(* Source: eMarketer *)

Video entertainment to rival sleep time.

Posted by brian tiong at 01:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Dan Taylor *) 

Just caught up with the launch of Google Trends for Websites which extends the functionality of the original Google Trends (which charts the relative popularity of search terms) to offer site-specific traffic data. Whilst TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb are both rather sniffy about it, citing its partial data-set and lack of coverage for smaller sites, for me it adds a couple of interesting new elements in the form of the 'Also visited' and 'Also searched for' rankings (data which I don't think either Compete or Alexa provide for free).

Thus, the trends page for bbc.co.uk indicates that visitors to the BBC site are also visiting other broadcasters (ITV and Channel 4), middle-class retail outlets (John Lewis and Marks & Spencer) and a range of other, primarily task-oriented, sites (weather, price comparison, concert tickets, motoring and government services/information). It also reveals how popular 'bbc iplayer' has become as a search term.

Google Trends for Websites: bbc.co.uk via kwout

Google Trends for Websites: channel4.com via kwout

Posted by brian tiong at 08:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jason Kincaid *)

Amie Street, the music store that features dynamic pricing that varies according to a song’s popularity, has secured a deal with digital music distributor The Orchard, which holds a catalog of over 1 million songs. For the time being not all of The Orchard’s music labels will be taking part in the deal, but Amie Street hopes to have them all finalized in the near future.

Amie Street offers musicians a unique marketplace that scales prices according to how many times a song has been purchased. Fledgling musicians trying to establish an audience will likely see their songs sell for only a few cents, but as they grow more popular song prices increase to up to 98 cents (Amie Street gets the first $5 made by each song, musicians keep 70% of any revenue thereafter). They’ve been one of our favorite startups since launching in mid-2006.

The deal marks a huge win for Amie Street, which has gradually been able to establish itself as a destination to discover new music, especially when compared to more traditional stores like iTunes and Amazon. The Orchard features a long list of notable labels and artists, and while it’s currently unclear how long it will take all of them to sign on, it’s clear that flexible pricing is being accepted as a viable business model by the music industry.

Posted by brian tiong at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Steve O'Hear *)

Steve says...

Location-based social networking could soon go mainstream with today’s news that Nokia, the world’s leading mobile cellphone manufacturer, has acquired Berlin-based Plazes.

Founded in 2005, Plazes lets “friends” update each other about what they are doing when and where, resulting in a Twitter-like activity stream but with integrated geo-tagging. Users can then subscribe to any of their friends’ activity streams or to groups of friends, as well as to specific locations known as “Plazes”. Updates can be done either on Plazes.com or by mobile phone (via text messaging) or using a number of third-party applications that utilize the Plazes’ publicly available API.

Now that Nokia has acquired the service, “if all goes well” we can expect Plazes to be “made available to millions of Nokia customers both online and on millions of mobile devices”, according to the official Plazes blog

A few key takeaways from the announcement…

• It’s more evidence that Nokia is moving away from being purely a hardware manufacturer into a fully-fledged Web service company, with it’s consumer-facing Ovi brand.
• Nokia is placing a massive bet on Location-based Services. The company now includes GPS functionality in almost all of its most recent handsets, and has been bundling its own mapping software (based on a previous acquisition of Gate5, another Berlin-based startup). Additionally, Nokia is in the process of acquiring NAVTEQ, the world’s largest data mapping company.
• Plazes is still on track to release a native iPhone client, suggesting that Nokia understands the importance of network effects over platform exclusivity. No location-based social network will be able to go mainstream if it is limited to friends who use a particular handset or platform.

Moving forward, it’s clear that mobile, combined with location, represent the next social networking frontier. As evidence, Google’s Android developer contest is littered with location-based social applications, and the official iPhone SDK has already given birth to a number of location-aware social networking apps. What’s not clear yet, however, is whether the eventual winners will be established social networking services such as Facebook or Twitter that add location-based functionality or newer or specialized entrants who build in location and mobile from the get-go.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Brad King via Marketing Shift *) 

Brad says... 

I was having a drink last week with a friend of mine who comes from a traditional marketing background and she was explaining how she'd come up with the marketing logo for her company.

She spent a great of time discussing what the image portrayed and why people would associate it with her company. It was quite compelling; however, I told her I disagreed. Her brand was her URL first and what people said about the functionality of the website second (they are Web company).

Now, there's lots of reasons why the icon is important (syndication, for instance), but ultimately, the success of her company is going to come down to two things: how easy is it for people to find you through Google and how are you going to communicate with those people in the blogosphere who are engaged in your product.

It's impossible for her -- or other companies -- to control the marketing message. The people will decide. The most important area she should focus on: tapping into the conversation and becoming a partner with her clients.

It's a never-ending job; however, the game industry has the right model. They hire community managers who attend to, seed, answer to and advocate for the people who are using their products. They are known entities, actual people speaking in plain language.

Of course, not every product will have a community, but that doesn't meant that you can't build communities around lifestyles associated with a product (although in her case, the community should form rather easily).

Posted by brian tiong at 09:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Gavin Heaton *) 

Gavin says... 

We all know a good story when we hear or read it, just like we know a good film when we see it. But there are many, many elements that need to come together to ensure that a story "works". From the youngest age, we have been conditioned by storytelling ... there are conventions, expectations, structures and rhythms that need to be respected (or broken). There are archetypes that can be manipulated and themes that can be called upon, and there are even standard phrases (think "once upon a time"). But often, content creators of all kinds (from brand storytellers to creative directors) forget the basics -- the beginning, middle and end.

In the past, I have worked with teams to work through these elements. I have pushed the beginning, middle and end because it provides a context within which we can tell stories. This is especially important in digital storytelling because context can often be a battleground, signifying everything or nothing. The role of the digital storyteller, however, is to reign in the context -- to provide a focus. Precisely because the context can be so broad, the digital storyteller, must take a lead from the scientist -- to study the micro, to set an agenda that cannot be seen by the naked eye -- and deliver the razor sharp insight that will draw participants into the web of the story.

How is this done? Like anything, you need to start with an idea. This is the 1%. A good idea will get you started but an idea on its own is dormant. There is another 9% that is planning. You need to think through the what, why and how of your story. You need to consider the methods you will take to bring your idea to life.

The next 40% you need to focus on execution. This is the actual doing of the work. This brings together the idea and the strategy and makes it available to the world. The remaining 50% is participation ...

It is this final 50% that is the MOST important element. Without the participation of an audience your project is a failure. In the digital story, all MEANING is co-created. That means that, after launch, your digital story continues. It needs feeding. You need to respond to the nuances of its reading. You need to ENGAGE.

Perhaps this is why brands struggle with the concept of digital storytelling. Perhaps this is why it is harder to plan for and activate/support a digital story ... because they can, and do last forever. Mostly ...

Katie Chatfield has created a fantastic presentation that explains and profiles Marcus Brown, who is in my view, one of the premier digital storytellers of our time. In this presentation, Katie steps through the process of digital storytelling, charting the rise, life and ultimate ending of some of Marcus' characters whose digital exuberance spilled, at times, into real life. There was clearly a beginning, middle and end -- and maybe even a hint at resurrection.

For those who are seeking to understand the alchemy, imagination and sheer effort required for digital storytelling, Katie's presentation is of immense value. And for those of you who have not experienced the joy of Sacrum or the smiling nihilism of Charles Stab and their inventor, Marcus Brown, welcome and enjoy.

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Posted by brian tiong at 09:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfeld *) 

The top 100 advertisers in the U.S., who represent 41 percent of total advertising spending, shifted about $1 billion last year from TV and newspapers to the Web. An analysis from Ad Age shows that overall media spending in “measured” categories (TV, print, radio, Web) by the top 100 advertisers was flat in 2007, with 0.3 percent growth to $61.3 billion. But spending on Web display ads rose 33 percent to $4.2 billion. The article notes:

Put another way, these top-tier marketers increased measured internet spending by $1 billion; slashed newspaper spending by $674 million; and cut TV budgets by $406 million.

This is yet one more piece of evidence that dollars are flowing from traditional media to the Web. The analysis is based on data from TNS Media Intelligence for 2007. TNS only measures display advertising, and not search.

The big question is whether the recession that has already hit some categories of advertising will hit the Web this year. Already, the growth of spending in display advertising slowed overall in the first quarter of 2008. And the Interactive Advertising Bureau showed a slight decline for all Web advertising (including search) to $5.8 billion in the first quarter, from $5.9 billion in the fourth quarter of last year.

Here is a table from Ad Age showing the breakdown in spending for the top 100 advertisers (the $44 billion in “unmeasured spending” includes things like direct marketing, in-store advertising, and other promotions, and is not included in the figures cited above):

Posted by brian tiong at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark Hefflinger *)

Posted by brian tiong at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mack Collier *) 

Mack says... 

If your company is ready to dive into the social media waters, which tools such they examine first? Blogs? Facebook? Twitter? Wrong. Try Google Blog Search, Summize, and Technorati.

Before you can launch a successful social media strategy, you must begin monitoring existing conversations about your company. This has several advantages:

1 - It lets you be proactive in responding to complaints from customers. Want to impress a customer that's blogged about a problem they are having with your product? Leave a comment 15 mins after their post goes up, then follow up with an email attempting to help them with their problem.

2 - It helps create evangelists for your brand. See above. Often people that are complaining about your product can be converted into evangelists if you are proactive and sincere in your attempts to deal with their complaints.

3 - It increases your brand equity. By actively monitoring the blogosphere and other social sites, your company can develop a reputation of reaching out to and helping customers. Comcast is a great example of a company using Twitter to monitor conversations and provide customer service.

4 - It makes you more familiar with social media tools and sites. Once you begin monitoring the blogosphere, you'll begin to better understand how ideas spread in this space, and how blogs work. Same thing with monitoring talk on Twitter, it helps you better understand that space, and how your customers are using the site.

So before you start a social media strategy, lay the groundwork by putting tools in place that let you properly monitor these tools and sites so that you know what current and potential customers are saying about you. Some tools that you'll want to look into include Google Blog Search, Summize, TweetScan(Twitter), Technorati, and Plurk Lurker.

Bonus link, how to use these monitoring tools to Launch a Successful Blogger Outreach Program in One Day.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Sean P Aune *) 

Sean says... 

With airfare on the rise, planning a trip can be expensive and complicated.

We’ve lined up over 30 tools that let you do everything from finding more affordable tickets to predicting the best time to buy them, and even using a 3d map of your plane to select your seat.

Domestic

CheapAir.com - Searches for all regular and sale fares at the same time and allows you to filter the results on the fly via Ajax so there are no reloading delays.

Momondo.com - Offers search for nearly 500 airlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline in nine languages.

Vayama.com - Uses an interactive map to help you choose your airports http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airport . Also generates 3D seat maps for your plane to help you choose your seat.

CheapFlights.com - Also operates CheapFlights http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheapflights .co.uk. In the US they assist you with finding cheap tickets via JetBlue Airline-Mergers , American Airlnes, Orbitz and Priceline amongst others.

CheapTickets.com - Offers up flights, car rentals, cruises and even train tickets.

Expedia.com - Besides being able to search all the major airlines, you can also book hotels, cruises and more.

Hotwire.com - Sells unsold inventory from major companies and offers them at a large discount by not showing you the name until after you book.

LessNo.com - Specializes in flights in the USA, the UK and Indochina.

Orbedia.com - A metasearch that allows you to check Orbits, Expedia, Travelocity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travelocity , Hotwire, CheapTickets http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CheapTickets and more in one shot.

Orbitz.com - Books all forms of travel from airline flights to trains & cruises.

Priceline.com - Name your own price for airfare, hotels and car rentals, and then see what they return to you to meet your bid.

Trabber.com - Searches 30 websites for the cheapest tickets for users in the USA, Germany, Spain, France, Italy and the UK.

Travelocity.com - Probably as famous for their spokes-Gnome as their booking, they do go the extra mile giving you phone numbers http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_number to speak to an actual human if you need to.

Wego.com - Focuses heavily on international flights by searching numerous foreign carriers as well as domestics.

Yahoo Travel - Search all the major airlines with only low booking fees.

Non-USA

Airline-Network.co.uk - A UK-based search that focuses on long haul flights to overseas destinations.

Cleartrip.com - Flight and hotel booking inside of India.

DoHop.com - Part-owned by CheapFlights.co.uk, gives you the ability to search over 660 airlines worldwide.

FlightChecker from MoneySavingExpert.com - Focuses on budget airlines, offers charts to show you which part of the month is the cheapest time to fly.

Ixigo.com - Cheap airline search limited to flights inside of India.

Jetcost.co.uk - Jetcost searches multiple ticket sites such as Expedia, British Airways and more to help you find the cheapest prices.

Kayak.co.uk - Searches over 140 airlines and travel agencies and gives you the tools to book directly through them.

Liligo.com - Offers localized search of hundreds of airlines for Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Hungary and the UK.

Skyscanner.net - Leans towards broader searches for those with flexible travel dates. Also offers suggestions for those who just want to go somewhere, but can’t think of anyplace themselves.

Miscellaneous

AirlineQuality.com - A site for rating airlines, their seats, airports and their premium lounges. Also offers chat rooms for people to discuss everything related to the airlines.

Farecast.Live.com - Microsoft powered service to search multiple sellers and predict for you if you should buy your ticket now or hold off for a possible price drop.

FlightArrivals.com - Check on flight arrivals, departures and reschedulings in the USA and Canada.

FlightAware.com - Track all of the flights in the United States in real-time. You can also narrow it down by carrier and see exactly where a flight is at any time.

FlightStats.com - Check the status of airports in regions all over the world, flights, rate the airports and discuss on the forums.

FlightView.com - Get real time updates on flights and the status of airports.

FlyMyCase.com - A shipping company specializing in picking up and delivering your luggage to and from just about anywhere in the world.

SeatGuru.com - Detailed plans for different models of planes that gives you ideas of what each seat is like in advance so you can choose the best one for you.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source:Liz Gannes *)

Liz has an interesting point of view...

Earlier this week, Om called social networks a feature. It’s a good point, though, one that seems all too obvious to someone like me who’s covered way too many social networks and often ends up bored before making it through yet another registration form.

But one thing I think he glosses over is a distinction between niche networks and social networks as a feature. Both are alternatives to the blank slate of MySpace and its wannabes. And both, especially the best ones, capitalize on communities that already exist — like people who love a certain videogame or parents that send their kids to the same daycare center.

There is a difference between setting up yet another ‘meeting place for pet owners,’ or a network for people who work-out, or a ‘MySpace for old folks’, and waiting for them to arrive, versus using social tools to connect people who already share a common interest or real-world relationship.

You could make even more of a distinction between social networks that help you do something or achieve a certain goal, like LinkedIn or Flickr, and networks that are just a social connection. Facebook also likes to consider itself a tool, putting it in the same category as LinkedIn, but making a site so functional may have the side effect of making it hard to monetize. LinkedIn and Xing, on the other hand, generate significant revenue from people who are used to paying for business expenses, though they’re both still hoping to gain better financial stability.

So here’s the beginnings of a taxonomy of social networks: blank slate (e.g. MySpace), target audience (e.g. any of the many SNs for mommies), existing interest (e.g. Flixster), existing community (e.g. local soccer league website), and purpose-driven tool (e.g. LinkedIn). Which of these could have the most opportunity?

Blank slates are pretty much over, though I would have said that before Bebo made its ascent.

Target audiences can reek too much of ad verticals. And once you start asking people to split their digital personas too much, you’re basically betting that they’re going to be willing to maintain multiple profiles on multiple networks.

Existing interests, I would say are a promising area, and existing communities as well. But this has to be extremely well-integrated into the activity — for instance last.fm participating silently in your music listening and there for you with up-to-the-minute stats whenever you’re there for it.

Everyone and their mother wants to build white-label social network to serve an existing interest or community these days, but most of the stuff I’ve tried using is pretty crappy. Marc Canter blogged about Om missing his contributor in the space, People Aggregator, as well as his competitors IBM, Five Across, KickApps, and CrowdFactory.

However, there’s clearly a market for these companies, even if it’s coming from Cisco (Cisco?!). As for a market for their products? Well, Yahoo Groups is clearly due for a dethroning.

As for social tools, these taxonomy categories are awfully close, and this could verge into my ideas of target audiences and interests a bit. However, there’s a difference between a place to hang out for X kind of people, and a place to get X done. Like I said above, social tools like LinkedIn and Facebook have had varying levels of financial success, but I have to think becoming an integral part of getting stuff done could be made into a business.

So can all these options coexist? One of the commenters on Om’s post brings up the very valid point of identity management. Some form of integration between the proliferating places to maintain your digital self is clearly due — and perhaps an opportunity for yet another kind of company.

 

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jonathan Richards *) 

Eric Schmidt, the search giant's chief executive, said it "seemed obvious" that Google should be able to generate "significant amounts of money" from YouTube, on which hundreds of millions of videos are watched every day, but that as yet it hadn't figured out how to go about it.

In an interview with The New Yorker writer Ken Auletta, Mr Schmidt was cautious about how profitable YouTube might be, but said he believed the site could lead to "the creation of a whole new industry." He said his optimism was based on two facts: "We know people are watching it" and "We have the luxury of time to invest."

Google sees YouTube as a key plank in the strategy to grow its revenues beyond those it derives from the small text adverts that appear alongside search queries. The company is hoping it can use the site - which is visited by 129 million people each month - to expand into other types of web-based ads, including those which exploit the burgeoning popularity of internet video.

Last month Google said it would soon roll out a new type of video-based advertising on YouTube that would be different to the 'pre and post roll' adverts - shown before and after video clips - with which it has experimented to date, but declined to give details.

The company has also trialled so-called 'in video' ads on the site, which it bought for $1.65 billion two years ago, where a banner appears across the top of the screen while a video is played and test adverts are shown across the bottom, but the reaction has been mixed.

More here 

Posted by brian tiong at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mark 'Rizzn' Hopkins  *)

Just as TechDirt’s Mike Massnick, I was an editor in my high school journalism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journalism department in my youth, as well as the editor for an underground publication that served not just the highschool, but the region’s BBS community. I imagine that if you were to poll a lot of the leading members of the blogosphere, you’d find quite a few folks that fall into both of those categories during their high school years.

Thus, it wasn’t hard for me to identify with Massnicks observations based on a story he picked up about a high school principal who shut down the high school newspaper after being offended by an editorial regarding flagburning:

Shasta High published its last issue of the Volcano, the student newspaper, before the end of classes last week with an image on the front page of a student burning the American flag http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States and an editorial inside defending the practice.

“The paper’s done,” said Milan Woollard, Shasta High principal. “There is not going to be a school newspaper next year.”

Given the pervasiveness of blogging and social media http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media in today’s online world, Mike rightly muses what the point of this is, “as there’s nothing to stop the students from taking the content, and putting it all online and not needing any stamp of approval from the school administration.” He then goes on to muse http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse for a few sentences on the value of even having a school newspaper in the first place.

As for my high school journalism experiences, I can say that they were infinitely more valuable than the experiences I had even in college. My own little underground publication began as far back as middle school, and continued its run up until my later years in high school, when other entreprenurial ventures took my attention.

Still, experiences in my high school journalism classes weren’t valuable because of what I learned about publishing, but because of the adviser who served as a role model for instilling journalistic ethics and best 

practices. She also forced us into exploring what our personal strengths and talent assets were, and into finding ways that could best be applied towards journalism.  She gave us the instinct to always be on the hunt for the hook and the story, and not be a passive observer of life, but a chronicler.

These are the more important tenants of journalism, as I see them.  All the rules, business models, procedures, and even the ethics can change and shift with time and the various media one uses to practice their craft.

What needs to shift in high school journalism, then?  Clearly we’re moving more towards an online social media dominant future, so instead of teaching them the ability to run a form of journalism sure to be dead by the time they’ve graduated from college, how about we create curriculum that shows them how to successfully navigate the waters of social media.  I’ve often heard the blogosphere described as a giant version of the high school cafeteria, with all the drama and infighting (hint: we call them bitchmemes, these days).

What I’m saying is that it shouldn’t be too hard to adapt the material to modern life, and likely a great deal cheaper than paying to have a paper sent to press. If we’re truly interested in taking our little Web 2.0 experiments to the mainstream, we need to be pushing to export our experience to the ones who will be running this joint in a few years.

Posted by brian tiong at 12:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Michael Arrington *) 

It was sort of inevitable given Facebook’s monster growth over the last few years, but April 2008 was the milestone: Facebook officially caught up to MySpace in terms of unique monthly worldwide visitors, according to data released by Comscore and shown above. Both services are attracting around 115 million people to their respective sites each month.

Most of Facebook’s user growth, however, has been in international markets - MySpace is still dominates Facebook in the U.S. market, with 72 million monthly uniques. Facebook has 36 million monthly uniques, up from 23 million a year ago.

Facebook added 75 million monthly uniques over the last twelve month, but just 13 million of those visitors are located in the U.S. MySpace added 5 million U.S. uniques during that period - at this rate it will take 4+ years for Facebook to catch up to MySpace in the U.S. market.

Posted by brian tiong at 03:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Dan Gould *) 

Dan says...

Just launched into public beta, Totspot is a one stop data stream for your kids life. Parents can create free profiles for all their children and keep a running time line of milestones and events. It’s a high tech scrap book where parents can post and share photos, videos and updates with family members. The site has gotten rave reviews for being both user friendly and secure. Only invited friends and family can view your children’s pages, and Totspot keeps a log of all visitors. Surprisingly, there are no ads on the profiles. Totspot plans on making money by selling printed keepsake books generated from site content.

Totspot

[via PSFK]

Posted by brian tiong at 04:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfeld *)

Erick says..

Founded by Tekin Tatar and Kemal Ozisikcilar, BeFunky offers two services: The Cartoonizer and Uvatar. The Cartoonizer lets you upload photos and give them a cartoon effect. Uvatar lets you create a more realistic avatar based on a photo. The startup is releasing a newly designed Website today, and upgrading its Uvatar service to make it more automated.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Jason Kincaid *)

Jason says... 

The Filter, the media recommendation engine that we covered last April, has opened its doors to the public. The Peter Gabriel-backed company offers an entertainment start page that provides recommendations on movies, music, and online video (it is mostly focused on perfecting its music recommendations for the time being).

In the following video Peter Gabriel explains why we need sites like The Filter to reduce the overwhelming abundance of information available online down to a manageable level.

Posted by brian tiong at 05:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfeld *) 

Erick says... 

Can video games save the music industry? Probably not. But video games are emerging as a powerful distribution channel for digital music downloads. Players of Grand Theft Auto IV can buy the songs they hear in the game from Amazon by making their characters dial a number on their cell phones.

Now the rock band Mötley Crüe (yes, they are still alive) is getting in on the action as well. They released a single from their latest album, Saints of Los Angeles, both in the video game Rock Band and as download on iTunes, Amazon and elsewhere. In the first week that the digital single was available for sale (the physical album won’t be released until June 24), it was downloaded 47,000 times on the Xbox alone compared to 10,000 times on iTunes and other digital download stores on the Web.

Maybe people who play Rock Band are just naturally drawn to the Crüe. Or maybe video games are just a better way to sell music. You get to hear the whole song as part of a more immersive experience. And if you just scored high in the game, you are probably more receptive to shelling out some cash for the song that helped you get there. All those feel-good endorphins have to be channeled somewhere.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Erick Schonfeld *)

Erick says...

Is a picture worth a thousand clicks? You’ve heard of contextual ads triggered by keywords on a Web page. Now, get ready for contextual ads triggered by images on the page. Visual-shopping search engine Like.com is running ads on Facebook that appear to match objects in profile photos.

Notice the ad by Like.com in the lower left for aviator sunglasses in the screen shot shown here, sent to us by TechCrunch reader Luke Bearden? Yup, those look eerily similar to the aviator sunglasses Bearden is wearing in his Facebook photo. Well, at least we know that Like.com’s technology works. Or maybe it’s just a coincidence. (Can someone from Like/Riya let us know which one it is in comments?).

But if this indeed is Like’s image-matching engine at work, is it effective targeting? Bearden thought the ad was “creepy.” And, um, he obviously already owns a pair of aviator sunglasses.

He also obviously likes them enough to feature himself wearing a pair on his Facebook page. And maybe he lost those beloved glasses or they broke since the photo was taken. So I’d say the ad is both effective and creepy.

Would you click on it?

Posted by brian tiong at 09:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mike Masnick *)

Mike reports... 

We wrote about Metallica's latest foray online, where it's attempting to build a community around its latest music. Given Metallica's history of attacking Napster all the way back in 2000, we expected there to be some pushback, but what was really stunning was how many of the comments were from people (many of whom had been big fans of the band) still pissed off about Metallica's actions, and refusing to have anything to do with the band. We weren't the only ones to notice. Wired had a story on Metallica's efforts and discovered exactly the same thing. The vast majority of the comments were vehemently negative. Clearly, Metallica really tarnished its reputation by its actions eight years ago, and it's still paying for it.

This brings up a good point, that we've mentioned in the past in the comments, but not so clearly in a post. A person, organization, band or company's reputation is an important "scarce" good -- and once damaged, it's quite difficult (though not impossible) to rebuild the shattered goodwill. When talking about what would happen in a world without copyright, for example, people often say "but in a world without copyright, couldn't someone just copy your own creation and pretend they were their own." The answer is yes, but they do so at the risk to their own reputation. If the news comes out that the person/organization/band/whatever was taking others' works and not giving credit where it was due, that would harm their reputation. And, as Metallica is learning, a tainted reputation can have serious long-term impact.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

(* Source: Mike Masnick *)

Mike reports... 

It's been quite some time since we heard about Allofmp3, the Russian online music download store that offered extremely low prices on DRM-free downloads (you even got to pick your format). The company insisted that it was legal in Russia, and had all the appropriate licenses. Multiple times, the company was brought to court in Russia, and every time, it was found to be legitimate. In fact, the company even tried to pay royalties for the music it sold, but the recording industry refused to accept the payments.

However, the entertainment industry had US diplomats lean on Russia, claiming that if it didn't shut down the site, the US would block Russia's admittance into the WTO. So, eventually, Russia did shut down the site through somewhat questionable means. Of course, within minutes of it being shutdown, the company reappeared under the name Mp3Sparks. In fact, Allofmp3.com accounts worked just fine on Mp3Sparks. And, of course, there are a dozen or so other Russian online download stores that also offer the same sort of deal (and all of which are playing by Russian copyright laws).

For some reason, though, Mp3Sparks just hasn't received nearly as much attention as Allofmp3, and it seems like The Pirate Bay has taken on the role of "public enemy number 1" for the recording industry. So, it should come as little surprise that the RIAA has dropped its lawsuit against Allofmp3.com, saying that the company is now defunct, while totally ignoring Mp3Sparks.

Posted by brian tiong at 09:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)