Tag Archives: network

The Negatives of Social Networking Media

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All the world is a Buzz about Facebook & Twitter these days. It’s almost like MySpace circa 2007, Google circa 2003 or Microsoft circa 1998. I don’t doubt the success, innovation or long-term viability of these social networking sites but I have seen that there are flaws in the system that mean that things won’t be perfect with the business along the way and we’re in for a bumpy road. Basically my point is that for all these sites give us in entertainment, social connections and opportunity they also have some negatives that are almost the equal and opposite pendulum action.

1. Time Suck – all social networking sites are using your time that you used to devote to other things. Maybe in some cases this is actually a better use of your time (instead of TV) but in most cases its time spent that you used to use for researching new information for work projects,  time actually spent talking with people in person (family/friends) or time spent doing things that really need to be done at work or home. Once the brain gets trained that you can go socialize instead of work at those times of day it’s a habit extremely hard to break. For all of us procrastinators looking for instant gratification its a real problem keeping up with work and affects the overall productivity of companies and the country as a whole. Internet access is much more prevalent and has far more users during the business day than it does at night, so there’s the proof. Unless your job is trolling these sites for sales prospects by “connecting” and making “relationships” with your customers, its a waste of time to spend more than 15 min a day.

2. Privacy – Of all the details analyzed about consumer privacy online (on Facebook) in the last few weeks the most suprising thing I’ve seen is that people really don’t care about their information online. Sure, nobody is going to post a ss number or cc number on their profile (duh) but they don’t really seem to realize the power of logging all their social interactions in one database and selling access to retailers and cpg companies who have even larger databases of information to analyze and strategize with. Is it really as fun when most of your friends are companies selling you things all the time? Twitter already has morphed into the largest opt in direct marketing platform I’ve ever seen. If people keep using it at this rate it will surpass email. The other obvious issues come with the work life balance thing and when people friend work makes and think nobody will see them rant about work or post drunk pictures on a sick day, but then again I’ve heard that its just people naturally selecting themselves out of the working pool.

3. Logic – the other issues I’ve seen coming for a while have to do with how everything that is built from large databases online with lots of consumer data seems to not work properly. There is always some algorithm developed by a science tech guy based on some theoretical calculus and it doesn’t provide relevant results. Which brings me to a repeating theme of data right now: we don’t really know what to do with it yet. Nobody knows enough real info about their customers to target them. (who has a budget for that?) And the database people just like to say they improved things a statistically insignificant amount with an algorithm tweak. The marketing strategy/process should always start with offline real life information about people and products and then develop an algorithm to show you information in that way. I don’t know why it’s always done backwards but it will keep our results irrelevant and marketing dollars wasted for a long time to come.

Why I dislike Large Blogs

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I love blogs. I have been blogging since 2002 when my friend Mugsy emailed me and told me to sign up for LiveJournal. A lot has changed about blogging since then, but the revolutionary idea that if you can type, you can publish easily in a word-processing-like interface on the internet has not. The method of blogging to share knowledge by and for non-programming type people is still spreading to the corners of the globe and helping people’s voices be heard in ways we never thought possible.

At the same time I am growing more frustrated with the technorati and the overload of emails, posts, rss feeds and spam arriving on my accounts daily. I am trying my best to stay on top of the active topics in  the  user generated content world as it has forked into many roads that include blogging, social networking, social ads, microblogging and a whole host of a million little startups with other concepts they want to share with the world. (more than can be kept up with or can survive even if they do all innovate)

I have had to scale back my online content consumption several times over the years when it was in danger of taking over my life and all my time. But lately this getting married thing has taken a large chunk of time out of my life too, (even after the wedding) and as a result I am trying to glean all my updates and news knowledge into smaller and smaller bits of time. (apparently being married means I have to do work around the house and spend a lot of time trying to motivate my husband to stop watching hours of TV and do things around the house. Life just got more complicated and we have to learn how to cook, fix things, do laundry and empty the cat-poop-box with much larger quantities now). My work is also very busy (analytics and metrics seem to go nuts in recessions) and no spare time is to be had anywhere in the schedule.

Therefore, I have gone through many iterations of un-subscribe weeks in my email boxes and cut back drastically on email newsletters, of which once I found very enlightening. Most marketing/advertising/analytics/metrics/SEO/SEM email newsletters  these days aren’t as willing to share any real actionable info without you spending a lot of $ so out they go.

I tried to update myself by trying an RSS reader again (3rd try) and I think its been a few months but I am overwhelmed by that too. Its way to easy to get more than 1,000 unread items in the reader and when it doesn’t tell me the exact number anymore I am less motivated to tackle it because it seems impossible.

I have found Google Reader to be good for sunday afternoon fun feed reading and more personal fun  topics/blogs though. Home design is a great topic in the reader since you really have to see it all to learn.

On the other hand I am re-subscribing to some email newsletters and just un-subscribing altogether to others who insist on posting 30-50 items per day! (assholes!) How is one person supposed to read that many posts per blog per day? It’s impossible and on some level, rude.

I know why they do this. It is partially a play to keep new items being published every few hours to keep the Internet addicts coming back for more traffic and it is also a play for search engine dominance by having more content in the engine for every possible term than anyone else. These teams of writers churn out mostly regurgitated posts about content repurposed from other blogs without much new insight. Some do deliver genuine news and content you can use but scanning through 50 posts is way slower than scanning 5 emails. The content and pics seem to load soooo sloooowly and an email you read, scan and go to what you want quickly. Big offenders of this are ReadWriteWeb (on volume and not separating feeds), Silicon Valley Insider (regurgitating and trying to predict the future even though they’re usually wrong), SEO Roundtable, Apartment Therapy (OMG, holy re-post everyone elses content and fill up with summary posts daily to waste everyones time, generate page views and sell ads), Jalopnik (jebus stop showing us every detail of the 24 hours of Lemons in every city across the country and asking us what our favorite imaginary dream car in a movie with Bruce Willis: waste of space, use summary feeds please! On a cable bandwidth line it takes forever to load all these damn images!) and Media Post (phhbbtt). ALL THESE BLOGS have been banned from my RSS Reader. Some have been demoted to email updates but others are just gone.

Also, I’m not programmed to think to go see my rss feeds yet either so I often forget about them for several days after a good several hour scanning session finally getting the numbers down to below 200 new items. then I return the next time to see 1,000+ again and feel defeated. In contrast I have OCD about keeping a clean email box, and completely forget about facebook until I am completely bored. I guess that is a sign of my age bracket. (34)

I wish that this spammy fluf put out there to fill space could be eliminated. I also wish that these blogs would split their feeds into sections so you would be able to just get the posts you were interested in. Like if new original content and re-purposed other people’s content were separated in 2 feeds, it would be a big help.

I would also recommend that they stop doing summary posts. They piss me off. I wait a minute or 2 for something to load in the darn reader only to see its the same posts from the local editions of the same blog.  Poo, if that happens 15 times in a day I could have spent that time sleeping and then I’m annoyed. 

These blogs also do this because they are in some get-rich-quick rush to make money as a profitable business before Google figures it out and bans them or something. Yes, blogs have an elitism to them that says, duh, if I can make a slice of the money publishing from what the Tribune used to, I am going to do this as fast and as hard as I can. And it over saturates the web with watered down content that is just filler mostly, even if it does increase ad impressions and some adsense revenue if you’re into web-welfare payments.

I also would like to recommend that if you want to start a blog you keep the posts to no more than 2-3 a day and resist the urge to just regurgitate other people’s posts and link to them saying how great they are. Research things you are really interested in and share your own unique experiences. Any web-bot can be an aggregator, what we need more of is real people sharing experiences and knowledge to make social media stick and not die out because of spam/splogs and info-overload. It is these people who become trusted advisors and get the visitors who come back again and again.

And this is also better for the rest of us who have to go clean the cat-poop-box and have a life offline now that they are married.

Update 10/29/09

http://scobleizer.posterous.com/why-i-dont-use-google-reader-anymore

I guess Robert Scoble agrees with me to a point, though he blames Google Reader for a bad format and experience and not the blog owners for copious amounts of useless content hiding the good stuff. I guess there is always room for improvement and certain people discover it before others depending on how they use the info/product.

Update 11/5/09

How much content is too much content? Read Write Web chronicles these mega content sites and their race to populate the web all by themselves by posting 200+ posts per day. We should call it the Answers.com business model.

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_age_of_mega_content_sites.php

TIME Magazine Article – The Social Contract in America

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I was reading my parent’s TIME Magazine this week (that I usually swipe to read on the train) and they had polled Americans on the state of the economy and their take on how they plan to personally ”get by” in the coming years. You can read the survey results and the article about this concept of a social contract online at TIME.com.

I had never heard of this concept of a “social contract” that business and government have with America. I work in a recruitment related field so if it existed, I thought I would know about it. As a human being I was aware of it as a colloquial dream we have perpetuated by the stories told by our parents and grandparents.

My family history doesn’t go back that far here in America. My great grandparents arrived from Poland and the Ukraine pre-WW1 and went to work in the gritty factories of Chicago because it was a better living and opportunity than they had back in Europe. (poor peasant potato farmers I usually say) and the economic opportunity has kept us here in Chicago ever since.

My grandparents generation went on to slightly boring but consistent blue collar jobs with pensions and my parent’s generation went on to white collar jobs after getting college educations. Some of them got a pension and health insurance and others did not. My generation doesn’t even get a shot at a pension. Companies have found that they can hire good people without it and they tell us that a 401K is really the same thing. (for reference I am 33)

So, we have these 401Ks that seem to never make money fast enough to accrue enough funds to equal what a pension would. They plummet in value every 10 years or so in recessions, and someone changes the funds available without asking or telling us. Most of us have health insurance through our jobs. We pay handsomely for it, between $100 and $300 per month per person.  And then when something happens that requires medical care, the insurance only covers 1/2 the costs. It is totally possible to go bankrupt with health insurance coverage these days because most coverage is crap compared to what my family had back in the 1980′s.

TIME says that there is an “implied” social contract in America where you give a company (or number of companies) your time and energy and they give you “a basic level of economic security provided you work hard and took responsibility for your family”. (direct quote from TIME July 28, 2008 p 42) And I think things have changed. This contract implied or not doesn’t really exist anymore. I see businesses every day making decisions to give workers less and people have to get more creative trying to survive.

I think the social contract is more like this now.

1. A company promises to pay you as little as they can for your time. This sounds pessimistic but I have seen the proof on paper that you are paid what they can get you for with your experience rather than what you are worth or how much “the job” pays. You have to wait years to work your way up the ladder to make a good wage and then marketers and your neighbors taunt you daily to buy everything in sight to keep up with the Joneses. 56% of the people who made over 100K a year said even they can’t expect to afford health care, college or a secure retirement anymore.  And 100K a year is a lot of clams. (I don’t make anywhere near that. ) I do realize that these businesses have to keep costs low in order to compete with India and China, but somehow I’d rather see the cuts come from other areas that don’t erode the culture in America and impede our ability to raise families. 

2. Marketers will prey on you from every direction. A lot more people could make it through hard times if they had savings but the national savings rate is negative now. All the “stuff” and services you “must” have seems to replace the financial security your grandparents achieved. Just say no didn’t work for reducing drug use in the 80′s and I think that the disposable consumer culture will probably continue here too.

3. Health Issues will cost you. Most young people don’t need much care because you haven’t gotten to the age where things start falling apart yet and we don’t have any concept of how much it costs to survive a serious health issue like cancer or bypass surgery. Both my parents had heart surgery in the late 1990′s and they were 50 & 60K each. We paid about 10K each of those costs and the insurance paid the rest. I just heard someone at my dad’s workplace had bypass surgery last month and it cost $100K. I know they have really poor health insurance there, and I can guess that the guy might have had to pay 50K out of pocket. Even dental issues are expensive. I need have needed a crown for about 5 years and because there is no pain or damage being done since the root canal and filling, I am holding off on the $1,000.00 price tag since dental insurance is only going to pay 1/2 and I would rather save the $ for a real emergency like fixing the 7 year old car I have or paying for the radiator heat to be fixed in my condo.

4. Retirement is going to be difficult. Very difficult. Some people wonder if social security will be around in 2040 when I turn 65. I personally, think it will be. It may not be nearly enough though. Most of us will have some 401K savings but as the Frontline Retirement special found, most people make crucial mistakes with managing their 401K and end up loosing a lot of money and getting little out at the end. (and then have to go back to work) Some tips include, never take a lump sum benefit, due to the tax penalty, never just let it ride and not watch the performance and watch for trading and management fees eating up your money. It also helps not to own a McMansion when you retire and live within your means before retirement. Saving money (like 10% of after tax income) on the side and investing it in some low risk but higher than inflation yields is also a smart way to prepare. And well let’s hope medicare still exists in 2040 also, and that doctors and hospitals still accept it as payment.

5. Creativity & Leverage are the new working hard. Money makes more money, it’s all who you know and being clever with side jobs or side businesses usually helps. Yes, saving a large percentage of your income by living simple and investing it can help you have the “power of compounding interest” as they say. Keeping in touch with people and maintaining your network helps with job opportunities and side opportunities to make some income. Starting weekend jobs or part time businesses online or otherwise helps too. I find people living simply and leveraging clever ways to work in more than one place are the ones that will have what they need later on. Getting into an industry that is doing well in the economy also helps but that may take pro-active skill re-training. Paying off your mortgage early and not moving also helps. You loose thousands of dollars on the services and fees associated with that transaction every time you move, and  we all know you pay 3x the value of your loan in interest if you really pay your mortgage over 30 years. After that you are seriously in the hole.

The only contract I think we really have now is that everything will change by the time the 30 somethings reach retirement age. The only thing we have to rely on is ourselves. In general business is struggling because the US has passed it’s peak and we will be in a pack of “also rans” soon. Companies in the US will not see the skyrocketing growth that they saw post-war in the last 60 years with China, India and Eastern Europe emerging as super-economic powers. This coupled with dwindling natural, energy and food resources will make the next 50 years a post US dominant era that will be much harder and more global.

I actually believe if the US was more competitive with skills and education we would do well in a world economy but I haven’t yet seen the expertise or drive to innovate. All I see every day is the drive to reduce expenses and cut resources in business and make short term gains with little or no thought about long term survival. I feel like the country is being run by the lowest common denominator MBAs right now and the next 10 years for us commoners are going to be difficult as a result, as we all lack the jobs/growth that they sucked/poached out in the short term and ran off with the profits.

So, enough about all that negativity.

How do you plan on coping with the changing game living and working in the US in the next 50 years?

New Quarterlife TV Show on NBC ROCKS!

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I have been reading for months about this new show Quarterlife and how because of the writer’s strike, it got a shot at airing on network TV when it had only been an online show before that point. I ran into the Quarterlife show the other night on TV by accident and thought I would check it out. I was surprised that despite being 32, and not the target of the show, I really liked it. I specifically remember being 25 and having a quarterlife crisis (term coined by John Mayer in a song) and going through some things with being on my own for the first time, with my first job, dating woes and dealing with being a full on adult for the first time. Plus leaving all childhood frivolousness behind is a somewhat scary thing. No more silly stuff? No more hip clothes? Will I just be a boring blah worker that never gets anywhere? All my friends too had these thoughts.

I found that the show Quarterlife represented these feelings pretty accurately. The content of the show was very genuine and right on for that age group and I watched earnestly remembering that time in my life. I thought it was funny and clever and very dramatic and true all at the same time.

they were open and honest about everything from sex to work to relationships and I found it refreshing, although the show moves at a very fast pace. I had to speed up my brain just to keep up with all the cuts to different angles and fast dialogue. Quarterlife does seem very real though and the actors are pretty good. (although one girl that blogs is reeeeaaallllyyy overacting)

Then I saw online that people were calling it a failure because it only had 3.9 million viewers. I don’t know if that is really bad since I saw no online or offline campaign promoting it and I am online all over the place. How would that 20-30 yr crowd that doesn’t watch TV know it was going to be on? Did they do any WOM marketing? Duh? if you don’t invite them and tell them it’s coming no one will show up.

I think this show has all the elements of a West Wing for the Millenials but about personal politics rather than national politics. I think it should stay on the air and they should give it some marketing boost, and maybe a tripod to anchor the camera better in some situations. Anyway, I just thought it was important to say that I watched the show and I liked it a lot and it should stay on air at NBC and online.

I know that the commerical spots were sold with X amount of audience guaranteed and if they miss that point the network has to refund or give away more free ads to compensate for it. But maybe this show was not positioned right, promoted right or sold right by the network. I thing the writers, actors and developers of the show did a great job and the show may get shuffled around, but should certainly stay on the air.

TopGear USA Version 2 with NBC BBC Partnership

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According to this news article NBC has contracted with the BBC to produce a USA version of TopGear for network free tv. No estimates on when it would launch but I would guess Fall of 2008. It is sad though that I think they may miss the mark. A lot of funny TopGear stuff is not suitable for US TV let alone would pass the network censors.

Anyway, I did get some hope when I suggested a few months ago that TopGear should hold open auditions for the 3 presenter spots when launching a new show in a new country because you can more accurately find talent that is in touch with what is funny and new with cars. Plus its a huge PR event to get the public involved.

Anyway the TopGear Australian franchise took my advice (or thought of it too) and has open auditions scheduled. Go Aussies! Bring us some Holden goodness.

Another Word of advice: for an unscripted but not a reality show, you need people with a background in Improv and Cars. Or a smart ass who knows cars, or an improv funny guy who knows nothing about cars and gets to be the new captain slow. And these presenters have to have strong opinions about cars for it to clash in a funny way. Who knows. But improv training and quick wit is a big part of the equation. Exploiting your lack of knowledge for comedy can be just as funny as knowing a lot.

So, what I want to know is where do I sign up? You could very easily use a girl in the mix right?

The other part of the successful mix is not chopping it into small pieces with commercials every 5 minutes and not ruining it with dumb stunts like fear factor. I hate fear factor but love TopGear. If you put anything like FF on TG I will hunt you down and hang you by your toenails. It’s supposed to be about humor in car culture and in every day life. Heck, get the Jalopnik guys. They know the cult of cars as good as anyone I know.

My brother just replied to my email I sent alerting him to this and suggested that Jay Leno or Tim Allen host but I really think they need presenters who are unknown and from improv. Jay Leno and Tim Allen are great funny car guys, but they are too attached to other brands and images. And they aren’t a Jeremy Clarkson. Plus how are you going to get through traffic on the 405 with filming big stars anyway? Would either of those guys put on a wet suit and try to windsurf in freezing cold water? And be ok with failing miserably in freezing cold water? You also need unknown people so you don’t attract too much attenton filming in the city as these challenges are happening.

On a side note about the show content, they need to visit all the racing and car history places along the way going cross country as they film different challenges. (think INDY) They go across entire countries in a day on UK TopGear but in the US it would be states instead. At least you don’t need a passport. And we need an American cousin Stig that actually fits in the car this time. Not all Americans are that fat.

Anyway, my lack of time for this post is probably evident in it’s lack of  structure, grammar and spelling, but you get the point: NBC/BBC: Don’t FORK this up!

And my brother just emailed again saying he still wants Tim Allen to host with 2 unknown but funny/smart side kicks. Ok, we can compromise on that, but no denim shirts and grunting this time ok? That’s so 1990′s. Ugh. 

Another idea; Why not Ze Frank? he singlehandedly entertained us on the internet for a year and might be perfect for this kind of non scripted show. Check out the show http://www.zefrank.com/theshow/ and his TED talk from a few years ago if you have a minute. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/87  I have been wondering what he has been up to and missing his show anyway. Maybe this would be a good opportunity for him. Hey Studio people, give Ze a call!

 Update: The first TopGear USA NBC host has been chosen: Adam Corola.

Top Popular TV Shows by Ratings November 2007

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television, TV, showsEvery once in a while I like to check in on TV ratings and see what the most people are watching these days. My tastes don’t seem to be the same as the general public, but it’s interesting to see what they’re into even if it’s shows I would rather get a root canal than watch. This is how the list looks for the top 30 TV shows on network free TV in the past week (from the media week daily programming insider email)

What I think is surprising is that this list doesn’t look all that different than it did a year ago, or even 2 years ago. Last year Heroes was doing better but that is about it. Statistically we are still pretty much watching the same shows in 2007 that we were in 2005.  (yes, football got shifted around a bit in the mix, and “Samantha Who?” is new but that’s not a lot of change in 2 years)

Is it also just a little amazing that something like Charlie Brown still holds the attention of viewers after all these years? It’s nice to see something traditional on TV actually get some viewers.

Only 1 freshman series on the list. I guess there really weren’t many winners from this year’s new shows, so the writer’s strike could have started a whole lot earlier.

And how does 60 minutes keep drawing in an audience? I watch that and think it’s a show for old people, by old people. (and really bushy eyebrows) But then again only about 25% of our country is high school age or younger, (although it’s 1/3 of our lifespan) so maybe that isn’t such a bad demographic to pursue.

8 shows are Crime Dramas and 8 are reality shows. Except for Dancing with the Stars (which is almost a variety show) I could see all of them dropped and not miss them.

The rest: 5 dramas, 3 comedy and 3 sports. I am really surprised that Football is doing so well on Saturday and Sunday nights. Traditionally people are out of the house on Saturday night and TV ratings (much like internet traffic) is at it’s lowest point of the week so for any Saturday Night show to be on this list is amazing.

Top 30 Network Shows – Ranking by Total Viewers:

1. Dancing With the Stars – Monday (ABC: 22.85 million)
2. Sunday Night Football (NBC Philadelphia at New England: 21.81)
3. Dancing With the Stars – Tuesday (ABC: 20.96)
4. Desperate Housewives (ABC: 18.64)
5. NCIS (CBS: 17.34)
6. House (Fox: 16.89)
7. 60 Minutes (CBS: 16.13)
8. Criminal Minds (CBS: 15.88)
9. CSI: Miami (CBS: 15.83)
10. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC: 15.03)
11. CSI (CBS: 14.75)
12. CSI: NY (CBS: 14.56)
13. Samantha Who? (ABC: 14.38)
14. Grey’s Anatomy (ABC: 14.11)
15. Two and a Half Men (CBS: 13.91)
16. Cold Case (CBS: 12.98)
17. Sunday Night Football (NBC : 12.91)
18. The Bachelor: After the Final Rose (ABC: 12.30)
19. Brothers & Sisters (ABC: 12.25)
20. Without a Trace (CBS: 12.21)
21. The Amazing Race 12 (CBS: 11.80)
22. Law & Order: SVU (NBC: 11.69)
23. Survivor: China (CBS, clips show: 11.58)
24. Rules of Engagement (CBS: 11.48)
25. The Bachelor (ABC: 11.22)
26. Saturday Night Football (ABC: 10.96)
27. Heroes (NBC: 10.80)
28. The Unit (CBS: 10.76)
29. He’s a Bully Charlie, Brown (ABC: 10.42)
30. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC, Sun. 7 p.m: 10.37)

Super Bowl Sunday 2008 Almost Sold Out

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I’m not sure why the 2008 super bowl ads are almost sold out in October when the game isn’t till February but maybe the holidays inbetween now and then have something to do with it. If you are one of the people who is buying one of these very very expensive FOX $2.7 million dollar 30 second ad spots here are some tips:

1. First consider is it really relevant to advertise in the super bowl? Is there a need for your product in February? Is there a relevance to families, football and/or men? These are the core demographics. If it’s not a match, skip it no matter how badly you want the publicity. 

2. Make em laugh. Funny ads have staying power both at the watercooler the next day and for months afterwards. If people relate to the humor in the situation its even better.

3. Use something new. Don’t run some old ad we have seen a million times already. New creative or no creative is the way to go.

4. Don’t bother with celebrities. Unless its particularly relevant to your product. And I don’t ever really think it is. They raise costs dramatically and don’t really raise the appeal of what a super bowl watcher is looking for.

5. Remember to support this really expensive placement so it is not instantly forgotten before consumers get out their pocketbook. Support the super bowl ad with a well diversified campaign offline, online and everywhere else. This means everything from TV commericals for weeks afterwards, search ads, social networking if possible, blogs if possible,  a microsite or at least a mention of the ad on your home page and make it available to view online, print ads if you still do that, emails linking to microsite and coordinating online display ads too.

6. You can make spending this much money on an ad a publicity event in and of itself. It is cheezy though and people don’t really care unless they are benefitting from it. A press release can be ok, and reveal some hints about why the ad will be appealing, but leave the big reveal of the commercial for the actual game. But again this is totally stupid if your ads are not new, not edgy, not funny and not successful. So, proceed with caution here.

Google Yahoo Search Fight

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yahoo googleWell not a fight really, except for marketshare. Google has been the etch leader and Yahoo has been the display ad, apps and news leader. Both combined have about 90% of the search market and are major portals for how people start their day, their search for information and communicate throughout their work and lives. A huge responsibility right? Well 2 bits of news today about them:

1. Google Zeitgeist is on again. Oh to be young, rich and popular…and invited to Zeitgeist. That is what most young web entrepreneurs strive to be. Only the top earners from ad sense get invited and the top spenders as well. It’s a play date for the most gifted media kids, and will look a lot like the media future of this country. Zeitgeist has turned into the TED conference for CEOs and everyone loves being part of the exclusive club. Anyway no one is really allowed to talk about what is said there so we will all just have to speculate and make things up. What I dislike most is that they took the real Zeitgeist trends down off the site and gave us trends instead. Yes trends is more useful, but nothing can replace the fascination we used to have with the old graphical interface for the Zeitgeist timeline.

2. Yahoo has also gained some ground in the text ad market game and now has 20% (up from 18%). This is good news because this should be another cash cow for Yahoo if Panama works correctly. I still hear a lot of people are frustrated with it and that its not as good as google, but the conversion rates and cost per conversion are always better on Yahoo than Google. Where Google continues to dominate is volume though. If you need a lot of people you have to work with google. They still own most of the internet as far as an affiliate ad network and search are concerned. People are also seeing a new seasonal trend with Google that dips in the summer when people are away from work. People use Yahoo at home or at other locations and for email so maybe the workplace still drives Google use and the trend is related to that?

Anyway, it’s good not to have a full monopoly and I look forward to seeing what happens between these two in the future.

DVR Playbacks of TV Season Premier Week

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From the programming insider email today:

DVR Playback – Week of Sept. 17:
Based on ratings for the week of Sept. 17 (one week prior to the official start of the 2007-08 season), the season-premiere of CBS’ Survivor: China was the most recorded program of the week. According to the final Nielsen live plus 7-day ratings, Survivor: China was recorded and played back by 2.12 million viewers. Second was the season-premiere of Fox’s Family Guy.

Here is a listing of the top 10 most recorded and played back programs for the week of Sept. 17:

DVR Total Playback Audience
1. Survivor: China (CBS, season premiere): 2.12 million
2. Family Guy (Fox, season premiere): 1.84
3. Prison Break (Fox, season premiere): 1.55
4. Back To You Fox, premiere): 1.46
5. Come Rain/Come Shine (ABC): 1.26
6. Big Brother – Tuesday (CBS, season finale): 1.25
7. The Simpsons (Fox, season premiere): 1.09
8. Kid Nation (CBS, premiere): 1.01 million
9. K-Ville (Fox, premiere): 993,000
10. Shark (CBS, season premiere); 982,000

I was suprised to see some of those shows in the top of the list because they were not watched with a very high rating. What this might mean is that they were not important enough to watch live but they were curious enough to record them and play them back to see if they were good or bad. What will be telling is if they drop off the radar in the next few weeks if people decide they didn’t like them and don’t record them in the future.

I am always suprised to see so many CBS shows, when as a singly yuppie female I don’t like anything CBS produces. It’s all reality crap or crime cop shows, and I am not in to either. There is noticeably no NBC shows on this list, even though heroes has a huge  following and NBC shows aren’t available on iTunes anymore either. Does this mean that they all watched them live? Or are they using the NBC site downloads? Or are they just not that important? I am also always suprised at the following of the Simpsons and Family Guy when I don’t relate well to them either.

Another note about these stats, when you look at who owns a DVR machine it is most certainly a young male dominated group. (probably 70% male and 30% female is my guess) This is probably the DVR stats for the 25-40 yr old male (tech oriented) group more than anything else.

If you have a DVR what did you record?

Fantasy TV Watching?

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First there was fantasy football, then it spread to baseball and basketball. Now you can get most any sport to play a “fantasy” game where you choose players and use their real game stats to give your team points and stats by technological magic, and voila, you get an alternate reality that no one really sees, but the results are good for entertainment, friendly wagers and bragging rights.

I have a feeling this is a truly American phenomenon. Instead of being happy and content with the smorgasbord of entertainment options available to them the consumers now want to falsely feel that they are smarter than the coaches, owners and managers and manage things on their own. Well I can say that from working in several offices that have been possessed by this phenomenon, it never works out like you think it will. Most everyone looses their money and has less control over the players they recruit and how things go than they think they will. Coaches are coaches for a reason. They’re actually good at what they do.

The newest entry into this fray is a site for managing a team of TV shows, like a fantasy Television network. The winner gets a very real 100K prize, but what they really hope to do is get people more interested in watching TV again. So they pay out 100K to one guy. (less than 1/4 the cost of one :30 commercial on Grey’s Anatomy) The other million people are watching more TV for free. It’s reality TV that everyone can participate in and a really cheap ad campaign. It’s just the cost of the site and the techies that run it and the prize. This is far cheaper than a print ad campaign or an Internet campaign saying, “Hey, remember TV”?

I have always been curiously interested in how gullible people are in respect to contests and sweepstakes. Reality TV and Fantasy games and contests are really a slightly tweaked formula of the same kind. People buy lottery tickets for a prize that they will sadistically never win, enter contests where they really only loose their personal information to a marketer and still think they will win the publisher’s clearinghouse sweepstakes. Now they are apparently are gullible enough to follow along with TV shows not because they are learning anything or because the content is high quality, but because there is a 1 in a million chance of winning 100K. I wish people weren’t so easily swayed.

How much do commerial spots really cost?

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So you are annoyed that there is a commercial pod every 10 minutes during Grey’s Anatomy and after you have used the break to go to the bathroom and get snacks you are stuck watching all these commercials instead of your beloved show. Do you care about what is being advertised? Do the products actually match your taste? They should, because someone has done a lot of research about getting to you specifically because you match a certain demographic for the show and their product.

TV advertising, especially on the Big 3 networks has taken a hit in recent years, first because of declines in viewership due to Cable programming and now because the internet, DVDs and Tivo have changed how and when we watch TV if ever.

So it is interesting that I just saw a lit of the most expensive TV shows to buy a :30 second commercial spot on right now. Did you know that the company that is annoying you during Grey’s Anatomy paid $419,000.00 for those :30 seconds to do so? Isn’t the least we could do; to just listen? Or is it better to flip the channel and speed forward the DVR?

I am at a tossup most times. I understand why companies need this media to reach people. It is hard to get people to notice your product in a bevy of consumer choices available now and this is one of the most convienient places to do it. How else would you know about something new? If you spend all your time looking at things you know you already like, you will never be able to find new movies, new products, new food and new programming. If you ever want to find something new this is the way to get informed. I think people are smart enough to filter the ads (however annoying they are) and only take in what they want. But networks can’t abuse this privledge of a business model because people do have the right to either change the channel or turn the TV off compltley. I don’t care about men’s grooming products, and if you show them to me too much I will turn off the TV.

Feb 17, 2009 Analog TV ends – Digital Converter Boxes

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Do you still only watch analog free network TV like me? Do you either not have the money or the need for Cable? Well only about 20% of households are like mine in that they don’t have cable but that apparently amounts to around 70Million people. Yes, there is still some frugality in this blingy world. What the rest of us have to do is either buy a new Digital TV or buy an adapter for your existing TV when the analog signals are shut of forever on February 17, 2009. 

Digital TVs have been around for a while but if you haven’t bought a new HDTV flat screen lately yours probably isn’t going to be set for this. I have a 27 inch TV bought in 2002 that still seems new to me. I don’t want to get rid of it so I am going to have to find an adapter. What I don’t know is where to find these adapters? I could benefit from them right now.

In Chicago the digital broadcasts that are free have more channels available that I would like to see. Like 2, 5, 7, 9 and 11 all have variations with decimals in the channel number. 5.0 is regular, 5.1 is wide-screen, 5.2 is high def and 5.3 is a special channel with just breaking news and weather 24/7. Same with the others. Channel 9 has a music video channel called Tube that just does an old school MTV 24/7 and Channel 11 has a Spanish language version and a just do it yourself channel called Create with all house, cooking, gardening and craft shows all day and night.

So, where are the adapters? Why don’t I see anyone selling digital-to-analog converter boxes?

I think they are not producing them on purpose. They want to force people into buying a new TV for $1,000.00 rather than a converter for $100.00. It’s all on purpose to not tell people until the last minute and have the only option be the expensive one. Well guess what? Those 20 Million that have no cable and may not buy a new TV? They all have the internet. I even have netflix. I predict that they will just loose the TV all together and get all their news and entertainment via the internet (and netflix) if they don’t want to get dicked around by the electronics makers. It’s their loss, not mine.

Big Shots

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I watched Big Shots on TV last night (ABC) and I was pleasantly suprised. I thought it was a funny way to turn the tables on men in the same relationship type drama that women usually have. I don’t know who the 4th guy is, the blonde one I don’t recognize from anywhere before. It is really good to see Michael Vartan back again and to see the guy from west wing. The 3rd guy I have seen somewhere before but I can’t remember where. There was also obviously some casting not set yet with the napoleons girl always showing the back of her head. I wonder who they will get for that role as the show moves on. All in all though I hope people watch because I  thought it was a great show.

TV Premier Week update

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I promised to review some of the new TV shows I have been able to catch this week on TV. I don’t have cable, so free TV is it for me. This stuff is what I have as an option or I am stuck with Netflix and the Internet. But then again sometimes my cat is the best entertainment ever. I don’t get much CBS coverage since the signal in Chicago is weak and I usually hate their shows anyway. I also rarely watch FOX because they go with lowest common denominator programming and a lot of sports and their signal is weak and fuzzy as well. If you are a TV exec or work for a network and are reading this, remember I am a 32 yr old single female yuppie professional. So these opinions are pretty related to that demo only.

Bionic Woman: Every critic has said this show either sucks or will not catch on. I don’t know why. I liked it. I got a very Alias feel from it and liked the discovery phase of not knowing what capabilites she has and the decision to embrace them. It feels very Alias to me. I hope people do watch it. It also has the whole action comic book thing going on too. Female heroines are very popular right now. Don’t count this one out.

Dirty Sexy Money: I thought this was good, but predictable. I think it is because it has been pretty heavily promoted and almost the entire pilot has been shown in bits on commericals and clips on the net. I think it will get better in the next few eps.

Dancing with the Stars: This is always interesting to me because I used to dance. I am always interested to see who is good and who sucks out of their element. I do think that the costumes are rediculous though.

Gossip Girl: A sometimes painfully obvious soap oera for teens. I think it will do well with the Teen Demo, but not much else.

Beauty and the Geek: I like this show even though apparently the ratings aren’t doing so well. I think they should keep going with it and I hope people keep watching.

Chuck: Again not much suprise when the entire plot of the pilot was in commericals but I think it has legs. A good combo of geekery and spy stuff. Comedy and Action drama stuff. And the word “nerd herd” is now part of the american vernacular.

Boston Legal: Always a pleasure to see. Always suprising and funny. This week’s closing arguement was a bit weak though. Need to keep good writers on this show that can feed James Spader good stuff.

Private Prctice: Ok show, although some shockingly awkward moments were so weird I had to change the channel. (guy dies while trying to submit sperm for artificial insemenation of girlfriend and exwife and girlfriend spend the entire show arguing over posession of dead guy’s sperm, while new doctor gets aclimated to practice with other Dr’s that didn’t know she was coming to work there) It’s a bit much over the top not believable sometimes. But than again that was the same problem I had with Grey’s Anatomy. But Kate Walsh is good. I like her a lot despite her not being able to dance really. (that was painfull too despite her being really pretty)

The Bachelor: Bad. Bad. Bad. This should have been canceled years ago. Please cut this show ASAP. Only the lowest intelligence women watch this show.

Heroes: I am not a fan of the premise of this show so I can’t really watch it. I am sure people will tune in though, people in my office were going home early to get ready to watch it, and talked about it the next day.

Cavemen: I am not giving this show the recognition of watching it.  It’s Stupid.

What did you think of all the shows you have watched in premier week? Any predictions on what will get cut?