MediaShift

Digging Deeper

Talent Agencies Evolve to Show Clients the Digital Money

by Mark Glaser

Everything about the Ask a Ninja videoblog phenomenon smacks of a new form of entertainment. Two guys in Los Angeles produce a series of simple, low cost video clips where a ninja character answers profound and ridiculous questions. The comedic series gets popular as a video podcast through iTunes, with viewership of 300,000 to 500,000 per episode, and the show's web presence branches out to include an online store for merchandise.

• January 31, 2007
• 8 comments

Philosophy

Old Media Company Swears It Really Gets the Web

by Mark Glaser

LOS ANGELES (Goiters) -- Management at the Los Angeles Herald-Gazette newspaper today unveiled an earth-shattering initiative to combine operations of the newspaper and its Internet site -- a change that was crucial to ensuring that the Herald-Gazette appears to finally "get" the web.

• January 29, 2007
• 3 comments

Your Take Roundup

PaidContent Crowd: This Ain't No Dot-Com Bubble

by Mark Glaser

I attended the PaidContent San Francisco mixer event last night at the Palace Hotel, and was impressed with the packed house of 500 to 600 folks, from journalists to marketers to startup company executives. The room was buzzing, and brought back memories of the last dot-com boom in the '90s when parties and mixers seemed to happen every night at exotic locales.

• January 26, 2007
• 3 comments

Digging Deeper

Can Brightcove Solve Net Video for Pros, Big Media?

by Mark Glaser

While YouTube has been the darling of video-sharing sites online -- letting anyone become a video star -- Cambridge, Mass.-based startup Brightcove has quietly been working in the background to become the go-to video services company for professional content owners and media companies such as Dow Jones, Newsweek and The New York Times. Rather than creating a big hub for the world's quirkiest video moments, Brightcove has focused on the technology that will let content owners show video on their own site; sell or rent video downloads; or place advertising on their videos.

• January 24, 2007
• 10 comments

MusicShift

Music Industry Losing Control Over Album Sales

by Mark Glaser

Why is the retail price of a new music CD $15.98? Where does this price come from and how is it set? Is it fair? For a long time, I've wondered about the high price of music, especially when bought in physical form as a compact disc. As longtime music buyers, we have a certain mindset about the CDs...

• January 22, 2007
• 10 comments

PoliticalShift

2008 Candidates Jump Online with Early Blog Ads

by Mark Glaser

There has been a delicate dance between political operatives and the Internet. While activists have been using blogs and new media to spread the word about politics or specific candidates for years, the politicians and their consultants have been wary of spending too much of their campaign chest on online marketing. They have largely stuck to the tried and true: TV ads.

• January 19, 2007
• 6 comments

Digging Deeper

Your Guide to the Digital Divide

by Mark Glaser

The digital divide is the chasm separating the haves and have-nots in digital technology. On one side are people who can afford or who have access to computers, a high-speed broadband connection and the plethora of services from online banking to social networking to blogging. On the other side of the equation are people who cannot afford the technology, cannot get broadband access because of their location, or who have learning or cultural limitations to using the technology.

• January 17, 2007
• 14 comments

MarketingShift

Marketers Get Weak Signal from Users on Cell-Phone Ads

by Mark Glaser

There is an interesting disconnect between the way marketers view advertising on cell phones and what average folks who use cell phones think about those same ads. Marketers, ad agencies, research firms, cell phone makers and carriers are salivating over the prospect of delivering marketing messages to people via their cell phones. But survey after survey shows that people are not quite as excited about it -- in fact, most people consider it an outrage to be bothered by ads on such a personal device.

• January 16, 2007
• No comments

Your Take

Has the promise of converged devices been fulfilled, and do you want that?

by Mark Glaser

For so many years, we've heard about the promise of convergence, the idea that various technological platforms and features will be built into multi-functional devices. So you'd have the cell phone and personal digital assistant in one handheld device. You'd have Internet surfing on your TV or you could watch TV on your computer. And while we've had the first and maybe even second generations of such converged devices as WebTV and the Treo, the third generation was in full display at the recent CES and MacWorld expos. Dan Fost of the San Francisco Chronicle boldly stated that "the long-awaited promise of digital convergence was fulfilled" at those shows. Do you agree that digital convergence is finally here? Do you think these devices are helping us to do more with less? And do you even want convergence to happen or do you prefer to have more devices that do one thing really well? Share your thoughts in the comments below and I'll include the best responses in the next Your Take Roundup.

• January 16, 2007
• 4 comments

MusicShift

A Heated Conversation with the iPhone

by Mark Glaser

Last night, I was visited in a dream by the new Apple iPhone, which strangely enough I was able to converse with. The phone hovered above my head vaporously, its disembodied voice coming out of the speaker in silky, hushed tones. This is what I can remember from the conversation.

• January 12, 2007
• 5 comments

Digging Deeper

Google Search Snafu Can Have Huge Impact on Niche Blogs

by Mark Glaser

Dear Google,
What happened? Where's the love? You used to bring me flowers, you used to sing me love songs. You used to bring me traffic, at any rate...
Google, baby. Let me back in. Me and my pretty dumb things are shivering out here in the digital ether with no one but Ask.com and Yahoo to keep us warm. We need you honey. We miss you and the 500+ visitors a day you used to send to us. We're lonely. Please, Google. Don't be evil.
kissykiss,
chelsea girl

• January 10, 2007
• 37 comments

Citizen Journalism

Saddam Cell Video Subverts News Packages

by Mark Glaser

There's a certain predictability and glossiness to news "packages," special reports on breaking news that journalists knew were going to happen ahead of time. So when a pope dies after a long illness, the U.S. invades Iraq after a long runup to war, or the Democrats are sworn into power in Congress, you know there will be spiffy graphics, an on-the-scene reporter, and even an original musical intro on CNN.

• January 8, 2007
• 9 comments

Your Take Roundup

Swamis Predict More Media Shifting in '07

by Mark Glaser

Ever since I spent my winter break at college writing for the school newspaper -- and writing a bunch of year-in-review pieces -- I've had a bad taste in my mouth about year-end roundups and year-forward predictions. I think it's a good idea to get some perspective on the year, and consider where we're going, but often these features end up being a bit, well, predictable.

• January 5, 2007
• 1 comment

Your Take

What do you think about advertising on your cell phone?

by Mark Glaser

There are so many ways to avoid advertising now, from pop-up blockers to DVRs, where you can skip through TV commercials. But advertisers are a clever bunch, and they are considering ways to deliver commercial messages to your cell phone. Some ideas include text messages with coupons, or ads that are based on your geo-location. "Hey, you're near our video store, stop by for a discount!" the ad might chirp. If the ad is not too intrusive, it's relevant, and it's useful (and maybe you'd get a discount on your cell service), maybe you would want it. That goes the thinking, but a recent Forrester survey found that 79% of people were annoyed just by the idea of ads on cell phones. What would you do if an ad popped onto your cell phone? Would you change services, or figure out a way to block them? Or would you welcome them if they were more discreet and relevant? Share your thoughts in the comments below and I'll include the best ones in the next Your Take Roundup.

• January 5, 2007
• 16 comments

Digging Deeper

Nielsen BuzzMetrics Tries to Measure Buzz in Social Media

by Mark Glaser

Last year was a watershed for social media, with millions of people creating and sharing their own media on sites such as MySpace, YouTube, and Flickr and turning away from traditional one-way media such as TV, radio and newspapers. But for the proprietors of these new media sites, there's one very big problem: How do you make money off that popularity?

• January 3, 2007
• 11 comments