MaxxoMedia Digital Media and Entertainment Trends

Product Placement for Online Videos

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!

Website: www.brandfame.com
Contact: help@brandfame.com

Spotted by: Susanna Haynie

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Posted in Online Video | No Comments »

Users Are Seriously Addicted to The Internet

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.

Cell phones win out over television in a question asking which device people couldn’t go without. The internet, however, trumps all and is regarded as the most necessary.

Almost three-quarters agree that they now shop differently, and two-fifths say more of their spending is moving online: 73% agree that “The Internet has changed the way I shop.” 42% overall and 45% of under-35s agree that “My spending is moving more and more from offline to online.”

Teens and baby boomers are side by side in cyberspace - nearly half of those surveyed over 55 years old say that they live at least some of their life online. The same percentage of those under 35 agree. However, what’s dividing the generations is where, not how often.

Other findings from the survey:

“Digital” is an essential component of life for a majority of respondents: Almost equal percentages of men and women (60% vs. 58%) agree that “Digital technology is an essential part of how I live.” Agreement declines with age, from 66% of the youngest cohort down to 57% of the middle cohort and 49% of the oldest.

Specifically, the cell phone is essential to a significant minority of younger people: Overall, 31% agree that “My cell phone is an extension of me,” with women slightly more likely to agree (31% vs. 29% of men). Agreement declines steeply through the age cohorts, from 43% down to 26% and 14%.

Digital Cameras

Women are slightly more likely to own a digital camera: Two-thirds of men say they own a standalone digital camera (that is, a camera not built into a cell phone), compared with almost three-quarters of women (74%).

Gaming Consoles

Notably, women are slightly more likely to own a gaming console: As many as 44% of women say they own a gaming console such as Wii, Xbox or PlayStation, compared with 39% of men. Not surprisingly, the under-35 cohort is significantly more likely to own a gaming console: 59% vs. 40% of the middle cohort and 11% of the over-55s.

MP3-like Players

About a third own personal audio players: Overall, 34% own an iPod or other personal audio player, with men slightly more likely than women to own one (36% vs. 33%). The youngest cohort is more than twice as likely as the oldest cohort to own a personal audio player: 49% vs. 30% of the middle cohort and 15% of the over-55s.

WiFi

Men and under-35s are most likely to use WiFi networking at home: A quarter of respondents said they have WiFi at home, 30% of men and 22% of women. Almost a third (32%) of the under-35s use WiFi at home compared with 23% of the middle cohort and 19% of the 55-plus respondents.

PVR’s

Personal video recorders lag among the oldest cohort: About a quarter of respondents (24%) use TiVo or similar devices; the gender difference is negligible (24% of men vs. 23% of women). Again, usage skews younger, dropping from 27% to 24% to 16%.

Search

Basic search is most popular: Sites like Google and Yahoo are the most frequently accessed, with a mean of 8.8 on a scale where 10 equals “all the time” and 1 equals “almost never”; usage is slightly higher among women than men (8.9 vs. 8.5).

E-Mail

E-mail is close behind: E-mail based on one’s computer scores a mean of 8.4, with usage slightly higher among women (8.5 vs. 8.3). With a mean of 6.7, online e-mail such as Hotmail or Gmail is next down the frequency scale by some margin; usage remains slightly higher among women (6.8 vs. 6.5). The younger age cohorts are more likely to use Web-based e-mail services: the under-35 set scores a mean of 7.7 vs. 6.3 for the middle cohort and 5.5 for the 55-plus group. Accordingly, computer-based e-mail usage rises among the age cohorts, from 7.5 to 8.9 to 9.2.

Social Networking

Social networking sites score well behind a range of other sites: Facebook, MySpace and other social networking sites score a mean of 4.4, behind seven other categories of sites, including branded all-in-one-place home pages like MyYahoo or iGoogle (6.2), personal-interest specialty sites/communities (e.g., sports, music, photography, technology) (5.8) and online newspapers/magazines (5.8).

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Mobile Marketing at Music Festivals

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.

Website: www.vfestival.com
Contact: info@vfestival.com

Spotted by: Bjarke Svendsen

Posted in Mobile Marketing | No Comments »

Americans giving up friends, sex for Web life

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.

“People told us how anxious, isolated and bored they felt when they are forced off line,” said Ann Mack, director of trend spotting at JWT, which conducted the survey to see how technology was changing people’s behavior.

“They felt disconnected from the world, from their friends and family,” she told Reuters.

The poll, released on Wednesday, found the use of cell phones and the Internet were becoming more and more an essential part of life with 48 percent of respondents agreeing they felt something important was missing without Internet access.
More than a quarter of respondents — or 28 percent — admitted spending less time socializing face-to-face with peers because of the amount of time they spend online.

It also found that 20 percent said they spend less time having sex because they are online.

Continued…

Posted in DMET Disruptors, Internet | No Comments »

PlaySpan, run 12-year-old founder, gets $6.5M in venture capital

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.

This has got to be downright depressing for most budding entrepreneurs, most of whom strike out while pitching investors for funds, even in their 30s or 40s.

This is the second company led by a middle-schooler of south Asian heritage. In May we wrote about 13-year old founder and chief executive, Anshul Samar, who runs an educational gaming company.

The difference is that PlaySpan is making all the sounds of a traditional silicon valley company, right down to the slick web site and a press release manufactured by a PR firm that is barely decipherable. Mehta will probably learn to write his own press releases within a year. While the “company” section of the site profiles only Arjun, however, a closer look at the press release reveals that the actual CEO is Karl Mehta, which we presume is an older relative — so there’s adult supervision at least. [Update: Rafat has some thoughts about this in comments below, suggesting this is a gimmick. We’re awaiting response to questions we’ve posed to the company, and should note that the PR person who responded to us stressed that Arjun prefers email correspondence.]

New York based Easton Capital led the funding round, along with Silicon Valley based Menlo Ventures, South Korea based STIC International and Hong Kong based Novel TMT Ventures.

The release said the market for “in-game commerce” has surpassed $2 billion this year and continues its rapid growth as more publishers adopt micro-transaction based revenue models.

Shawn Carolan, of Menlo Ventures, has some experience with gaming, as a board member of virtual world game, IMVU. The young Mehta even knows how to pick his VCs.

Posted in Online Gaming | No Comments »

Nine Billion Videos Viewed Online in July

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).

In total, nearly 134 million Americans viewed online video in July, or approximately three in four U.S. Internet users. Google Sites also captured the largest online video audience with 67.8 million unique viewers, followed by Fox Interactive Media with 35.8 million and Yahoo! Sites with 35.3 million. 

Other notable findings from July 2007 include:

• Online viewers watched an average of more than three hours of online video during the month (181 minutes).
• The average online video duration was 2.7 minutes.
• Nearly three out of four (74.2 percent) U.S. Internet users viewed video online.
• More than one out of three (36.7 percent) U.S. Internet users viewed video on YouTube.com.
• The average online video viewer consumed 68 videos, or more than two per day.

Posted in Online Video | No Comments »

Study: TV is taking a back seat

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.

(more…)

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Where Do Teens Learn About TV Shows

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.

The CW is the network with the most shows teenagers plan to watch this fall. The shows teens plan to watch were: CW’s Gossip Girl (ranked No. 1), followed by NBC’s Bionic Woman, CBS’s controversial Kid Nation, ABC’s sitcom Caveman and its drama Pushing Daisies.The CW’s Reaper, Fox’s Nashville and Next Great American Band are tied for the next slot, followed by the CW comedy Aliens in America.

Posted in Digital Kids | No Comments »

Half of All Web Viewers Watching What The Other Half Has To Say

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

(more…)

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IM service Meebo unveils file sharing

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.

As the school year gets going, this service could be a hit.

High school and college students are already some of the most active users of the service. It lets them IM with each other across IM protocols — including AOL’s AIM, Yahoo Messenger and Google Talk — from its web browser. This useful when places like school libraries won’t let students download IM software to their desktop.

More than 6 million people use Meebo per month, and the median age is 21, the company says. Almost every user is between ages 14 and 29. More than 140 million messages are sent through Meebo daily, with about 20 million of those going through Meebo Rooms, its chat room service.

The file-sharing service works two different ways. If you’re using Meebo’s own chat protocol, simply click the file-sharing icon in the Meebo chat window, upload the file, and hit return to send. Your friend will see an icon of the file in their chat window that they click on to begin downloading it (screenshot to the left).

The company has a necessary but slightly less convenient solution for sharing files with people using Meebo to chat via other IM protocols. If you’re say, chatting with a friend on AIM, your friend will receive a web link to a Meebo page they can download the file from (screenshot below).

The service uses Amazon’s EC2 and S3 services for storing and retrieving files online. It is currently available for Internet Explorer and Firefox, although it plans to support Safari soon.

Posted in DMET Disruptors, File Sharing | No Comments »

I Love Tun3r.com!

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.

Posted in Cool Products | No Comments »