Battle for the Digital Home

PaidContent.org just ran a conference on the “battle for the digital home.” Its coverage of its own conference is interesting and brings up many of the leading players and issues in this space. The overarching questions have to do with consumer-friendly digital technologies and copyright permissions.

The winners will need both, and to that extent content providers hold important cards. That’s a key reason Comcast bought NBC-U.

The Fight Over Google TV

In an important sense, it’s a fight over the future relationship between the internet and the big set in the home. Google is not the first company to try to bring Web video to the TV. Microsoft Media Center can do it, as can Boxee (an Israeli-US startup). Netflix and Apple TV it stream TV shows and movies, but typically for rental or YouTube, though the forthcoming Apple AirPlay will be able to stream all web video into the TV.

Google’s notion, more sophisticated, is to organize the web choices and present them to you via a search engine. That has the networks (typically the content owners) and cable firms particularly concerned. They have been trying to stop Boxee for a number of years. Google has more clout than Boxee but is still boxed in by some forces, at least for now. But Time Warner, which has been trying to put its programming behind paywalls everywhere (and has spun off its cable firm), sees Google TV as an opportunity.

From Jessica Vascellero, "Time Warner Sees Ally in Web," Wall Street Journal, October 6, 2010.

Sam Schechner and Amir Efrati, "Networks Block Web Programs From Being Viewed on Google TV," Wall Street Journal, October 22, 2010.

The New Face of Living Room TV

Clearly, it’s not just in the living room; bedrooms and rec rooms have them too. A new development is that people are increasingly buying flatscreens connected to the internet, and just as with mobile devices the app-loaded real estate on the top of the deck is taking on big marketing value. Google is deep into this via Google TV (an open source TV search engine aimed at changing the way people think of viewing), but so are set manufacturers.

Digital-media expert Shelly Palmer reflects on some of the implications in "Fighting For the Digital Living Room- Wrong!!!"

Two Kindle E-Books Cost More Than Amazon Hardcovers

For the first time, Amazon is selling electronic versions of books for its Kindle at prices higher than the hardcover versions. The two are "Fall of Giants" by Ken Follet, published by Dutton,and "Don't Blink," by James Patterson and Howard Roughan, published by Little Brown.

"The skirmish over prices is possible because of deals that publishers negotiated with Amazon this year that allowed the publishers to set their own prices on e-books, while Amazon continues to choose the discount from the list price on hardcovers. That upended a previous understanding by Kindle customers, who were used to paying only $9.99 for an e-book." Also, the hardcovers were discounted by Amazon.

Responding to angry readers, Amazon was placing the blame on the publishers. Yet the publishers contended people were buying the titles at a healthy clip.

Is this a trend? One view is that if you want to read an e-version, what choice do you have? If publishers feel that there are enough people to make the ebook a success at a higher price--that is, that this part of the market is price elastic--they’ll go for it.

See Julie Bosman, "2 E-Books Cost More Than Amazon Hardcovers," New York Times, October 4, 2010.

The Marketers' Constitution

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) is the advertising industry’s oldest trade association,"founded on June 24, 1910 in Detroit, Michigan by 45 companies to safeguard and advance the interests of advertisers and consumers." In celebration of its 100th anniversary, the ANA has created The Marketers' Constitution. According to its CEO, Bob Liodice, "Its goal is twofold: to acknowledge the marketing industry's many contributions to our society, and to help the marketing profession move beyond the inefficiencies, limitations, restrictions and unknowns of the past to a new, effective, transparent, economical and socially responsible model of marketing and media for the future."

The ten principles of the "Constitution" follow. The ANA website elaborates on them. They are useful guideposts to the evolving logic of marketing and, by extension, advertising in an increasingly digital media world.

* Marketing must become increasingly targeted, focused and personal.
* Marketing must build real, tangible and enduring brand value.
* Marketing must become more effective - more creative, insightful and accountable.
* Marketing must become more integrated and proficient in managing expanding media platforms.
* The marketing supply chain must become more efficient and productive.
* The marketing ecosystem - including agencies, media and suppliers - must become increasingly capable.
* Marketing professionals must become better, highly skilled, diverse leaders.
* Marketing must be indisputably socially responsible.

News Corp's Daily Planet

According to The Wall Street Journal, a digital news offering that News Corporation is preparing as an app for Apple's iPad is known inside the company as the “Daily Planet.” That, of course, is the name of the paper in newspaper that Clark Kent works for in the Superman saga created by Siegel and Schuster and owned by Time Warner. Oddly, according to the Journal, management within News Corp has been exhorting employees not to call the Daily Planet a newspaper. The strategy clearly is to have it stand as a new product altogether.

From: Joe Pompeo,
"News Corp Has Name For New Internet-Killing iPad Newspaper: "Daily Planet," Business Insider, September 1, 2010.

The FTC's Rebuke of a PR Agency

The Federal Trade Commission recently issued its first rebuke under new guidelines that prohibit "social media" and "word of mouth" marketers from passing themselves off as ordinary consumers touting a product and that require endorsers to make clear when they have financial connections to sellers. The FTC found that PR agency Reverb had engaged in this sort of "deceptive advertising" by having employees pose as ordinary citizens while posting game reviews online and not disclosing that the reviews came from paid employees working on behalf of the game developers.

"Word of Mouth" executive Ed Keller works through some of the ramifications of this decision in a thoughtful essay.

See Ed Keller, "FTC to Social Marketers: Keep It Real or We'll Take Action," MediaBizBloggers, September 1, 2010.