Google’s YouTube is getting ready to drop underperformers from its roster of 100+ professionally produced original content channels, according to a new report. Google's ambitious plan to add dozens of new premium content channels on the video-sharing site was announced last February. Most of their creators have received some of the $100 million earmarked for the program, but sources tell The New York Post that Google is already looking to cut some of the less successful performers. “They’ll cull the herd and work with the best,” the source said, adding that underperformers will be cut by December 31. Meanwhile, YouTube management is already discussing plans for the next iteration of the program, the source said -- which will include a new round of funding for existing channels, in addition to choosing new channels to fund. Over the last several months, YouTube has switched its emphasis to time spent with a given channel or series of videos, rather than the total number of views generated as the main criteria for judging success, as time spent is of greater value to potential advertisers than total views. As one partner tells The Post: “If a channel has 20 million views, and viewers spend just 35 seconds on the channel, how valuable is that to an advertiser?” The switch is bearing fruit too: since January, total hours watched on YouTube have jumped a whopping 33 percent, from 3 billion to 4 billion.
Looks like retailers should spend a little less time thinking about those avid, tablet-frenzied mobile shoppers, and more time focusing on slightly more mainstream targets. A new report from Forrester, based on 4,500 adults, delineates device use among three types of shoppers: “Super Buyers,” those who are highly connected and fiercely shopping off both tablets and phones, and account for 17% of the population; “Connected Traditionalists” who make up about 25% of the population and do most of their shopping either by computer or in physical stores; and plain old Traditionalists, the 59% who do most of their shopping in stores. Of the three, the report finds, Connected Traditionalists offer the greatest room for growth. “The relative size of this segment will grow over time and steal share from Traditionalist shoppers as the uptake of smartphones and tablets continues to expand to the general population, and digital channels become a ubiquitous part of the shopping process,” writes Gina Sverdlov, consumer insights analyst. “They are also the most receptive to advertising, and most likely to share positive shopping experiences with others.” Turns out that shopping preferences have little to do with actual connectivity. For example, Traditionalists, who do shop online, are the group most likely to own a computer or a laptop. And Connected Traditionalists are virtually just as likely as Super Buyers to have tablets and smartphones. Instead, it has to do with consumer preferences, brand loyalties and habits. Super Buyers, for example, may be the youngest (with an average age of 34 and average income of $88,900) and the most tech-focused (33% own a tablet, and 30% have an Internet-connected TV) , but they are also the most likely to shop via such old-school channels as print catalogs and infomercials. And while a quarter of the tablet owners say they carry them everywhere, they are also the group most likely to be making impulse buys in physical stores. (Some 22% say they are doing so more than they did a year ago, compared with just 3% of the other two groups.) They are more brand loyal, and less price sensitive. The Connected Traditionalist, the most affluent with a household income of $93,000, is just as likely to own a tablet or smartphone. But “only 13% say it’s likely that they will shop using the mobile Internet in the next three to six months, compared with 40% of Super Buyers; just 22% say it’s likely they will shop on their tablet on a website, compared with 42% of Super Buyers,” the report says. Bonus: They are the group least likely to hate marketers’ ads, with just 47% describing ads as annoying and intrusive, compared to more than 50% of other two groups Traditionalists are the oldest group, with an average age of 49, and the least affluent, with a household income of $72,500. While they are the least likely to shop on a portable device, even if they own one, “about half say they are likely to buy something online on a computer in the next three to six months.” And when they do, they are the most likely to expect a seamless experience between store and online shopping.
The New York Times has relaunched its online video platform at NYTimes.com, with a new design, larger player and improved navigation. The revamped platform is designed to be compatible with multiple operating systems and devices, including the Web, smartphones and tablets. The NYT’s mobile apps have also had their video components upgraded. Under the new system, videos are organized into channel pages based on their subjects, with categories including News/TimesCast, editor’s choice, world, U.S., business, science, opinion, arts, style, sports and “latest news." Top-of-page navigation tools are intended to make it easier to browse the archive. This is just the latest in a series of digital relaunches and upgrades at the NYT. In May, the newspaper announced it was updating its iPhone and iPad apps to enable customized reading. The new versions include automatic overnight content downloads, allowing users to minimize the need for tedious downloads during high-traffic periods. It also allows users to choose which content sections and blogs they are interested in, saving on unnecessary bandwidth and data fees. Also on Monday, the New York Times Co. announced that it sold its About.com business (including ConsumerSearch.com and CalorieCount.com) to IAC for $300 million in order to focus on its core businesses in news media. These digital moves come as the newspaper forges ahead with the digital subscription strategy implemented in April 2011. At the end of the second quarter, the company had around 532,000 subscribers paying for digital editions, up from 472,000 at the end of the first quarter. The new digital subs helped raise the company’s total circulation revenues from 8.3% -- from $215 million in the second quarter of 2011 to $233 million in the second quarter of 2012.
Following on yesterday’s Research Brief on connected TV ad preferences, a new study from Harris Interactive on behalf of MediaBrix shows that only 28% of Facebook users prefer to see standard banner ads in Facebook apps and 72% prefer to see immersive and interactive ad units. Additionally, 40% of smartphone owners prefer to see standard banner ads in mobile apps while 60% prefer to see immersive and integrated ad units. Immersive and integrated ad units include those that offer people virtual rewards or currency and interactive video ads that occur during natural breaks in the app or game. The survey findings, says the report, indicate that there are inadequacies in the way that social and mobile developers are monetizing, and reveal that the digital advertising industry needs new creative advertising formats for social and mobile platforms to meet consumer preferences. According to the report, 33% of Facebook's one billion users say they have used an app on Facebook in the past twelve months and 65% of Facebook app users say they have played a game on Facebook in the past twelve months. According to recent figures from The Wall Street Journal, more than 45 billion apps have been downloaded, with free and paid apps for the Apple and Android platforms registering explosive growth. The survey results also reveal consumers' preferences towards video advertising in social and mobile apps. According to the survey:
We have already seen what mobile video can do to enhance traditional media with citizen journalism. From rare images of natural disasters to otherwise blacked-out footage of government crackdowns worldwide, the video-everywhere technology of the smartphone era has literally opened up new views of the world already. What happens when you put that power into the hands of a network of journalists around the globe and then make those video posts grabbed with smartphones available to everyone on all their devices in near-real time? That is pretty much the model at WSJ WorldStream. WorldStream is using technology from Tout to capture and send video from more than 2,000 journalists armed with iPhones. The results are probably best viewed on the Web app page for the project at wsj.com/worldstream. The output is mobile-friendly in form as well. The clips generally are under a minute in length. The Tout app allows the reporters to send video clips to WSJ Live editors who review and post, sometimes in a matter of minutes. This week the output includes many clips from Republican luminaries in the back halls of the Tampa Convention. You rarely hear Newt Gingrich contained in a 10-second sound bite, but you will here. And then of course there is the hurricane footage. In addition to the Web app being formatted nicely for smartphone access, it also allows for customization. You can uncheck trends and tags that are of no interest to you to filter the stream. The video will be used across multiple channels. WSJ Live will be embedding the clips in stories it is posting to its growing video enterprise. The company says its monthly delivery of video has doubled to 20 million streams. The clips will be distributed on twitter under the #worldstream hashtag as well to optimize social sharing. Having a channel for near-raw video of newsworthy subjects taken and consumed on devices is cool conceptually. My guess is that in the long term, the WorldStream site itself is most interesting as a source for footage that either finds its way into the right story context elsewhere at WSJ or finds the right audience through social channels. Aside from highly verticalized user-gen portals like YouTube itself, I am not sure many people actually decide out of the blue they are in the mood for some digital video for its own sake. On the other hand, tie a video clip feed like this to a truly personalized alert system and you may be onto the next mobilized and video form of feed reading. How about if we got an app alert whenever a new clip involving our favorite candidate entered the stream? Or we decide there is a story we want to track and see all reporter-made and user-generated clips on it as they come into the digital ecosystem? Personalization Plus Push?
There is nobody in the entertainment business quite like James Franco, the over-achieving actor-writer-producer-director-student-etc. who often appears to be simultaneously juggling more creative projects than any ten celebrities combined. That would seem to make him the perfect choice to star in a commercial showcasing a device that enables its user to do several things at once – in this case the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1. Sure enough, in Cheil USA’s new video for this tablet, which Franco actually directed, he is super-capable at effortlessly mastering any task at hand, even if it comes at him from out of nowhere. He’s smart, appealing and quick on his feet throughout. (He takes direction from himself very well.) But there’s a slight disconnect between the Franco on screen – who can do just about anything, and do it well, especially when he has his trusty tablet in hand -- and the Franco we all know, who seems to not succeed just as often as he does succeed, perhaps because he does too many things at once. Yes, he was terrific in such feature films as “Pineapple Express,” “Milk” and “127 Hours.” But many of his independent film projects have tanked, his recurring role on ABC’s “General Hospital” helped bring that show to its knees and his gig last year as an Oscar co-host is already a legendary disaster. In other words, nobody can do everything right – not even the awesome James Franco. Throughout the video it appears that he can do everything to perfection, from preparing breakfast to making a medical diagnosis to solving a mathematical equation to directing a commercial. But his actions in the kitchen suggest otherwise. As the video begins he cracks an egg into a pan and puts a piece of bread in a toaster, then moves on to other things. At the end, he returns to the kitchen just in time to slide his perfectly-done egg onto a plate and catch the toast as it pops out of the toaster. Yet he fails to do the most important thing, as revealed in a comment on the video’s YouTube page, which reads: “You forgot to turn off the gas stove, multi-tasker.” That’s a small complaint, to be sure. But it actually says a lot about why this very good video isn’t a really great one. Something is missing that might make it as seemingly sensational as the product it’s promoting. Maybe it needs a flash of self-deprecating humor from Franco that pokes fun at his reputation as the ultimate multi-tasker, or a dash of the essential snark that seems to so effectively sell products to teens and young adults. To put this in another way, it’s lacking an image or an act that might stick in the viewer’s mind and stay there. Is James Franco the Manic Multi-Tasker, appealing enough to sell this or any other product? I can’t really say, but it may not matter, because even Franco at his most charming cannot outshine the razzle-dazzle of a state-of-the-art tablet. Fortunately for Samsung, even when this popular Oscar nominee is at the center of the action in this video, as he is throughout, the Galaxy Note 10.1 is always the star. The message of this busy video can be taken two ways, both of them very well expressed. Take one: The Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 is a dream device that can keep up with a fervid multi-tasker’s most urgent multi-tasking. Take two: It is a life-changing device that can enable anyone to become the multi-tasker he or she always wanted to be. At almost three minutes in length, it is an impressive showcase for many of the amazing things this tablet can do, or that one can do with a tablet, even if some of them feel overdone. For example, at one point during the video a young woman complains to Franco that she doesn’t feel well. Franco tells her to stick out her tongue, uses the tablet to take a picture of the inside of her mouth and throat, compares the picture to others on medical Web sites, then e-mails the picture to her doctor and tells her to rest and get plenty of fluids. I’m not sure this particular ability should be a selling point for this or any other tablet. Also, it’s kind of gross. Among the indefatigable Franco’s many pursuits is the maximum utilization of social media. That surely explains why this video generated just under 2.5 million views on YouTube during its first week. It won’t surprise me if that number doubles by next week. But I will be surprised if Franco doesn’t pursue additional video work, since the guy never seems to have enough to do.
Digital screens are taking over the world. Specifically, LCD backlit screens are taking over the world. In my home, we have an old Sony Dash Internet appliance in our kitchen, which we use to stream Flickr photos, Pandora and Netflix movies. In our theater room, we have an old Android Droid smartphone we use as a streaming radio player, and a Roku television remote control. Of course, we also have our big LCD movie screen. We also have a few tablets around the house. I have a couple Macbooks and a PC notebook, between work and home. In each of our two cars, we have GPS screens. Finally, I have my Android smartphone, an HTC Evo. I’m probably missing a few screens I encounter intimately each day. You may say “no big deal,” but I have a problem with them. They’re subtly encroaching on our lives. Without a doubt, there are two to three times as many digital LCD screens in my home and daily personal life as there were two years ago. And ubiquity is happening because backlit LCD screens are landing not only on devices whose sole purpose is viewing, but on devices that clearly don’t need them -- like household appliances, for example. My beef with the growing presence of LCD backlit screens is that each one of them glows and clamors for my attention. Moreover, if one does get my attention, each one of them has a wealth of programming and functionality to hold my attention. If you can’t learn to filter out screens, their shallow blinking stimuli and hyperlinking mazes will erode your productivity and focus. Heck, it’s a fact that sitting in front of LCD screens all day makes you fat and unhealthy. Long durations of focus on LCD screens ruin your eyes. Parents who spend too much time with their screens -- versus speaking with their infants -- disadvantage their kids’ verbal development. LCD backlit screens are certainly most intrusive in the bedroom -- where the purpose is sleep (or some other things adults do that don’t need LCD backlit distraction). I’m not sure we understand the full health impact of LCD backlit screens and devices. But their presence continues to grow, as does their not-yet-understood health impact. There’s one screen I purposefully omitted from the list above: my Kindle Touch with its E-Ink display. The Kindle content functionality aside, I find the E Ink display with white- and-black pigments and no backlighting to be not only easier on my eyes, but easier on my brain. I’m not a psychologist and I’ve not researched this topic extensively, though here’s how I explain it: Compared to a backlit LCD screen that attempts to grab my brain’s attention, over-stimulate and create anxiety, the E Ink displays words and pictures in a subtle fashion that lends itself to more relaxed and focused cognition. The Kindle is the one electronics device I really want my kids to engage deeply with. As such, it would be great to see electronics manufacturers emphasize E Ink displays and forego the backlit LCD ones. Most devices and appliances are best if they simply do what they’re supposed to do, and don’t distract. If a device does require viewing attention, it would be far better off by demanding attention in a more subtle way that induces calming focus, like an E Ink display. My prediction. There will be an LCD screen backlash within the next 10 years, resulting in a screen purging trend. While commoditization and technology is making them inexpensive and disposable, people will throw extraneous ones out and not welcome them back. Devices and appliance manufacturers will gravitate to simpler, smarter designs that are more sophisticated, without the obnoxious attention-grabbing LCD screens. What do you think?