New Communications Review - Entertainment of the Future is Circular
"Circular Entertainment," identified by Nokia as a result of a global study into the future of entertainment, predicts that up to a quarter of the entertainment consumed by people by 2012 will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle rather than coming out of traditional media groups. The study, "A Glimpse of the Next Episode" by The Future Laboratory, combines views from industry leading figures with Nokia's research from a sample of 900 million consumers around the world to construct a global picture of what it believes entertainment will look like over the next five years. Read the full article here.
Want A More Successful Business? Meet Social Needs
New research from Communispace, supporting the hypothesis that people are looking to fulfill six essential social needs online, and drawing on the Maslow hierarchy of human needs, concludes that businesses that help facilitate those needs are more likely to create deeper emotional bonds than usually exist between companies and customers. In the report by Julie Schlack, Michael Jennings and Manila Austin "Meeting Business Needs by Meeting Social Needs...", the Communispace researchers, building on the work of social scientists, have identified the specific social needs that are met through participating in social networks. The study addresses "Six Social Needs" and relates them to Online social networks, suggesting that business can take advantage of these observations in creating more affinity with their prospects and customers. Read more about the study here.
Get Back to The Basics for 2008, Marketers Say
According to the first annual survey of Top Marketing Trends for 2008 of 1700 MENG (Marketing Executives Networking Group) members, conducted by Anderson Analytics, key areas for 2008 are found to be:
(1) Marketing basics (60% "Very Important") which include specific concepts such as customer satisfaction, customer retention, segmentation, brand loyalty and ROI were of greatest interest. (2) Search Engine Optimization (42%) had relatively wide appeal, and cut across marketers in all fields. (3) "Green Marketing" (32%) was another important emerging concept and it was identified as the trendiest marketing buzzword. Read more about it here.
Almost 50% of Internet Users Google Themselves
Internet users are becoming more aware of their digital footprint; 47% have searched for information about themselves online, up from just 22% five years ago. However, few monitor their online presence with great regularity. Just 3% of self-searchers report that they make a regular habit of it and 74% have checked up on their digital footprints only once or twice. Access the full report here.
Yahoo to Dominate 2008 $8.6B Graphical Ad Market
Get ready to pay more for both premium and remnant display ad inventory. JP Morgan is forecasting the U.S. graphical ad market to hit nearly $8.6 billion this year--a 20% increase from 2007, with much of that cash flow being driven by costlier CPMs. Analysts on JP Morgan's U.S. Equity Research Internet team gave their bullish predictions for the display market during a recent 2008 Global Internet Outlook conference call, Analyst Imran Khan named Yahoo as one of the "greatest beneficiaries of improved graphical advertising trends." MSN, AOL and CNET were included as winners in the buoyant display market, but Khan went so far as to peg Yahoo as the leader in 2008--forecast to snag 10% of the $20 billion global graphical ad market. MSN is slated to snag roughly 7.2%, while AOL and CNET will own 5% and about 2% of the global display market, respectively. Read more about it here.
Online Advertising Spending up 48% for 2008
According to the Executive Summary of a newly released Borrell Associates study on the 2008 outlook for local Online advertising, a 48 percent increase in local online ad spending is anticipated in 2008, bringing it to $12.6 billion. Driving most of the growth, says the Summary, is the popularity of local search and online video advertising. Local search advertising will more than double next year, to $5 billion, while locally placed online video will triple, to almost $1.3 billion. A major component of local video advertising will be long-form pieces for home, automotive and health-related categories. Access the whole story here.
U.S. Advertising Spending up 4% in 2008
According to a new study from GroupM, advertising spending in the US measured media is expected to increase almost 4% in 2008 compared with 2007, when spending was up about 3%. Worldwide spending is expected to go up 7% in 2008, after an anticipated 6% increase in 2007. US advertising spending is expected increase 3.7%, to $168.6 billion, in 2008. Spending in 2007 is expected to come in at 2.8% higher than in 2006. Worldwide spending is expected to go up 6.8%, to some $479 billion. Read the full article here.
The End is Near for Netscape
Marking the end of an era, AOL has decided to retire the Netscape Web browser after nearly 14 years of operation. As a result, AOL has decided to throw its weight behind Mozilla's Firefox browser. "AOL's focus on transitioning to an ad-supported Web business leaves little room for the size of investment needed to get the Netscape browser to a point many of its fans expect it to be," AOL/Netscape development director Tom Drapeau said in a recent blog posting. AOL, which acquired Netscape for $4.2 billion in 1998, will maintain Netscape only as a general-use portal as of February 1. Read more about it here.
Is Your TV Ready for All-Digital Format in 2009?
According to the CTAM Pulse, a nationwide survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers conducted last month by the Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing, forty-eight percent of U.S. households are aware of the planned digital TV transition, compared to just 29 percent from a survey taken in July 2005. After February 17, 2009, the nation's broadcast television stations will begin broadcasting exclusively in digital. Any consumer receiving broadcast TV over the air on an analog TV set must take some action for that TV to continue receiving programs from the local TV stations. Read the full article here.
Media Use Differs Between Teens and Tweens
From Mediapost: The Nielsen Company recently announced some of the findings of an in-depth study, "Kids on the Go: Mobile Usage by U.S. Teens and Tweens," on the mobile media and cross media behavior of U.S. "tweens" (ages 8-12), finding that 5% of tweens access the Internet over their phone each month. While 41% of tween mobile Internet users say they do so while commuting or traveling (to school, for example), mobile content such as the Internet is also a social medium for this audience. 26% of tween mobile Internet users say they access the web while at a friend's house and 17% say they do so at social events. Nielsen reports that tweens spend less time surfing the Internet than their teen counterparts. In this report, 48% of U.S. tweens said they spend less than one hour per day online. When they are online, 70% of tweens use the Internet for gaming. Comparatively, 81% of U.S. teens say they spend one hour or more per day online, with e-mail being the most pervasive online activity for this age group. Read more about the study results here.
Google Leads Top 10 Social Bookmarking Sites
According to AddThis.com, the top 10 social bookmarking sites for November were: Google (#1 at 17%), Favorites, Facebook, Live, Del.icio.us, Digg, MyWeb, Ask, Furi, and StumbleUpon (#10 at 3.6%). Find out more here.
TV Watchers Also View Video on Other Devices
According to the recent release of The ChoiceStream 2007 Survey of Viewer Trends in TV and Online Video, 55% of connected consumers who watch TV watch some type of video on devices other than their TV sets, including their computers, mobile phones and digital media players (e.g., iPod). Not surprisingly, video-watching on these alternative devices is more popular among younger consumers (66%) than older ones (36%). Get more information about the survey here.
Online Reviewers Bring Goodwill Toward Men (And Women)
Bazaarvoice recently released the findings of a study that surveyed over 1,300 online reviewers to discover what moved them to share their opinions. Overwhelmingly, the survey found, reviewers are motivated by goodwill and positive sentiment: 90% write reviews in order to help others make better buying decisions, 70% want to help companies improve the products they build and carry, 79% write reviews in order to reward a company, and 87% of the reviews are generally positive in tone. Read the full story here.
