Another interesting note that I picked up during the Digital Hollywood Conference was regarding Virtual Worlds. There was a panelist from WeeWorld (a virtual world that enables kids to create a virtual avatar of themselves and dress them up with various types of virtual goods (flair/bling/schwag)) provided some interesting data regarding their site:
They have over 21M users
21% of their users actively manage/update their avatar on a daily basis
73% of their users manage/update their avatar once a week
These types of sites are becoming extremely popular with kids and are making money through micro-transactions (by selling virtual goods) and through advertising (advertisers creating virtual environments and goods). Facebook also sell these types of virtual gifts - in case you were wondering what exactly a virtual gift was.
One panelist shared a funny story about American Apparel attempt to open a virtual store on Second Life. Basically, it was something they hoped would create some buzz but totally backfired when the Second Life Army blew up the virtual store within three hours of its grand opening. American Apparel has a press release about the store’s closing.
I spent the day at The Digital Hollywood Conference in LA today and attended some interesting panel discussions. In particular, I focused on panels that discussed opportunities for digital media (social networking, podcasts, online video, etc) and advertising (mobile, targeting, etc). Here is the link to the full agenda of the conference.
One panel that was very interesting was on “Hypertargeting: Ad Networs, Ad Serving and Ad Targeting” and was moderated by Scott Cohen (CEO of DimeStore Media). He did a great job in getting all of the panel participants to openly discuss their numbers, types of targeting offered, and future outlook.
Some of the the items from the conference which are apparent to people in the industry but were still interesting to hear from the panelists were:
Mobile ad networks don’t have access to all cell phone company data
CPMS are really low for online video
Advertisers are getting more transparency on where their ads are being placed (e.g. what websites) but want more transparency on the process in which data is being collected and how ad networks are picking the websites
There was a lot more stuff covered so I will continue the discussion on another post. I will also be attending the conference tomorrow so will have some additional info.
Wall Street Journal Reports that Newspaper circulation is falling faster than ever:
Most of the nation’s biggest newspapers saw circulation tumble at an increased rate, a sign that the migration of readers online may be picking up speed.
The Audit Bureau of Circulations reported Monday that average weekday circulation at 534 daily newspapers fell 3.6% for the six months ended March 31, compared with the year-earlier period. The rate of decline is accelerating: ABC had reported an average weekday circulation drop of 2.1% in the year-earlier period and 2.6% in the six months to November.
Sunday circulation fell even more, losing 4.6% on average.
Newspapers need to take advantage of what is working for them - online distribution. This not only means experimenting with podcasts, video, ad formats, etc but also means experimenting with different forms of distribution. They need to try and find ways to improve the consumer experience with online distribution. Right now everything is just flat text and every story has the same format - kinda boring if you ask me.
HP and MIT Technology Review have teamed up to use AudioDizer to create audio files for white papers. The white papers are sponsored by HP and discuss their new Blade System C-Class.
We think this is a great way to break down those long white papers and listen to it on your way into work.
AudioDizer and The Harvard Crimson school newspaper have teamed up to create podcasts for every single article published by The Crimson staff writers. This will allow anyone - including students, alumni, and faculty to download the audio and listen to it on their computer or iPod.
All podcasts are available on iTunes as well as on The Crimson website under the “article tools” menu. To listen to The Harvard Crimson Podcasts on your iPod, open your iTunes player and search for “AudioDizer” or “The Harvard Crimson” in the iTunes store. All podcasts are free and will automatically be downloaded by iTunes.
To learn more about sponsorship opportunities contact Harpreet (harpreet@audiodizer.com).
About The Harvard Crimson:
The Harvard Crimson, the nation’s oldest continuously published daily college newspaper, was founded in 1873 and incorporated in 1967. The newspaper traces its history to the first issue of “The Magenta,” published January 24, 1873, and changed its name to “The Crimson” to reflect the new color of the college on May 21, 1875. The Crimson has a rich tradition of journalistic integrity and counts among its ranks of editorship some of America’s greatest journalists. The faces of Pulitzer Prize-winning Crimson editors line the walls of The Crimson. Past editors include John F. Kennedy ‘40. The name of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1904, is proudly engraved upon The Crimson’s president’s chair. One hundred and thirty-five years after its founding, having grown from a fortnightly newspaper to a daily, The Harvard Crimson continues to flourish with a strong body of undergraduate staff volunteers.
AudioDizer and Current TV have teamed up to launch a cutting edge new service that utilizes Current TV’s user created content and AudioDizer text-to-speech. The Current News or “newspod” is a three-minute mash-up of user submitted content on the Web that will play every hour on both Current.com as well as on Current TV.
Here is one of the newspods:
The segment will also be played on top of hour, every hour on TV. Below are some of their channel listings:
To check additional listings for Time Warner, etc check the Current website.
About Current:
Current is the world’s first and only peer-to-peer news and information network dedicated to young adults. The Emmy® award winning Current empowers viewers (core age 18-34) to create, influence and determine the content they want to see. The connection between the content and the audience is more powerful than on any other news and information media platform. This is the destination where content and audience fuse together to create the next wave in media. It’s inspirational and aspirational. For real. Just look at the facts.
About AudioDizer:
AudioDizer is a digital media company focused on getting traditional text context to audio. AudioDizer works with newspaper, magazine, and blog content companies to help create an audio podcast for every single article published. Through its patented voice engineering process, AudioDizer uses text to speech technology to create a radio like podcast. The podcasts include multiple voices (male and female), music, and have the ability to embed advertising sponsorships in each MP3. All podcasts can be found on iTunes or on AudioDizer.com
To find out more about contact bizdev@audiodizer.com
The Chicago Tribune is launching an online video site that will feature user-generated and professional content related to Chicago, spanning news, politics, entertainment and lifestyle. ChicagoLive, which is still in beta, already counts WGN, Metromix, RedEye and Tribune’s own TV network, CLTV, among its content partners. The site says it hopes to offer a gateway for local content as well as for citizen journalism, keeping a strong news focus.
The Chicago Tribune is not the only Tribune unit expanding into the digital sector. Earlier this month the Los Angeles Times acquired a strategic stake in Mixx, a social tagging and bookmarking service, which already works with Reuters, USA Today and The Weather Channel. The Tribune group is in the process of being privatised as part of a USD8.2bn takeover by Sam Zell.
AudioDizer is now producing podcasts for iTnews.com.au a Haymarket Media Company based in Australia. Currently, the service is live for the Telecommunications section and the remaining sections of the website will be next.
iTnews.com.au is using AudioDizer’s premium voices. The podcasts will be available for download, streaming, as well as can be subscribed to via iTunes or through any other podcast aggregator. All podcasts can be found on iTnews website.
