Archive for March, 2008
Friday, March 28th, 2008
By Mark Levy CEO of MaxxoMedia
The vision of the digital living room has been around a long time. This is where the living room and Internet collide centered around a screen (namely the TV) and information, video, audio, games, and communications all converge. Over the years, attempts have been made to bring this vision to reality mostly with lukewarm results. Anyone remember WebTV?
At a recent gathering just outside of San Francisco, this vision was discussed. The talks centered around three main topics: 1) What will the interfaces to this digital living room look like? 2) When will this vision become a reality? And 3) How will the various parties, from cable operators and content providers to ad agencies, hardware manufacturers and even consumers make money in this new world? (more…)
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Posted in Articles, Digital TV, Internet | 1 Comment »
Friday, March 28th, 2008
From Kenradio.com
Spending on alternative media in the US jumped 22% from 2006 levels to reach $73.43 billion in 2007, and that rapid growth is expected to continue in 2008 despite a slowing economy. Alternative media, including 18 digital and non-traditional media segments, accounted for 16.1% of total advertising and marketing spending in 2007, up from only 7.9% in 2002 , according to a new report from PQ Media. By 2012, we anticipate one out of every four dollars spent on advertising and marketing will be earmarked for alternative media. Alternative media spending grew at a compound annual rate of 21.7% from 2002 to 2007. (more…)
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Posted in Advertising, Research | No Comments »
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
A new Harris Interactive study shows that one in four cellular phone users with mobile internet access now use their devices to buy goods and services online with a credit card, and nearly one in five saying they would like to someday use cell phones as a “mobile wallet,” where charges would be billed directly to their mobile accounts. In addition, ten percent of the survey participants said they would consider wire transfers and stock trading via their mobile phones.
The study finds that mobile phone users are increasingly comfortable making banking and purchase transactions while on-the-go, a virtual taboo until now. 16 percent of mobile phone subscribers already use mobile banking services, with 60 percent of these people using the services at least once a week. Many others presently not banking and buying on-the-go expressed interest in mobile banking, with 35 percent open to checking bank account balances and transferring funds via their mobile devices. A third of those surveyed also said they would like to receive text message alerts from their financial institutions. (more…)
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Posted in Mobile | No Comments »
Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
By David Gales
Music Purchase vs. Subscription
The Big Idea behind music subscription plans is that they may be an idea whose time has come. The debate over the benefits of music subscriptions vs. music purchases has heated up lately. A number of subscription services have been in the market for a time, including Rhapsody, Napster among others. iTunes, the world’s second largest music retailer, is said to be looking at the idea, in a bundling format with the iPod. Among music companies, there is some concern that subscriptions would be so popular they would hasten the demise of the CD, still an important profit center for music labels.
AT ISSUE: Can music subscriptions provide enough economic fuel for the music industry to replace the revenue lost by un-paid consumption of music?
BIG IDEAS VIEW: For purposes of this discussion, consumers are defined as those who listen to music on radio, online and other promotional media, and customers are those who pay to own or listen to music. There are dozens of issues around this topic, but key to our thoughts are the following. (more…)
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Posted in Music | No Comments »
Friday, March 21st, 2008
By Mark Levy CEO of MaxxoMedia
At the same time that Apple announced application and enterprise e-mail support for the upcoming iPhone update, one of the most respected and successful venture capital firms in Silicon Valley pledged $100 million to be invested in companies that are developing applications for Apple’s iPhone.The iPhone, which has sold just over four million units since it was launched, has been a massive consumer products success. It is redefining interfaces and design for the cell phone; you can see it in new designs from Nokia and LG. Now Apple aims to make the iPhone the next great software development platform.
Steve Jobs announced that the iPhone “Apps Store” will be the exclusive place to purchase applications designed for the iPhone. A new link on the home screen will give users access to a storefront from which they can access hundreds of applications specifically designed for the device. From games to productivity software and business applications, Apple is moving the computing experience from the desktop to the laptop to the mobile device.
(more…)
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Posted in Articles, Mobile | No Comments »
Friday, March 21st, 2008
By Mark Levy CEO of MaxxoMedia
Arbitron and Edison Research recently released some very interesting research with details on the web radio listening audience. The study found a deep connection between online social networks and online radio listening.Diane Williams, Sr. Analyst/Custom Research for Arbitron said, “We found that online radio listeners are more than one-and-a-half times more likely to have a profile on a social networking site as compared to average Americans, and that they tend to be power-users, with one-third of online radio listeners logging on to their social networking site nearly every day or even multiple times per day.”
In another study last May by Radio Network, it was concluded that 77% of online radio listeners find new music through online radio more than through traditional radio. This shift is monumental for the music industry. Promoting new music through traditional radio was a pretty efficient process.
As the radio networks became more consolidated, the efficiency increased even further. At the same time, more and more stations were managed by a single network and/or syndicated across the country to save costs, leading to fewer spots for new music. (more…)
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Posted in Articles, Radio, Social Networks | No Comments »
Saturday, March 8th, 2008
By Mark Levy CEO of MaxxoMedia
About 10 years ago, I was running a small Internet development firm in Santa Monica, CA. We produced a number of the early movie and TV show websites for the studios. We could tell then viewing of video online would be huge as soon as bandwidth opened up. Back then, people would download a 30 megabyte QT video file that portrayed a postage stamp sized, two-minute long video through their 14.4 baud dial-up modem. For some it would take hours to download; people left their computers on overnight. Well, times have certainly changed.
Today bandwidth runs like water through the tap, and watching TV and user-generated video online is getting bigger and bigger each month. A recently released Digital Life America study says that nearly 80 million Americans (43% of the online population) have watched one of their favorite TV shows on the Internet. That number is up significantly from 12 months ago when that figure was just 25%. (more…)
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Posted in Articles, Online Video | No Comments »
Monday, March 3rd, 2008
By Mark Levy CEO of MaxxoMedia
Facebook, the fastest growing online social network, is basically messaging and static pages. You get to look at friend’s page and use some utilities for sharing photos, videos, links and news feeds. One company thinks people are already tiring of seeing what their friends have done … after the fact. So they are developing ways for people to interact online in real time and do things together from any website. This is the vision of ROCKETON, a new “virtual world, social network, real-time gaming and applications platform.”
Founded by Interactive TV pioneers Steve Hoffman and Naomi Kabuko, ROCKETON aims to create the next wave in online interaction and gaming. The service, which opens in public beta in late April, will give you an avatar that represents who you are and allow you to connect with other ROCKETON members wherever they are to interact, chat, trade virtual objects and play games in real time. (more…)
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Posted in Articles, Social Networks, User Generated Content, Virtual Worlds | No Comments »
