Cynopsis: DIGITAL

06/20/08

Good morning, it’s Friday, June 20, 2008, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.
 
The mass exodus of talent continues in Sunnydale as a slew of high-level executives went public with their defections yesterday. Yahoo is expected to announce a major reorganization as soon as next week after the dust settles from the departures. Joshua Schachter, founder of social bookmarking site del.icio.us acquired by Yahoo in 2005, told TechCrunch that he’s leaving the company last night. The blog also broke the news earlier in the day of the departures of Vish Makhijani, SVP & GM of Search; and Brad Garlinghouse, SVP/Communications & Communities, who controls core properties such as Mail Messenger, Groups, Flickr, and Zimbra. Joining them are Qi Lu, EVP/Engineering for the Search and Advertising Technology Group – the chief architect of Panama – per AllThingsD. One is reminded of that Seattle billboard from 1970: Will the last person who leaves please turn out the lights.
 

 
Apple topped 5 billion songs sold on the iTunes platform. (Pretty soon they’re going to have to just say “billions served,” like McDonalds does.) More than 50,000 movies are being rented or purchased each day at an average price of $6/title, making it the most popular online movie outlet.
 
CBS’ New York station site launched the CBS 2 New York Network powered by SyndiGO, offering embeddable widgets to local blogs and social networking profiles containing news feeds with links back to wcbstv.com. Three widget formats are available, each with IAB standard ad units. Partners can select from six topical news feeds to provide the most relevant content for the publisher’s site.
 

 
Gannett Co. made a strategic investment in Cozi, a free Web service that helps families manage schedules, share information and stay in communicado. Gannett will market the service across its network of newspapers, websites and local TV stations, receiving a minority stake in Cozi as well as a seat on the company’s Board of Directors. Cozi claims to have more than 600,000 registered members.
 
Tribe Pictures is producing an original web series debuting Monday called Get Fit with Alyson sponsored by Nintendo and starring Alyson Stoner (of the upcoming Disney kids movie Camp Rock.) Each 3-minute webisode sets out to inspire teens to live a more active lifestyle (such as trying new games on the Wii Fit device). Additional content will be featured exclusively on the Nintendo Channel, accessible only through broadband-connected Wiis.
 
MTV Networks’ virtual worlds at vMTV.com are giving fans a chance to pick their favorite of six up-and-coming bands in the “Battle of The Bands II” contest. Music fans decide which band will have a shot to move on by campaigning for votes and throwing in-world parties and events. Competing through June 22 are 2*Sweet vs. Desoto Jones.
 

 
Yahoo! announced the global availability of two new email domains – ymail.com and rocketmail.com – to give users a better chance at creating an email address or Yahoo ID they like. (Yahoo Mail, still the leading web-based mail service, has some 260 million worldwide users, which means most users must resort to cryptic combinations of names and numbers.)
 

 
The AP issued a PR missive about its attempt to get the Drudge Report to remove clips of its articles. The AP says it provided “information aimed at enabling Mr. Cadenhead to bring the contributed content on his site into conformance with the policy he earlier set for his contributors,” and went on to say “both parties consider the matter closed.”
 
News Corp. Chairman Rupert Murdoch, seen by many as a newspaper man at heart, predicted that 75% of revenues from the Dow Jones Company would come from digital businesses “in a very few years,” reported Reuters from the Cannes Lions International ad festival.
 
The shut down of popular Chinese video sharing site 56.com, which posted a message claiming its servers were being upgraded more than two weeks ago, is beginning to worry the online video industry that the Chinese Government is behind its demise, reports the Wall Street Journal.
 

 
The web is all about contextual advertising. Alka Seltzer has signed on the sponsor a new video road trip video series from comic songsters Rhett & Link, featuring new episodes every Monday and Wednesday. The gimmick is that they eat bad food at every stop. 

 
VOD ad impressions can provide better recall results than linear TV ads, according to a new study conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates for Exercise TV. The study found that VOD impressions have higher order value versus linear TV advertising impressions because the advertising is relevant to the content. The VOD viewer also tended to be more engaged than the typical TV viewer. Brands such as Slim-Fast and New Balance scored the highest because viewers tend to watch specifically to exercise and lose weight.
 
Internet Advertising Revenue rose by 18.2% year-over-year during Q1 08 according to the latest IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers revenue report. However, growth slowed slightly from Q4 of last year when revenues totaled $5.9 billion, the highest ever recorded.
 

 
Cole & Weber United, part of the WPP’s global United Group of Creative Agencies, promoted Brian Hadley to Media Director and Doug Olsen to Director of Innovation & Technology. Both men have been named partners at the 77-year old Seattle-based agency.
 
David Shulman left his post as Managing Director of Digitas Detroit to lead the New York Office for independent digital agency imc².
 
Entercom Communications Corp. hired Joe Rosenthal as Senior Director of Digital Content, effective immediately. He will work directly with Entercom’s programmers to launch and optimize editorial and branded content across the company’s digital assets. Joe reports to Entercom, SVP/Digital, Sandy Smallens.
 
Demian Torres-Bohl was upped to Marketing & New Media Director at Castalia Communications. He will continue to report to Castalia’s VP of Affiliate Sales and Marketing Andrew Farley.
 
Harrisburg, PA-based andCulture hired Katie Tobin as Web Application Developer. She joins recent hires Madeline Snyder as Junior Designer and Winton De Shong as Interactive Developer. 

 
SaysMe.tv is bringing user-generated power to the people with an ad creation and placement mechanism that allows individuals and special interest groups to buy political ads directly on cable TV. Interested parties can upload their own candidate or issue-based spot or choose from a library of PSAs on the site. The interface allows you to choose markets, channels and frequency, then pay by credit card for the run. (Cable buys can be cheap, depending on the market.) Content creators and the site take a percentage of the placement costs. Deep-pocketed advocates can get around the $2,300 personal donation limit because they’re buying a personalized ad rather than making a direct donation to a candidate, points out Lisa Eisenpresser, co-founder and CEO of the site. So far the interface if very rudimentary (the company beta launched and was funded this past April from investors such as Intel Capital and Ashton Kutchner’s Katalyst Films.)  But more sophisticated tools on their way, including social networking features, tagging tools enabling users to insert their photos on ads they pay for and a mash-up tool that allows you to mix and match issues from different sides of the isle. SaysMe.tv is aiming to launch in 20 top markets by the end of July, just in time for the Sept. push for the White House. Look for Ashton Kutchner himself to star in some PSAs to promote the service.

Later — Wayne
 Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
06.20.08

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