred at YouTube.com. Yahoo! Sites ranked second with 390 million (4.3 percent), followed by Fox Interactive Media with 298 million (3.3 percent) and Viacom Digital with 281 million (3.1 percent).

By Georg Szalaifor The Hollywood Reporter

Aug 22, 2007

NEW YORK — Personal time that consumers spend on the Internet is rivaling their TV time, with user-generated content and networking sites among the most popular destinations for entertainment seekers. Plus, people seem more open to mobile content and are looking for more traditional entertainment offerings on their mobile devices than previously thought.

These are among the findings of a new IBM survey of consumer behavior in the digital age, which suggests that studios, advertisers, ad agencies, content distributors and other industry players must continue to adjust their business strategies amid changes in media usage and consumers’ increased expectations for control and community.

Among key lessons for studios: Make your content available everywhere, but don’t expect to get paid for every platform. And keep an eye on key influencers on the Web to succeed in creating word-of-mouth.

The survey is part of an IBM study on the future of advertising, set to be released in the fall, and it showed that consumers are divided over their preferences for free online content with ads or subscription fee-based content without commercials. About a third is for free content, but about 20% are willing to pay for the HBO-style model, according to IBM.

“Given the rising power of individuals and communities, media and entertainment industry players will have to become much better at providing permission-based advertising and related consumer-driven ratings services,” said study co-author Bill Battino, communications sector managing partner at IBM Global Business Services.

Kenradio.com 

More than half of teens find out about new TV shows from commercials and promotional spots airing on the networks, according to a new study from OTX. The second-most common way teens hear about new shows is via word-of-mouth, with 33% hearing about shows from friends and 28% hearing from other kids at school. Teens are somewhat less likely than their adult counterparts to hear about new shows on TV. Not surprisingly, a large number of teens – 26% – are finding out about shows via internet ads.

As for DVR viewing, about 21% of teens say they’ll watch shows recorded on a DVR, while 9% will watch video-on-demand. Seven% will download programs.

According to the just released Deloitte’s study on Media & Entertainment practice, looking at how American consumers between 13 and 75 years of age are using media and technology today, Millennials (13-24) are leading the way, embracing new technologies, games, entertainment platforms, user-generated content and communication tools. Data from the survey show that user-generated content is in tremendous demand across the generations, with 51% of all consumers watching and/or reading content created by others.

Some key highlights of the findings include:

• 51% of all consumers are watching/reading personal content created by others; the number jumps to 71% for Millennials
• 55% of Millennials and 42% of Xers read blogs
• 62% of Millennials and 41% of Xers watch YouTube or other video streaming sites
• 40% of all consumers are creating their own entertainment, such as editing movies, music and photos.
• 56% Millennials are creating their own entertainment
• 25% of Matures report creating their own entertainment

By Eric Eldon 09.10.07 at VentureBeat

Meebo, provider of a popular instant messaging service, is unveiling a useful service tonight: File sharing.

The Mountain View company is letting users share files with each other, from office documents to photos to music.

Any file under ten megabytes is fair game, although each user is restricted to 30 megabytes per month, and Meebo stores files for only four hours after they’re sent.

Those of you over 30 probably remember the days before button presets took over the radio interface.  In my opinion nothing beats the the feel of turning that dial and finding new radio stations.  Tun3r.com is the radio dial for the digital age.  Move the ‘tuner’ line left to right or up and down to experience audio programming from all over the world.  Or just click around the squares on the home page and let the audio fly.  You can bookmark stations you like for easy future access and even get a playlist in the local language.