Daily Archives: 29 May 2007

“US newspaper groups experienced a 22 per cent increase in online advertising revenues but the sharp rise was not enough to offset the decline in revenues from traditional print advertising.”

“the audience never fully funded news anyway. Cover prices simply don’t reflect the cost of production. Yet news remains a great way to bring an audience in. The newspaper business has historically been very profitable working this way.”

“There are at least three good reasons for moderating. First, so that users are not driven away by abusive or offensive postings; second, to make sure that the discussion stays on topic; and third, to avoid legal liability.”

‘Associated’s definition of Modern MidBritain encapsulates 47 per cent of the population, all of them falling within one of five demographic groups listed by the research company Acorn… 61 per cent of Mail readers fall into one of these categories.

“Norway is the European country with the highest proportion of the population on Facebook: over 170,000 Norwegians, or 3% of the population have a Facebook profile.”

“Google is changing its search to integrate video, photos, text, and news with [text] results… This promotes other media to the exalted rank of text. And it tells publishers that they’d damned well better do the same.”

“the revelation for me is that all content goes through some form of editorial process, the difference on the web is that the process plays out in the open.”

‘Steve Souders of Yahoo’s “Exceptional Performance Team” gave an insanely great presentation at Web 2.0 about optimizing website performance by focusing on front end issues.’

“Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. continued upward totaling $16.9 billion in 2006… exceeding 2005 by 35%. Q4 2006 internet advertising revenues totaled $4.8 billion, representing record revenues for a single quarter”

“Consider search optimisation – we’ve had that since some plumber hit on calling his firm “Aardvark Plumbers” to secure first place in his local Yellow Pages and his competitor changed to “A1 Plumbers” the week after. “

“Most news sites put far too much effort into the home page – as few as 20% of daily visitors see it, because they arrive, instead, via search or links”

“E&P spoke to the editors of three top newspaper sites — USAtoday.com, latimes.com, and washingtonpost.com — about how a redesign makes its way from a set of ideas and needs to an executed vision.”

“After eating babies, the WiFi Routers will grow to enormous size and attack our cities.”

Kevin Anderson: “Exclusive content, tailored for the web not for TV, made to share and seed with low-cost but high-quality pro-sumer gear is the beginning of a winning video strategy for newspapers.”

“banner ads may provide a valuable function in fostering familiarity even if those that view them never click through to the source of the ads.”

“web site ratings for a good number of television stations are getting stronger… compared to newspaper web sites.”

“Digital media has unbundled content, disrupting legacy businesses that sell bundled media like albums and newspapers… the problem is not in the aggregation – it’s in the efficiency and flexibility of the aggregation.”

“Will the new stress on discrete digital tracks bring a new flowering of creativity in music? I don’t know. Maybe we’ll get a pile of gems, or maybe we’ll get a pile of crap. Probably we’ll get a mix.”

“The BBC Trust chairman, Sir Michael Lyons, has asked for more time to consider controversial plans to introduce advertising on a global version of the BBC website.”

Vertdict research: “The etailing market for goods grew by 33.4% to £10.9bn last year, and will grow to £28.1bn, or about 8.9% of the UK’s total retail sales, by 2011.”

“2005 there was a twelve percentage point gap between the number of adults with broadband at home in Northern Ireland (lowest at 24%)… and England (highest at 36%)… by 2006 this gap had reduced to three percentage points”

“The figures, from Internet research from Nieslen//Netratings, indicate that young women now account for 18% of the UK Internet population and over one-fifth of all UK computer time.”

Presentation from Metafilter founder Matthew Haughey. [Via Kevin Anderson]

“there is also a crucial viral component – when a friend adds an application, it is noted in their news stream on their profile.”