This is a direct lift from our friend Tony Fish. Tony is one of the globes leading thinkers on digital priavcy, the author of several well received books including My Digital Footprint and he somehow finds time to runs the successful networking programme mashup.

New Social Rules for Living in a Digital Age

If we sit back and reflect on current digital services, such as social media, we could conclude they are a game e.g If Twitter is about getting the best quip of the day or providing some useful info,  Linkedin is about proving "my network is bigger than yours", and Facebook is about sharing that "I have a more interesting life than you"; then there must be some new rules for these new games, but what are they? Before we examine some suggested new rules, it is worth confirming and stating that all of the old/existing rules of social engagement are still valid, relevant and have not been washed away by this new digital age. A few examples of classic handed down rules that are timeless would include:-

1.       Don't gossip, make things up, slander, steal, pinch or lie

2.       Have evidence and be professional, factual, accurate, honest, and transparent

3.       Engage and treat others how you want to be treated yourself

4.       Opinions are personal, be gracious, open, respectful and accepting of differences

Whilst all the old rules of social engagement exist, regulation does need some "modernising" as democracy, understanding and technology have advanced significantly since they were written.  Examples of regulation that would appreciate some new impetus would include: Privacy, Identity, Liberty, Harm, Consequences, Ownership, Access and Rights.

Realities for living and surviving in a digital age

Here are my rather eclectic suggestions of New Rules that I have heard, picked up or created.  I am hoping you will add and refine this list.  You can add your comments to this list here - My Digital Footprint Blog

mashup* are also organising an evening debate on "new social rules" on November 24th - you can register here http://www.mashupevent.com/event/new-social-rules   

1.     Change your password to Facebook, Twitter and bank accounts etc before you change your boy/girl friend/ partner

2.     Don't sack/release/ make redundant the person, and then be held hostage, by the person who has the login/password for your corporate fan page, group, twitter account until many people have control/access.

3.     Have several persona's, this is not a sign of madness and you don't need to justify then to anyone.

4.     Hide your friends identities by using personal nick-names on your mobile, just in case a friend borrows it to text that person with some inappropriate message that may haunt you forever.

5.     No adult supervision will not lead to anarchy. The youth want to be somewhere (in a digital world) where they are in control

6.     Provide someone (you trust) with the knowledge how to access your accounts/ data after you die and what you want done with your data/ digital footprint. Be aware - it will go against every term and condition you have signed if you do this.

7.     Your password is the weakest point in your armour,

8.     Reputation is all you have and your name is a good identity - so don't abuse or loose either

9.     Make sure you realise that your digital footprint is worth more than your salary

10.    Everything you do can be recorded (stored) as sensors will be in all digital devices soon - ask yourself why and what use will the data be and to whom!

11.    Create a lot of rubbish data and cause confusion if you want to hide in plain sight. It is easy to find and hard to hide in a digital world if everyone is honest

12.    Determine what the terms "family" and "friends" mean to you before you accept others into your network(s)

13.    Un-friending is acceptable - being un-friended is a reality

14.    Learn the social (digital and physical) rules that apply to your group today but be aware they will be different tomorrow

15.    Privacy - It's all in the settings

16.    Digital has one speed - fast, there are no breaks but plenty of fuel

17.    Internet writing is in Ink, once out there - it is out there, there is no rubber (yet)

18.    Loyalty (to a service) is dead - you are free to your own boundaries

19.    Open means you don't want to hide and transparent means "it can be found" - but most people will not bother

20.    Branding is now personal and it is the new black

21.    Trust is the new king’s advisor – content still wears the trousers

22.    Free is not free - Engagement, Relationship and Conversation have a price

23.    FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) are easier to sell

24.    Money in a digital world has less 'personal' value than real money and is closer to swopping chickens for potato's. Unlike cash, others are more prepared to cheat, lie, swindle and steal your digital money as it appears "virtual" and less actual. 

25.    Don't set up any direct debits to anything

26.    Don't let individuals buy web domains or set up accounts just to avoid the long corporate procedures and PO cycles.

27.     Interaction with the “screens of life” is the ultimate digital game being played. It is to get "content" from the dark bowels of a data warehouse onto your brightly lit screen

28.    Control is not in your hands

29.    Levels of damage and harm from digital engagement is currently lower that you may think

Back online

Aplogies for the silence in whats been the longest lapsed time since we started this blog 3 years ago. Back now and normal service is resumed

Blackberry tablet - the PlayBook

Hot on the heels of Samsung and others Blackberry officially entered the tablet market last night finally unveiling its own iPad killer - the PlayBook

Aimed squarly at professionals and enterprise users the 7 inch screened PlayBook looks and sounds impressive. 

Heres a picture.

For those of you that like to know whats under the bonnet heres a breakdown: 

The CPU is a dual-core 1GHz unit based on an ARM Cortex A9 architecture, and its screen is a 7-incher like many of the other upcoming iPad challengers. There's full multitouch and "gesture" support, 1GB of RAM and twin HD cameras--one facing forward for Web chat and videoconferencing reasons, and one facing back. The front-facing cam is three megapixels, and the rear is a five-megapixel one, and though RIM's press release seems to hint that both can do "HD" video recording. There's Wi-Fi N compatibility, Bluetooth 2.1, a micro USB slot (for standardized cell phone charger compatibility and syncing) and "charging contacts," which we assume are ready for a customized docking system. It also weighs "less than a pound" and has HDMI out for full 1080p video support.

We're excited by Blackberry's announcement - more competition the better we say as it will lower device costs and boosts uptake. The more tablets in the market means improved services,interactivity and greatly customer engagement. 

Also as an avid Blackberry user (it just works!) I'm a natural to get one of these as I just know it won't let me down and I'm prepared to compromise on the entertainment capabilities to safegaurd my professional needs.

US retail flees newspapers

Every now and then we publish a link of an article that we think is important and a 'must read'. This one comes from Refections of a Newsosaur, a blog written by Alan D Mutter. Alan'sblog is often featured here as it's a very good take on the US newspaper market.

The poll revealed below isn't great news for regional/local newspaper publishers as it shows an aggressive swift away from newspapers by local business. Perhaps not new news in trend terms but the level and extent is ominous. This news comes hard on the heals revenues being sucked out of local ad budgets by social shopping sites like Groupon.

http://newsosaur.blogspot.com/

What about the social shopping merchants?

Image by dominiccampbell via FlickrTodays we consider the other side of the Groupon social shopping business model namely the merchants themselves.

Its clear from all the hype around Groupon that social shopping is a cash cow --- for Groupon but how is for the merchants?

The challenge with the model as far as we see it isn’t making money for Groupon, but making money for its customers, the recession-pinched merchants giving away their products and services at a loss. The web is full of stories of merchants who have had negative experiences and have sufferred the consequences of suddently having too many customers (looking for a bargain).


Lets be honest for those of us that understand regional and local advertising we know that building sustainable partnerships with low-margin small businesses is hard; it probably involves some level of shared risk, with pricing based on long-term profits rather than short-term revenues. Groupon and the other social shopping 'me-toos' can do this if they want but currently the 50% revenue share is probably too expensive for the merchant in the long term.


We worry that the merchant is vulnerable in the current model  despite the cap 'control' element and the payment on success model. They still have to finance the deep discount.  And as we know discounting doesnt bring loyalty it brings thrill seekers on a once only basis. Might be good for getting customers to the door and short term cash flow but not for longer term profits.

Its here in part that we see an opportunity for local media companies. They understand small businesses having traded with them for many decades. They understand better than anyone the dynamics and realities of low-margin business and they well placed to fashion an equitable commercial agreement on a more sustainable basis.

One suggestion could be to develop activity that combines traditional classified ad formats with deal of the day activity. This sounds sensible to us as it covers revenue generation and the need to develop return customers and customer relationships.



Footnote:  we had heard that Groupon was curremtly only able to service 1 out 8 requests from merchants wanting to use the deal of the day service. There is obviously lots of demand out there and therefore a big opportunity for local media owners to do what they know how to do - namely deliver a tip top service business and readers alike for the long term

National Brands success with social shopping - Hazchem National Newspapers

Hot on the heels of The Gap's staggering success with social shopping juggernaut Groupon in the US (400,000 groupons were sold and $11m of revenue was generated) its the turn of Virgin America to try out the deal-of-the day platform and generate huge success of their own.
Partnering with Loopt (the location-based social mapping service that allows individuals to use their location to discover the world around them) Virgin America offerred people two-for-one tickets to Cancun or Los Cabos from California. The offer proved a smash with consumers and Virgin America recorded its fifth highest revenue day ever.
This is significant stuff. It illustrates that the deal-of-the -day mechanic which uptil now has been the exclusive domain of regional and local brands can work for national brands on a countrywide basis!
We've blogged here on the threat from the rise of social shopping to local and regional newspaper groups advertising revenues but maybe national newspapers should be worried too? How long will it be before Groupon or livingsocial start offerring national deals in the UK and why wouldnt they it looks like great money!!

Groupon - friend or foe? Regional newspapers need to decide - fast

We are watching the rise of social shopping with great interest.

Social shopping represents a real challenge to newspaper companies. Social shopping companies like Groupon are growing fast here now and are aggressively scooping up local advertising revenues that traditionally have been the domain of regional media. This is a clearly problem. These are revenues and relationships that once gone are not coming back and all at a time when regional media owners cant afford further declines in their revenues.

So what to do?

Well the first thing is regionals have to act. They cannot afford to sit back and allow yet another clever non-traditional company to swoop into the market and plunder these revenues. This cant be allowed to go the way of  recruitment, automobiles, property and personals revenues. They have to act and swiftly.

We see 3 'action' options:

1. Partner Groupon (or other major player) and let them commercialize your audience with you at no cost to yourself

2. Find a white label social shopping partner and set up a branded service at limited cost and low risk to yourself

3. Develop your own a 'deal of day' platform and launch the service for your self and pocket the incremental revenue without having to share it with a partner.

There are as always advantages and disadvantages to each of these and the best fit route is dependent on individual market circumstances. The good news is that which ever way regionals choose the result will be positive. Market take up has proved that merchants like the social shopping model (why wouldn't they there is no money to pay until there is revenue through the door) and millions of consumers are loving the deep discounts and the social "all join in' aspect aspect of the service.

The other significant advantage about social shopping for regionals to consider is that the service is good at building brand relevance/role and reader engagement - both in shortish supply these days.

Online TV - the reality

With all the hype surrounding online TV I thought it would be worth putting some stats around the hyperbole.

According to Nielsen people watch 3 hours of online video per month compared with 158 hours of old-style TV.

There you go.....

Groupon - its spreading fast

Is anyone else out there tracking the rise of Groupon? It seems to be growing very fast in the UK. I judge this on my own personal experience. I signed up two or three months ago and just lately the service has gone from one rather poor and mostly irrelevant 'deal of the day' to at least 6 really good deals a day. I mean good enough to take advantage of.

So what is Groupon? It's official tag is that its the 'leading social commerce site' or put another way its the 'leading social shopping site' or even 'collective buying'.

Ok but what does that all mean? Well actually its a pretty simple concept. You sign up for the service. The service emails you a deal of the day (or many actually). If you like the deal and want it you pay upfront. The deal only takes effect if the specified number of customers buy-in (thats the social bit). The deals expire after a day.

So why so popular?

Well for merchants its a results driven no cost ad meduim (they dont charge up front, it shares the proceeds)and for punters its another targetted deep discount channel.

We are very interested in what the effect of this fast growing meduim will be on business. There are clearly opportunities for media owners to joint forces with Groupon to leverage the hyper local ad market (or to offer their own perhaps?)

More on the opportunities and challenges posed by Groupon soon, but in the meanwhile watch this space.

Defination of a tech start-up

Reid Hoffman founder of Linkedin coined the definitive description of a technology start up. It is, he says, like 'throwing yourself off a cliff and trying to assemble a plane on the way down'

pretty appropriate defination we say

and if you are involved in the tech patent business we could add ".......whilst monkeys try and steel all your tools"

e-book Milestone

Amazon has announced that sales of digital books for its e-reader, the kindle has outstripped US sales of hardbacks on its website for the first time.

Amazon has sold 143 digital books for every 100 hardbacks sold over last 3 months.

Does this spell the end of the musty old book shop? Well it appears not. The growth of ebooks is not damaging sales of physical books. According to the Association of American Publishers, hardback sales are still growing in the US, up 22% this year.

The US market is 2 to 3 years ahead of UK where digital books are still small. The kindle has only been available here since October and it still has to be shipped from US. The books catalogue is available only through the US site and the books are priced in dollars. That said the US market dynamics must be a sign of things to come here.

iPhone 4 flies of the shelves

Shoppers in the United States, UK, France and Germany bought 1.7m iPhone 4s in the three days after they went on sales on June 24th.

By comparison the iPhone 3GS sold 1m in it's first weekend of sales in 2009.

Battle for online content hots up

Couple of interesting developments in the battle for online content:

Rupert Murdoch has acquired Skiff from Hearst and a stake in Journalism Online. These two deals are significant because Skiff is an online store for content and an e-reader and Journalism Online is a platform that alllows content producers to charge for content. This is clearly Mr Murdoch buying up the pieces or building blocks required to let people buy and enjoy content online from a wide range of producers over a wide range of access devices. Sound strategy

Google looks likely to launch its own content payment platform newspass. This was rumoured last year but now it appears that its happening and will be live by end of the years according to PaidContent.org.

As the battle hots up the race is on to get the access platform and the payment technology out there and adopted by consumers. Who would you back to win that race?

Home Printing - exciting new frontier

Taken by the news that HP are rolling out next generation of printers.

Central feature is printers with email addresses. This is brilliant. First no more cables and secondly ease of printing from where ever you are and whatever device - simply email whatever you want printed and its waiting for you when you get home. Brilliant

Perfect for our increasingly mobile lifestyles.

What's also significant about this generation of HP printers is the partners they've lined up for their version of the App store. With lots and lots of partners on board printing just got much more interesting.

Now this is something I've long toted. Home printing is going to become really, really important.

We started with word processing docs, moved swiftly to pics and now I believe we will print everything from colouring books for our kids to our favourite daily newspaper.

I forecast that home printing will become an important component in the transformation of the publishing sector in same way smart phones and iPads are.

Web-only TV

We've long taken a keen interest in web-only TV and its been a surprisingly quiet market. But now it seems to have burst into life with the imminent launch of 2 high profile web-only launches in UK.

First off comedy star David Baddiel is debuting in FA Dave, a web-only series on (yes you've guessed it) UKTV's Dave channel.

Fashionistas Trinny and Susannah are back on screen with a web-only series entitled Trinny and Susannah - What They Did Next.

Their 16 episode mockumentry goes out exclusively on ivillage.co.uk and is then available across the web via a group of super distributors.

You can view the trailer of the show right now on their website.

The T&S model might give us a clue about how future commercial models might work. Producers TM5 have sensibly underpinned the show with sponsor money from ivillage and Westfield and are augmenting with ad sales.

Let's see how these two perform but I suggest that if these shows go well they might provide some much needed impetus for the web-only format.

Apple’s market value overtakes Microsoft

on the day that the iPad lands in the UK Apple has overtaken Microsoft to become the largest technology company by market value, crowning a stunning corporate comeback.

After more than three decades of rivalry between Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the founder of the iPad maker saw his company take the lead on Nasdaq.

When the New York markets closed on Wednesday, Apple was worth $222bn – short only of ExxonMobil. Microsoft was valued at $219bn.

The moment says much about how technology and business strategies are changing. But it is above all a triumph for Mr Jobs who has consistently defied conventional wisdom and taken big risks in new industries with entrenched powers, overthrowing the establishment in the music and mobile phone businesses and staking out new ground.

This clearly says alot about Apple but what does it say about Microsoft? After 3 decades on top and once so powerful it was viewed as anti-competitive and many thought it should be broken up its stumbling.

Beaten in mobile, beaten in games consoles and with software moving to a pay-as-you-use service in the cloud its truly a gloomy moment for them.

Vanity Fair comes to iPad

Conde Nast continues its promised roll-out of print titles for the iPad. Vanity Fair was released late last week for both the iPhone and iPad at $4.99 an issue.

The mobile iterations follow closely the model used in GQ. The full contents of the magazine can be thumbed in facsimile format when the iPad is in landscape mode.

Apparently recognizing recent complaints by iPad users that the single issue pricing of these apps is multiples higher than a subscription rate, Vanity Fair is giving a price break to customers. Once one buys the first iPad edition for $4.99, subsequent months will cost only $3.99. This is still extremely expensive if you consider their current 20 week (2 year) print copy subscription offer is $20.

Having given their content away online for years for free are publishers in danger of now over charging for it!

Maybe? Maybe not?

I suggest that they are pricing high to capture those who will pay a premuim for digital access whilst using high price to illustrate the value of their print subscription offers.

Remember that however well the iPad sells its penetration will never give enough coverage to sustain a digital only model so publishers have to grapple with subscription versus digital price comparision fro years to come.

I dont mind premium prices for the digital format and low prices for the print subscription model particularily for magazines not least because magazine print subscription prices have been historically extremely low and now is certainly not the time to raise subs prices

Happy Birthday YouTube

YouTube turned 5 years old yesterday.

Its proud parent, Google announced that its video-sharing site now has more than 2 billion views -- a day. Amazing

What's more, YouTube, is the third most visited Web site in the world according to Alexa and offers local versions in 23 countries across 24 different languages (70% of its traffic is from outside the United States), receives 24 hours of uploaded video every minute, and garners 45 million home page impressions every day.

Whilst it yet to turn a profit its future looks very bright indeed.

Happy Birthday

FreeIndyStandard?

Interesting to see that while the rest of the media industry stresses about digital strategy, convergence and up and coming technology driven consumer trends, the Lebedev's are focusing very much on the nuts and bolts of the "old" media world.

We've been suggesting for a while that the Independent and Standard would end up sharing editorial resource, though in our view, it may go further than the reports this morning that the process may be starting. Currently this looks likely to extend to a shared foreign reporting presence at the World Cup, cutting the cost of content generation for both loss making titles.

Well, it makes sense, and would be a good start in combining the newsroom. Rolling forwards, would Standard readers mind if their content was written with an Independent hat on? Probably not, but vice versa?

Reports also that the Indy will be going free within the M25 - presumably piggybacking the existing Standard distribution network. Lebedev is saying that the Standard should be profitable in 2011 as the new ad reveneues gained since the Standard went free are starting to beat previous combined ad+circ rev. If so, well done, a brave move that has paid back, and one that I doubted would work out. But, and it's a big but, the Independent spent the best part of 20 years "breaking even next year" without ever quite making it.

So long iPlayer

We've just taken delivery of our first Apple iPad and it is as lovely in the flesh as we've been told.

I dont intend here to add to the rave reviews but rather point out something that startled me.

As you've read elsewhere Apple and Adobe don't like each other and as a result there is no Flash on the iPad (nor the iphone). You know what this means - no BBC iplayer! and what that means is the millions and millions of users who now use hugely popular iPlayer weekly will not ne able to so on their shiny new iPad.

In many ways this is a shame. The iPad is a device that might as well have been made for the iPlayer. It's absolutely perfect for it.

So whats the BBC to do? Two choices:

They could create a non flash version of iPlayer for the soon to be millions of iPad customers or as is more likely stick with Adobe and lose the custom of the iPad crowd.

So long iPlayer my loyalty is with the iPad.

Newspaper market is bad - Music is worse

Global recorded music sales shrank by 7.2%, from $18.3 billion to $17 billion, through 2009.

What this means is the industry has been sale decline each year since 1999.

Digital sales grew 9.2 percent and now make up over a quarter of all music income…

But the extra $363 million brought in by digital last year still wasn’t even close to offsetting $1.74 billion lost from physical sales.

Source: International Federation of the Phonographic Industry’s Recording Industry In Numbers report.

What to do?

Well our tonic to improve the health of the music sector would be the following:

1. Understand buyers better - who they are and what they buy. This basic knowledge is critical (but still largely absent).

2. Build greater sense of community around listening types. Last FM etc has proven people are drawn together by shared musical taste. Build communities around taste and market to them

3. Recognise and actively reward the few who pay for digital music. Continue to chase out the illegals but not at expense of the legals. 

4. Dont be afraid of useage rather than ownership model pushed by players like Spotify and Beyond Oblivion and recognise its better to get small payment from everybody than as currently a large payment from a few.

6. Love the talent. Without it there is no industry!

7. Don't be afraid to go digital retail only. Saves on production, distribution, sales commission and critically stock risk. 

8. Merchandising. Hugely under leveraged by the industry and worth a fortune. Recognise that recorded music powers broad and valuable consumer lifestyle habits. Get in on the act directly.

Apple's stellar universe

85m iPhones and iPod touches sold from zero in 2007

4 billions Apps downloaded

10 billion songs downloaded

33m movies downloaded

250m tv shows downloaded

iPhone users who represent 2.2% of total mobile phone market but chug 64% of all browsing minutes

500,000 iPads sold since launch

185,000 apps on App store

125,000 app developers on contract but effectively working for free

iAd which lets advertisers make inventive messages appear inside apps launches in summer

Share price $3 to $247

Historic Ninety Minutes that could change the Election

Today marks a historic day. Its the first ever live UK TV Election Debate.

I have high hopes that even in the completely de politicised UK the debate will cause a wave of interest and excitement amongst voters. The Independent suggests this morning from a poll it commissioned that 30 million people will tune in and of those 50% say that the debate could influence the way they vote. Wow - thats 15m votes up for grabs.

Inspite of the oh so very typically British need for rules (and in this case 70 rules) to govern the event I am looking forward to a contest that reveals more to the public about each of the candidates than we are able to glean from PR prepared set pieces and carefully orchestrated policy statements.

The Q&A will be dull. All possible chance of excitement killed off by Candidate preparation, schooling and spin. The part that interesting is the debate itself where the 3 of them are let loose on each other. Its a relatively short segment so make sure you're back from making cup of tea or you risk missing it.

Alongside 30m others we will be listening in but not just as voters but as insight managers. We will be monitoring, analysing and reporting on all the chatter on Twitter and Facebook to see how the candidates are performing. We will be recording personal sentiment and comparing it regionally. With the stakes so high its going to be fascinating evening.

Social media channels and clever insight technology is giving us the opportunity - for the first time - to listen to the groundswell and to reveal actual sentiment. Check back with us as we will be posting results from all 3 of the live debtaes on a specially created Market Evolution election blog.

Mobile drives 5th Major Technology Cycle

The modern world is presently experiencing its fifth major technology cycle of the past half a century, according to the latest "State of the Internet" report from Mary Meeker, Morgan Stanley's managing director and global technology research head.

In what shouldn't come as a shock to readers of this blog, the two key trends driving this latest shift are mobile and social networking.

Within the next five years "more users will connect to the Internet over mobile devices than desktop PCs," according to Meeker.

Also -- based on adoption rates of iPhone/iPod touch compared to that of AOL and Netscape in the early 1990s -- Meeker says that mobile Internet usage is increasing substantially faster than desktop Internet usage did. Indeed, adoption of the Apple devices is taking place more than 11 times faster that of AOL, and several times as fast as that of Netscape.

Supporting this trend is 3G technology, which Morgan Stanley says recently hit an "inflection point" by being available to more than 20% of the world's cellular users.

Read the whole story at GigaOm.

Disappointing news from Apple

Apple has delayed the international launch of the iPad until the end of May because it has sold more devices (over half a million) than it anticipated.


Here’s the official announcement:


“Although we have delivered more than 500,000 iPads during its first week, demand is far higher than we predicted and will likely continue to exceed our supply over the next several weeks as more people see and touch an iPad™. We have also taken a large number of pre-orders for iPad 3G models for delivery by the end of April.

Faced with this surprisingly strong US demand, we have made the difficult decision to postpone the international launch of iPad by one month, until the end of May. We will announce international pricing and begin taking online pre-orders on Monday, May 10.

We know that many international customers waiting to buy an iPad will be disappointed by this news, but we hope they will be pleased to learn the reason—the iPad is a runaway success in the US thus far.”

The End of Bebo?

It looks as though the once wildly popular Bebo is on the rack.

If memory serves it was the hottest property around and was fought over by the likes of Yahoo only to fall to AOL on an exuberant valuation for $850m two years ago.

Well its no longer seen as 'core' at AOL and as they readily admit they don't have the money for the fight against Facebook.

Here a snip from the AOL memo:

“Bebo, unfortunately, is a business that has been declining and, as a result, would require significant investment in order to compete in the competitive social networking space. AOL is not in a position at this time to further fund and support Bebo in pursuing a turnaround in social networking"

All this is a long way from what was said at the time :-

"This is a tremendous acquisition and one I think is game-changing for AOL," said the company's chairman and chief executive, Randy Falco. "Bebo will be the cornerstone of our strategy."

Apple iPad sales update

Apple sold 300,000 iPads in the U.S. as of midnight Saturday, April 3, the company announced Monday.

That total includes pre-ordered units delivered to customers and sales partners as well as Apple store sales.

iPad sells quicker than iPhone

The latest estimates for iPad sales may surprise even the most optimistic Apple watchers:

Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster puts the number at 600,000-700,000 this weekend, including pre-orders.

By comparison, it took Apple more than 70 days to sell 1 million iPhones after the initial launch.

The Times & Sunday Times pay walls

Phew its finally out in the open

We've all been thinking about pay walls for months and months now so it feels quite a relief that Murdoch's strategy for The Times and Sunday Times is finally out in the open.

The payment mechanism makes sense to me. At £1 a day or £2 a week they've priced it 'to go'. Its priced absolutely to encourage people away from the daily spend into the weekly committment. Why spend £1 a day when I can spend £2 for the whole week etc

The reason this is sensible is that there is an increasing recognition amongst publishers that its good business to have fewer people comitted to spending something and than large numbers comitted to spending nothing at all!

I know this sounds obvious but its taken publishers some time to get here. Lifetime value is finally becoming more central to the way publishers look at customers . For too long publishers ignored the value of relationship with readers. Now they are wide awake to the fact is of critical importance and its where the value lies.Hooray

With this payment structure they are incentivising readers through low weekly prices to make a committment. Once committed they are hooked and can be sold other bits and pieces.

Its going to be fascinating to see how many sign up and on which of the two tariffs.

I'm less concerned by the damage to visitor numbers as the advertising led commercial model around eyeballs was not working. I'm glad its moving on.

I had another thought.

Why would I continue to buy a newsagent copy of the TT and ST paying £1 a day, £1.50 on saturday and £2 on sunday when I can simply pay £2 for the week for digital access and save £5.50 a week (a massive £250 a year).

Am I alone in thinking that the digital offer might infact impact on cover price revenues as people do the maths and swap to digital access. Would'nt that be something?

Now this may not matter as its obviously far cheaper to produce a digital 'copy' and therefore the margin on £2 is probably greater that it is on the £5.50 physical copy (not paper, no printing, no distribution etc).

Lets see. Whatever happens the market is moving and its a relief

Sunday Times Ad

Id forgotten about this lovely ad we made a while back for the Sunday Times. Shot with Ian Dury shortly before died. RIP

Marie Claire iPad

Carolyn McCall takes to the skies

Guardian Media Group CEO Carolyn McCall is flying off to become chief executive of European budget airline easyjet

In the media world truth is stranger than fiction!!

Murdoch parks his tanks on N Y Times lawn

In an attempt to eat into The New York Time's mass market audience and tempt away some of its luxury advertisers The Wall Street Journal is launching a local news section for New York.

The daily news section, starts on 12 April, will average 12 pages and include daily real estate, culture, business and particularly sport.

Its unlikely that it will cause the NYT undue pressure in circulation sales but that's not the intention. This is about local retail premium advertisers.

At best this gives advertisers an opportunity to attack ad rates which is not to be encouraged and at worst its provides a viable alternative and a chance to switch.

This is unwelcome and uncomfortable for NYT who alongside all newspapers is having a hard time of it.

Its another front in the escalating turf war between these two titan titles.

News Corp (owner WSJ) is quite open about its expansion plans.

We will watch with great interest

Full story can be read here

Time sharpen your marketing axe

Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job with a timber merchant, and he got it. The pay was really good, and so were the work conditions. For that reason, the woodcutter was determined to do his best. His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he was supposed to work.

The first day, the woodcutter brought in 18 trees, and of course his boss congratulated him. Motivated by his boss' words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring in 15 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring in 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing in fewer and fewer trees.

The woodcutter thought he was losing his strength, and he went to the boss and apologized, saying that he couldn't understand what was going on. His boss then asked, "When was the last time you sharpened your axe?" Appalled by the question, the woodcutter harshly replied, "Sharpen my axe? I have no time to do that. I've been busy cutting trees."

Apple ipad and USA Today (and Marriott)

Content providers may be thrashing about sending themselves crazy about what to do with the coming iPad tablet. Not USA Today, which has secured a rather un-Internet-like, dual-revenue stream as it debuts.

The paper will employ a subscription model, while a deal with Marriott Hotels has the hotel chain funding its iPad presence from day one. The sponsorship will last for the first four months after the device's April debut.

Whilst this is an rather traditional and dare i say it old fashioned approach its a practical one and one that newspapers know how to arrange and negiotate.

David Hunke, USA Today's president and publisher says the tie-up will
"do a lot to get ... our designs in front of many, many people,"

"Our guys were very excited about the opportunity -- we will be there," said Hunke in a gathering with analysts last week. "It will be classic, very unique USA Today design that was built for this device, as it was for the iPhone in a previous generation."

China big in mobile internet

By the end of this year, there will be more more mobile Internet users in China than the entire population of the US, according to eMarketer. The 2010 estimate of the size of the United States population stands at roughly 310 million people, according to Wikipedia.

Also, according to the report, the number of mobile Internet users in China will grow to reach a jaw-dropping 957 million by 2014.

Of course, those mobile Internet users don't presently "monetize" as well as Western audiences, i.e., mobile advertising spending in China is still low relative to the size of the mobile Web user base. But its only a matter of time

Is Facebook bigger than Google?

New data released from analytics service Hitwise today names Facebook the largest website in the U.S. with 7.07% of all U.S. visits. Google is second at 7.03%. Yahoo Mail is third with 3.8% and Yahoo is fourth at 3.67%

This is the first time Hitwise has named Facebook the top site in the U.S. Comscore still ranks Google the top site by reach at 81% of the U.S. population. Facebook, at 53%, is still behind Google, Yahoo and Microsoft sites in the U.S., according to the most recent Comscore data from February 2010. Source: Techcrunch

Tiger Woods to return to golf

News Flash -- Tiger Woods will return to golf and play at the Masters Tournament in Augusta, Ga., in April, according to media reports Tuesday. Woods last played in November winning the Australian Masters before going on hiatus because of a widely publicized sex scandal.

Wow imagine the viewing figures for his tee-off. They are going to be a vast.

Checking - in

All the buzz swirling around social app Foursquare is good news for mobile advertising.

For years we've been promised location based services and the ability to match location with personal offers. Now with apps like Foursquare and Gowalla users are happy to reveal their location by 'checking in' giving advertisers permission to hit them based on location.

The check-in model is more attractive than constant tracking because it gives people more choice in disclosing their locations. And its gathering pace.

Foursquare has swelled to more than 500,000 users and has more than 1.6m 'check-ins' a weeks from around the world. Gowalla says it has 100,000 people using its application. Facebook is expected to adopt the 'check-in' method when it introduces location features in coming months.

One drawback with 'check-in' as opposed to constant monitoring is that people have to remember to use a service, but just as people have successfully got into the habit of tweeting they'll learn the habit of checking in.

If 'checking-in' goes mainstream its going to be good news for advertisers as it allows them to do some interesting things like coupons and offers based on location.

Read this and weep

More bad news I'm afraid for the news industry.

The latest US mega study from the masters of media research Pew has found in a long report a lots more depressing insights. Here is a few for you:

• 82 percent will go somewhere else to get news if their favorite site starts charging

• Only 35 percent told Pew they had a favorite news site, which means the number the study says would be willing to pay is closer to 7 percent of all online news users.

• For those with a favorite site and willing to pay they prefer a subscription fee to micropayments by 54 percent to 24 percent.

• 81 percent said they didn’t mind online ads but 77 percent said they either don’t click on them (42 percent) or “hardly ever” click (35 percent)

Its well worth reading the long study - State of News Media 2010. Its an excellent snapshot of the US New market with lots of stats and facts on how bad it is in traditional media.

The Report, also, does a reasonable job at breaking out all the new and exciting things that are going on, but then slaps us back by saying that the new stuff doesnt come close to replacing whats been lost!

Probably the best bit of the Report is the Major Trends so here they are in full:

Major Trends

For 2010, we want to emphasize six points.

As we learn more about both Web economics and consumer behavior, the unbundling of news seems increasingly central to journalism's future. The old model of journalism involved news organizations taking revenue from one social transaction -- the selling of real estate, cars and groceries or job hunting, for example -- and using it to monitor civic life -- covering city councils and zoning commissions and conducting watchdog investigations. Editors assembled a wide range of news, but the popularity of each story was subordinate to the value, and the aggregate audience, of the whole. And the value of the story might be found in its consequence rather than its popularity. That model is breaking down. Online, it is becoming increasingly clear, consumers are not seeking out news organizations for their full news agenda. They are hunting the news by topic and by event and grazing across multiple outlets. This is changing both the finances and the culture of newsrooms. When revenue is more closely tied to each story, what is the rationale for covering civic news that is consequential but has only limited interest? The data also are beginning to show a shift away from interest in local news toward more national and international topics as people have more access to such information, which may have other effects on local dynamics.

The future of new and old media are more tied together than some may think. A new multi-university study released in this report finds that even the best new-media sites in the country still have limited ability to produce content. No doubt they will evolve. Yet their reportorial capacity ultimately will still depend on finding a revenue model far larger than what exists today or is projected to come from conventional online advertising. While there are some competing values and different reportorial cultures, in the end new and old media face the same dilemma and may be much more aligned in their search for revenue than many have thought. In some cases, there will be formal alliances or networks of new and old media. One concept that will get more attention is collaborations of old media and citizens in what some call a "pro-am" (professional and amateur) model for news. Yet how traditional news organizations cope with such partnerships, the rules for what is acceptable and what is not, remain largely uncharted.

The notion that the news media are shrinking is mistaken. Reportorial journalism is getting smaller, but the commentary and discussion aspect of media, which adds analysis, passion and agenda shaping, is growing -- in cable, radio, social media, blogs and elsewhere. For all the robust activity there, however, the numbers still suggest that these new media are largely filled with debate dependent on the shrinking base of reporting that began in the old media. Our ongoing analysis of more than a million blogs and social media sites, for instance, finds that 80% of the links are to U.S. legacy media. The only old media sector with growing audience numbers is cable, a place where the lion's share of resources are spent on opinionated hosts. One result may be the rising numbers in polling data that show 71% of Americans now feel most news sources are biased in their coverage and 70% feel overwhelmed rather than informed by the amount of news and information they see. Quantitatively, argument rather than expanding information makes up the growing share of media people are exposed to today.

Technology is further shifting power to newsmakers, and the newest way is through their ability to control the initial account of events. For now at least, digital technology is shifting more emphasis and resources toward breaking news. Shrinking newsrooms are asking their remaining ranks to produce first accounts more quickly and feed multiple platforms. This is focusing more time on disseminating information and somewhat less on gathering it, making news people more reactive and less pro-active. It is also leading to a phenomenon in which the first accounts from newsmakers -- their press conferences and press releases -- make their way to the public often in a less vetted form, sometimes close to verbatim. Those first accounts, sculpted by official sources, then can spread more rapidly and widely now through the power of the Web to disseminate, gaining a velocity they once lacked. That is followed quickly by commentary. What is squeezed is the supplemental reporting that would unearth more facts and context about events. We saw this clearly in our study of news in Baltimore, but it is reinforced in discussions with news people. While technology makes it easier for citizens to participate, it is also making giving newsmakers more influence over the first impression the public receives.

The ranks of self-interested information providers are now growing rapidly and news organizations must define their relationship to them. As newsrooms get smaller, the range of non-journalistic players entering the information and news field is growing rapidly. The ranks include companies, think tanks, activists, government and partisan activists. Some are institutions frustrated by the shrinking space in conventional media and the absence of knowledgeable specialists to cover their subjects. Others are partisans and political interests trying to exploit a perceived opportunity in journalism's contraction. There are varying degrees of transparency about the financing and intentions of these efforts. Some are quite clear. Others present themselves as purely journalistic and independent when in fact they are funded by political activists, yet only by digging and cross-referencing websites can the agenda and financing be divined. In an age where linking and aggregation are part of journalism, news organizations must decide how they want to interact with this growing cohort of self-interested information players. Will they pick up this material and disseminate it? Can they possibly police it? Can they afford to ignore it? The only certainty is that these new players are increasingly vying for the public's and the media's attention, and their resources, in contrast to that of traditional independent journalism, are growing.

When it comes to audience numbers online, traditional media content still prevails, which means the cutbacks in old media heavily impact what the public is learning through the new. An analysis in this year's report of online audience behavior, extrapolated from Nielsen Net Ratings data, finds that 80% of the traffic to news and information sites is concentrated at the top 7% of sites. The vast majority of the top news sites (67%), moreover, are still tied to legacy media financed largely by their shrinking end of the business.³ New media are growing, but their ranks among the most trafficked sites are still small. Another 13% of these news sites are aggregators, whose content is derived from legacy media. Only 14% of these sites are online-only operations that produce mostly original reportorial content rather than commentary. In short, the cutbacks in old media are not only drastically affecting traditional media but significantly impact online content as well.

Google versus Newspapers - battle continues

Newspapers have blamed Google for their woes, and Google, in turn, has helped remind newspapers that they did a pretty good job of digging their own grave.

The latest haymaker in this heavy weight punch up is from Chief Economist Hal Varian, in a speech to the FTC today. Below, the big takeaways from Varian’s remarks, which are drawn from a longer post

• People spend more time brushing their teeth than reading news online: “The average amount of time looking at online news is about 70 seconds a day, while the average amount of time spent reading the physical newspaper is about 25 minutes a day. Not surprisingly, advertisers are willing to pay more for their share of readers’ attention during that 25 minutes of offline reading than during the 70 seconds of online reading. So even though online advertising has grown rapidly in the last five years, it appears that somewhat less than 5% of newspapers’ ad revenue comes from their internet editions, according to the most recent Newspaper Association of America data.”

• Special’ sections aren’t special any more: “Traditionally, the ad revenue from ... special sections [like automotive, travel etc.] has been used to cross-subsidize the core news production. Nowadays internet users go directly to websites like Edmunds, Orbitz, Epicurious, and Amazon to look for products and services in specialized areas.”

• One consolation: “There are huge cost savings associated with online news. Roughly 50% of the cost of producing a physical newspaper is in printing and distribution, with only about 15% of total costs being editorial. Newspapers could save a lot of money if the primary access to news was via the internet.

Lets stick with the positives.

The Googler is right lets move the primary access channel digital and enjoy the cost savings.

For those that want the newspaper as paper thats absolutely fine. They subscribe and the newspaper is delivered to their homes i.e becomes a premuim service based on their needs and choice.

For the rest its digital access - online, over mobile and increasingly over e-readers - enjoyed for micro payments

As we have said before the content needs to adapted, evolved and improved for digital access and enjoyment but thats not only possible its preferable - digital releases content and gives it wings......

Apple at the Oscars

The glamour, dresses and feigned looks of surprise returned on Sunday evening with the Oscars holding their annual movie jamboree. Alongside the shoes, dresses and hairstyles sat a number of businesses paying top dollar for advertising space. One such company was Apple who choose the awards ceremony as its first external showcase for the new iPad. Sadly, unlike many historic Apple ads in the past the iPad did little to excite many in the media.

It rather blandly begins with the obviously airbrushed hands of a man picking up the tablet, checking out some videos and then reading the New York Times – an unsurprising app to choose since the NY Times has already been highlighted by Apple at the launch of the iPad as a new revolutionary way of reading the news. Overall the ad tended to suggest the iPad is going to be aimed at the mainstream, a belief backed up by its accessible price tag, but did little to suggest the product is going to revolutionise the technological world in the same way the iPhone did to telecoms. A shame, as the creative genius behind the technology is usually matched in their communications.

A launch date of April 3rd in the US, with the UK following later that month, will be the real test. Commentators continue to say that this is a device that needs to be touched and handled to appreciate its true value. We’re looking forward to putting that to the test.

Big news: social is bigger than search

Facebook is now the top source of traffic for major news and entertainment portals such as Yahoo and MSN, according to traffic analysis firm Compete, and is “among the leaders” for other sites as well.

Although far from conclusive, this is just another sign of how the “social web” is becoming an increasingly dominant force in terms of driving traffic flows on the Internet — and that in turn makes it a growing threat for major web players such as Google, MSN and Yahoo.

Compete’s director of online media and search told the San Francisco Chronicle that a snapshot of web traffic from December showed 13 percent of the traffic to major web portals like Yahoo, MSN and AOL came from Facebook. Traffic from Google generated just 7 percent, which Compete said actually put it third in traffic sources behind eBay, which accounted for 7.6 percent.

If your core business depends on controlling and/or getting a piece of the web’s traffic flow, as it does for many of the Companies we are interested in, the social web is something you ignore at your peril.

Social web is a major focus for us and its why we are hooking up with really smart companies such as CitizenNet. These guys are experts in monitoring and managing social marketing campaigns and the stuff they are doing is very powerful.