On the eve of this year’s annual CES mecca, where an array of new mobile gadgets are expected to be unveiled, audience measurement firm Rentrak announced a deal to begin measuring the mobile broadcast TV audiences of stations and networks in local markets. The deal, which was unveiled late Thursday, will provide mobile broadcast TV ratings to 12 major broadcast television groups that operate the Dyle mobile television service. The service, which is operated by Mobile Content Venture (MCV), is active in 35 media markets across the U.S. and represents more than 93 stations from broadcast groups including Belo Corp., Cox Media Group, E.W. Scripps Co., Gannett Broadcasting, Hearst Television Inc., Media General Inc., Meredith Corp., Post-Newsweek Stations Inc. and Raycom Media, all of which are part of the stand-alone entity known as Pearl, LLC, as well as Fox, ION Television and NBC. The Dyle application enables live broadcast programming, including local and national news, as well as sports and entertainment content, to be viewed by consumers utilizing devices equipped with the ATSC-Mobile DTV standard. Consumer electronics giant RCA this morning unveiled a new mobile TV tablet device, which it said is the industry’s first “dual-tuner mobile TV.” The device includes both a standard over-the-air digital TV tuner, as well as a Dyle compatible mobile TV tuner. The device, which will be on display during next week’s CES show in Las Vegas, has an eight-inch, high-definition screen capable of receiving 130 mobile TV stations, over-the-air TV signals, as well as Wi-Fi and GPS signals. "Research consistently shows that consumers who try mobile TV not only watch television with greater frequency, but they also enjoy catching up on the latest information wherever they go,” stated Chris Lee, vice president-marketing for Digital Stream at RCA. Rentrak did not disclose how it will be measuring audiences of mobile broadcast TV, but said it would be “census-level data,” as opposed to the kind of sample-based ratings that Nielsen provides the TV industry. Rentrak utilizes a census-based approach for conventional TV audience measurement by utilizing data from digital set-top devices. "TV Antenna photo from Shutterstock"
ConnecTV, one of the companies looking to facilitate second-screen opportunities, has an arrangement allowing station groups to sell what amounts to interactive advertising in local markets. With technology that can sync ads on-air with activity on mobile platforms, a spot could direct a viewer to make an immediate purchase or pursue a special offer via a tablet or smartphone.ConnecTV is billing the service as a TV advertising network. It will sell ads, along with nine large station groups, including Belo, Hearst and Gannett, covering 250 network affiliates. ConnecTV was founded in 2010 with funding from station owners.The Ad Sync Network also features a “Google-like” TV Words offering, where a specific word on-air can prompt mobile advertising activity. Advertisers “can create new inventory that is completely contextual and relevant to what a viewer is watching in real-time,” according to ConnecTV.ConnecTV is launching a “charter” program to entice marketers to join a launch phase, allowing heightened roles in second-screen research and a chance to “prioritize” TV Words.Viewers reachable must have downloaded ConnecTV’s app or synced up via a “syndication partner.”Pat LaPlatney, a vice president at Raycom Media, stated that the platform allows “viewers the ability to act on the ads that are most relevant to them. In the market for a new car? Schedule a test drive at your local dealer while you’re watching the ad. A promo for a news story catch your interest? Add your local news to your Watch List for an instant tune-in alert on ConnecTV.”
Search startup blekko launched an app Friday called Izik (pronounced Isaac) designed for search on tablets. The app aims to take consumers from exploratory content in front of the television to task-oriented actions for everyday use. Izik's interface uses blekko's search technology to deliver that experience for Android and iOS devices, but it supports Windows 8 on convertible tablets, such as the Sony Duo. blekko's team began developing Izik as a combined tablet and mobile app, but decided to launch two different versions. The smartphone app will launch later this quarter. Izik will support image-text ads similar to those seen on Amazon.com or Google Product Listing Ads. Michael Markson, blekko vice president of marketing, said clearly identified ads will look similar to content, complete with pricing information. Initially, the company will tap into existing networks such as Amazon, but will eventually build out its own, Markson said. He expects the ads to perform "exceptionally" well based on a click model. NPD Display Search estimates that 80 million tablets will ship in North America this year. Some 25% of Americans ages 16 and older own a tablet such as iPad or Kindle Fire as of November 2012 -- up from 10% in late 2011, according to the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Marketers focusing on content and images in 2013 will find the tablet app a strategic fit. Tying a query into the search box generates a list of categories and images that match specific keywords. The app provides a variety of results, similar to what someone searching would find on Google, Bing or Yahoo. The search engine, known for slashtag technology aimed at ridding spam from search query results, also launched the social site Rockzi in 2012, which supports the blekko search engine. Both support Izik, which will soon offer social sharing. Blekko's team supports the company with experience from Google, Netscape, and AOL. Aside from Ashton Kutcher, investors include Russian search engine Yandex, private equity and investment firms MLC Private Equities, U.S. Venture Partners, CMEA Capital, PivotNorth Capital, and Marc Andreessen, among others.
List-obsessed news and pop-culture publisher BuzzFeed just raised $19.3 million led by NEA. Michael and Kass Lazerow, co-founders of Buddy Media, joined the round as new investors, while existing investors RRE, Hearst, SoftBank and Lerer Ventures also participated.With the investment, Jonah Peretti, founder and CEO BuzzFeed, said he is determined to build “the next great media company.” What does that mean? For starters, one that is “socially native, tech enabled, with massive scale,” according to Peretti. In December 2012, BuzzFeed passed 40 million unique monthly visitors, according to the company, citing Google Analytics data. Peretti attributes its growth to close social integration with Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and its strong mobile focus -- as mobile now makes up over one-third of all BuzzFeed traffic. The company also grew revenue more than threefold in 2012, exclusively from content-driven, social advertising, Peretti said. The company now boasts 180 employees, 70 of whom are part of its editorial team led by Editor in Chief Ben Smith. BuzzFeed also recently hired Jeff Greenspan from Facebook and BBDO as its first chief creative officer. Greenspan was brought in to keep the focus on sharable branded content for partners such as GE, Virgin Mobile USA, Campbell’s, Microsoft, Pepsi.
It took nearly half a year, but I finally made a new friend out here in the suburbs. His name is Jack and he's a wellspring of positive energy, quick with a high-five and enthusiastic if unintelligible salutations. Unlike my college pals and professional peers, he lights up in my presence. He's a terrific guy. He's also 15 months old, a member of my kid's day-care posse and, judging by his habit of affixing himself to my lower leg, severely underhugged at home. Nonetheless, Jack's joyous reaction upon my arrival at "school" never fails to lift my mood, ranking behind only my kid's frenzied dash-crawl dad-ward on my list of daily gratifications. Unrelated: If there's a Match.com for sturdy platonic adult relationships, ones in which my needs for rigorous intellectual debate will be better met, please zip over the link. Anyway, thanks to my kid and Jack, to me joy smells like babies - which is to say, like poop commingled with traces of stewed potato. But to some confused souls navigating tourist-crammed thoroughfares in advance of the holidays, joy apparently smells like a lower-upper-middle-class chain restaurant. For reasons that make less than a whit of sense, the Cheesecake Factory sent a comely balloon brigade to New York City and injected their balloons (their literal balloons, not their perv-colloquial ones) with some kind of magical scentification balm. When passersby took a cue from the helpful "pop it" inscription on the balloons' exterior, they were treated to the olfactory equivalent of the Rose Bowl parade (peppermint! chocolate! Drakkar Noir!). Cameras captured it all, or at least the cute parts. Ergo: "What Does Joy Smell Like?" I'm not up to date with my chain-restaurant branding, beyond Applebee's "we have beer, nachos, chairs AND fully operational bathrooms" appeal, so I might be missing something. The questions arrive with the frequency of free soda refills: Has the Cheesecake Factory decided to abandon its current brand proposition (salmonella-free dining/abundant parking) in favor of an olfactory-based approach? If your name is the Cheesecake Factory and you specialize in cheesecake, why not put images of cheesecake on the balloons? Why not ditch the balloons and get straight to the free cheesecake? Etc. The humanoid-on-the-street reactions are equally confounding - "whoa!" and "smells all scenty-like!" as opposed to "in this era of airborne viruses, why on earth are you unleashing chemical-based pongs upon a frazzled citizenry?" While I'll allow that the Cheesecake Factory out-odors its peers - especially Houston's, where every intake of oxygen is tinged with artichoke-dip vapor - I don't get the sensory connection. And I especially don't get the "magic" about which the clip's YouTube blurb enthuses ("on a cold and grey December day The Cheesecake Factory filled the air with a bit of magic… and Cheesecake"). Maybe this would be a more powerful proposition if there were some emotional bond being forged, or if it were paired with some kind of cheap holiday-based tie-in (say, an active-duty soldier jetting in from Camp Leatherneck to surprise his family for Christmas, bearing cheesecake in biblical abundance). Absent any of that, the clip amounts to little more than a bunch of random people on the street, smelling nice smells. Next time, just show us the desserts.
In case you missed it, “throwing” is the big idea in multi-screen integration this season. Extending the Apple AirPlay experience that some of us have been playing with for more than a year to other systems, the idea is to push media across screens at will. Google has been doing this with select hardware combinations and their Android devices in recent months through what it calls “pairing.” YouTube apps for Xbox, PS3, Google TV devices and others can discover video on their devices and push them to the TV immediately for viewing. The capability is expanding at this week’s CES as YouTube and partners announce hardware support in some Bang & Olufsen, LG, Panasonic, Sony, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba, Vizo and other branded devices and TVs. Like AirPlay and BDLive connections between mobile devices and TVs, this works now on your home WiFi network. In the pairing routine I last saw for the system you have to enter a code on your mobile device provided by the specific app. It is still a bit kludgy for mere mortals, but ultimately we would hope for something more seamless. According to the Google announcement, the process is now simpler via the local network and you just need to click a show on the TV button. The big idea here from Google is that video search and discovery is a damned sight easier on your handheld device than on a TV. There is indeed real pain involved in typing by standard remote. The beauty of connecting mobile devices and TV comes in offloading discovery altogether to the second screen. I probably spend more time using my tablet and phone as a remote for my Comcast cable box now simply because I can get deeper information and navigate much faster on a large touchscreen than in the pop-up cable guide. With the YouTube pairing feature you also make the remote more social. Multiple devices can pair with the same TV so that many people can add to a video queue even as a clip is running. You might argue that mobile plays its strongest role in the living room two-screen experience when it helps TV remain TV, the immersive focal point. Instead of popping up all of the interactive features TV makers and set-top-box manufacturers have struggled so hard to cram into a minimally interactive interface, just use the damned phone.
Reading about journalist Andrew Sullivan’s decision to fly solo, I couldn’t help but think of how in corporate finance, we go through alternating periods of consolidation (through mergers and acquisitions) and separation (through spin-offs, divestments and sales). Executives and bankers basically flip-flop their arguments to convince shareholders that it all makes sense (and to be fair, sometimes it does), but it’s bizarre: how could 1+1=3 in one year and then 2-1=4 the next? In any case, similarly, the media world sees a pattern of - Talent getting tired of working for Big Media and striking out on its own, and - Talent then either a) realizing that they miss Big Media and flocking back to the mother ship, or b) actually succeeding, but then becoming what they hated: a big corporation sucking up their time and energy and not letting them actually be creative and focus on what they’re passionate about. This past year, Louis CK made headlines when he decided to go indie by foregoing Big Media’s distribution and marketing muscle, instead charging viewers $5 per download for one of his shows. I’m not sure how much of the success was a result of the novelty factor, but the bottom line is that it worked. Louis CK made a killing; people noticed. What the long-term impact will be remains to be seen. It’s one thing for viewers to be online, but it’s quite another thing for viewers to become consumers and pay an entertainer each and every time (sometimes, a bundle is a good thing). In the online video world, we have seen loads of YouTube personalities drop “new media” when they heard “old media” calling. Some did it for money, others for the credibility. A cynic would say they sold out. I think it was largely due to the velvet rope factor – there’s nothing separating professional from amateur on the Web, and Big Media provides that filter. Different Strokes for Different Folks Everybody wants to be successful, but everybody has a different defintion of success. Some are driven by respect, money, power or fame. Whatever the case, success is subjective, relative and fluid. Needs vs. Wants But once the violin music stops, people have a bare minimum income they need to earn -- while others want a lot more. It’s really only a matter of time before that reality sinks in. Sullivan echoes the sentiment: “[W]e work our asses off. And my colleagues and I deserve to be paid for it. [For the best defense of this basic principle, see Louis CK's explanation here.] If the money doesn't come in, we'll have to find another way to make a living.” He then explains his decision to forego an advertising business model and instead seek out subscriptions from readers: “We're also mindful how online ads have created incentives for pageviews over quality content.” He has a point. The pageview not only didn’t die, its role as currency du jour has only strengthened, as readers are at the mercy of slideshows everywhere they go. Following your gut You can’t live your life – personally or professionally – trying to please others or live up to the definition of success that others have defined. You need to be able to determine what makes you happy and then just focus on that, realizing that nothing is easy. And, if that doesn’t work, you can always return to Big Media. I commend Louis CK and Andrew Sullivan for flying one way as much as I commend the YouTube personalities for flying the other. Then, recall, that third category of talent, the one who succeeds but then finds himself beholden to the mundane and repetitive administrative chores that prevent him/her from doing what they actually are best at. People have a funny way of following their gut. In 2013, I’m sure we will find the denouement for that character, too.