MorphNMedia

FCC says upgrade the US Broadband and make it snappy!

Regulators opened a debate on Wednesday on how the United States, trailing many industrialized countries in access and adoption of high-speed Internet, can extend the technology to low-income and other under-served areas.

The Federal Communications Commission, taking orders from Congress, has until February 2010 to draw up a strategy that will address controversial issues as Internet openness, definitions of affordability and what speeds are fast enough.

A report for the United Nations out this week said the U.S. has fallen to 17th from 11th in a survey of nations’ advanced use of information and communications technology, which took into account adoption, speed and literacy. Read it on Reuters

USC Blogger upset over “News to go”

Call it a pet peeve, but whenever I hear anyone, especially in the mainstream media, complain that audience attention spans are getting shorter, I want to knock that person upside the head.

Putting aside for a moment that I have never heard anyone support such a complaint with hard data, I still have to ask myself what they’re peeved about.

Michael Scherer of Time Magazine portends the demise of political journalism and blames it at least in part on an Internet culture that focuses on the “news nugget, the blurb, the linkable atom of information,” which is not packaged “but rather sent out into the ether, seeking out links, search engine ranking and as many hits as possible.” Scherer cites as example Politico reporter Mike Allen’s practice of repurposing a single interview for multiple posts, none of which give you a comprehensive story.

The problem apparently is that people are abandoning longer, more thoughtful reportage in favor of shorter articles and blog posts, and that these sound bites, these tiny tidbits sans context, threaten the very integrity of journalism because they leave readers fending for themselves to discover the truth. MOre from Neon Tommy

If it moves shoot it…then put  it online!

Newspapers across the country may be scaling back to survive, but online video appears to be one area where they’re expanding aggressively. An analysis of 187 U.S. newspaper Web sites by Web video provider Brightcove shows a surge in their video-related activity last year.

The number of videos uploaded by each newspaper to the Brightcove platform, for example, grew from an average of 186 per month to 638 in 2008. The overall total of uploads increased 1,500%.

On the consumer side, video streams are growing 35% per quarter, nearly tripling to 42.7 million during the fourth quarter of 2008 compared to the year-earlier period. Total video player “loads,” or page views containing video, increased 700% — suggesting that newspaper sites are putting video on more pages.

While Brightcove doesn’t provide ad revenue figures, the company says nearly all of its newspaper partners are monetizing video content with advertising. The main ad format is the 30-second pre-roll video with 300 x 250 companion banner.

A growing number of newspapers are also relying on third-party ad networks to help sell and optimize their video inventory, according to Brightcove. The Boston-based company attributes the rapid growth to lower production costs, higher-quality video and the gradual consumer shift from print and broadcast media to online outlets.  Read it on MediaPost

Cable to wrestle with the web…and win?

You’re watching Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show,” when suddenly you see a commercial for the Mustang convertible you’ve been eyeing - with a special promotion from Ford, which knows you just ended your car lease.

A button pops up on the screen. You click it with the remote and are asked whether you want more information about the car. You respond “yes.” Days later, an information packet arrives at your home, the address on file with your cable company.

This is the future of cable TV advertising: personal and targeted.

Cable TV operators are taking a page from online advertising behemoths like Google Inc. to bring these so-called “addressable” ads onto the television.

“It hasn’t really been done on TV before,” said Mike Eason, chief data officer of Canoe Ventures, a group formed by the nation’s six largest cable operators to launch targeted and interactive ads on a national platform starting this summer.

They’re betting they can even one-up online ads because they also offer a full-screen experience — a car commercial plays much better on your TV than on your PC. As such, they hope to charge advertisers more. Read more on TV NewsDay

The future of TV channel surfing is in your hands!

The TV remote control of the future isn’t an expensive device with an LCD screen and blinking lights. It’s your hand.

The classic TV remote control most of us have grown up with has been around in essentially the same incarnation for half a century. It’s been tweaked over the years, but now one company is looking at ditching the remote altogether and using a camera mounted below a TV screen that senses hand motions instead of button pushes. The result is something that seems right out of Minority Report.

But the high-tech user interface Tom Cruise coolly manipulates onscreen isn’t even all that far-fetched now, thanks to incremental improvements. Until now, the most innovative new input for entertainment in the living room has been the Wii-mote, the motion-sensing remote control/wand that has made Nintendo’s game console a cultural phenomenon. Swing it like a tennis racket and you can pretend you’re playing tennis, point it at the screen and use it like a mouse to navigate menus.Read more on CNET

Big surprise the arrow is pointing down in Q 1

Investment firm Sanford C. Bernstein on Wednesday released a new pessimistic report on media company earnings.

“The recent run-up in media stocks suggests investors are looking past the horrid near-term trends to a happier place off in the horizon,” said analyst Michael Nathanson in a report. “However, we think the rally will meet resistance once the market realizes that the 1Q results are below consensus.”

The company issued new lower estimates for first-quarter earnings that are below the Wall Street consensus levels.

For Viacom, Bernstein’s new estimate is 1 cent per share below consensus; for Time Warner it is 2 cents below consensus. But for CBS, News Corp. and Disney, Bernstein is between 25% and 75% below consensus. More in TVWeek