Free Webinar: Mobile Internet Device (MID) Business Models

November 11, 2008 11:00 AM Central Time Click here to register In-Stat and Texas Instruments have teamed up to present a highly attended series of insights into the technologies and market dynamics that will Unleash the Mobile Internet. The series includes the following: 1 MID Market Overview (June 26th) 2 MID Hardware Architectures (August 7th) 3 MID Software Architectures (September 24th) 4 MID Business Models (November 11th) Please join In-Stat’s Jim McGregor, Principal Analyst and Research Director, for the fourth and final webinar in this series at11:00 AM CST (9:00 AM PST) on November 11, 2008. Jim will be moderating an hour-long webinar featuring a live video Q & A discussion with industry experts on the most critical issue for the mobile Internet: what will be the business models that allow for competition, innovation, and profitability in all parts of the value chain. Joining Jim will be: Seshu Madhavapeddy, general manager of Texas Instruments’ Mobile Internet Device business Michael Woodward, vice president of AT&T responsible for smart device and laptop products Bob Sullivan, the President and CEO of Sullivan & Associates Among the topics of discussion are the following: What are consumers more willing to pay for: devices, content, and/or services? What are potential business models? Pay-as-you-go services vs. unlimited access Revenue sharing between content and service providers Subsidizing the cost of devices with the service or content Subsidizing through advertising revenue Closed devices and dedicated service plans vs. open devices and multi-unit service plans And the plethora of other options and combinations Do new devices and services cannibalize existing devices and services? Other issues that may impact business models and adoption rates, such as Digital Rights Management (DRM) Don’t miss this opportunity to gain a unique understanding of one of the industry’s most promising segments and the most pressing issue for the electronics industry as we address the business model challenges created by MIDs. Click here to register Replay for the first three webinars are available at www.instat.com and www.ti.com/wirelesspresentations. The first webinar on the MID Market Overview addressed the definition of a MID and the huge potential for this emerging device segment, the second discussed some of the design considerations for the processors/SoCs and systems architectures, and the third focused on the issues of a changing software stack from the OS to the browser to the applications.

About In-Stat Technology vendors, service providers, technology professionals and market specialists, worldwide, rely on In-Stat’s experienced staff and in-depth research to support critical business, product and technology decisions. In-Stat’s insights are derived from both a deep technology understanding and comprehensive research, which examines each segment of the value chain for each market. Regular and ongoing end-user demand and primary research surveys underpin much of the analysis, enabling In-Stat to provide incisive market knowledge and guidance on future market opportunities via syndicated research products, custom consulting, and advisory services. In-Stat is a strategic segment of the $9 billion Reed Elsevier global information network, with access to an expansive worldwide electronic network, extensive technology databases and well-informed personnel. As a member of Reed Business Information, In-Stat is a division of the largest business-to-business publisher in the U.S.

Early Adopters, Super Influencers, Chrome, Safari Use

Are You a Super Influencer?

A new report from Universal McCann discusses the rise of “a new breed of super influencers” that has been created by “the tools of the social media revolution.” Before we all don our superhero capes, let’s look more closely at the findings of the report.

Entitled When did we start trusting strangers? How the internet turned us all into influencers, the premise is that influence was moved beyond “professional and top down” (mainstream media) and into Web-enabled peer to peer influence. But despite McCann calling this a “democratisation of influence”, all influencers are not equal. There are “super influencers” who are “extremely heavy users of social media, particularly in terms of content creation.” Are you one of these people? Let’s check out what the characteristics are…

The research was completed among 17,000 active internet users in 29 countries, according to McCann.

Who Are The Super Influencers?

Super influencers are heavy social media users, who also “fit the typical profile of early adopters who are likely to try new products, take risks and share their opinions with friends.”…

Chrome Market Share: WebTrends Says 2%; Over 7% at ReadWriteWeb

Web analytics firm WebTrends reported today that mainstream Internet users are “embracing” the Google Chrome browser. In the third week since its launch, WebTrends states that Google Chrome is the fourth most popular browser used by visitors to the web site of The Daily Telegraph, Britain’s highest selling newspaper. WebTrends puts the figure at “nearly 2 percent” of the total traffic to telegraph.co.uk, which it says is more than Netscape, Mozilla, Opera and other browsers. Presumably the browsers above it are IE, Firefox and Safari.

Here at tech-focused site ReadWriteWeb, the last couple of weeks of Google Analytics data shows that about 7.25% of our readers are visiting using Chrome.

Here’s a screenshot of RWW stats from the last couple of weeks:

Compare this to the month of August, when our browser stats looked like this:

Clearly Chrome has taken share from both Firefox (3.93%) and IE (4.7%), for our tech-savvy readers. However Safari’s share has gone up a little on our site in September. Time will tell whether these trends continue, but for now Chrome is continuing at a solid 7% + for our site. Not bad when you consider that our readers are also statistically more likely than the general population to use Macs – which Chrome isn’t available on yet. 18.28% of our August readers were Mac users, with 75.68% Windows.

More importantly, Chrome looks to be close to establishing itself as the 4th most popular browser in the mainstream market – which is bad news for Opera.

CNET Releases New, Faster Website

Welcome to the new CNET

Over the last few months we have been beta testing, tweaking and fine-tuning the new CNET user experience. Today, August 27, the yellow and green CNET pages are history as we have completed the roll out of our new site design and speedier service.

As I wrote in a post in June, we are updating our look and feel after nearly 13 years of variations on neon yellow and green:

CNET started out in 1992 as c/net, meaning Computer Network, a 24-hour cable network about computers and technology with original online content. CNET online launched in June 1995 and quickly became a huge success. Over the years, we stuck with the neon yellow legacy from the TV days as the Internet grew to encompass all forms of media.

We had two key goals with this CNET revamp–make the site easier to use and speed it up. Simplicity is the major theme of this design, and that includes the new “pipeless” CNET logo, a more consistent site structure and a streamlined color palette.

Behind the scenes, we also rewrote the CNET back-end infrastructure, creating a new API that is delivering pages 40 to 50 percent faster in some cases. The API also makes it much easier for partners, such as Yahoo and Univision, to work with our content.

Following are some of the new CNET highlights:

News integrates Webware and Crave as well a more topic sections under the CNET News umbrella.

Improved search functionality and tools have been deployed throughout the CNET site.

Buying advice is surfaced in most relevant places throughout CNET Reviews.

Web reviews from around the Web are accessible in CNET Reviews.

CNET TV is delivered in beautiful HD format.

Web Audience for Games Soars for NBC and Yahoo

By BRIAN STELTER

Published: August 24, 2008

A slide show from the Web showed Bryan Clay, the gold medal winner in the men’s decathlon.

Related

On TV, Timing Is Everything at the Olympics (August 25, 2008)

Interactive Schedule

 Olympics Tracker

Follow the schedules of your favorite sports, day by day and event by event.

Times journalists and special contributors explore the Olympics in Beijing and on the Web from every angle — the politics, the culture and the competition.

• The Rings RSS Feed | Atom

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Olympics 2008

Go to Complete Coverage » 

…The ratings for NBC’s television coverage of the Games were record-breaking this month. But the extent to which the Internet served as a supplement to television was unprecedented, and there were two clear winners: NBC’s own Web site and Yahoo’s Olympics section.

Benefiting from the growth in broadband Internet access, NBCOlympics.com served up more than 1.2 billion pages and 72 million video streams through Saturday, more than doubling the combined traffic to its site during the 2004 Games in Athens and the 2006 Games in Turin. The popularity of the site will very likely make digital rights more significant in next year’s bidding for the 2014 and 2016 Games….

NBC, as the holder of United States rights to the Olympics, was the sole source for online video and the only media organization that could use the Olympics logos. But Yahoo, which offered a feature-oriented mix of news stories and slide shows, gave NBC a run for its online advertising money, or at least audience, attracting just as many visitors, according to Nielsen.

“The demand that we’re seeing has far exceeded even our wildest expectations,” said Jimmy Pitaro, the head of sports and entertainment for Yahoo.

Olympics sites operated by AOL, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, the Beijing Organizing Committee, The New York Times, and USA Today also had high levels of traffic, according to Nielsen. They differentiated themselves from the NBC site by offering slice-of-life features and entertainment stories. (The top Olympic story on Yahoo this month was, “Why divers always take showers.”)

NBC cites statistics that show its site had a clear advantage over Yahoo’s. But Nielsen Online’s numbers show that Yahoo drew an average of 4.7 million unique visitors a day through Aug. 18, compared with 4.3 million for NBC. The third-ranked site, AOL’s Olympics section, had 1.3 million visitors a day.

NBC treated the Olympics like a research laboratory, and it says it is gleaning information about how people preferred to consume content from its combination of television, online and mobile offerings. (Critics charge that because the network did not stream the most popular sporting events live, its findings are skewed.) Regardless, the network is using the Olympics to assert that TV is the preferred medium of consumers, with the vast majority of viewing — 93 percent — done via television…

NBCOlympics Wins Lead Medal: Only $6 Million In Olympic Video Ad Revenue

Two drawbacks of doing everything possible to protect your broadcast franchise:

1. Infuriate sports fans who want to watch events live.
2. Leave money on the table.

NBC only made $6 million in online video ad revenue, estimates eMarketer. This is a far cry from the $23 million CBS is said to have made from this year’s March Madness.

Olympics and the Web

Ed: When it comes to global event broadcasts like the SuperBowl and Olympics, TV still wins. However, what was the investment required when compared to a web broadcast campaign?

Trying to Watch the Olympics on TV and the Web

from AllThingsDigital — WSJ by Michelle Quinn

How is your Olympics-watching experience going? You may have caught some of the Olympic Games over the weekend, most likely in front of your television set and not online. NBC Universal, which owns the U.S. broadcast rights, said it attracted a 114 million TV viewers, which was itself an Olympic record…

Olympics: Only 0.2% of Viewers Exclusively Watch Online

Written by Frederic Lardinois / August 11, 2008 12:10 PM

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Olympics are off to a good, but not amazing start on the Internet. Over the first three days, NBC’s online coverage drew an average of 4.7 million viewers per day, with the numbers steadily rising over the weekend. So far, Sunday was the most watched day, with 5.1 million total users and 3.42 million streams. According to the same article, only 0.2% of all viewers exclusively used the Internet to watch the Games, while 90% used the traditional TV coverage exclusively and 10% used both the Internet and TV.

Teens Totally Not Into Olympics

By Betsy Schiffman August 11, 2008 | 3:44:46 PMCategories: Olympics  

The Olympic opening ceremony was reportedly watched by “15 percent of the world’s population.” Needless to say, it was a heck of a weekend for NBC, which paid close to $900 million for U.S. broadcasting rights…

But one area where NBC may have lost: The teen demographic. Only 46 percent of teens surveyed by Harris Interactive showed any interest in watching the Olympics. And if teens are indeed abstaining, it’s not because they think that the Olympics are a crass, greedy commercial enterprise — in fact, 71 percent of those polled “were likely to agree that the games are about more than merely medals and marketing,” according to Harris Interactive. So why won’t they watch? Because it’s not convenient for them.

“Teens want quick-hitting videos,” says Bill Carter, a partner at youth marketing agency Fuse Marketing. “They don’t want the lead-up and they don’t want the analysis. They just want the video. And I’m optimistic that NBC is doing delivering this better than they have before. Although, to watch the [mens freestyleswimming] relay this morning, I still had to download 11 minutes of video, and fast forward through the first 6 minutes to get to the race.”…