News Feature

Everyone knows there is money to be made in online and platform-based video, but finding ways to profit from your favorite streaming clips, shows, and games is not enough. In November Bain & Co., one of the world's largest business consulting firms, surveyed more than 3,000 consumers in Asia, Europe, and the U.S. regarding online video, revealing some interesting findings.

Alfresco, an open source enterprise content management (ECM) company, just announced the release of their newest platform Alfresco Enterprise 4, a platform that is not only cloud-connected but user-friendly as well.

The Super Bowl is annually TV's biggest event. Last year, it drew 111 million viewers, making it the most-watched television program in history.This year, you don't even need a TV to see it.On Sunday, for the first time ever, the Super Bowl will be available to stream live. The game will be available live, on NFL.com and NBCsports.com.

Pew research from the University of Missouri shows that internet users often come across their news serendipitously while they are searching for other information or doing nonnews-related activities online, such as shopping or visiting social networking sites. This information is hardly surprising, but there are wider implications, for media outlets.

In an effort to help brands better understand the intent and motivations of their target audiences, San Francisco-based Twelvefold Media--which calls itself "an emotive-based media company that helps brands target, reach and persuade engaged audiences"--introduced the Mindset Index on Jan. 24.

The average American may not spend much time thinking about individual bills working their way through government machines. But popular websites are making sure the average web user knows exactly what SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect IP Act) are by hitting them where it hurts: in the Wikipedia.

The best things in life are free, it's been said -- but the cost to compete in the online news business has taken its toll on countless newspapers from The New York Times to The Australian, which have started charging users to access digital content. Now, add British daily The Guardian to the mix, which last week put up a paywall on its iPad app, requiring a £9.99 ($13.99 USD) monthly subscription.

Occupy Wall Street protestors have been drawing the media's attention to the influence of corporations on the America political system for months. With primary season now in full-swing it seems that the web is getting in on the action. This week has seen announcements from LegiNation as well as MapLight, both of which aim to keep voters informed about what their elected representatives are up to and who is influencing them.

We all know Twitter is a powerful tool, but many publishers aren't sure how to build goodwill while still promoting their own content. Here are a few quick tips for publishers looking to implement a simple social media strategy that doesn't give community short shrift while building traffic and brand awareness.

When your Chief Marketing Officer is breathing down your neck, demanding to know why your company's website still isn't the top hit for the most-searched term in your industry -- and you're trying to figure out the most tactful way to tell him that it'll never happen -- breathe easy. Conductor, the SEO technology provider, has come along with some solid new research demonstrating that you can get as much bang for your SEO buck without nabbing top billing on the highest-volume search terms.

Hot gossip, recipes, cute baby photos and juicy tidbits about office Christmas party shenanigans aren't the only things being shared on Facebook these days. Many folks actually use the social network king to pass on interesting news articles, too. In fact, a look at what made the list of the top 40 most shared articles on Facebook in 2011 can offer some interesting clues to publishers and media outlets as to what makes a story "shareable."

NetShelter Technology Media, a company founded by brothers Peyman and Pirouz Nilforoush in 1999, launched a solution to this marketing problem called inPowered. Leveraging NetShelter's network of tech influencers, which comprises more than 4,500 familiar, trusted independent blogs including 9To5Mac, CrackBerry.com, Chip Chick, and SlashGear, the inPowered platform gives brands advertising options by enabling them to see which blogs are influencing target customers, use blog content to generate product awareness, and turn blog readers into customers.

On Wednesday morning, HBO co-president Eric Kessler told a group of industry wonks that despite the success of digital offerings like HBO GO, it plans to remain true to its cable roots.

During interviews with a publisher client recently, one of the managers likened his organization's approach to digital product development as a goat rodeo, as in, "Our managers are crazy. After each one of them provides input to our project, it's a goat rodeo." The colorful reference is to a chaotic situation, typically in a corporate or bureaucratic setting, according to Wikipedia. A goat rodeo involves several people who have different agendas and perceptions of what's going on around them, and reconciling those views is difficult. Despite energy and effort, it's impossible to bring any sense of order to the situation.

Content in the cloud is a natural evolution from storing files on our desktops-but the content creation explosion that has overfilled our inboxes and overwhelmed our social networks won't be solved by moving the growing mass of data from a private realm to a public one.In fact, there's a solution on the horizon that promises to keep the clouds fluffy and the content contextual. It's the "curated cloud," and it's the next big thing. By one measure, we created 5EB (exabytes) of data from the beginning of time until 2008. Now we're creating 5EB every 2 days. Where did that statistic come from? The folks who should know: Google.

Outsell, Inc.'s release of "The Business Intelligence Landscape Today: The New Rules of Aggregation" in September shed some new light on where content aggregators are succeeding and where they need to change in order to meet evolving market needs.

Money is the root of all evil. It is also the foundation upon which economies are built. Certainly, it's high on the list of objectives for most organizations. Hey, even not-for-profits have to cover costs. So how do we reconcile this yearning for earning with such laudable corporate mottos as "do no evil"? Companies with good reputations generally earn them by delivering genuine value to customers. These, and others, often offset craven capitalistic endeavors by doing good works. Value and giving back are certainly admirable tactics, and I would not discourage any company from following this righteous path.

You would be hard-pressed to find anything that has changed the way we communicate and share information more than social networking sites. No matter how much change these sites have spurred, the world of social networking has been undergoing its own overhaul in 2011. The introduction of Google+ and f8 caused plenty of discussion and, in some cases, public outcry. Myspace drew new interest from investors with a push to become an "entertainment portal," but 2012 just might be the year we find out who the winners and losers of the battle may be.

This spring, some research had me making a series of calls to a range of people in the book publishing business, including authors, agents, publishers, and consultants. The topic-in broad terms-was about the shift to digital. How did these publishing leaders see the shift occurring today? How was it going so far, and-more importantly-what might the publishing landscape look like in 3 or 5 years?

Good web content management (WCM) has long been an important element in the struggle to execute successful content strategies and marketing campaigns. The ability to author digital content for a worldwide audience, across a variety of platforms, has become integral to maintaining a competitive edge, which is why the design of WCM systems within the marketing industry deserves a second look.

Ireland, once seen as country with an economy based solely on manufacturing, has blossomed into what some call "the Internet capital of Europe." Many of the top tech companies, such as Google, Facebook, Zynga, PopCap, IBM, Microsoft, Apple and HP, have international offices in Ireland, an otherwise relatively small country. In September Twitter announced its plans to locate an international office on the green isle, tweeting "Ireland is trending. Twitter to establish international office in Dublin. #idairl". According to Emmanuel Dowdall, global department manager for content, consumer and business services for the Industrial Development Agency Ireland (IDA), that announcement was re-tweeted over 650,000 times.

Scout Analytics last week announced a new research division, Scout Research, which is "dedicated to providing revenue intelligence for digital publishers," according to the Issaquah, WA-based company that calls itself "the leader in digital revenue optimization for publishers." Scout kicked off its new venture with an analysis of the age-old problem of the print vs. digital revenue models.

In 2008, Rafat Ali sold ContentNext media--the company behind paidContent.org--to UK-based Guardian News and Media, Co. for a reported $30 million. He left the company in 2010, and now Guardian is looking for a buyer for the property. Based in New York City, the company covers the business of digital media, serving decision makers within the media, entertainment, publishing, advertising, marketing, and technology sectors.

Marketers are scrambling to catch the attention of the hundreds of millions of active members of social networks. Social media users can be fickle, though, and hitting the right note to effectively engage with them can be a challenge for businesses of any size. For internet marketers looking for a leg up in social media marketing, Optify, Inc. added new tools to their suite of solutions.

If you pre-ordered a Kindle Fire, you better be sure to check your mailbox today. This morning Amazon announced that the new members of its Kindle family will ship to buyers early. The Kindle Touch and Kindle Touch 3G will head out to early buyers beginning tomorrow, November 15, several days earlier than the previously announced November 21 shipping date. Perhaps more notably, the Kindle Fire will head out a day early. This comes on the heels of last week's "leaked" announcement that Barnes & Noble would be introducing the Nook Tablet and making it available in stores on November 17.

The cartoonish graphic is clean, colorful and simple: A young girl curls up on a park bench to scan the top headlines on her tablet while an assumedly older, bespectacled man sitting next to her is riveted to the local print newspaper he holds up to his face. Anchored below the art is a commanding headline that is terse, direct, and assured: "Smart is the new sexy," it asserts. And as a closing statement, the motto "The newspaper-get it" floats in the bottom right corner.

In a recent Q3 earnings report and call with shareholders, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong was positive, stressing the benefits of the company's acquisition of The Huffington Post and the success of its local news network AOL Patch-which the company hopes to expand from 500 sites to 1,000 sites.

When the Pew Internet & American Life Project first measured gender differences in online social networking in 2005, only 9% of men and 6% of women who went online used social networking websites. Since then, millions more Americans have signed up on sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn. There has been another change in this statistical picture as well: For a few years now, women have been more likely than men to be online social networkers. According to the most recent Pew survey, from May of this year, 69% of women who are online use social networking sites, compared to 60% of men. Women also are more active on these sites; for example, 18% of women Facebook users update their statuses at least daily, compared to 11% of men.

With the online launch in October of The Legacy Project, an educational video series that features original interviews with Stephen Sondheim, Edward Albee, and eight other legends of American theater, the series' publisher, Alexander Street Press, contributed a substantial amount of new, firsthand documentation of the creative processes of these cultural icons to the historical record. But the fact that the collection is fully accessible through an online streaming platform is substantial in and of itself, and it says something significant about the current state of academic publishing and the direction in which the industry is headed.

According to comScore, the U.S. mobile social media audience grew by 37% over the past year, a significant increase by anyone's standards. It seems only logical that smartphone users access social media more regularly--after all, they aren't paying those high fees for data plans just to read the occasional email. But what does it really mean?

For the past week or two I've been dealing with friends and family clamoring for the iPhone 4S. One friend called me from her new phone to tell me all about the ridiculous and hilarious conversations she has with Siri. Apparently, if you threaten to buy an Android phone, it will yell at you. In light of all the "I will destroy Android" coverage the Steve Jobs biography has been receiving, I like to think of him showing up in the Siri labs with a smirk on his face, suggesting his programmers make Siri share his hatred of Droid phones.

With newsrooms shrinking, journalists need somewhere to peddle their wares. But needs don't generally go unmet in the digital age. Enter MediaCooler. In a Q&A with Journalism.co.uk the CEO of Media Cooler, Alison Yesilcimen, describes the site this way: "It's an online content market place that allows professional journalists to showcase and sell features and columns to global publications."

Who is the mobile magazine reader? Texterity -- a Southborough, MA-based company that provides digital and mobile publishing solutions -- sought to answer that question in its annual readership survey. The 2011 Mobile App Readership Survey (with results certified by BPA Worldwide) was designed to specifically study magazine app users while on their mobile devices.

Much like the average American family farm, it seems like content farms may be struggling -- if this week's news about Demand Media is any indicator. One of the biggest and most well-known mass producers of content on the web is cutting back the number of articles it produces, and enraged its freelancers in the process.

Much like print publishers have stood by and watched their customer base dwindle as the web took over, cable companies have been watching as their customers found new alternatives to shelling out hundreds of dollars for the privelege of watching The Jersey Shore. Accounts vary, but so far "cord-cutters" have represented a relatively small drop off in revenues. As internet connected TVs become more popular and a whole new generation of kids come out of college without any intention of ever getting a cable hook-up, smart pay-TV providers are looking for new ways to offer their consumers value.

Over the past four years daily deal sites have flooded the marketplace. As of July 2011, daily deal aggregator Yipit has tracked over 650 group-buy and flash sale sites, with dozens more joining the already crowded discount field each month. With an easy to enter marketplace and revenues expected to reach $10 billion by 2015, the incentive to join in the group-buy and flash sale boom is great—but not every site can be effective and profitable.

There was a time, long ago, when writing on virtual walls, being "poked" by friends, and tagging pictures was entertainment enough to convert everyday internet surfers into Facebook users. But compared to today's Facebook, on which people share videos, play games, check in at locations, and make virtual purchases, the original Facebook's entertainment offering seems bare-bones. According to Facebook statistics, users install 20 million apps every day. Playing games and streaming videos have become social activities. With more app support and more content sharing, Facebook, and social media in general, is increasingly becoming a multimedia entertainment platform-which seems to be the end goal for many of these sites.

If any company could propel an ebook-first publishing model, it is probably Amazon. With the popularity of the Kindle and the extensive information the company holds on its clients, Amazon is better positioned than most to push targeted ebooks to customers. The company even released a statement earlier this year showing that ebooks are outselling print books on Amazon.com. Despite this, Amazon is foraying further into the print publishing world.

Last week The Wall Street Journal announced the beta launch of WSJ Social, a news app for Facebook that allows users to read, share, and comment on articles from the Journal within the social media environment. The content offered through WSJ Social includes articles and blogs from WSJ.com, such as breaking news, columns, analysis and opinion. All of the content is available for free for the first month. This is news mostly because the WSJ has long been one of the publications best known for successfully charging subscribers for online content.

On Sept. 14 Optify—which provides real time marketing software and services for business to business marketers and online publishers—announced its new Partner Program, which the Seattle-based company says will, among other things, help digital media and online marketing agencies grow their business and attract new clients.

Percussion Software, a provider of web content management (WCM) solutions for businesses and organizations worldwide, released the newest installment in its family of online solutions, CM1 Version 2 (CM2), on Wednesday, Sept. 7. This pure WCM product that provides users with full WCM functionality was delivered as an upgradeable product in a cost-effective package.

Big media brands are everywhere in our daily lives-on TV, in magazines, and in newspapers-and now even the digital frontier seems to be going the way of mass media. Big brand names are snatching up independent, popular entities, such as blogs, which come equipped with loyal followers. One of the better-known examples is the AOL acquisition of The Huffington Post earlier this year. Subsequently, AOL consolidated its 53 content brands into 20 different "power brands."

The steady increase in ebook sales over the last few years has had a significant impact on the book industry, as publishers have had to rethink long-standing business models. The rise in ebooks' popularity has opened new doors for authors, especially undiscovered authors, who can now turn their manuscripts into ebooks and sell them on ecommerce sites such as Amazon with just a few clicks of the mouse. While much attention has been paid to the changing roles of publishers and authors, little has been said about the roles of literary agents as they also attempt to navigate this evolving landscape.

Sometimes, trying to get the attention of web users can feel like an exercise in futility. The easier it gets to create a website, the harder it is to actually draw in visitors and customers. Ventana New Media has come up with something it feels can help solve this. The company launched Ventana New Media Engine (NME) on August 30, 2011, a product that delivers content-driven search engine-optimized communications.

As a result of several email ads, a free download offer and some unforeseen occurrences, self-published, first time author Stephen Mitchell and his distributor Greenleaf Book Group struck gold last month when the medical thriller A Cure to Die For was downloaded 36,431 times on Amazon in just 6 days.

According to PCMag.com, The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has approved a plan for new domain name structures, including domain extensions-and it could impact the way people find sites on the web. With the new structure in place, searching would be possible directly in the browser and therefore remove the middleman, which in this case is the search engine.

With more than 750 million accounts, Facebook accounts for 90% of all time spent on social networking sites in the U.S. according to comScore, Inc. Add 700 billion minutes per month people spend on Facebook updating statuses, perusing newsfeeds, and commenting on posts, we are talking big numbers. With statistics like these, it is only natural that companies are scrambling to crack the social media code, promote brands, and engage fans with captivating Facebook posts. How to best accomplish this feat is an ongoing question, but Vitrue, a social media publishing software provider, has determined that with the right tools and techniques, the answer may not be as complex as one would think.

Ebooks make up just a fraction of today's global book market, but they are already driving dramatic changes in the publishing industry, a new Outsell, Inc. report says. Last year, 5.2% of book sales worldwide were ebooks - $3.9 billion out of a $75.8 billion total market, according to Outsell's estimates. That represents a 64.2% increase for ebook sales over 2009. Ebook sales will continue to grow at steep rates from year to year, and will reach $12.7 billion, 16.1% of the market, in 2013, Outsell predicts.

Open source content management system (CMS) Joomla has released its newest version, Joomla 1.7. The six-year-old software has had over 24 million international downloads within the last couple of years, including 2 million downloads of the Joomla 1.6 version that was released in January.

Do you love multitasking on your tablet, jumping from Twitter to email to the latest version of Angry Birds with just a few quick finger taps? Or maybe you find yourself in the e-reader camp, opting to leisurely click through the summer's best-seller on a single-purpose device. According to new studies, those of you on team e-reader are far from alone. Recently, a report produced by Pew Research Center's Internet and American Life Project showed e-reader ownership has doubled over the past six months, while tablet ownership has barely inched forward.