Rossellini Unsure if Films Can Make Money Online

From The New York Times - While Isabella Rossellini enjoyed her foray into new media with her short films about insect sex, she is not sure they could turn a profit, given that so much content is available on the Internet for free.

While a strike by screenwriters recently brought television and movie production to a halt over the issue of Internet royalties, actors and directors are also concerned about what they should earn for work distributed online, Rossellini told a panel discussion at New York's Tribeca Film Festival.

"It is unclear how the money comes back," said Rossellini, 55, who wrote, directed and featured in a series of short films about the sex life of insects called "Green Porno" that were made for the screens of cell phones, iPods and laptops.

Rossellini, who after years of acting and modeling is one of the world's most recognizable faces, said it was easy for her to be experimental with the backing of Robert Redford and the Sundance Channel, but added she was still trying to work out how to make money in new media. | Read full article

Seattle radio station expands to NYC

From Lost Remote - Radio is having a tough time these days. More people are plugging their iPods into their cars (or playing mix CDs), and the radio audience is shrinking. But public radio station KEXP in Seattle is a great study on how to jump the curve. Beginning today, it’s simulcasting in New York, and KEXP’s morning show host will split his time between the two cities. So how did a local station in Seattle suddenly move into the nation’s largest market? First, KEXP is a “discovery engine” for new music. They scour MySpace, music blogs, just about everywhere for new original bands. (Like Vampire Weekend, which KEXP played first, and now the band is blowing up.) Their playlists rarely repeat. In short, you listen to KEXP to find new music to buy, right from KEXP.org (or elsewhere, if you prefer). Second, KEXP.org has simulcast the radio station for years, building up a massive national audience online (bigger than its local audience). It gave away free music podcasts before anyone was doing it. This is how KEXP got noticed in NYC and why WNYE-FM did the deal. Third, KEXP is listener supported. No ads (well, there are sponsor messages that run :05). But during their sponsor drives, people donate money from all over the country. | Read full article

Virgin Media CEO Says Net Neutrality is “A Load of Bollocks”

I don't pay for high-speed to get my ISP's preferred feeds. This is tantamount to a cash grab. A consumer revolt is in order.

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From Torrent Freak - The new CEO of Virgin Media is putting his cards on the table early, branding net neutrality “a load of bollocks” and claiming he’s already doing deals to deliver some people’s content faster than others. If you aren’t prepared to cough up the extra cash, he says he’ll put you in the Internet “bus lane”. | Read full article

SheKnows.com Launches Daily Online TV Show

We are curious to see what it looks like in terms of content and production values...

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From Media Post - SHEKNOWS.COM, AN ONLINE DESTINATION for women, announced the kick off of "Daily Dish" (DailyDish.SheKnows.com), an originally produced daily TV show focused on women's interest topics related to entertainment, sex, style, food, home, parenting, pregnancy and health.

SheKnows is currently one of the top 10 properties for women online and joins a select few as one of the only women's sites (such as iVillage, www.iVillage.com) with an online daily TV show. Each daily video segment is 3-5 minutes in length and coincides with full-length editorial coverage within the site.

Rumor: Has Vudu raised more than $40M?

From Venture Beat - We’ve heard a rumor that Vudu, a startup seeking to bring internet video to your television, has raised more than $40 million of funding. Our source says hedge funds are the likely backers.

I emailed the Santa Clara, Calif.-based company a few minutes ago, and I’ll update if they get back to us.

We haven’t heard of too many other fundings in this area, mainly because the market seems dominated by big players like Apple and Comcast. Vudu already raised $21 million back in 2005, so if the rumors are true, the company will have a pretty big war chest.

We’ve heard good things about the company — whose big selling point appears to be the speed of its peer-to-peer technology, and whose service launched last September — but it will definitely need all the money it can get to take on challengers such as Apple TV and Netflix (which later this summer is releasing a living room box in conjunction with LG). Earlier this year, Vudu dropped the price of its set-top box from $399 to $295 in a pre-emptive move to take on the newcomers.

The company may also be looking to expand its offerings soon: Recently, chief executive Mark Jung said he’s willing to “experiment with everything, save just two core things: the user interface and the ability to transmit high-quality video on the turn of a dime,” and that Vudu will be trying out ad-supported content soon, according to NewTeeVee.

Online Sales to Grow 17 Percent in '08

Nine years ago, companies like Boo.com invested heavily in the idea that people would do a huge amount of shopping online. Unfortunately, the time for e-commerce going mainstream had yet to come. This study, however, indicates that not only are consumers comfortable making purchases online, they are increasingly changing their purchasing behaviors in unprecedented ways.

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From The New York Times - Online spending is expected to rise a robust 17 percent this year, despite a sluggish economy that has bruised many brick-based retailers, according to an annual survey to be released Tuesday.

Retail sales online, excluding travel purchases, are set to grow to $204 billion in 2008 from $174.5 billion last year, fueled by sales of apparel, computers and autos, according to a survey conducted by Internet analysis firm Forrester Research for Shop.org, the online arm of the National Retail Federation trade group. That projection is below the 21 percent increase seen in the prior year, but industry officials attribute it to the maturing of the business, not the sluggish economy.

E-commerce ''is clearly the bright spot in retailing,'' said Scott Silverman, executive director of Shop.org.

The upbeat report contrasts with the outlook for many traditional retailers, which have been paring down store growth and closing shops as they struggle with consumers who don't feel like spending amid higher gas and food costs, a housing slump and a weaker job market. The exceptions are discounters and wholesale clubs, as shoppers turn to less expensive stores. | Read full article

Joost faces TV squeeze

From The Times Online - JOOST, the online television service launched with a fanfare last year by the founders of internet telephony firm Skype, is preparing for a major retrenchment after failing to attract enough users and top-flight broadcasting rights.

The company is expected to rein in its global ambitions to focus solely on the US market.

Set up as an antidote to YouTube by Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis after they sold Skype to online auctioneer Ebay, Joost has been overshadowed by the success of the BBC’s iPlayer, and in America, Hulu, a collaboration between NBC and News Corporation, the ultimate owner of The Sunday Times.

It has struggled to convince media and sports companies to sell it global rights, which are normally parcelled out to broadcasters country by country. | Read full article

Amazon Accelerates Its Move to Digital

As the digital media marketplace grows (the one pay-per access/download model, not the Bit Torrent world), Amazon is a viable option. Having tried the Amazon MP3 store, I can say it doesn't compare to the simplicity of iTunes, but it has huge potential. With interface and functionality tweaks, it could be very easy to use. Why don't companies put the effort into product development that they should? It's the digital marketplace equivalent of going into a store and not being able to find the checkout.

From The New York Times - Over the last 14 years, Amazon.com has mastered the art of getting physical copies of books, music and movies to customers through the mail. Now it is trying to add to its repertoire in a hurry.

The overall market for entertainment and information is inexorably going digital. One day, most music, movies and perhaps even printed words will be sent as bits over the Internet instead of in bulky boxes. More than half of the company’s $15 billion in sales last year came from CDs, DVDs and books, shipped from Amazon’s 30 cavernous distribution centers around the world. | Read full article

"Free" is Killing Us--Blame The VCs

This posting is right on the money. So - digital entrepreneurs, how can you make money online if ads only work for larger sites? Go free and hope to be acquired?

From The Silicon Alley Insider - I believe it should be possible to start a small business and to have a small number of profitable customers, and to earn a living. From there, it should be possible to work hard, and to grow your business into something substantial. Until recently, this was the American way, and it applied to technology as much as to any other business. But no more.

In today’s “free” world, in most online business categories, it is inherently impossible to start a small self-sustaining business and to grow it. This is because in the digital world, advertising, the only real revenue stream, cannot support a small digital business. If businesses were based on the idea that people paid for services then small companies could succeed at a small scale and grow. But it is very hard to charge when your competition is free.

The economic problem with advertising businesses is that advertising businesses do not work without really significant scale. In the past, a good product or service could address a niche and succeed without being a home run. Today, a home run is required because if you do not reach a massive scale, advertisers are uninterested. And even if advertisers could be attracted, CPMs are so low that the revenue would be inconsequential. Small Internet businesses don’t work. | Read full article

NBC Announces New Chapters of Webisodes For NBC.com

From Media Post - NBC DIGITAL ENTERTAINMENT ON WEDNESDAY announced its full slate of content for the summer and fall seasons, including original webisodes for "Heroes," "Chuck," and "The Office," as well as "30 Rock 360," a new original digital production--"Fears, Secrets & Lies"--and digital features for each new show.

New chapters of webisodes for "Heroes," "Chuck" and "The Office" will debut on NBC.com beginning in July. Additional chapters of webisodes for each show will roll out throughout the season. Each chapter of webisodes will continue to weave online with on-air creative to give fans a deeper entertainment experience.

NBC.com will also debut its second season of original productions with "Fears, Secrets & Desires." This series will be available exclusively on NBC.com.

Net Radio Gain: CBS Radio, Last.fm Collaborate

From Media Post - INTERNET RADIO IS SEEING THE flurry of content and sales deals continue in first-quarter 2008. The latest partnership brings together CBS Radio and Last.fm to share content. The deal will allow the Internet company to stream audio from CBS radio station broadcasts live, while giving listeners from the CBS Radio Internet Network access to Last.fm's library of free online music.

For Last.fm, the deal represents a substantial increase in the number of broadcast partners and breadth of content it can offer--adding CBS Radio's 140 stations to its existing partnerships with Universal, EMI, Warner Music Group and Sony BMG, as well as about 150,000 independent artists and studios. The station list includes top CBS properties like New York's WCBS-FM, Los Angeles' KROQ, Chicago's WXRT and Atlanta's WVEE. Last.fm users will be able to access the content through CBS' new online audio player. | Read full article

Networks see little profit in online broadcasting

There is no surprise in this article for me; online “broadcasting” is so new and ad models are still emerging. It’s going to be a while until this kind of service draws the audience and revenues (and develops the right ad models) that are more effective than what’s online today. I also doubt that it will replace TV (why is there always this mention in articles?) - but will find its place along side broadcast media – at a larger scale than at present, as people’s behaviors shift to match new content availability... And at the end of the day, it can be profitable, just not as much as TV — which is the same as how selling music through iTunes is profitable, but not as profitable as the old CD/in-store sales model.


From The Globe and Mail -- The biggest thing keeping television networks from wholeheartedly embracing the Internet is that online programming does not make nearly as much money as traditional TV, a new report says.

The report, to be published today by Convergence Consulting Group Ltd., indicates online broadcasting, despite its growing popularity, is still viewed by networks as a complementary business, rather than a replacement for TV.

"There is no current economic rationale for broadcasters and cable networks to abandon traditional TV or attempt to accelerate a transition to a total online model," says the report, which looks at the North American broadcasting and telecom sector.

The findings indicate why online TV in the U.S., though growing much faster than in Canada, still lags behind the prime-time offerings of network television, even though the broadcasters hold digital rights to most of their content. In Canada, where broadcasters don't own those rights, much less content is available online.

Smaller audiences and fewer commercial minutes during Web episodes and clips make it difficult to earn ad revenues comparable to television, said Brahm Eiley, president of Convergence Consulting. | Read full article

YouTube Debuts Viewer Analytics Tool

The service is designed to help video makers understand more about where their viewers are and how those viewers found their videos.

From Information Week - Online video makers can now watch those watching their videos.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s YouTube on Thursday released YouTube Insight, a free video analytics tool designed to help video makers understand more about where their viewers are and how those viewers found their videos.

"For example, uploaders can see how often their videos are viewed in different geographic regions, as well as how popular they are relative to all videos in that market over a given period of time," a YouTube blog post explains. "You can also delve deeper into the lifecycle of your videos, like how long it takes for a video to become popular, and what happens to video views as popularity peaks."

The metrics YouTube is making available are likely to be appreciated by marketers and professional video makers, who can use the information to see where videos are popular and to correlate changing viewership with related promotions and events. | Read full article

CBC Torrent Caught Up in ISPs’ BitTorrent Throttling

From New Tee Vee - The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation recently made a bold decision to release an episode of the show Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister through BitTorrent. The move was remarkable not only because the national broadcaster decided to go completely ad- and DRM-free, but because it openly embraced platforms that are usually known for pirated content, the Pirate Bay and Mininova.org.

But the experience has taught CBC a valuable lesson: Play with the outlaws, and you’re going to be treated like one. Numerous users have reported being unable to access the show downloads due to ISP-based BitTorrent throttling. To make matters worse, telecom company Bell Canada has just begun to throttle P2P traffic for all of its wholesale customers, potentially affecting a huge number of customers of other ISPs that resell Bell’s DSL service. | Read full article

Comcast agrees not to interfere with file-sharing

From CNN - Comcast Corp., an Internet service provider under investigation for hampering online file-sharing by its subscribers, announced Thursday an about-face in its stance and said it will treat all types of Internet traffic equally.

Since user reports of interference with file-sharing traffic were confirmed by an Associated Press investigation in October, Comcast has been vigorously defending its practices, most recently at a hearing of the Federal Communications Commission in February.

Consumer and "Net Neutrality" advocates have been equally vigorous in their attacks on the company, saying that by secretly blocking some connections between file-sharing computers, Comcast made itself a judge and gatekeeper for the Internet. | Read full article

The Redemption of Joost

[Note, as Joost prepares to launch a browser-based version of its software, we are going to add a new topic link for all things Joost we come across!]

Joost has the bits of a fabulous distribution technology, but currently it doesn't have the users to back up the early promise (or ... hype) of transforming the TV industry.

Two potential outcomes (but not the only ones):

- Joost launches its browser-based version. The world rejoices. Users flock to high-quality video.
- Joost white labels its software infrastructure and licenses it to existing services that need to cut distribution costs

Joost has a fantastic concept to build upon, and a business model content providers can get excited about. All it needs to do is get users excited and make the case to producers...

A feature article from Portfolio - I Don't Want My Web TV

Internet TV startup Joost, backed by CBS, was supposed to be as big as YouTube. Instead, it's in danger of being squeezed out as the networks scramble for a billion-dollar payday. | Read full article

Making millions when the boss isn't looking

From The Globe And Mail - It's one of the fastest-growing, most lucrative departments at CBS Corp. right now. But the company's president, Les Moonves, has a far more blunt way to describe how the network has turned March Madness basketball into an Internet gold mine.

“People sit at their computers and waste away their afternoons watching basketball games while their bosses are looking the other way,” Mr. Moonves told analysts recently in New York.

When asked about the advertising dollars CBS expects this year from online broadcasts of the annual U.S. college tournament starting today, Mr. Moonves simply added: “We are having our best year, by far. Ever.” | Read full article

Apple talking to labels about unlimited music

From The Globe And Mail - Apple Inc. is mulling a plan to upend its iTunes business by giving people unlimited free access to the music library if they're willing to pay more for the iPod and iPhone devices they use for playing and storing the digital media, according to a report published Wednesday.

Some analysts threw cold water on the plan outlined in the Financial Times, however, saying Cupertino-based Apple would risk creating an "accounting nightmare" and alienating some artists if it started giving away songs on its iTunes online store. | Read full article

If You Can’t Let Go, Twitter

From The New York Times - SOMETIMES, you just have to trust your relatives. You have to be willing to let them leave the house unchallenged. Suspend disbelief and let them take the car.

That’s what I tell my three daughters, anyway. But it never works out like that.

They just can’t let me go. | Read full article

In CBS Test, Mobile Ads Find Users

From The New York Times - Pssst, hey you! There’s a cheap latte waiting at the coffee shop on the corner!

CBS plans to announce on Wednesday that it is trying one of the first serious experiments with cellphone advertising that is customized for a person’s location. Its CBS Mobile unit is teaming up with the social networking service Loopt, which allows its subscribers to track participating friends and family on their mobile phones.

The ads will appear on two Web sites that are tailored for mobile devices, CBS Mobile News and CBS Mobile Sports. | Read full article