Week of February 19, 2007

Google Releases Content Filter Plans

Friday, February 23, 2007

After getting tremendous negative feedback for saying that they would only filter the copyrighted content on YouTube and Google Video by companies that they had agreements with, Google did a 180 turn and not only said they would filter everyone, but also finally released details of its filtering software. Surprisingly, the software is not the in-house package they had told everyone they were developing but rather that it will be provided by Audible Magic, which also provided content filtering for MySpace.

Joost Signs Viacom

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Readers of our Pollack Media Confidential Newsletter were made aware of Internet television company Joost months ago (back when it went by its "The Venice Project" code name). Joost was also a part of our New Media Landscape report, where we discussed its impact on television on the Internet. Our question then was whether Joost would be able to procure the rights to follow through on its promise of television over the Internet. If the recent announcement from Viacom is any indication, the answers are coming, and they look good for Joost.

Viacom is going to provide Joost with hundreds of hours of television from networks like Comedy Central and MTV and movies from its Paramount division. If Joost can keep the momentum going and sign the likes of NBC/Universal and ABC/Disney, then it will be well on its way of pushing YouTube out of the commercial video world and back into solely consumer-generated content.

Creative Advertising

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

A new study called Lifestyles of the Ad Averse, conducted by Microsoft and Starcom, has media buyers and marketers nervous for the future. It points out that between 10 and 15% of 17-35 year olds are "ad avoiders" and that new technologies make such avoidance easy. The "less is more" approach is a good step at trying to make ads a little more tolerable, but there's only so much we can do. Still, radio has a couple of reasons to be more worried than other media.

First, there's the oft-cited reluctance of radio to target younger demographics. Perhaps high quality programming can mitigate the avoidance problem in the first place. If, on the other hand, the programming isn't going to captivate them, then we don't really have to worry about keeping them for the ads, do we?

The second reason is a more basic one: the poor quality of many radio ads. Radio, as more of a local medium, does not benefit from the big advertising production budgets that network TV spots do. But if more of an effort is put into making spots sound compatible with a station's programming and in making the spots sound like they solve someone's problems rather than merely shouting at the listeners, advertising would get a more sympathetic reception.

The Music Filter

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

One of the things that we believe will be a big issue with respect to traditional and new media this year is the idea of the "filter." Especially in the online world, there is too much information. In this environment, the winners will be those who can properly filter all this information, distilling it down to a manageable amount of essential information.

Music radio has to see itself as the music filter for its listeners. Playing the hits is a crucial as ever, but there's a need for the added dimension of filtering all of the rest of the music information into essential information. Stations do that through selections of new music. They're filtering the choices for the benefit of their listeners. In fact, we've always done this, but now it's essential that we also promote this aspect aggressively. We're providing the (new) music that matters.

DRM Fights Back!

Monday, February 19, 2007

Macrovision is a company that provides particularly consumer-unfriendlyDRM, including software that makes it impossible for you to videotapesome DVDs, and the software that embarassed TiVo last year after Foxshows were unable to be recorded to TiVo units due to macrovision DRM.Macrovision was understandably upset with Steven Jobs recent anti-DRMmemo, so they wrote their own open letter to Steven Jobs.

The arguments in the open letter are pretty weak and do little to helpstem the consumer demand for practical use of content that they havepurchased. The arguments (including "DRM will increase electronicdistribution") all miss the point of why DRM is a problem forconsumers--It's not for any of the reasons Macrovisions; it's becauseconsumers want to be able to manipulate and consume digital content theypurchase in ways that are convenient to them.

If a consumer purchases a digital song, he or she will want to be ableto play it on a home stereo, in the car, on their iPod or MP3 device,and on their computer. They may even want to make a collection of musicand give it to someone as a gift. All of these things are difficult ifnot impossible with DRM.

Macrovision doesn't see the problem with DRM as being more than justsecuring legal distribution rights. That battle is still being waged onan artist-by-artist and title-by-title basis (this is why AC/DC and theBeatles are unavailable digitally), but, as an issue for consumers, ithas primarily been solved. The real issue is consumer convenience, andDRM has a long way to go to solve that issue, if it can ever be solved.