Google has reportedly closed a deal to acquire Twitch for $1 billion to join YouTube as it builds out its video and live streaming business. The deal highlights the use of the Web for live streaming events, especially for sports and concerts.The deal moves Google one step closer to building a broadcast network of sites and cloud-based services supported by broadband speeds that only Google Fiber offers. Twitch, created by Justin.tv founders, supports live video games and video game streaming. Variety first cited the deal in May, saying Google planned to make an all-cash offer. Now the media site cites sources that say Google and Twitch sealed the deal. Twitch allows site users to upload and watch for live game-play videos free on the Web or on Microsoft Xbox One and Sony PlayStation 4. Twitch recently announced an update for its app version running Android that allows viewers to watch games anywhere. The app supports an expanded search feature that helps viewers find broadcasters live or offline. Once they have selected a channel, users can learn more about the broadcaster, follow them, or chat with other gamers, even when they're not streaming content. Twitch supports more than 50 million monthly active users and more than 1.1 million members broadcasting videos monthly. The audience is primarily 18 to 34. The site also distributes shows from CBS Interactive’s GameSpot, Joystiq, and Destructoid -- all gaming-news sites. More than 13 billion minutes of video are watched per month on Twitch.
More digital video platforms are looking to bolster their services with branded TV networks shows. Following on the heels of new episodes of network TV shows moving to the digital space -- “Arrested Development” on Netflix and “Community” on Yahoo TV -- now comes word that old episodes of “Seinfeld” may be going to Netflix. In an online discussion on Reddit, Jerry Seinfeld said there are currently talks with Netflix to bring “Seinfeld” to the subscription video on demand service. Responding to an inquiry about a possible Netflix deal, Seinfeld said: “You are a very smart and progressive person. These conversations are presently taking place.” “Seinfeld” has long been a big advertising revenue staple for U.S. TV stations in syndication -- and for cable network TBS. Original episodes of the show first ran on NBC from 1989 to 1998. More recently, Seinfeld has been fronting the digital Web series “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” on Sony’s Crackle.com Web site. Additionally, Seinfeld also said a spinoff of “Comedians” will also makes its way onto “Crackle.” Cancelled NBC sitcom “Community” recently made news: another season will run on Yahoo TV. It will start up after the winter holidays -- but unlike most new digital video offerings, users won’t be able to access a whole season at once. Yahoo’s plan is to release the 13-episode sixth season weekly one episode at a time.
The Brooklyn Brothers has been named "gold" in the 75 to 150 employee category in Advertising Age’s small agency of the year for 2014. Launched in 2001, with offices in New York, L.A., Shanghai, London and Brazil, the agency recently won the Major League Soccer and Land Rover global content accounts, which joins a roster including NBC Sports, Rémy Martin, Optimum, Iceland and Samuel Adams Boston Lager. The agency was also recognized for launching its own branded products, including a line of organic chocolate, jottable office furniture and coconut water. It is currently in the “seed stage” of developing a new digital platform to “simplify real world social life, putting it once again, at the very heart of the New York tech scene.”
A federal judge in Manhattan held FilmOn in contempt and fined it $90,000 for continuing to stream television shows after the Supreme Court ruled that Aereo's similar streaming service infringed broadcasters' copyright.“For nearly two weeks, FilmOn was aware that its operations, based on the Supreme Court’s determination, infringed plaintiffs’ copyrights, yet defendant continued to purposefully broadcast content within the Second Circuit until it got caught,” U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald wrote in an order made public on Friday.Buchwald's decision wasn't a surprise. At a hearing this week, she said FilmOn should have stopped streaming broadcasters' programs as soon as the Supreme Court reversed a pro-Aereo decision issued by the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals. Instead, FilmOn continued to stream major broadcasters' over-the-air programs to New Yorkers' smartphones and tablets until around July 8. By contrast, Aereo suspended its service soon after the ruling.Buchwald fined FilmOn $10,000 for each day the company streamed shows after June 28 -- which was the day that Aereo ceased operations. “FilmOn’s rights and responsibilities in this Circuit are tethered to those of Aereo, as both companies employed the same mini-antenna technology to broadcast the networks’ programming. Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that FilmOn would follow Aereo’s lead in responding to the Aereo decision,” she wrote. “Aereo did not suspend its operations until June 28, 2014, and we believe it would be unfair to hold FilmOn in contempt for continuing to stream content when Aereo ... continued to do so itself.”She also ordered FilmOn to pay broadcasters' legal bills associated with the contempt motion.FilmOn has been held in contempt on two previous occasions for violating court orders in lawsuits brought by broadcasters. Buchwald referenced those findings in her written opinion. “FilmOn has demonstrated a repeated willingness to flout the authority of the federal judiciary, and it is essential for this Court to make clear the obvious: the injunction and the judgment are not mere suggestions, but are orders that demand compliance,” she wrote.Buchwald also found the company's owner, Alki David, in contempt.The contempt ruling is the latest twist in a 2010 lawsuit brought by broadcasters against FilmOn. That case resulted in an injunction prohibiting FilmOn from infringing broadcasters' copyrights.At the time, FilmOn wasn't using the same dime-sized antenna technology as Aereo. But after Aereo emerged, FilmOn said that it, too, would use multiple-antenna technology.Until the Supreme Court ruled against Aereo, FilmOn X took the position that wasn't infringing television broadcasters' copyrights, due to the multiple antenna system, which streamed shows on an antenna-to-user basis. FilmOn X, like Aereo, argued that it wasn't “publicly performing” television shows, given the one-to-one nature of the streams.The Supreme Court rejected that argument in the Aereo case, ruling that the company resembled a cable system and therefore couldn't transmit television shows without a license.After that ruling, FilmOn revised its position. The company now argues that it isn't infringing copyright because it's a “cable system” and entitled to a compulsory license.But Buchwald said in her order that FilmOn “attaches far too much importance to the Court’s analogizing.” She adds: “A series of statements that Aereo (and, by extension, FilmOn) ... is very similar to a cable system is not the same as a judicial finding that Aereo and its technological peers are, in fact, cable companies entitled to retransmission licenses.”
Google has set out to index the world's information across the Web. Now the company will do the same for the human body as it attempt to build a baseline for perfect health. The Baseline Study will catalog and collect anonymous genetic and molecular information initially on 175 people to create what it believes will become the fullest picture of a healthy human being. Google plans to use its massive computing power to find patterns buried in the data. The findings should help researchers detect far earlier killers such as heart disease and cancer, pushing medicine more toward prevention rather than the treatment of illness, similar to what Dr. Harvey Eisenberg provides with Body Scan International, supported by the U.S. Department of Defense. The Wall Street Journalreports the Baseline Study represents a scientific project designed to peek inside the human body to create a baseline that depicts a person in perfect health. Andrew Conrad, a 50-year-old molecular biologist who joined the Google X team in March 2013, will spearhead the team in charge of collecting genetic and molecular information from thousands of anonymous volunteers, with the hope of putting together a composite sketch of perfect human health. Information from Baseline will remain anonymous and its use will be limited to medical and health purposes. An institutional review board will monitor and oversee all medical research with humans. Boards run by Duke University and Stanford University medical schools will control how the information is used, and the two schools will recruit volunteers. Google catalogs the Baseline Study under "moonshots projects," along with the self-driving cars, the Glass wearable computer and Internet service delivered from high-altitude balloons."Human Skeleton" photo from Shutterstock.
Looking for more financial wherewithal to compete for Time Warner, 21st Century Fox will transfer equity stakes in European satellite businesses in Italy and Germany to its controlled BSkyB -- getting $7.2 million in cash.Fox will create a bigger Pan European digital satellite broadcaster with 2 million subscribers. Fox will transfer Sky Italia and its 57.4% interest in Sky Deutschland to BSkyB. BSkyB is the largest pay-TV broadcaster in the UK and Ireland with over 10 million subscribers.The cash resources are expected to help the deal to help pursue Time Warner -- where an initial bid of $80 billion was made recently and rejected. Analysts estimate that bid -- valued at around $85 a share for Time Warner -- will go higher, perhaps just short of $100 a share.Fox will receive about $9.3 billion in value from BSkyB -- approximately $8.6 billion in cash and BSkyB’s 21% interest in National Geographic Channels International, giving Fox a 73% interest in those channels. Fox will buy about $900 million of additional shares in BSkyB to maintain its 39.1% stake.In referencing the possible Time Warner transaction -- and Fox continued share buyback program -- Rupert Murdoch, chairman/chief executive officer of 21st Century Fox, stated: “Our renewed authorization for our share buyback program will be executed regardless of any potential acquisition or investment activity by the company.”James Murdoch, co-chief operating officer of 21st Century Fox, said: “Ultimately, a pan-European Sky is good for customers, who will benefit from the accelerated technological innovation and enhanced customer experience made possible by a fully integrated business.”
AOL has announced the appointment of Marta Martinez as global head of video sales. She will oversee all video sales and strategy efforts at AOL, per a release. Video advertising has played a key role at AOL in the past year. The company acquired programmatic video ad platform Adap.tv in August 2013 and highlighted video as one of the three main reasons 2013 was the company’s most successful year in the past decade. Martinez will oversee the sale of AOL’s video inventory, including AOL and partner video media running through the Adap.tv marketplace, an AOL representative told Real-Time Daily. She has held several leadership positions in the advertising industry. She joined AOL in February 2013 as head of sales strategy and operations. Prior to that, she was chief marketing officer at MediaMath, a demand-side platform (DSP). Before MediaMath, Martinez was SVP of global corporate development at Havas Digital. “My career has been about connecting global brands with content, technology and next-generation marketing solutions,” stated Martinez. “I am thrilled to bring this experience to AOL's video business and to enhance our ability to connect brand marketing strategies with the most robust advertising vehicle of today -- video.” Martinez will report to Ran Harnevo, president of AOL video, and will work from the company’s New York offices. She replaces Charles Gabriel, who recently left AOL to join Disney’s Maker Studios.
These days, if you want to get a message to consumers that your automotive products are futuristic or at least innovative, you pretty much have to get them into a Marvel movie, or any blockbuster with a superhero or two, or giant robots, and definitely a few Roman numerals in the title.Luckily, Harley has an ongoing relationship with Marvel: most recently the Street 750, a brand new motorcycle platform that is just rolling into dealerships now. Street was in "Captain America: The Winter Soldier." Since Harley inked the deal in 2011, the brand has had its products in movies like "Captain America: The First Avenger"; "Avengers", where the company ran a promotion called "Assemble Your Freedom"; and "Iron Man 3" last year, where consumers could choose a Harley bike, and create a character to appear in a Marvel custom publication comic. For "Winter Soldier" Harley gave fans a chance to walk the red carpet. But now, for the first time, Harley-Davidson will have a pure concept bike in a Marvel movie. The Project LiveWire electric motorcycle will be in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," which is about 10 months from showing up on theater marquees. The motorcycle will be ridden by the Black Widow character, Natasha Romanoff, played by Scarlett Johansson. The Street 750 is also in the film. In the real world, Harley has been taking a fleet of the electric bikes east to west on Route 66 making stops along the way to let enthusiasts ride them. The point is feedback. Whether or not the company keeps the project alive, perhaps toward production, depends to some extend on how badly consumers want them. But at this stage, Project LiveWire is also a brand initiative to show how the company is not only a heritage brand but also an R&D leader. The company, which announced the new Marvel movie integration at this week's huge Comic-Con convention in San Diego, is letting people ride the bikes at San Diego Harley-Davidson dealerships this weekend. As on the road trip, they are meant to provide feedback. As for the Street 750 and smaller 500 sibling, Harley has been promoting the motorcycle to younger consumers at ESPN's X-Games in a somewhat guerrilla fashion, running its own ice and track racing events at or near the games.
It’s looking like the broadcast radio industry had a distinctly mediocre second quarter, as more broadcast radio groups post lackluster financial results. The latest weak performance comes from Beasley Broadcast Group, where revenues slipped due to slumping demand in select mid-Atlantic markets. Beasley -- which owns 44 stations in 11 markets across the U.S. -- saw total revenues fall 3.6% from $26.9 million in the second quarter of 2013 to $25.9 million in the second quarter of 2014, the company announced Friday. Beasley attributed the decline to weak ad demand in its Philadelphia, Wilmington, Delaware, and Greenville-New Bern-Jacksonville, North Carolina markets. There was some good news, at least in relative terms, as chairman and CEO George Beasley noted that “Overall, we outperformed in our five market clusters that report to Miller Kaplan. In these markets, which accounted for approximately 78% of total second quarter revenue, Beasley station cluster revenue declined 5.2%, compared with the total revenue for all reporting radio stations in these markets which were down 6.0% for the quarter.” Beasley also saw total digital revenues increase 24%, while reducing its debt to $102 million, achieving its lowest leverage ratio in a decade. As noted, Beasley isn’t alone in reporting less than stellar second-quarter results. Emmis said total radio revenues were flat at $45 million in March, April, and May (the broadcaster’s first fiscal quarter). Station operating income came to $13.4 million, up 2.3% from $13.1 million in the same period of 2013. Emmis outperformed the radio business in general in the local markets where it owns radio stations, including New York, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Austin and St. Louis. On average, these local markets saw revenue fall 5.5%, while Emmis' local revenues were up 1.6%. Clear Channel Media and Entertainment, formerly Clear Channel Radio, revealed that total revenues edged up less than 1% from $805.6 million to $806.3 million, as growth at its traffic and weather businesses -- as well as higher political and digital advertising -- were mostly offset by drops in national and local radio revenues.
As consumers become increasingly adept with their smartphones, physical retailers can expect to reap big gains. A new report from Forrester says that cross-channel retail sales in the U.S. are on track to reach $1.4 trillion this year, and predicts they will rise to $1.8 trillion by 2018.These sales -- which it defines as transactions that are touched by any digital medium but not completed through the Internet -- are the result of people “preshopping” more frequently, and on more devices. Digital’s influence is so strong that these sales are now four times larger than online sales. “We expect that online sales in the same time frame will reach $294 billion,” writes Forrester analyst Sucharita Mulpuru. “Together, online and cross-channel sales represent what Forrester calls web-impacted retail, which now comprises the majority (52%) of the entire retail pie. By 2018, we expect web-impacted retail to account for 59% of all retail sales.” Of course, she notes, there is still tremendous variety by category. For example, in purchases like food and furniture, people are more likely to do extensive research online, “yet still want to touch and feel products before buying them.” The average ratio of web-influenced offline sales to online-only sales is 5 to 1, the report says. Groceries have a 19 to 1 ratio, and event tickets, which typically require less research, has a ratio of only 9 to 10. Retailers like Target and Walgreens have benefitted from investments in “supporting the in-store or “preshop” experience on mobile devices,” she writes, noting that 68% of online adults use their smartphones to check the Internet while they are in stores. Transactions on those phones, however, are still unusual: Although 48% of smartphone owners use their devices to shop, only 24% of them actually buy via phone. The upshot for retail brands, she writes, is to continue to step up omnichannel effort. “At the moment, omnichannel primarily means inventory efficiency — having a real-time, accurate portrait of inventory across channels with the ability to enable shoppers to buy in any channel and when it’s most convenient. Generally, that means investments in endless-aisle efforts, ship-from-store initiatives, and in-store pickup options.” Still, that isn’t the end of the story, and inventory synchronization is just the beginning. “Efforts such as providing mobile-enabled points of sale,” she adds, “enabling store associates to send and receive text messages, and allowing remote customer service are revolutionary ways for retailers to support customers while also coping with higher cost structures, such as higher minimum wages.”
It's all about the relationship -- the bond of trust between, for instance, a physician and her patient. Or parent and child. Husband and wife. Employer and employee. Lawyer and client. Politician and the electorate. Evil junkie call girl and her john. Sometimes it works out better than others. Likewise, of course, in business, as Dug Dugger can tell you. He’s the general manager of Ourisman Rockmont Chevrolet in Rockville, Maryland and about the world’s most likable guy. “In car sales,” Dug told me the other day, “trust is everything. If you don’t have trust, you have nothing.” Dug is a very personable fellow, an MBA with a charming, good ol’ boy air. Kind of like George W. before he got all presidenty and invented a war to bestow democracy and peace to the Middle East. But absolutely someone you’d like to join for a beer or 7. Dug’s like Dubya, winning-personality-wise. The occasion for our conversation was a just-ended sales promotion at Ourisman Rockmont. He was in high spirits because the event had gone swimmingly, although this is not necessarily a great time to run a GM franchise. You may have noticed that Chevy has recently recalled approximately every car it has manufactured since the 1958 Bel Air. And when shoppers do show up, they tend to arrive with Internet printouts laying bare the dealer's actual costs, incentives and so on. That phenomenon has tended to depress margins, because in a negotiation information is leverage, Dug Dugger calls it The Reformation. Now, he is not Martin Luther, and he did not nail 95 Theses to the doors of his showroom. He posted instead the winning sweepstakes number, where visitors could compare the code on an Ourisman mailer to the winning number and see if they had beaten the exactly 1-in-a-million odds to walk out with $25,000. Nobody did, but 600 hopefuls walked through the doors and ran the gauntlet of sales associates to try their luck. “The beauty of the thing is,” Dug explained, “at any given time we had 20 people in the showroom. There’s hope there. Once we get a person in front of us in today’s market, our closing rate is very high.” But how, under current conditions, do you lure them there? Well, you trick them, that’s how. The glossy, eight-page mailer with a car-key glued to it screams “Scratch & Match TO WIN!” The cover page looks like an outsized lottery scratch-off ticket. “If you Match 3 SYMBOL AMOUNTS a row (up, down, across or diagonally)” you could wind up with a Chevy Equinox, $25,000 in cash, and other fabulous prizes. Except, of course, everyone who gets the mailer succeeds in scratching off the top prize….which has nothing to do with winning anything of much value. It’s really a sweepstakes, and the only thing that matters is that 1-in-a-million shot to match the serial number. But long odds like that don’t get you to schlep to a Chevy store, do they? Likewise, the flier says “individuals like you were chosen to participate” in the Official Test Market Program” – which is true if a ZIP-plus 4 constitutes “individually” and a sales promotion is a “test market program.” Now, nobody was exactly harmed by this minor charade. And Ourisman served free hotdogs. A mess of folks drove happily off the lot in brand new Chevys, none of which have yet switched off at 65 mph on I-270. But I asked Dug Dugger if direct-mail petit chicanery is really the best way to establish that all-important bond of trust. He chuckled and compared the razzle dazzle to courting. “You’re married? How did you ever find a wife?” Point taken. In the early days of romance, one tends to withhold details of, for instance, obsessive sports watching and sofa lying. But I offered Dug another analogy. When W.’s pop George H.W. Bush was running against Michael Dukakis for the presidency, he resorted to racial fearmongering with his notorious Willie Horton ad. Once elected, he was asked about the ethics of his campaign. His retort, if memory serves, was: “In order to be a great president, first you have to be president.” “That’s exactly it!” Dug agreed. “In order to be a good car salesman, do what you do best. Everybody needs a nudge.” And of 40,000 flier recipients, 31 eventually were nudged into the closing room. That’s about 1 in 1300. Pretty good odds. Trust me.
One thing that’s both fascinating and confusing about the Internet is the ability of each of us to create an online world entirely built of our own interests and desires, to the exclusion of other worlds that are equally vibrant. So I won’t blame you for not getting the ramifications of the (mostly) confirmed news that Google is buying live-stream gaming service Twitch, which it will then run out of the YouTube division. I am not a gamer -- unless you count boring games of Spider Solitaire -- but I live with someone who is: our 16-year-old son. If his online habits are any indication, this deal is something that advertisers and agencies need to wake up to. What Twitch does is make it easy for game players to live-stream their games from multiple platforms: PCs, xBox One and PlayStation 4. According to this story, its monthly active users stand at 50 million, with 1.1 million of those actually streaming every month. Twitch’s MAUs stood at 3.2 million only three years ago. That’s what’s commonly known as a growth story. Now, you and I might find watching someone else play “League of Legends” to be about as dull as it gets, which gets back to my earlier comment about each of us creating our own online world; to the youth demographic, and particularly males, watching how other players play -- and seeing how they strategize their way out of situations -- is like catnip. They just can’t get enough of it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked into my son’s room, tiptoed around the empty ginger ale cans, and found he’s on YouTube watching other people’s videos of online games being played. If you want a flavor for this world, here’s a sample YouTube channel to check out: it’s TheAngryHoneyBadger. The Badger offers how-tos, chats, and even what he calls “retro play-throughs of older games.” And people watch this stuff? Well, yes. That YouTube channel has 116,000 subscribers, and another one that TAHB works on, called Curse, has over 300,000. And those aren’t particularly big numbers in the gamer universe. Machinima, one of the best-known gaming channels on YouTube, has 11.5 million subs to its main channel, and healthy subscriber bases to its subchannels as well. It’s pretty obvious how potentially acquiring something like Twitch will increase YouTube’s already massive scale in gamer videos. But, while advertisers have, to some degree, taken notice, it’s certainly not to the extent one would hope, given not only the size, but the fanaticism, of the gaming audience. There’s a lot to play with here, no pun intended, in targeting this audience -- but once again, while clicking around YouTube in researching this column, I saw ads from only one advertiser Purina. There were multiple views of an ad for “Beggin’ Party Poppers,” a new treat for dogs that actually flings the treat in the air for you! Is it a coincidence that the commercial has over 520,000 views? I think not. Where other advertisers are, I have no idea. As for my son, he’s long had the aspiration of having his own gamer YouTube channel. Maybe, if this Twitch acquisition happens, he’ll finally have an easy way to do it. As an advertiser, I’d take notice. As his mom, I’m not so sure that’s how I want him spending his time.
Verizon Wireless said todaythat it intends to start throttling some of its long-time subscribers who are still on unlimited data plans. The company announced on its corporate Web site that, starting this October, it will subject some 4G LTE users on unlimited plans to the “network optimization policy.” That policy involves slowing down heavy data users -- defined by Verizon as people who use more data than 95% of other subscribers -- when they are “connected to cell sites experiencing heavy demand.” Verizon says that those consumers “may experience slower data speeds when using certain high bandwidth applications, such as streaming high-definition video or during real-time, online gaming.” The move obviously marks Verizon's latest attempt to convince people to migrate to one of its pay-per-byte plans. After all, unlimited plans often are less expensive than the newer pay-per-byte plans -- especially for people who want to tether their tablets or laptops to smartphones in order to access the Web on occasions when WiFi isn't available. Several years ago, Verizon Wireless stopped offering an unlimited-data option to new subscribers, but said that existing users would be allowed to retain their old plans. In 2012, the company also stopped offering subsidized phones to users who wanted to retain unlimited data. This latest move isn't likely to sit well with those users -- especially if they paid full price for a smartphone specifically because they wanted to retain their plans. Meanwhile, Verizon's efforts at ending unlimited data plans have proven extraordinarily successful. Currently, only 22% of Verizon users have all-you-can-eat data plans, according to a new report by Consumer Intelligence Research Partners (and summarized by Business Insider).