Ad:Tech NY: Free doesn't have to be a four letter word
With media companies thinning out their newsrooms, struggling to stem revenue losses and worrying about the plausibility of subsisting on dwindling ad revenue online, there's been a lot of talk over the past few months about charging for content.
The free versus paid debate was at the forefront of discussion on the first day of ad:tech in New York this week. Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, showed his cards early in the day, opening the event with a talk where he put his money with Rupert Murdoch when it comes to making customers pay for media content online:
"In order to make traditional models viable... you have to plumb where people are willing to pay for content."
Sorrell seems bullish on consumers paying varying rates for content of varying quality, and despite predicting a winnowing of content suppliers online, is confident that media brands will need to charge to sustain the quality of their content. It's a theory that found root later in the day as well.
Q&A with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek
Spotify has been a revelation since it launched late last year. The innovative ad-supported music service allows users to access and play full-length tracks for free.
Alternatively, there's the option of paying a small monthly fee to sign up to the premium version in order to remove the ads and access the mobile version.
All in all it's a fine playground for anybody who loves music. I caught up with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek, who talks about the company's progress and plans...
Bloomberg gets to work on BusinessWeek
Bloomberg is wasting no time in getting to work on BusinessWeek, which it agreed to acquire last month. Although the deal is not expected to close until next month, Bloomberg is already plotting out the future for the weekly business magazine.
According to MediaWeek, Bloomberg's initial plans are to make BusinessWeek "bigger, glossier and more international". Talking Biz News, whose sources were at a meeting conducted by Bloomberg exec and future BusinessWeek chairman Norm Pearlstine, is reporting that the overhaul would "focus on making it more competitive with The Economist and less like Fortune and Forbes".
ACTA could be the worst thing for the internet - ever
If the leaks that have been released in the past day are to be believed, the internet may be facing its biggest threat yet: the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The negotiators who are sitting down behind closed doors today to iron out this international trade agreement have the internet on their mind.
And that's not a good thing.
The NLA explains why it is going after the news aggregators
The Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) licenses companies to copy from national and regional newspapers and collects fees on their behalf.
I've been talking to the NLA's commercial director Andrew Hughes about the fees newspapers are asking web monitoring services such as NewsNow to pay in order to index and link to their content...
30+ Twitter Lists and 5000+ Twitter accounts worth following
Twitter Lists are now officially available to all of Twitter's users. And there are plenty of them. While it remains to be seen whether Twitter Lists will help Twitter boost user engagement, Lists offer a no-hassle means to discovering and following people who you might find interesting.
Here are 30+ Twitter Lists that collectively follow more than 5,000 interesting Twitter accounts.
Site review: BBC Democracy Live
The BBC yesterday launched a new political website, Democracy Live, which enables the public to keep up with TV coverage of political debates.
The site offers live and on demand coverage of the Commons, the House of Lords, the European Parliament, Scottish Assembly and more, so you can keep up with debates on a variety of issues that may effect you.
Be afraid cable companies: Apple is at work on an iTunes version of TV Everywhere
For those of you following the saga of authentication, rumors from Apple today may bring a refreshing new twist to the effort to bring cable television content online.
According to sources who spoke to AllThingsD, Apple is trying to talk the networks into streaming their content in the iTunes store and charging users $30 a month. The monthly subscription service would not be tied to any hardware like Apple TV, but deliver televiswion programs through iTunes' multimedia software. The news should shake the cable companies in their boots a little.
Five press release mistakes and how to avoid them
As I was going through my RSS reader earlier today, I came across an post on paidContent detailing the launch of Sharecare, a new online health and wellness website that is set to launch in 2010.
I was intrigued because of the number, and identity, of the co-founders: celebrity doctor Dr. Mehmet Oz, WebMD founder Jeff Arnold, Discovery Communications, Harpo Productions (Oprah!), Sony Pictures Television and HSW International. Wow, I thought, this must be good.
35 social media KPIs to help measure engagement
Social media measurement is something that I think should be undertaken with a sense of perspective, by standing back and looking at the big picture.
A widescreen approach to social media measurement ultimately looks at the things that really matter: sales, profits, customer satisfaction and loyalty. Besides, honing in on the detail might not be the best use of your time, given the obvious difficulties that arise, particularly with attribution.
But standing back and looking at the bigger picture is not going to be enough for your data-mad boss, is it? It’s a bit too soft focus, right? He or she is going to want to see proof that all this social optimisation is actually working.
If that’s the case, then don’t worry: there are lots of things you can measure...
Social media: the best and worst of 2009
Email marketing: six steps to improving customer engagement in 2010
Web 2.0
Graham Charlton
Strategy & Planning
