Joost Lines Up Advertisers Ahead of Launch

Worldscreen reports that a host of big-name advertisers, among them Microsoft, Sony Electronics and Unilever, have come on board as advertisers on Joost, the new Internet TV service from Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom.

According to the New York Times, Joost has signed on 30 “launch partner” advertisers as it gears up to deliver free content from the likes of CHUM and Viacom to users worldwide.

Nick Loria, the senior VP of global advertising sales at Joost told the Times that the new advertisers had signed up for a three-month trial. “There’s so much that’s not known about how consumers will use this media. And there’s so much interest among clients in how they will use it.”

Ten of the new advertising partners stem from Joost’s deal announced today with the Interpublic Emerging Media Lab. The year-long strategic relationship with Joost covers the Interpublic clients General Motors Europe with Opel and Vauxhall, Intel, Lionsgate, Microsoft Corp., Motorola Inc., Sony Electronics, Inc., Taco Bell Corp, Unilever's Magnum Ice Cream and the U.S. Army.

The prices for the ads are said to range from $50,000 for U.S. only to $100,000 for worldwide distribution, for the three-month period. Some will be traditional 30-second spots, while others will utilize interactive elements.

Media moguls mull digital distance

No crystal balls were on hand at the Milken Institute Global Conference's session "Predicting the Future in a Fractured Media World," but the program offered up the next best thing: a quartet of media power lords, according to Variety´s Peter Gilstrap.

Peter Chernin, News Corp.'s president and chief operating officer; Terry Semel, chairman-CEO of Yahoo.; former AOL chairman-CEO Jonathan Miller; and Sony Pictures Entertainment Michael Lynton made up the panel moderated by Forbes managing editor Dennis Kneale.

Panelists looked at what percentage of their respective companies' total revenue falls in the digital category and what that percentage will be in five to 10 years; the consensus was that great increases are a certainty. Chernin stated that News Corp. could potentially see a whopping sixfold increase in that time, from 5% to 30%, while Lynton said that Sony's "less than 2%" stake at the moment could grow to 20% in five years and to as much as 50% in 10.

Also discussed was the issue of large vs. small in the online world, with panelists predicting the seemingly inevitable integration of lesser concerns, following the paths of MySpace, now part of News Corp. and You Tube, owned by Google.

"Sometimes the specialists win," said Miller. "They can do a terrific job with one tenth of the resources (of larger companies), but over time, they are going to end up integrated. It's just a fact."

Semel likened projected growth patterns to the days of yore.

"The Warner brothers made movies, then they bought things; they merged with companies and they decide to become more integrated."

"We're not wedded to certain things," said Chernin of the overall News Corp. vision. "What's worked well for us in the past five years is we've had sort of three buckets of assets. We've had mature assets; we've had growth engines, which are things we've started with in the last five to 10 years that are generating tremendous growth; and then we're trying to take cash from that first bucket and invest it in the MySpaces of the world. You need to find the ideal combination of assets which will allow you to make the investments in the future."

Google to Sell Online Ads in China

Google has won the right to sell advertising on 400 Web sites owned by China Telecom, helping it compete with Microsoft and dominant local rival Baidu.com in the world's second-biggest Internet market. The accord is seen as a big win for Google; Microsoft and Baidu both wanted the deal.

Print Media Should Emulate Google, Says Consultant

Newspapers need to develop a technology that will replace the traditional printed paper and compete with Google's pay-per-click advertising, writes David S. Evans, founder of management consulting firm Market Platform Dynamics in a Forbes commentary. "Anything less will only accelerate the industry's decline."

The newspaper business has a simple model: charge advertisers for getting access to readers whom you attract with relevant content and cheap prices. That's been a great model for a few centuries now, and it is far from dying. No reason to depart from it--and, in fact, that's precisely the model Google is using to sweep a path of destruction through every advertising-supported media business there is (more on this momentarily). It's the physical method that newspapers use to do this--what business types call the "form factor"--that's the problem, the Achilles Heel of the industry's current business model. Printing content and displaying ads on paper is going to go the way of the vinyl record and perhaps even the CD.

Here's why. Traditional media sell advertisers a pig in a poke. Advertisers don't know whether a reader actually looks at their ad much less buys anything as a result. And they can't really target their ads beyond picking a type of newspaper and section to focus on in the hopes of reaching a particular demographic group.

Google and its ilk only charge advertisers when a viewer clicks on the very page containing their ad and perhaps, in the future, only when the viewer actually buys something. Plus, they can use all that information collected from past searches and other information they’ve gleaned about viewers to target ads with an increasing degree of accuracy. The technology is a different as a Schwinn one-speed bike is from a Porsche 911 turbo.

So, if anyone is going to save the newspaper industry, it isn't any of the moguls who think they can breathe life into a dying technology. It is more likely to be someone like Steve Jobs who can devise a really appealing way to make newspapers available digitally.

Sony, Microsoft and others have tried to come up with digital readers but so far most people aren't that excited. But suppose someone invented a digital newspaper, connected wirelessly to the Internet, that people actually enjoyed reading over coffee in the morning or taking along their morning train ride. Then newspapers could insert advertisements that people could click on, or advertisements that were tailored to knowledge about the person reading the ad. They would be playing on a more level playing field with Google and similar firms.

Unfortunately, this is a tall order, and the newspaper industry may not have time to wait. In the interim the online world is sucking so much advertising from the newspaper industry that it may be going into a protracted death spiral. As advertisers desert, newspapers cut content and raise prices to readers, as the New York Post did this week when it doubled its newsstand price to 50 cents. All this could lead to fewer readers and to even fewer advertisers. This will only be compounded as advertising and content also shifts to mobile phones--screens that almost everyone now carries every minute of the day.

Make no mistake: The only way to stop the slide of the newspaper industry into oblivion is to replace the traditional paper "form factor" with a technology that can compete with pay-per-click, per-per-action and contextual advertising. Anything less will only accelerate the industry's decline.

David S. Evans, visiting professor, University College in London , is founder of Market Platform Dynamics and co-author with Richard Schmalensee, Dean of the MIT Sloan School, of Catalyst Code: The Strategies Behind the World’s Most Dynamic Companies, to be published by Harvard Business School Press next month.

US Newspaper Sees an Increase in Web Traffic

The number of people visiting U.S. newspaper Web sites rose 5.3 percent during the first quarter, an industry group said on Monday, even as publishers reported slower online advertising sales growth, Reuters reported yesterday

More than 59 million people, or 37.6 percent of all active Internet users, visited the sites in the quarter, the Newspaper Association of America said, citing an analysis it commissioned to Nielsen/NetRatings.

The figures are the highest for any quarter since the association began tracking the numbers in 2004, the group said. The sites generated a record-breaking 3.1 billion page views in January, the association also said.

The news is welcome for U.S. newspaper publishers, which are grappling with a downturn in their print advertising operations, notably in classified ad sales.

Several publishers last week, including Gannett Co. Inc., The New York Times Co. and Tribune Co., also reported slowing growth in their online advertising operations.

That has led industry experts to fret over growth prospects for newspaper publishers, which have been hoping that online growth would help compensate for print declines.

Wikipedia explores new revenue opportunities

Free online encyclopedia Wikipedia may launch trivia games and quiz programs to boost funds and could veer from its no advertising policy in the future to raise cash for charity, its founder said on Thursday, according to Reuters.

Jimmy Wales, who founded the free, multi-lingual virtual encyclopedia in 2001, told Reuters the firm will continue to eschew advertising for now. "When we're turning down millions and millions of dollars in advertising revenue that could be used, to for example, put computers in schools in Africa...we have to very thoughtful and responsible about why we're doing it," he said in an interview.

Wikipedia, which can be edited by anyone, is the ninth most popular Web site in the world according to Web traffic monitoring site Alexa.com. The Wikipedia Foundation, which runs the encyclopedia Web site, last year raised some $1 million from donations and was expected to spend up to $3 million this year, Wales said.

The former futures trader, who has become an evangelist for the free sharing of technology, has said users should work together to improve search engines, working on the same principle as Wikipedia.

Wikipedia offers a wide ringe of services including WikiSuccess, Wikiversity, Wikiquote, Wikinews, Wikibooks etc.

Google Courts Broadcasters with YouTube Ads

According to VNU Net, Google has teamed up with broadcasters to create a new advert format for its YouTube video-sharing website. Patrick Walker, European head of video partnerships at Google announced on Friday at MIPTV that broadcasters and other content producers are working with Google on 30-second "pre-roll" ads to appear before content is viewed on YouTube.

The ads will start appearing next year, and revenue will be shared between YouTube and the broadcaster.

Google's revenue from YouTube is likely to get yet another boost following the company's $3.1bn acquisition last week of digital marketing company DoubleClick.

Google will use DoubleClick's technology to encourage YouTube users to click from one video to another.

Ericsson aquire Tandberg Television

Ericsson, the Swedish Telecommunications giant has received favorable rulings from the relevant competition authorities to acquire all outstanding shares in Tandberg Television. The acquisition will help Ericsson shape the future of Mobile and Broadband Internet communications.

Tandberg Television offer a broad suite of open, standards-based products that provide the highest-quality digital TV solutions, including IPTV, HDTV, video on demand, advertising on demand, IPTV and interactive TV applications.

The race to own the infrastructure for the new media platforms is on...

Mobile Phone Manufacturers as media content providers

With Nokia rolling out new mobile advertising products and services such as The Advertising Connector and Nokia Ad Service they are essentially becoming media content providers.

Nokia Ad Service is a mobile ad network formed by a group of mobile publishers – is a fully managed service for advertisers to conduct targeted advertising on mobile services and applications. It was launched in Europe on 6 March and will be available commercially by the end of the year.

While Nokia Advertising Connector, enables delivery of targeted ads to mobile devices. The platform offers access to third parties and enables their ad sales teams to sell for the mobile channel. The technology is able to select between text, visual, audio and video ads – depending on the user’s context – and then feeds the ad to the device.

Nokia Advertising Connector will run several pilots during the coming months and is planned to become commercially available by the end of 2007.

The technology will help drive the sales of the networks as mobile phone operators will need to increase the capasity of their networks to enhance user experience while the end users will opt to turn in their handsets for the latest models in order to take advantage of the latest technology.

This allow incredible business opportunities for third party software developers, content providers, media owners and for advertisers taking advantage of ROI based solutions towards end users.

BitTorrent - the new mediaplatform?

With Joost, Azureus and Bittorrent all flagging for new media content, will the bittorrent become the new media platform for broadcasting companies? Joost has signed up GameStar TV, The Soccer Channel, MTV, VH1 and The Hobby Channel since launching it´s new beta program. Azureus has struck deals that will bring content from National Geographic Ventures (NGV), BBC Worldwide, Bennett Media Worldwide and Starz Mediato for its Zudeo digital media platform. Bittorrent, the founder of the bittorrent protocol aquired uTorrent, the most popular bittorrent client on the Windows console. Once a target of prosecution from the music and movie industry, the company is now offering movies, television, games and music through their own bittorrent platform. BitTorrent content licensing media partners include 20th Century Fox, MTV Networks, MGM, Liongate, Paramount Pictures Corporation and Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Group.

Research shows that most teenagers nowadays want to decide where they want to consume media, when they want to consume media and how they want to consume media.

Has the Entertainment industry learned it´s lesson – if you can´t beat them, join them?

How long will it be before these services go wireless, over to mobile devices?