Cynopsis: DIGITAL

09/11/09

Good morning, it’s Friday, September 11, 2009, and this is your first early morning digital briefing.
 
Long accused of helping to kill the newspaper business, Google may be trying to make amends by releasing a micropayment e-commerce platform that publications can use to charge for their content. The plan was revealed in a document submitted to Newspaper Association of America, first noticed by Harvard’s Nieman Journalism Lab. An extension of the Google Checkout platform, the micropayment system would help manage subscriptions across multiple news sites and payments from third party syndication. Of course Google would get a cut of the action, sharing revenue from each transaction, perhaps along the lines of the 30% taken by Apple at the App Store or Google itself at the Android mobile app market.

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE WESTDOC

 
Given the recession and the high price of game tickets, the NFL has been preparing for an unusual number of local blackouts this year. But wait – now there’s hope to see those games. NFL.com announced it will stream local games for free beginning at midnight the day the game is played. The blackout rule applies to teams who fail to sell-out their games 72 hours in advance, which happens to be the amount of time the games will be available online. 2009 represents a digital coming out for the league: live games will be streamed for the first time this year on the iPhone and online for NFL Sunday Ticket holders; the NBC Sunday Night game will again stream live on NBCSports.com and NFL.com; and highlights of games will be available immediately after they’re played on NFL.com, NFL Mobile Live on Sprint, as well as on the NFL Network’s NFL Replay Highlights VOD product.
 
As speculation swirls as to whether or not the telco wants to purchase DirecTV, AT&T launched AT&T Entertainment – a new consumer video portal that provides access to premium content through agreements with Hulu, CBS, The CW, as well as cable brands including SyFy and Bravo. The interface and quality is almost identical to similar sites such as Hulu or TV.com, searchable by title, genre or studio. The site is open to any user, and AT&T plans to add more TV programs and movies from other providers in the coming months.

Discovery and John Hendricks-founded Experius Academy set a Jan. 2011 premiere for Curiosity, an ambitious science-themed 60-episode series out to explore “the fundamental questions and underlying mysteries of our time,” and the network is planning to utilize every network, website and platform it has at its disposal to distribute and promote it. For instance, the network hopes to spark the “Curiosity” of younger viewers by releasing supplemental online content for use in K-12 classrooms. Potential topics for discussion include, “What is consciousness?” and “Where are the aliens?” Where indeed?

 
Seattle-based white label video management company thePlatform has signed 20 new companies to its Partner Program, encompassing advertising, content delivery, syndication and analytics. The deals, which include ad and monetization partnerships with BrightRoll, Google AdSense and YuMe and mobile integrations with Azuki Systems and Transpera, expand thePlatform’s framework to include a total of 80 technology providers.
 
Reed Exhibitions (RX), the organizers of the New York Comic Con (NYCC) and New York Anime Festival (NYAF) announced that both shows will co-locate next year, with the 2010 installments of the confabs taking place together on October 8-10, 2010 at the Jacob K. Javits Center in Midtown Manhattan.
 

 
Federated Media unveiled a brand new ad format available across multiple Home and Tech themed FM sites, geared toward brand advertisers. Designed to facilitate major homepage takeovers, “Ad Stamp” consists of three separate units that run simultaneously: A “pushdown” ad expands to a huge 970×418, then collapses to 970×66; a “Tower” ad runs as a 300×600 sidebar and the “Conversationalist” social ad unit is designed to engage users in direct dialogues involving the brand. It gives sponsors placement across Twitter accounts, Facebook fan pages, RSS feeds, syndicated content and other sites.
 
A week-long study measuring brand recall of Coke’s Powerade Zero on the Exercise TV VOD service conducted by Frank N. Magid Associates found significant upticks in both aided and unaided recall. Nearly half of those who recalled the Powerade Zero ad said that it made them want to find out more and over a third said that they actually purchased the product.  
 

 
Premium content delivery specialist Move Networks signed its first IPTV client, Cable & Wireless, one of the larger ADSL-based programming services currently operating in 38 countries. CWI will utilize Move’s adaptive bit rate technology to roll out HDTV programming to some 7 million customers, and monetize it via subscriptions, targeted advertising and PPV models. Move Networks will also handle middleware, content management, conditional access, and backend support for the IPTV rollout.
 
Edgeware and Jet Stream announced the integration of Edgeware’s Web TV WTV servers with the VideoExchange CDN Management Suite to create a complete CDN-in-a-Box solution for content and network owners. The product is designed to enable CDN operators to create tailored business models for different types of content owners and video service operators, providing a cost effective and scalable way to monetize Over-The-Top Delivery.
 

 
The USTA released viewership statistics for this year’s online streaming of the U.S. Open on USopen.org. In total, unique visitors rose to 5,352,08, up 60% over 2008, with more than 23 million visits. Additionally, 6.4 million streams were activated and the average viewing time was 3 hours and 10 minutes. Origin Digital was the streaming provider for the event.
 

 
Motorola announced its first Android-powered smartphone geared toward social networking fanatics. The Cliq, which will be offered by T-Mobile beginning this fall, features a slide-open QWERTY keyboard and a home screen consisting of a “Motoblur” of emails, tweets, posts, messages and photos to help you keep up with your friends. Other features include a 3.1-inch HVGA touch-screen display, a 5 megapixel auto focus camera with video capture, a 3.5mm headset jack and a music player with pre-loaded Amazon MP3 store application, Shazam and iMeem Mobile.
 
Steve Jobs really seems to be in a good mood this week. Apple approved RealNetworks’ $15/month Rhapsody subscription service for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Listen to tracks via 3G or WiFi within playlists curated by experts, celebs or chart makers. If you like a song, you can link directly to the iTunes store to buy it. Rhapsody, the internet’s first subscription-based music service, certainly has its loyal followers but the app fails to include an offline playback mode – one of the biggest selling points of the new Spotify service.
 
Sony unveiled its first Blu-ray player designed to stream Netflix Watch Instantly titles. The BDP-N460, which also streams YouTube and Slacker content, plugs into Sony’s proprietary Bravia Internet platform and is due to sell for about $250 beginning in Oct.
 
Oberon Media’s I-play division launched an iPhone/iPod Touch version of Deal or No Deal: Around the World, allowing players to travel the world in search of that million-dollar suitcase. Play modes allow you to play with multiple players and take on the role of either a contestant or the banker. It’s available now at the App Store for $4.99.
 
Scholastic Media is releasing its own suite of educational-themed iPhone apps ranging from $2-$4 in price and modeled after tried and true properties including Clifford the Big Red Dog, I SPY, Goosebumps, The 39 Clues and WordGirl. Clifford’s Be Big With Words and WordGirl Word Hunt help build spelling, phonic and vocabulary. Goosebumps PhotoShock allows kids to “scare up” their own photos by adding creepy icons, objects and frames.
 
The Weather Channel Mobile has launched an ad-supported application for the Android platform. The free app includes animated radar maps, a notification bar with severe weather alerts, and traffic camera feeds. New expandable banner ads push the ad real estate beyond the platform’s usual postage-stamp size.
 

 
Former Ripe Digital sales executive Brad Grealy has joined TidalTV as Director of West Coast Advertising Sales. He will be based in Los Angeles and report to Brian Danzis, VP National Advertising Sales. Lauren Winer Cann has also joined TidalTV as Account Executive, also reporting to Mr. Danzis. She will be based in New York.
 
Former GM of KDOC-TV Daniel Casey has returned to his old stomping grounds, named EVP of Sales and GM of LA-based multiplatform ad sales firm WorldLink.
 

A CYNOPSIS MESSAGE FROM IAB MIXX 2009

 
Do-it-yourself social networking platform Ning caught the app bug late last year, releasing APIs for third party developers and the site launched the first wave of open applications yesterday. Popular Ning networks such as the 182,613-member Twilight Saga fan club can now avail themselves of dozens of useful apps including gadgets from Qik or Ustream.tv to enable live video chat, PollDaddy to gauge member’s opinions or BlogTalkRadio to create and publish podcasts. For developers and content producers such as Hulu, the Ning apps provide yet another outlet through which to distribute content. The Hulu app allows subcultures to program their own mini networks made up of shows their group may be interested in, identifying niche groups for potential marketers. The program also increases the platform’s usefulness from a revenue standpoint; an e-commerce app developed with Ticketmaster/Live Nation allows individual artists such as 50 Cent to sell tickets directly from their networks and earn an affiliate fee for each ticket sold, according Jason Rosenthal, SVP/Business Operations at Ning. This open app program could be just the thing to help spread the word for the Ning and thus boost its contextual ad business. Ning has quietly attracted 1.5 million individual networks and 33 million registered users to date, but it has been adding members at an increased rate as of late, says Jason. (That rate is 4,500 new social nets per day and 1 million new users every 12 days, to be precise.)
  
Later — Wayne
 Wayne Karrfalt for Cynopsis: Digital
09.11.09

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