• Ross Fadner, Jul 31, 2006, 11:45 AM
  • CNN.com Creates Citizen Journalism Site Reuters.com CNN now allows users to send in video and audio reports of breaking news occurring in their region. Users with camcorders or recording audio devices can email or upload their "I-Reports" directly to CNN. All user submissions will appear in a separate Web site, called the CNN Exchange. The idea is YouTube-like, but with more direction. It calls for firsthand reports of news events as they happen anywhere in the world. User video reports have always been important to news organizations: the fall of the World Trade Center, the infamous beatings of Rodney King, and videos of the race-related riots in Los Angeles that followed. In those instances, the people who witnessed the events as they happened were on the scene before professional news crews. It's a great way to add new content for a news site, but one wonders why Time Warner felt the need to develop a separate Web site. Adding more user reports to CNN.com would likely generate more traffic--and more video ad inventory. Read the whole story...
  • Tough Transition Years Ahead for Microsoft Forbes Microsoft is "lost in transition," according to a new report from Credit Suisse. While fourth-quarter sales were above estimates on strong PC unit shipments and software sales, the company is in the middle of the long-haul process. It's moving away from its sales-centric business toward an ad-supported, service-based one. Although it could take "years," Credit Suisse believes Microsoft's margins won't suffer during the transition. But they aren't expected to grow at all, either. To aid the transition, the software giant has been in the midst of a massive repurchasing program of 800 million shares, worth $20 billion, which is expected to be completed Aug. 17. The CS report said this should add about 6 cents per share. As far as growth opportunities are concerned, the investment firm said to look elsewhere--to pure-play competitors like Red Hat and salesforce.com, and underpriced leaders, such as Google and Yahoo. Read the whole story...
  • Online News Growth Holds For Younger Demos, Rises For 35+ Reuters One-third of Americans are using the Internet to get their news this year, compared to one in 50 in 1996. But that number is about the same as it was two years ago--indicating that online news audience growth may have hit a wall, says a new Pew Research Center study. Among younger users 18-24 who get their news online at least three days a week, the growth rate in online consumption was just 1 percent between 2002 and 2006. However, readers ages 35 to 49 increased their consumption by 12 percent during the same period. That suggests a couple of things: first, 18- to-24-year-olds are the most established Internet audience segment, and second, news is more important to older demos. "For young people in particular, getting the news often takes a back seat to other daily activities," said the study, which was based on telephone interviews with more than 3,200 U.S. adults in April and May. Also, despite what's perceived to be a proliferation of media consumption among consumers, the percentage of Americans who skip news altogether on a single day has remained the same since the early 1990s, when their media choices were far more limited, the study noted. It places the spotlight on an ongoing problem for news organizations: growing and keeping their audience. More choices have merely resulted in a fractured media landscape, not a bigger pie all around. Read the whole story...
  • Should Marketers Make Friends On MySpace? CNET News.com One dubious buzz marketing tactic is for social networks to develop a faux user profile--someone who repeatedly plugs a brand. That tactic, once discovered, is usually met with firm resistance from legitimate members. And it's been largely frowned upon by organizations like the Word of Mouth Marketing Organization (WOMMA), which set guidelines for so-called "buzz marketing." These poor attempts to dupe younger demos usually end badly for marketers--which is probably why MySpace, the runaway leader in social networking with 100 million users, will only make $180 million this year. Yet buzz marketing on social networks still represents a big opportunity for advertisers, says a new report from eMarketer. MySpace, which sells banners and sponsored search results from Yahoo, is also selling more sponsorship and profile pages to marketers. Some spending is for straight-up marketing campaigns, like Disney's movie page for the latest "Pirates of the Caribbean" installment. Other marketing dollars will fund fake user profiles. Wendy's has produced a profile page for a character named "Smart," who likes Angelina Jolie, hip-hop, and Wendy's bacon mushroom melt. In his "about me section," Smart says, "It takes flair to be square. Do a square burger at Wendy's and do what tastes right!" He has more than 80,000 friends--and the majority of them, you would think, know what's going on here. Burger King also has a profile page that contains BK commercials, but it also includes giveaways, like free downloads of Fox shows "24" and "American Dad." Some think the blending of marketing and entertainment is detrimental to kids, especially those under 17. But the question is whether guys like "Smart" are really trying to pass as real, or whether kids know the score--and decide the free giveaways are worth the price of friendship. Getting an answer is tough: It's hard to get a response from 80,000 kids. Read the whole story...
  • AOL 2Q Results Bring Day of Reckoning Business Week AOL is set to report second-quarter earnings on Aug. 2--and analysts expect comparable declines to its 800,000 first-quarter subscriber exodus. That underscores the gradual, inevitable decline of AOL's Internet service business. The company is in a quandary about what to do moving forward: Dial-up continues to die, but slowly enough that AOL still makes most of its money from the fading service. However, the same day that Time Warner is expected to announce more subscriber churn, it is also expected to announce changes that will hasten the end of its paid subscriber revenue source. This move follows a proposal to Time Warner's board of directors from AOL CEO Jonathan Miller. He is urging the company to take its ISP business off life-support, so it can fully shift its focus to ad-supported online services. Skeptics say it is yet another example of AOL arriving late to the party; it has made several efforts to be more Yahoo- and MSN-like throughout the years. The ad-revenue shift is more than a year old, and the company is already seeing it pay off. Ad revenue is up, and traffic is up--but that still only counts for about 15 to 20 percent of the company's revenue from 2005. Like Microsoft, a painful transition period will likely ensue. Read the whole story...