Week of April 16, 2007

MySpace Launches Social News Site

Friday, April 20, 2007

One of the biggest trends in 2006 was the explosion of social news sites like Digg, Reddit, and the re-launched Netscape. Now we are seeing some of the bigger players coming to the table to harness their communities in this way. The latest? MySpace, which launched MySpace News in beta this week.

An interesting side note is how much criticism MySpace continues to receive for its clunky layout and user interface. This continues for MySpace News, which has a very awkward implementation, including frames, which is a web technology that had started to be phased out years ago. As Rafat Ali in PaidContent says: "Frames? 1997 all over again?"

Solving Problems

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Robbins Brothers is a Southern California (and Texas) jeweler that bills itself as the "World's Biggest Engagement Ring Store." They do a great job of positioning themselves as someone who solves problems, not just someone who wants to sell you something. Their new radio advertising campaign does a great job of making that point.

The new campaign features vignettes of proposal horror stories. One has a guy whose words are misunderstood when he tries to propose in the middle of a loud rock concert. Another one features a guy who tried to sneak the wedding ring into his girlfriend's dessert; predictably, she starts to choke on it. They close by saying that they will help guys plan the big moment from start to finish.

It's a great lesson for any kind of business. Find ways to turn your product into a service so you can be serving customer (or listener) problems rather than just selling something.

Rolling Stone And Social Network Overload

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Rolling Stone recently announced it was forming a social network online around its magazine. This begs the question as to how many social networks are too many? We believe that social networks will eventually mirror the real-life networks that people have. If you're a Dodger fan, you'll be a member of some Dodger network. If you're a parent, you'll have some parenting networks. That kind of thing. So there will be a lot of them.

The real difficulty will be for companies forming social networks that don't center around a non-online group like sports fans or college alumni or an online group that people don't really have enough passion about to identify with. We think Rolling Stone has a tough row to hoe, as they are a general interest publication with a focus on music, and is there really a natural group that you can form out of that which isn't being done better elsewhere?

Copyright Board Denies Webcast Appeal

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

The Copyright Board denied the appeal of a coalition of webcasters over the online royalty rate for streaming. The next step is for the board to publish the decision, at which point the rates can be appealed in federal court.

There was one bit of good news for webcasters: Their illustration that one of the industry experts by the content owners contradicted his own testimony in another forum was not addressed. This could be at least one basis for a successful appeal.

There was also one additional note from the proceedings. As expected, streaming over a cell phone is also covered under this decision.

Google and Clear Channel reach an agreement

Monday, April 16, 2007

Clear Channel became the first major radio groups to cut a deal with Google, guaranteeing the online giant access to a specific number of spots in various dayparts. In announcing the deal, Clear Channel said that Google will focus on selling to advertisers who do not currently advertise on radio.

It's important to stress that this goes well beyond Google's initial foray into radio with its purchase of dMark. Goggle soon found out that that just sweeping up unsold inventory wasn't a real business. Now, Google adds its Clear Channel partnership to the deals that it has done in other media. Which radio group will be next?