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.
Digital Hollywood, virtual world
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.
AudioDizer
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.
AudioDizer, Wall Street Journal, newspaper