This ain’t the internet we know today. Say goodbye to UI (user interface) and hello to UE (user experience).
Month: January 2015
Linear TV dips below half of US viewers
Less than half of online US adults now watch linear TV as Younger Boomers and Generation X-ers adopt viewing habits previously associated with Millennials, a new report has said.
Forrester Research surveyed 3,166 adults aged 18 to 58 for the Making Sense Of New Video Consumption report and found that only 46% watched linear TV in a typical month. This trend was more pronounced among 18 to 34 year olds, with just 40% viewing TV this way, but even among older viewers the figure was 52%.
Streaming, whether from a paid or free service, was on a par with linear TV – at 40% – for Millennials, and these options were also proving attractive for Generation Xers and Younger Boomers, at 32% for free streaming and 30% for paid streaming.
Only recording on a DVR (37%) was more popular among older viewers, and even here, one third of Millennials continued to use this device.
That said, the report also showed that more than half (55%) of younger viewers still watched four hours or more of regular TV in the course of a week, with one third (34%) watching a similar amount online.
Business Insider reported Forrester’s food-based analogy, with linear TV and DVR viewing forming the “main courses” for older viewers, and which were supplemented with “side dishes” and “desserts” across the online spectrum, while younger groups snacked on “smaller portions of a wider array of dishes”.
Forrester analyst Jim Nail elaborated to Ad Exchanger. “There is clearly this trend toward watching on the network’s app, the MVPD’s [Multichannel Video Programming Distributor] app and Hulu, but clearly the content is still powerful and it still draws audiences advertisers want to buy,” he said.
“It is trickling into agency thinking. They know they need to look beyond age-gender demos and look at new data sources, even if they’re still buying ads in pods on ratings.”
So, for example, advertisers might look at shows in the light of viewers’ product buying habits rather than Nielsen ratings.
“You’re selling individuals and the right individual is going to be worth a lot more than $10 or $15 dollars a thousand to the right advertiser,” Nail noted.
4 Ways Marketers Can Learn From a Journalist’s Approach to Content Planning
“Be the media” isn’t just a buzz phrase. It’s a live process and philosophy that brings in leads and moves products and services. It’s the concept of content as sales staff. It’s “write it and they will come.” OK, so I got ahead of myself with that last one. It’s not quite that simple.
As marketers have moved to content to help tell their stories that draw in customers, they have brought journalists in to help with the storytelling. Now that many marketers (more…)
The Way We Think About Charity Is All Wrong
The most profound argument for looking at non-profit through the lens of capitalism and entrepreneurship. Give yourself the gift of watching this TED talk. Thank you to Noah for sharing this with me.
How Facebook is trying to siphon off TV ad spend – Digiday
Facebook has been working hard to convince marketers to shift part of their TV ad budget to the social network.
As part of that effort, Facebook last month tapped Nielsen to host an educational session on TV ad sales for the social network’s marketing partners, according to a source who provided Digiday with a copy of the presentation deck. After outlining the basics of the TV ad industry and declining viewership of linear TV, the deck highlights the potential for increased campaign reach with some modest reallocation of TV budgets to digital channels — such as Facebook.
Facebook Nielsen 1
The deck also cites an August 2012 case study of an $18 million national TV investment which found that a reallocation of between 0.7 to 5.0 percent of the total television budget to “a representative mix of online sites” boosted a campaign’s total reach while reducing its mixed CPM rate.
Facebook has more than 200 “preferred marketing developers,” from ad tech and media-buying firms to audience-data and measurement vendors, which were invited to participate in the session.
“This is classic Facebook. It is doing mass manipulation of partners’ marketing and sales efforts, [in effect] telling partners to tell agencies and brands whatever Facebook wants to say,” said the source, who wished to remain anonymous over fears of being kicked out of the partner program. “When Facebook says it, brands don’t believe it, but when the entire ecosystem pushes for something, brands and agencies surrender.”
Facebook Nielsen 2
Facebook has been chasing TV dollars for years. The recent presentation reads much like a July 2013 Nielsen study commissioned by Facebook, which similarly trumpeted opportunities for video advertising on Facebook.
“During primetime, when TV networks reached more consumers than Facebook, Facebook was a strong driver of duplicated reach, meaning that a marketer could reach the same consumers online and on TV,” the 2013 study found. Sound familiar? Facebook declined to answer questions regarding the new presentation. But media analysts weren’t afraid to chime in.
“They’re trying to arm their partners to capture television budgets more directly,” said Brian Wieser, a senior analyst at Pivotal Research Group. “But for buying TV, it’s not just that you want targeted advertising, but you’re trying to associate your brand with content. When you’re talking about inserting a video ad into a news feed, it’s a totally different proposition.”
http://digiday.com/platforms/facebook-trying-siphon-off-tv-ad-spend/
Porch.com Raises $65M Series B Round As It Prepares To Take Its Service Nationwide | TechCrunch
Porch, which has been on somewhat of a hiring spree lately and now has over 300 employees, also plans to use its new funds to scale its infrastructure and launch a number of new products in 2015.
Porch currently features about 3.2 million professionals on its service, including 200,000 with verified licenses. In total, the site currently features data for over 130 million projects.
Pete Deutschman 