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Textbook company looking to integrate texts on Blackboard

Wired Magazine reported today that Flat World Knowledge, an open-source textbook publisher, will integrate its books into Learning Management Systems such as Blackboard and ANGEL.

MySpace turns over 90,000 names of convicted sex offenders

The New York Times reports that MySpace gave two attorney generals the names of 90,000 sex offenders the company banned from the site. The amount was 40,000 more than MySpace acknowledged previously.

MySpace’s disclosure follows a report by the Internet Safety Technical Task Force, a panel created by 49 attorneys general, that said the issue is overblown. It concluded the problem of bullying among children, both online and offline, was far more serious than sexual solicitation of minors by adults online.

Facebook is also working with the two attorney generals.

TV's New Age of Opportunity

Here's a little something different than the gloom and doom state of the industry that we've been hearing. Dare I say it's almost optimistic... This is from a speech given at NATPE last week. There's also a link to the full speech if you'd care to read all of it.

News Corp to cut jobs in London, New York

The Financial Times reports that the media company (which owns the Wall Street Journal and other newspapers) is cutting back staff.

WSJ: Michigan See Itself in the Movies

The Wall Street Journal reports that Michigan will use an old General Motors factory as a movie production facility, which will eventually employ 3,600 people. There are plenty of old GM factories in Indiana...maybe we should do the same thing.

Phantom 2

This is a little old, and not directly related to media but I felt it was worth posting.

Broadway may be many things today (vapid, derivative, unoriginal), but now it's about to be something new: sequel laden.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28426152/

Online entertainment sees increase in traffic

According to the Wall Street Journal, online games, gambling sites and social networking sites have seen a surge since the economy started declining.

The number of visitors to online game sites jumped 29.9% during the fourth quarter of last year, compared with a 0.3% decline during the same period the prior year, according to comScore Inc. Traffic on Internet gambling sites soared 28.6% over the holiday quarter, compared with a 26.9% decline over the holiday season the previous year, comScore says.

Multi-Platform Entertainment Service to Launch This Year

According to Business Wire, Studio 3 Networks have announced the launch of a new next-generation entertainment service, “epix.” The New York Times reports that while the service will be available online in May, it currently lacks cable and satellite distribution. It could pose a threat to other premium channels, offering films sooner after theatrical release as well as having exclusive access to movies released by Paramount since January 2008 (the studio’s deal with Showtime ended the previous year) and those by MGM, United Artists and Lionsgate from the start of this year.

Music Industry Troubled by Apple

According to The New York Times, the music industry continues to question Apple’s dominance as a music distributor despite a recent deal regarding pricing and copy protection.

Make money for your Tweets

A new application called Twippr allows people to pledge cash toward a Tweet. It looks as though the application is competing with PayPal, but in what they call "micropayments" (to keep with the Twitter microblogging theme).

Newspaper Web sites grow, but revenue declines

Newspaper Web sites are doing better than ever, but revenues are still declining. According to the Newspaper Association of America, citing Nielsen statistics, says unique visitors are up 12 percent. The LA Times saw a 73 percent increase from 2007 to 2008.

SNL Shows the Future of Advertising

This article was the best I could find on the topic, but I wanted to get something out there about this topic. A lot of the speakers at NATPE this year talked about a desperate need to rethink traditional advertising to counteract people skipping ads with their DVRs. Saturday Night Live used characters and scenarios from a reoccurring sketch last night to advertise for Pepsi. I stopped fast forwarding through commercials when the MacGruber commercial started because I thought SNL was back on. The noticble lack of audience laughter and the over the top product placement let me know that I was actually watching an ad, but not until the 30 second spot was done. Sneaky! Depending on how well the ad did we could be seeing a lot more of these kinds of advertisement in the coming months.

MacGruber Shills For Pepsi

Watch out for enemy Facebook friends

The Wall Street Journal reports that, "The popularity of social networks and social media sites has grabbed the attention of cyber crooks searching to pilfer passwords, called "phishing," and steal sensitive personal information."
See more...

Hard news draws ratings

According to the Wall Street Journal, "60 Minutes" is drawing more than prime-time on CBS. It's a subscription-only story, so here it is:

Even as many news programs face a postelection audience drop-off, "serious" television news is drawing serious ratings this winter, with viewers flocking to shows like CBS Corp.'s "60 Minutes" and PBS's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer."

This interrupts a decade-long drift of viewers away from hard news toward softer fare. Executives and producers credit high interest in all things Obama, as well as a raft of major developments in the economy and the Middle East that demand longer attention spans from viewers.

"At a moment like this, where the sky's falling on a lot of fronts, there's a strong market for serious news," says Jeff Fager, executive producer of CBS's long-running news magazine "60 Minutes," which has seen its audience jump 9% so far this television season, which started in September, after a five-year ratings slide. "This shows there's still a business in real reporting on television," he says.

"60 Minutes" has averaged 15.4 million viewers this season, more than most network prime-time shows. The program finished among the top 10 on broadcast television for its last eight episodes.

Eschewing conventional wisdom, which holds that viewers don't like shows about war or the finer points of a bad economy, the program has devoted segments to violence in the Middle East and the fallout of the subprime meltdown. Where some news coverage has focused on the celebrity of President Obama and his family, it has hewed to the substance of the president's policy.

ABC's "Nightline," taking a similar tack, has drawn about four million viewers per episode this season, regularly beating CBS's "The Late Show with David Letterman." Unlike some cable-network shows, which have seen ratings drops in the wake of the election and inauguration, "Nightline" has ticked up over the course of the season.

PBS's "Newshour" has drawn 1.25 million viewers on average, with ratings trending up over the course of the season and Web traffic more than doubling over the previous year.

"We live in serious times," says James Goldston, executive producer of "Nightline." "Every day there is big news, but none of it's very simple. All of it takes some explaining."

Executives say audiences have favored shows that take time to explain, including NBC's "Meet the Press," which has drawn more than four million viewers per episode this season with a new host, David Gregory, and MSNBC's "Rachel Maddow Show," which catapulted to high ratings when it launched last fall.

New York Times ad revenues decline in 4th Quarter

The New York Times Co. posted a 48 percent decline in fourth-quarter net income. According to the Wall Street Journal, ad revenue fell 18 percent at the company's News Media Group, which includes the New York Times, The Boston Globe, The International Herald Tribune and 16 other papers.
It's under a subscription, so here it is:

NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--New York Times Co. (NYT) said Wednesday its fourth-quarter net income plummeted 48% because of sharp declines in ad revenue; however, shares of the newspaper publisher rose as the results beat expectations on Wall Street.

The publisher of The New York Times and The Boston Globe also confirmed that it hired banking firm Goldman Sachs to explore a sale of its 18% stake in New England Sports Ventures LLC, owner of baseball's Boston Red Sox and Fenway Park as well as 80% of New England Sports Network.

New York Times reported fourth-quarter net income of $27.7 million, or 19 cents a share, down from year-earlier earnings of $53 million, or 37 cents a share. The latest results included a charge of 10 cents a share related to severance costs and a write-down of 7 cents a share on the International Herald Tribune.

The publisher's total revenue fell 11% to $772.1 million, as ad revenue dropped 18%.

Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters were expecting earnings of 27 cents a share on revenue of $766 million.

"Taken all together, these results were better than expected," said Edward Atorino, an analyst with Benchmark Co. "Their performance, particularly on the cost side, was relatively decent given how horrendous the environment for newspapers is right now."

Shares of New York Times recently rose 5.5% to $5.91. The rally Wednesday comes after the publisher's stock has declined by 18% so far this year following a 63% drop last year and a 88% drop over the last five years.

Overall, the embattled media sector staged a strong rally Wednesday, offering hope that recent stock declines have accounted for the extent of the advertising slump that's in store for the industry. Shares of News Corp. (NWS) jumped 10% to $8.22; CBS Corp. (CBS) shares added 7.3% to $6.58; Walt Disney Co. (DIS) shares rose 5.4% to $22.39; and Gannett Co. (GCI) gained 4.7% to $7.37.

Like most newspaper publishers, the New York Times has been hit hard by credit concerns amid the global financial crisis and economic downturn after struggling for years with circulation and revenue declines due to the rise of the Internet. Moody's Investors Service recently slashed its credit rating on the publisher into junk territory, following a similar action by Standard & Poor's

J.P. Morgan analyst Alexia Quadrani said the publisher's better-than-expected performance in the fourth quarter was fueling the rise in its stock price on Wednesday, along with further reassurances that the company is being aggressive about shoring up its financial position to survive the economic downturn.

"The efforts to raise liquidity makes people feel they're trying to be realistic in addressing the challenging situation they're in," Quadrani said.

It's unclear at this point whether there are any interested buyers in the company's stake in NESV. New York Times acquired the asset in February 2002. It has been valued at roughly $200 million, but the economic downturn may force the publisher to sell it at a discount.

"It's a unique asset, and investors are more likely to be interested in that than a newspaper right now," Quadrani said.

The company is also raising $225 million in a sale-leaseback deal with W.P. Carey & Co. (WPC) for a portion of its Manhattan headquarters. It recently raised $250 million in a financing deal with Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, and it cut its dividend by 75% in November, reducing the annual payout to its controlling family - the Ochs-Sulzbergers - to less than $7 million from about $25 million.

These moves have allayed concerns about the New York Times' near-term financial obligations, but its long-term prospects remain challenged. At the end of the quarter, it had $57 million in cash and $1.1 billion in debt, while equity market declines in 2008 have left it with an underfunded pension obligation of $625 million that it will begin paying next year. Meanwhile, its revenue declines continued in the fourth quarter, and the company warned they could worsen this year.

New York Times' advertising revenue fell 17.6% for the quarter from the year-earlier period. Ad revenue at the news media group, which includes its newspapers, fell 18.4%. Online revenue, which has been viewed as a category that can power the company in a digital future, was down 2.9%.

After increasing almost 15% in the first nine months of the year, digital advertising was down 3.5% in the fourth quarter as online marketers cut back on display ads amid the broader advertising slump.

New York Times said it will stop reporting monthly revenue results - a step that has already been taken by most major U.S. newspaper publishers, including Gannett. New York Times Chief Financial Officer James Follo said on a conference call following the release that the decision to end monthly reporting "is consistent with our focus on managing our business for the long term."

Meanwhile, the publisher's operating costs fell 8.5%, while newsprint expenses rose 11% due to a 33% rise in prices. The added expense was partly offset by a 22% decrease in newsprint consumption by the company. Follo said that newsprint prices peaked in November and that forecasters expect them to decrease this year as demand dwindles amid the economic downturn.

"As we look ahead, we believe advertisers will continue to be cautious with their budgets, particularly in the early part of this year," New York Times Chief Executive Janet Robinson said in a statement. "To date in January the rate of decline in print advertising revenue has accelerated from what we saw in December, while that of digital is similar to last month."

A different type of Mobile advertising

Advertising rising and declining all at the same time...

Some good news for newspapers

The LA Times reportedly made enough money off its online advertising to cover salaries. This is one of the first newspapers that has been able to cover the cost of putting out a product. Whether that product includes a paper version or not, that's still to be seen, but at least this is a start in the right direction.

Apple gets multi-touch patent

The patent was officially awarded on Jan. 20. Tim Cook, Apple COO, says the company will not tolerate its intellectual property being "ripped off."
Some people are worried about the effects this could have on the new Palm Pre, which was on display at the Consumer Electronics Show in early January. For example, this blogger from InformationWeek.com says there were very obvious similarities between the iPhone and the Pre.
Palm responded to the rumors, saying that the company has its own patents that cover what the Pre can do and its foundation.

Lenticular Printing

Remember lenticular printing, where two different images were printed on a single piece of striated plastic? You could tilt the plastic to one side for a sort of ghetto animation effect.

TV still on top

According to a study, TV is still the most influential on consumers. Good news for television when it comes to advertising.


It's interesting to me to see the breakdown. It's amazing how much effect television has in Japan.

40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People Behind Them

We all know brands are using Twitter — whether or not you want them around. Some of them don’t quite get the medium and just tweet self-serving links or marketing speak, but you won’t find any of those brands here. We’ve handpicked 40 of the best brands experimenting with the micro-blogging platform, and asked them a few short questions about how they’re using Twitter.
http://mashable.com/2009/01/21/best-twitter-brands/

Obama seems to like a free press

The Columbia Journalism Review writes that two of Obama's first 5 executive orders were for a more open government.
In the past eight years, Bush's staff has been told to search for any reason to withhold information (even technical problems with the requests). Obama immediately changed that with an order saying to release information unless you are required not to by law.

Both the Clinton and Bush executive branch FOIA implementation instructions were issued by their attorneys general via memos, not by a Presidential executive order or directive. Alas, pending Eric Holder’s confirmation, America is running without an appointed attorney general, and that absence would be enough to explain why Obama made the FOIA change via an executive order.

But it’s worth remembering that an executive order or directive is quite a different thing, both in force of law and in symbolic importance, than a memo from a cabinet official. “An executive order is much stronger medicine. It is a directive from the president to government to do the following unless you’re otherwise prohibited by law,” says David Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown who has litigated many FOIA cases, and who says he has discussed the administration’s FOIA plans with members of the transition.

Dr. Joe said something about creating a logo. What do you all think about something like this?

If you like this idea, I will need to do some more touch-up work....this is just a quick mock-up

Let Twitter worry about your house plants

I love house plants, but always forget to water them. What if they told you when they need water via twitter? http://tinyurl.com/5hsvgs

txt ur Tvo

Forget to push record on that new episode of House? Just text message your Tivo.

Twitter suprasses Digg

Between the plane crash in the Hudson River and the Inauguration, Twitter has found itself surpassing Digg in its share of Internet readers

According to Hitwise, most of Twitter's traffic is coming from social media sites such as Facebook, while Digg's traffic comes from Google.

Speaking of Twitter, The Washington Post was surprised that Twitter could withstand the traffic from Obama's inauguration on Tuesday.

The Twitter Business Model

While microblogging service Twitter has not yet found a way to make money (despite several people coming up with ideas for the owners), other companies using Twitter have found the free service is bringing in some big chunks of cash.
Dell reported that it made about $1 million because of its use of Twitter over a year and a half. JetBlue also insinuated some good results from its participation on the forum.
Maybe the key to Twitter making money is charging corporations to join...

Robot Obama

This kind of reminds you that politics sometimes has ramifications in the strangest of places:

Barack goes to HOP

New Canadian Reality Show

Canada's Next Prime Minister
Is this the future of politics? Let's hope not.

Chicago Tribune tries tabloid

Chicago Tribune is going to change to tabloid size for street sales. It will continue broadsheet for home delivery. It reminds me a lot of the Washington Post's Metro edition, which is free and available at subway stops. It's obvious that these smaller formats are for people on the go.

Fox not planning layoffs

Just found this article on Fox. I thought it was interesting that they described themselves as a "lean" company because of previous cutbacks.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090113/media_nm/us_fox