In This Update:
• Google’ Phone Platform Official, Available Next Week, First Devices Through 2008
• W2 Group Receives $30 Million Investment
• IAC Signs Google as Sponsored Search Provider; Deal Valued at $3.5 Billion
• More Readers Trading Newspapers for Web Sites
• AnchorFree Launches Ad-Supported Wi-Fi Network
• Joost Selects Meebo as Chat Partner
• Mobile Ad Agency Millennial Media Lands $15 Million
• Radiohead Numbers Emerge, 62 Percent Paid Nothing
• Study: Most Consumers Clueless About Online Tracking
• Microsoft’s HD Photo Picked to Succeed JPEG
• Poll Finds Nearly 80 Percent of U.S. Adults Go Online
• Prolonged Writers Strike Could Open Alleys of Content Distribution
• Alibaba Shares Triple in Hong Kong Trading Debut
• InSkin Launches Video Ad Solution
Google’ Phone Platform Official, Available Next Week, First Devices Through 2008
MOCONEWS
CEO and chairman Eric Schmidt conducted a conference call to announce the rumored Open Handset Alliance, a program under which 34 partners have built an open-source mobile operating system. He called it “the first truly open and complete platform for mobile devices.” The OS, codenamed “Android”, will be made available under “the most liberal open source license given to mobile operators ever”, creating “products of many, many different kinds”, Schmidt said. Schmidt had a caveat: “It’s incredibly important to say this is not an announcement of the Gphone” – rather, there will be “thousands” of devices using this platform.
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W2 Group Receives $30 Million Investment
ONLINE MEDIA DAILY
W2 Group, Inc., a three-year-old holding company focused on digital marketing, last week received $30 million in investment from Monitor Clipper Partners with a total commitment of more than $100 million. W2 was founded three years ago by Larry Weber, who sold his PR firm, Weber Group, to Interpublic Group for $16.5 million in 1996. The company is new expected to take in roughly $4 million this year on revenue of about $20 million, and employs 225 people.
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IAC Signs Google as Sponsored Search Provider; Deal Valued at $3.5 Billion
PAIDCONTENT
IAC Chairman Barry Diller led off his press conference on the company’s five-way split with another bit of news: IAC has a new five-year deal with Google to provide its sponsored search at what Diller says is a value of at least $3.5 billion. The current deal was slated to expire at the end of this year. Diller said the deal “answers a lot of people’s questions” and “underscores” why the new IAC can stand on its own.
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More Readers Trading Newspapers for Web Sites
NEW YORK TIMES
The circulation declines of American newspapers continued over the spring and summer, as sales across the industry fell almost 3 percent compared with the year before, according to figures released yesterday. The drop, reported by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, reflects the growing shift of readers to the Internet, where newspaper readership has climbed, and also a strategy by many major papers to shed unprofitable or marginally profitable print circulation.
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AnchorFree Launches Ad-Supported Wi-Fi Network
MEDIAPOST
The next time you pull out your laptop or wireless device in your local coffee shop to log into its Wi-Fi network, you may be presented with an ad that pays for your access, thanks to the recently launched AnchorFree network. Broadband wireless hotspots have multiplied exponentially over the past several years, as commercial, retail and hospitality businesses provide Internet access as part of their overall service. But, many businesses foot the bill for their users’ access or require customers to purchase time to surf the Internet. With AnchorFree, the company offers businesses the means of providing free ad-supported broadband wireless access, while giving advertisers the opportunity to reach viewers at specific locations.
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Joost Selects Meebo as Chat Partner
READ/WRITE WEB
the desktop-based long-form video service that aims to take on the old TV model with a large pile of venture capital, is scrapping one of its defining features built in-house, inline chat, and replacing it with outside chat service meebo. Essentially, the announcement means that users will be able to chat with all their friends on MSN, Yahoo Messenger, AIM and GoogleTalk while watching the high-resolution, professional video content on Joost.
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Mobile Ad Agency Millennial Media Lands $15 Million
DIGITALMEDIAWIRE
Millennial Media, a provider of mobile advertising services, announced on Monday that it has raised $15 million in second round financing, led by Charles River Ventures. New York-based Millennial Media’s clients include MySpace and CBS Mobile, for whom it powers a targeted mobile advertising platform. The company previously raised $6.3 million in January from investors including Bessemer Venture Partners, Columbia Capital and Acta Wireless.
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Radiohead Numbers Emerge, 62 Percent Paid Nothing
DIGITAL MUSIC NEWS
Just 38 percent of Radiohead fans paid for the latest album, according to data recently supplied by comScore. The band allowed fans to name their price for the downloadable release, In Rainbows, a closely-watched experiment. While most fans grabbed the album for nothing, a significant percentage paid modest amounts. According to the data, 17 percent paid an average of $4 for the album, while 12 percent paid between $8 and $12. The result deflates the excitement surrounding the effort, heralded by many as a groundbreaking model. It also challenges the levels of loyalty that established bands can expect from longtime fans.
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Study: Most Consumers Clueless About Online Tracking
COMPUTERWORLD
The average American consumer is largely unaware that such tracking goes on, the extent to which it is happening or how exactly information is being used. That’s according to a new poll released this week by the Samuelson Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. The survey of nearly 1,200 California adults studied consumer perceptions about online privacy and common advertising practices. One example of that disconnect is that more than half — about 55 percent — of those surveyed falsely assumed that a company’s privacy polices prohibited it from sharing their addresses and purchases with affiliated companies. Similarly, nearly four out of 10 online shoppers falsely believed that a company’s privacy policy prohibits it from using information to analyze an individuals’ activities online; in fact, this is a common practice.
Microsoft’s HD Photo Picked to Succeed JPEG
ENGADGET
The venerable JPEG image-compression standard is about to get a little bigger — the international committee that regulates the standard just approved the creation of a format called JPEG XR based on Microsoft’s HD Photo spec. The Joint Photographic Experts Committee started looking at standardizing HD Photo last month (formerly known as Windows Media Photo) because it features higher compression efficiency, better image fidelity, and more flexible in-camera editing options, and major camera makers and software vendors like Hasselblad and Adobe supported the format’s metamorphosis into JPEG XR.
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Poll Finds Nearly 80 Percent of U.S. Adults Go Online
REUTERS
Four out of five U.S. adults go online now, according to a new Harris Poll. The survey, which polled 2,062 adults in July and October, found that 79 percent of adults — about 178 million — go online, spending an average 11 hours a week on the Internet. The results reflect a steady rise since 2000, when 57 percent of adults polled said they went online. In 2006, the number was 77 percent. When Harris Interactive, a market research firm, first began tracking online use among adults in 1995, the group found that only nine percent of the population — or 17.5 million — said they went online.
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Prolonged Writers Strike Could Open Alleys of Content Distribution
WALL STREET JOURNAL
With their first strike in nearly two decades, film and television writers have made a risky bet: that they can win a bigger piece of the entertainment industry’s digital future at a time when consumers’ growing expectation of cheap or free entertainment delivered over the Internet has made that future uncertain. The writers are making their play at a perilous time when all media is under siege because of the transition to digital distribution. As music companies, newspaper publishers and other content creators have wrestled with these questions, one thing they haven’t done is stopped churning out their product — a prospect the film and TV industries face with this strike.
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Alibaba Shares Triple in Hong Kong Trading Debut
BLOOMBERG
Alibaba.com Ltd., operator of China’s largest online trading site for companies, almost tripled on its first day after an initial public offering in Hong Kong, making the stock four times more expensive than Google Inc. relative to earnings. The Chinese company’s shares closed at HK$39.50 from their HK$13.50 offer price. That gives Hangzhou-based Alibaba a market value of $25.7 billion, closing in on Yahoo Japan Corp. as Asia’s biggest Internet company.
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InSkin Launches Video Ad Solution
ADOTAS
Today, InSkin Media has launched InSkin, an online video advertising format and ad serving platform that allows advertisers to target individual online video consumers with contextual, interactive advertising for every second of video they view. The platform delivers interactive display space in a customizable Flash ‘skin’ integrated around the video media player. This delivers continuous brand visibility and extended call to action opportunities for advertisers without interrupting the video experience. CEO of InSkin Media and creator of InSkin, Patrick Knight said “In Skin ends ‘banner blindness’ and ‘pre-roll impatience’ by positioning the advertising messages as an integral part of the media player, where the viewer’s eyes are fixed.”
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Tags: Adobe, Bessemer Venture Partners, Brand, CBS, Financing, Google, IAC, InSkin, Interpublic, ISP, Joost, JPEG, Local, Microsoft, MSN, Music, MySpace, Open Source, Pre-Roll, Radiohead, RIM, Venture Capital, Video, W2 Group, Yahoo