Mainstays of network news, including "The Today Show" and "NBC Nightly News" must become more interactive, Jeff Zucker, president and CEO of NBC Universal Television Group, said Tuesday in New York. "We are going to have to come to grips with this new world order," Zucker told the audience at a panel discussion during a conference about broadband usage sponsored by Yahoo! "I don't think there's enough interactivity right now, particularly on 'Dateline,' 'Nightly News' and 'Today,'" he said. "I don't know why Brian Williams isn't blogging right now," Zucker added. "I don't know why Katie Couric isn't blogging right now." Joining Zucker on the panel about the future of content was Lloyd Braun, head of Yahoo! Media Group and a former ABC television executive, and Phil Guarascio, in charge of marketing and sales for the National Football League. The panel was moderated by Doug Weaver, president of Upstream Group. Network news isn't the only programming struggling with interactivity, panelists said. Zucker said that NBC might also create for short shows specifically for the Web--but only if the network believes doing so will be profitable. "As long as we are, at the end of the day, paid for our content," he said, "we can develop those 'mini-movies' or one-minute soap operas." Yahoo!'s Braun said the Internet company was still waiting to see what kind of original content would resonate with Web users. "I haven't seen a Milton Berle moment, or 'I Love Lucy' monent," Braun said. "We haven't yet seen what that hit, that gets into the zeitgeist, is." Braun said that, for now, Yahoo! intends to leverage a wealth of information about its 175 million registered users worldwide by sending them personzlied recommendations about products. "We're going to help the consumers see choices, based on the consumers' tastes, that they consumers might not see by themselves," he said. Braun added that Yahoo!'s data on registered users could be the basis of a "very important role we can play with partners going forward." Many industry observers have wondered whether Yahoo!, headed by former Warner Bros. co-chair Terry Semel, intends to start creating original content. In addition to hiring Braun last November, Yahoo! also announced plans to open in Santa Monica -- both of which fueled speculation that Yahoo! was positioning itself to create studio-like programming. But Braun said the company had no plans to emulate television to that extent. "It's the Internet. It's not television and it's not print," Braun said, adding, "I don't think we should be doing what television does."
As part of America Online's broad effort to attract Web traffic and advertisers, the company said Tuesday it reached a licensing agreement with Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group to harness their music video libraries. The deal comes over two months after Universal Music publicly demanded that companies like Time Warner's AOL contract new financial agreements for the use of its content. AOL has already started encoding the thousands of videos that it is making available at www.aolmusic.com where members have unlimited, on-demand access to them. AOL agreed to pay either a fee for each video viewing the music groups or a share of the advertising revenue its receives. No further details of the deal were released. Bill Wilson, senior vice president of programming at America Online, said AOL's appetite for video content to support video advertising is what's driving these deals, adding that AOL Music is in talks with additional labels. "We thought there was a need to increase inventory to move our video advertising that's selling so briskly," Wilson said. The content will be integrated with AOL's existing music videos offering, much of which will be repurposed into video channels based on artist and genre. The video channels will include advertising in different forms, most commonly banners and in-stream messages. Universal artists include superstars like 50 Cent, Eminem, Mariah Carey, Shania Twain and U2.
Magazine company Primedia Inc. Tuesday announced the impending launch of a surfing enthusiast Web site that will tie into its related Action Sports Group titles: Surfer, Surfing, and SG. The free site, WaveWatch at www.wavewatch.com, is synced with a Web-based surf camera and surf condition network, which users can control from their homes. Scheduled to launch April 26, WaveWatch also will include mapping tools, tide charts and localized surf and weather forecasts, plus swell advisories that can be delivered via customized e-mail and/or cell phone alerts. In this day and age, publishers who rely solely on their print publications will not survive, reasoned Don Meek, president of PRIMEDIA's Action Sports Group, which also publishes Bike, Canoe & Kayak, Climbing, Powder, Skateboarder, and Snowboarder. "All I hear now from consumers and advertisers is the need for more integrated content," said Meek. "If all you're doing is offering print pages, you're no longer in the mix." The live Webcam network consists of 15 digital cameras strategically positioned to cover the key surfing destinations around the United States including Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Oceanside, Swamis, Steamer Lane and Pipeline. Meek predicted the network would encompass 30 to 40 cameras within a year. Users can maneuver each camera's panoramic locator to determine whether it's worth making the trip and where the best surf will be when they get there. Using the site's "surveillance view feature" users can monitor up to four locales at once. Wind direction, speed and other surf variables are graphically integrated into the site to provide a more accurate picture of surf conditions. The entirely ad supported WaveWatch will compete against several other sites that already offer like services, but for a premium. Surfline.com, which reportedly has Webcams set up at 100 spots around the world, is ad supported and charges a $9.95 per month and a $69.95 per year membership fee. Meek's Action Sports Group plans to limit advertising on the WaveWatch site to four endemic and one non-endemic brand so as not to dilute each ad's impact for users. Surf gear manufacturers Oakley and Rip Curl have already signed on as charter partners, according to Meek, who added that Action Sports Group expects to announce additional sponsors shortly. Viewing pages will have room for two ad slots, each of which will support any type of ad unit including streaming video ads. In the future, said Meek, the site will host 10- or 20- second streaming video ads within the digital camera frames. Forecasts will be provided by meteorologists from each region, while graphic forecasting tools will leverage the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other geographical weather systems to visually project conditions to the beach level of detail. WaveWatch also will chart storms and hurricanes for the Atlantic and Pacific regions. Its "Storm Watch" tracker plans to give users a view of current and past hurricane paths and the ability to overlay a swell map to help illustrate how the hurricane/storm is impacting swell movement. The site also offers a personalized "Magnet" feature, which allows users to customize and streamline up-to-the-minute information and keep WaveWatch's content streaming live on their desktop or on a personalized home page. The site will also support content featured on related online properties of Surfer, Surfing and SG, and include a library of surf travel related information plus message boards and photo-sharing tools.
Metasearch site Info.com announced Tuesday that it has made a deal with a second metasearch site, www.Indeed.com, to power a job listings feature. Info.com, a Chicago-based search company, has a search engine that crawls the results of 14 other search engines, giving users the results from major search sites like Google, Yahoo, and AskJeeves, plus sites like eBay.com, Kanoodle.com, LookSmart.com and About.com. Info.com's new jobs tab, which went live on Tuesday, is powered by Indeed.com, a job search site based in Stamford, Conn., which has indexed job listings from over 500 Web sites, including Careerbuilder.com, Monster.com, the top 200 newspaper's classifieds pages, and various company career pages. "Info.com's business model is that we're a vertical search platform whereby we link the best of breed from different search engines," said Info.com CEO Stephen Scarr. "In the job search space, we felt that Indeed had a compelling method." Scarr maintains that vertical search engines like Info.com can find some room between giants like Google and Yahoo. "The reality is that search engines cannot excel in all areas, which is why we feel that there's room for a vertical search platform by taking all these search areas and bringing them under one umbrella," Scarr said. Both Info.com's job search site and Indeed.com's main site are monetized through search ads from Google's Adsense program.
Online commerce sales will grow to $142.5 billion this year, up 21 percent from last year's $117.7 billion, according to a retail trends report released Tuesday by research firm eMarketer. While impressive, the projected growth rate is less than the 25.2 percent gains seen from 2003 to 2004. E-commerce will continue to grow for at least the next several years, climbing to $232.1 billion by 2008, but the growth rate will slow down to 16.5 percent by that year, according to the report. "The market has reached a large enough size that, even though the growth is going to be strong, it will slow down a little bit," said Jeffrey Grau, the eMarketer senior analyst who authored the report. Broadband adoption has been a key driver in the double-digit growth of online shopping, the report concluded. Nearly two-thirds, 64 percent, of U.S. Internet users with broadband make online purchaes, compared to 49 percent of dial-up users, according to eMarketer. That estimate jibes with a report released Tuesday by Yahoo! and Mediaedge:cia, which revealed that 68 percent of Internet users with wireless broadband and 49 percent of those with wired broadband regularly making purchases on the Internet, compared to 38 percent of those on a dial-up connection. eMarketer estimates that $84.5 billion of the total revenue estimate for 2005 will come from retail sales, up 22.1 percent from last year's $69.2 billion, and that online travel sales will climb to $58 billion, up 19.7 percent from $48.5 billion in 2004. U.S. Internet users over age 14--who number 151.7 million, by eMarketer's estimate-- will spend an average of $878 online this year, up from $770 in 2004, according to the report. Average annual spending for this group will likely reach $1,248 by 2008, almost double the 2003 average of $675, stated the report.
When the 108th Congress adjourned in December 2004, it concluded a very active Congress for the online advertising industry, including the passage of the CAN-SPAM Act and House passage of spyware legislation. With spyware legislation currently progressing in the House and privacy legislation on the horizon, it is appears that the 108th Congress was merely "spring training" for significantly greater challenges this Congress. The question remains how the industry will respond to the challenges ahead. A U.S. Internet Industry Association (USIIA) white paper entitled "Internet Public Policy in 2004," expressed alarm over the industry's "inability... to engage in policy issues with anything more than loose coalitions and ad hoc committees." Most significantly, USIIA cited the industry's (i) failure to engage in educational or outreach programs with policymakers leaving "a disastrous gap in their ability to understand the industry and its issues," (ii) its lack of early warning capabilities that frequently leave it off guard and (iii) inability to quickly raise and commit resources to combat threats. The points made in the USIIA white paper are well taken, considering the fact that nearly two-thirds of the USA Today Internet 100 and top marketers according to OMMA magazine do not belong to a single Internet advocacy group such as the Digital Media Association, Information Technology Industry Council, Internet Alliance, NetCoalition, Network Advertising Initiative, TechNet, USIIA, or the Congressional Internet Caucus' advisory committee. Of the one-third that actually do belong to an association, I suspect only a fraction are actively involved with legislative issues. The industry's weakness is evident in the House passage of spyware legislation last fall as well as at the state level with the passage of the California spam and Utah's spyware laws these past two years. In visits to both Washington D.C. and Sacramento, several offices have told me that they have heard little or nothing from the industry on key issues such as spyware and spam. While there has been substantial improvement in the industry's response to the pending spyware legislation, there still are many prominent industry players not involved. The lack of significant regulation has enabled the industry to flourish, but also has created a false sense of security, as too many industry leaders have failed to focus on regulatory risks emanating from Washington D.C. or state capitols. If asked, few of these leaders would volunteer to have their business plan set by people who may not understand the industry. But this may be the result if the industry continues to ignore these halls of power. The 109th Congress will not only address spyware legislation, but will soon commence work on an omnibus privacy bill. In addition, pending FTC reports on subject line labeling and on the effectiveness of the CAN-SPAM Act could lead to efforts to amend the act. All of these issues could have an enormous impact on the industry. It is time for this maturing industry to step up to the plate and flex its muscles. It's also time that the industry started playing both offense and defense. That means every business in this market should at least meet with its representatives wherever it has a significant presence in order to introduce their company, explain the industry, and issues of concern. It is important to develop a relationship rather than rely on last-minute frantic calls on the eve of important votes. This is especially true for online advertising since it may take some time before a member or staff fully understands the technology and business models involved. Few people understand the critical role online advertising plays with today's Internet and you should make sure your representative is not one of them. Business leaders should not be intimidated by such meetings since it involves doing what they do best - pitching their company. Nonetheless, there are many helpful sites on the Web providing tips on how to speak with your Congressman, including http://www.butera-andrews.com/10_tips_for_hill_visits.htm. (You can identify your Congressman by going to http://www.house.gov/writerep/ and typing in your zip code). Finally, the industry needs to devote financial resources to this effort. For example, a heavily regulated company such as Charles Schwab has its own PAC and between its PAC and employees gave $1 for every $3,463 in revenue over the past three elections, which may explain why it was invited to participate in the White House's 2002 Economic Forum. How does your company compare? The industry's political spring training is over. It's time to step up to the plate and play in the big leagues. With baseball returning to Washington D.C., there is certain to be at least one losing team this year. If the industry doesn't step up to the plate, however, they are likely to lose as well.