YouTube to show live sports

Cricket is not normally a sport we talk about on this blog, mainly because up until now the sport has been well governed by its television backers. Today however, the IPL (Indian Premier League) a twenty20 league noted for its extravagant salaries and very limited exposure in the UK announced they had completed a deal with YouTube to show 59 matches live, all around the world.

This is not the first time the online video channel has dabbled with big events, its streaming of a U2 concert proved very successful, and we feel that this is only just the start. The YouTube ‘brand’ is already well developed and with the much anticipated launch of Apple’s tablet coming soon it is possible live TV streamed from YouTube could become a staple for the modern media generation.

Talent spotting

This year will apparently be the toughest year for graduates to be finding employment, with 25% of jobs being taken by those who graduated in 2009. There should be a pool of people with the potential to grow into excellent employees who will be left waiting for their opportunity.

Strikes me that smaller agencies with similar expertise and specialisms should work together and offer internships to a pool of this undeveloped talent, allowing the best and most enthusiastic to spend 4 weeks in one agency, then another 4 weeks at the second agency, and the third month at a third agency - allowing them to experience a range of work in a number of businesses. Would allow us smaller agencies to see a number of people in action, without the headcount investment, and save ourselves paying any headhunters. Anyone else think this is a good idea worth developing?

One Screen to read them all

Pixel Qi's low power displays can switch between colour and ereader-like black-and-white bridging the gap between computer and ereader.

This is significant as it means that very soon we will see devices that can handle e-content - colour, video and black-and-white. Convergence is truly on its way.

Half of employers 'reject a potential worker after look at Facebook page'

Almost half of employers have rejected a potential worker after finding incriminating material on their Facebook pages, research has found.

Bosses are now using the popular social networking site as a tool to double check how likely it would be that their new worker would take a sick day for being hungover or on drugs the night before.

And job seekers were being found out for lying about their qualifications, with employers checking their Facebook pages to see if their online details matched their resume.

One in 10 were knocked back for boasting about drinking and drugs online, 13 per cent were vetoed for making racist comments and nine per cent were overlooked for placing racy photos on their Facebook page.

Big Brother employers reported the biggest online mistake that job seekers made was lying about their qualifications but having their real academic record available for all to see on line.

There were 38 per cent of job seekers knocked back for boosting up their qualifications on their resume and then getting caught on Facebook.

Examples of online posts that have caught employers' eyes include:

* Employee X "wishes his desk was near the television to watch the cricket at work

* "It's one para weekend for me".

* "Tramp related hangover"

More than four in 10 employers discarded a job seekers resume after checking their Facebook page, a survey of 450 employers for careerbuilder.co.uk found.

Career Builder president Farhan Yasin(ok) said job seekers could have all the skills needed for a job but fail to secure their dream job because they had been sloppy about what they posted online.

"More employers are now using social networking sites to uncover any digital dirt," he said.

"Job seekers are urged to be mindful of the information they post online. They are indirectly communicating with potential employers.

Mr Yasin said social networking sites like Facebook could be a bomb waiting to go off in the background checks employers do on potential recruits.

"Social networking is a great way to make connections with potential job opportunities in 2010 and to promote your brand across the internet," he said.

"Make sure you are using this resource to your advantage by conveying a professional image and underscoring your qualifications."

Mr Yasin said there were simple things job seekers could do to protect themselves from prying employers' eyes online.

"Clean up digital dirt before you begin your job search. Remove any photos content, and links that can work against your in an employers' eyes," he said.

"Consider creating your own professional group on sites like Facebook to establish relationships with business leaders, recruiters and potential referrals."

Mr Yasin said no employer likes whinging employees.

"Keep your gripes offline. Keep the content focuses on the positive, whether that relates to professional or personal information. Make sure you highlight specific accomplishments inside and outside work," he said.

"Don't forget others can see your friends, so be selective about who you accept as friends. Monitor comments made by others and consider using the block comments feature or set your profile to private so only designated friends can view it."

Thanks to the Daily Telegraph for this article.

HP Tablet Computer

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer unveiled a new Hewlett-Packard Co tablet computer on Wednesday, beating Apple Inc's hotly anticipated move into the market.

Google's Nexus One reviews

“I like very much the way social-networking information, including status messages, is integrated into the contacts app. One tap on a person’s picture in Contacts lets you quickly choose whether to call, email or message her, or map her address—all without opening the contact card itself. I also liked the pictures and videos I was able to take with the five-megapixel camera and flash, which I preferred to my iPhone’s camera. You can even view a photo slideshow or listen to music when the phone is in the optional desktop dock.”
Walt Mossberg, All Things Digital

“Overall, the phone is good enough that it's conceivable in a way that it wasn't a few months ago that we'll see a replay of Apple's experience in the PC market twenty-five years ago, in which Apple's fit and finish was unquestionably superior, but a commodity platform that was "good enough" and available to the entire industry ended up taking the lead.”
Tim O’Reilly, O’Reilly Radar

“Android, including the new 2.1 version, isn’t as smooth as the iPhone. One needs to make more of an effort on the Google Phone to get things done. I guess you can blame that on the lack of multitouch features. Now don’t get me wrong — Android 2.1 running on Nexus One is pretty darn good. Just not as good as an iPhone. It feels somehow disjointed – much like all the other Android phones. When you install non-Google applications, they don’t quite have the tight integration of Google-based apps. Of course, that’s the downside of an open platform, one not entirely controlled by a single entity.”
Om Malik, GigaOM

“Finally, the Nexus just doesn’t attain the iPhone’s fit and finish. The buttons under the screen (Back, Menu, Home, Search) are balky, often ignoring your finger-presses completely. One of the animated wallpapers freezes the phone with a message that says: “Sorry! The application Android Live Wallpapers has stopped unexpectedly. Please try again.” (Note to Google: I did. The same thing happened.) But maybe it doesn’t matter if the Nexus One isn’t nirvana. Google says it’s only the first Google phone of many, with one store to sell them all.”
David Pogue, New York Times

“The noise cancellation feature is particularly useful. The device has a second microphone on the back that monitors inbound noise and automatically cancels it out (anyone who’s used Bose noise cancellation headphones on a long flight will appreciate this). It does a great job of canceling out machinery and wind noise on the other end of the call. In my testing, call recipients noticed a substantial increase in call quality on this phone v. either the Droid of the iPhone. Look for other phones to quickly add this feature, it’s a must have.”
Michael Arrington, TechCrunch

Google Phone - Nexus One

Google finally announced its own mobile handset yesterday, the Nexus One.

There has been a lot of hype built around this launch and lots of thought into its consequences. Why would Google risk a rare move from software into hardware?

The obvious answer is to break the stranglehold Apple has on the mobile web through its iphone and App store franchise.

But the answer is bigger than that.

Its another move in a carefully constructed plan by Google to retain its leadership as computing shifts from one generation to another. Mobile is a game changer. As people increasingly rely on powerful mobile phones instead of PCs to gain access to the Web, their surfing habits are bound to change. As a result Google's economic model is under threat.

'The new paradigm is mobile computing and mobility. That has the potential to change the economics of the internet business and to redistribute profits yet again' David B. Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School.

Now Google saw the threat posed by mobile long ago and are well prepared making shrewd moves before Nexus One. In fact Google have been busier and have invested more than their rivals. Their mobile operating system Android has grown fast and is already beating Microsoft in mobile. They are trying to buy AdMob, the leading mobile ad placement company. They bought Grand Central a smart call handling services company. They've invested in mapping (recognizing services based on location are going to be critical particularly in ad placement).

Yes this is defensive but its also a recognition that mobile is going to be bigger, far bigger than PC and gives them a great place to grow revenues. All in all its the only place for them to be.

As for Nexus One it doesn't look that amazing when compared to iphone but that in itself doesn't matter. The game is much bigger and much more important than that.

2010 - e-content takes off (driven by Apple)

Happy New Year.

The global economic situation will undoubtedly remain challenging but in our world of digital media there is so much to be excited by in 2010.

We open the year with the news that Amazon sold more digital books than the ink on paper kind (on Christmas day) and that their e reader was the most popular gift item.

2010 is the year, we forecast, that e readers take off and media companies make full use new found ability to bring content to life - e-content.

Consumers can look forward to the convenience of the printed product combined with the dynamism of the web.

What drives this?

E readers whilst making some headway haven't really broken through. People like their Amazon Kindle (me included) or their Sony Reader but they don't love them. What we need is a really great e-reader.

Enter Apple.

We are excited by the imminent launch (in shops in US as early as March) of the much hyped Apple tablet computer - the iSlate.

Combining several products in one (think of it as an extreme iphone) the iSlate opens up a new frontier in personal digital 'convergence' technology. It will, also, act as an electronic reader and given Apple's designers ability to transform markets it should do for content access and presentation what ipod did for MP3 and e-music.

We can look forward to a fun, simple system which we can download (and pay for) dazzling e-content. A sexy system that many people want to buy.

Hope newspapers and magazine content companies are ready! We certainly are.

World map of Social Networks

Italian writer, blogger and photographer Vincenzo Cosenza has for the second time put together a visualization that shows the most popular social networks around the world on a map, based on the most recent traffic data (December 2009) as measured by Alexa & Google Trends for Websites.

Evening Standard and Indie talks back on

Independent News & Media said Friday that it has entered into an exclusive in principle - but non-binding - agreement with London Evening Standard newspaper owner Alexander Lebedev. The firm said it is "currently engaged in discussions with regard to the future ownership of The Independent and Independent on Sunday."

We are surprised by this news. We thought this deal was off - sensibly dead and buried. As we said last time we just don't see the commercial sense of it or what possible good will come from these two loss making papers joining together. We'd love for someone to help us understand the rational.
Toby Constantine
Director | Market Evolution Ltd

Research | Analysis | Insight | Advice | Action

Sent from my handheld

Murdoch visits newsagents

Image via Wikipedia

Fantastic story in The Guardian about Rupert Murdoch visiting newsagents.

I'm not surprised at all by this (although few billionaires would have the same inclination). Murdoch remains totally committed to and focused on newspapers. He remains energetically interested in the dynamics of the business and where the faultlines are and where improvements can be made and what better place to hear it as it actually is than from the the mouths of newsagents.

He,also, loves to wrong foot his management with first hand experiences of the market place. It reminds of an story from the early days of Sky when Murdoch evaluated Sky dish sale success on the number of dishes he had counted from the back of his car on the journey into London from the airport!

Promiscuity - part of the human condition

The researchers at media consultancy Oliver & Ohlbaum surveyed 2,600 readers about their news-reading habits. And it discovered a deep seated human characteristic: promiscuity!

Even the print loyalists the researchers found, have almost no loyalty when seeking out news (or comment and analysis).

For example, it found that readers of our client the Daily Telegraph got just 8 percent of their online news from its website. They spent twice as much time visiting the BBC’s news website and more than twice as much reading other quality papers.

They were also more likely to read tabloid papers, like The Sun and the Daily Mirror, online than their own favourite paper. Others were no more loyal. Sun readers, for example, visited the websites of quality newspapers about as often as they did those of tabloids, including their own Sun.

Now come on. What's surprising about this? Nothing! We are promiscuous at heart aren't we? Especially if are allowed to be or moreso when we can afford to be ie it doesn't hit us in the pocket!

Browsing, search and book marking technology coupled with fast internet connection speeds and the allure of free quality content has made it extremely easy for us (its encouraged us) to enjoy multiple (content) partners.

But promiscuity is itself a fragile beast. Like bubbles and soap promiscuity dies when confronted with the commitment that comes with a pay wall or even registration.

My conclusion to all this is simple. The online content market place is growing up. And it’s painful. It’s coming to the end of the ‘teen’ period of discovery and exploration i.e. multiple partner 'hook ups' and is entering the more responsible phase of fewer partners and greater commitment!

Now some users will attempt to hold back the tide and try to remain in multiple relationships. Some will just settle down with the BBC. The rest will be content to choose a limited number of paid high quality partners who will provide them with all they need for a committed and informed life.

Now I am hoping that publishers will adopt micro payments to encourage me to have my chosen few trusted content sources with whom I have a paid relationship rather than pay walls which force me to make a single partner commitment. Pay walls won't work because they presuppose that consumers can get all they need from one mega 'ikea' content site. It doesn't work like that. As the O&O research says readers are promiscuous not just because they can afford be right now but more importantly because they get specific things from different trusted sources. I, for example, use BBC online for breaking news, Sun for Sport, FT for business and IHT for the World! I'm not normal but we all know that single sources don't (can't) satisfy and it’s a naïve and dangerous assumption to think they can. 'All you can eat' paid for 24 hour access doesn't do it either. I don't want to come in - gorge - and leave only to have to pay again next time. I want specifically what I want when I want it (and jettison the rest) . I would, therefore, advocate a service where I can choose and pay for the bits of content from various publishers that do it for me and have then ‘housed’ on a platform that allows me access from whatever device I choose.

Surely in this technological age this isn’t too much of an ask??

Google phone - confirmed

Finally we have confirmation that Google is entering the mobile handset business.
Speculation has been rampant for months that the Google would begin to ship their own handset. Its a controversial move as they have been successfully pushing their mobile operating system Android to handset manufacturers and this move takes them from partner to competitor. Its also heralds a rare venture by Google into hardware.

The phone will appear in January 2010 and will be made by HTC of Taiwan.

2010 going to be a very interesting year for mobile.

Apple counter sues Nokia

Way back in October 2009 we wrote about Nokia suing Apple for alleged patent infringement and we suspected that Apple would respond with a counter claim. Well it appears that we were on the money.

Apple has today filed a counter suit against Finnish handset maker Nokia,

In its response lawsuit, Apple says Nokia infringes on 13 of its own patents, and even outright accuses the company of theft:

“Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours,” said Bruce Sewell, Apple’s General Counsel and senior vice president.

We will continue to watch this one as these two giants square up. Both have a huge amount at stake and neither is likely to throw in the towel easily. Meanwhile it sure is a happy Christmas for their lawyers.

Sports Illustrated shows us the future

Please watch this video. Its a graphic illustration of whats coming and why we should be so excited to be in media. Strong brands with original high quality content are going to be set free by technology and will thrive in the digital era.

Newspapers - time to co-operate?

If magazine publishers can get together and cooperate why can't newspapers?

At this infection point it has to make sense for newspaper publishers to work collaboratively on setting standard models for content charging, digital access and a united front in debate with content aggregators.

Doesn't it?

In the magazine world the greatest names in publishing Hearst, Time Inc, Conde Nast and Meredith will next week launch an independent digital consortium supported by News Corp, to develop a digital news stand. Last week Hearst with support from others launched "Skiff", a standard technology platform and planned electronic reader, promising to give publishers more control of their digital fortunes.

"For the first time the publishing business are way ahead of the trend" says Mark Ford, Time's publisher.

There are so many great minds beavering away inside newspapers trying to figure out the way forward - alone and isolated from the rest of the industry. Surely its time for the newspapers greatest names to swallow their pride and cooperate? To work on the problems and opportunities together. To develop and execute a cohesive plan to together. To emerge from this crisis stronger and ready for the digital era.

Alas it won't happen. There will continue to be a collectively hand wringing and tub thumping at newspapers industry get togethers like the recent World Newspaper Congress in Hyderabad, but self interest will keep the titles and their businesses apart. And the industry will suffer longer than it needs to as a result. The frustrating thing is that standards will emerge eventually they always do, but not for awhile longer.

Ironically I think the industry might coerce (rather than cooperate) around an 'no charge' for content position. There will be publishers that will choose not to rally to Murdoch 'pay walls' battle cry choosing to wait it out and see whether they benefit from a customer upswing away from paid sites to their free sites. I wonder whether this is driven by a desire to ‘get Murdoch’ or a genuine strategic position. Additionally, I foresee publishers coalescing around the aggregators (especially Google and Yahoo) with some like Murdoch choosing to fight and others like Germany's Axel Springer choosing to work together to create a “one-click marketplace solution” for their online content.

Resurgence in sale of Vinyl

Sales of vinyl albums have been climbing steadily for several years, proving its a trend not a fad.

Through end of November, more than 2.1 million vinyl records had been sold in 2009, an increase of more than 35 percent in a year, according to Nielsen Soundscan. That total, though it represents less than 1 percent of all album sales, including CDs and digital downloads, is the highest for vinyl records in any year since Nielsen began tracking them in 1991. Rock on.
Toby Constantine
Director | Market Evolution Ltd

Research | Analysis | Insight | Advice | Action

Sent from my handheld

£850 billion bank bailout

LONDON (Reuters) - The price tag for bailing out UK banks has hit £850 billion pounds according to the independent National Audit Office (NAO)

No further comment ..............

Facebook hits 350m users

The incredible growth of Facebook has taken us all by surprise. It gone from 150 million to 350 million in less than one year trouncing its competitors (including the once mighty MySpace) in the process..

Google blink first in battle with Murdoch

Mr Murdoch's aggressive stance against search engines and news aggregators seems to have paid off (abit). Google appears to have conceded (alittle)

LONDON (Reuters) - Google is offering news publishers a way to attract paying subscribers without having to remove their content from Google News search results, after some media companies accused it of profiting from their online news.

The Web search giant said it would adapt its so-called First Click Free program to prompt online readers to register or subscribe to a news provider's site after reading five free articles from that publisher in a day.

Previously, the user's first click on any article would be free for an unlimited number of articles, provided the user did not click through any more links from any article.

Newspaper's digital device

I hadnt seen this so thanks for our friend Lopo (www.wahanda.com) for sharing.

Its amusing, but its also restates the case for why newspapers are relevant in this digital world

Quote of the day

"Producing journalism is expensive. We invest tremendous resources in our project from technology to our salaries. To aggregate stories is not fair use. To be impolite, it is theft.

Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, in an address to US media regulators

Quote of the day

"We were promised that eyeballs meant advertising, clicks meant cash. Free costs too much. News is a business and we should not be afraid to say it."

Les Hinton, the chief executive of Wall Street Journal publisher and News Corp subsidiary Dow Jones, at the first session of the WAN-IFRA World Congress of Newspapers in Hyderabad.

Read the whole speech here. Its well worth it

Big Companies blow up start-ups

I thought this article was interesting and worth a read. Its all about how many great start-ups have been acquired and ruined by the hugh tech companies (Yahoo, Microsoft, Google etc)

Its well worth a read

Its also a lesson to big companies everywhere - acquiring smart young companies isnt the answer to future proofing. Its like daddy dancing at the disco!