Enjoying Healthy Profits, Amazon Turns to Investment, Growth

Amazon has typically chosen revenue growth and investments over profits, but in Q4, profit rose 55 percent to $749 million, while revenue increased 22 percent to $43.7 billion. The company has enjoyed seven consecutive profitable quarters. While brick-and-mortar sales reported disappointing sales during the holiday season, Amazon won an estimated 42 percent of total holiday online spending growth during that quarter. The company is about to invest heavily, having pledged to create 100,000 full-time jobs by mid-2018. Continue reading Enjoying Healthy Profits, Amazon Turns to Investment, Growth

ETC Seeks Project Director for Production in the Cloud Initiative

The Entertainment Technology Center @ The University of Southern California (ETC) is seeking a project director to oversee its existing Production in the Cloud initiative, as well as develop and lead new initiatives in the media & entertainment space. The project director will work with studio executives and key technology and services providers to advance production methodology for creative content and delivery. The position is a 50 percent project consultancy. The full job description is available on ETCentric. Interested candidates should contact Edie Meadows at ETC. Continue reading ETC Seeks Project Director for Production in the Cloud Initiative

Facebook Tool Compares Ad Results Across Digital, TV, Print

Facebook has rolled out an information portal designed to help marketers compare ad performance across digital, television and print campaigns. “The company’s new marketing mix modeling (MMM) tool will let measurement partners gather information directly from Facebook, Instagram and Facebook’s Audience Network on behalf of their clients for cross-channel measurement and planning,” reports Variety. More than 150 advertisers are already using the MMM information, and the company has been working to feed its data “to partners including Nielsen, Neustar MarketShare, Analytic Partners and Marketing Evolution.” Continue reading Facebook Tool Compares Ad Results Across Digital, TV, Print

Hyper-Targeted Ads of the Future to Rely on TV, Social Media

In the not-so-distant future of advertising, Hollywood, armed with big data, will be able to create precision-targeted ads that will compete with today’s dominant advertisers, social networks. Today, many advertisers are finding that relying on the most popular platforms might not actually give them the reach they want for their ads. Facebook has admitted more than once that it has mistakenly inflated all kinds of ad metrics, from how much time users spend watching video clips to time spent reading articles. Continue reading Hyper-Targeted Ads of the Future to Rely on TV, Social Media

Facebook Pushes Longer Video, Offers Snapchat-Like Feature

Facebook has decided it wants longer videos, and will reward videographers who create them. That’s quite a turnabout for the company that counts three seconds as a “view,” and the many publishers reporting that few viewers watch their videos to completion. Facebook still plans to count three seconds as a view, but is changing its News Feed algorithm to favor longer videos, especially those that keep viewers watching. With the new algorithm, the longer a video holds its audience, the more Facebook will promote it. The social network is also adding a feature similar to Snapchat Stories. Continue reading Facebook Pushes Longer Video, Offers Snapchat-Like Feature

Sprint Buys One-Third of Jay Z’s Troubled Tidal Music Service

Sprint bought a one-third stake in Jay Z’s streaming music service Tidal, after beginning discussions in April 2015. Sprint has not offered details on how much it paid or what the partnership entails, although it says that its subscribers will now have access to Tidal content and that Tidal and its artists will create content specifically for them. Jay Z has stated that he and Sprint share the view of allowing artists to connect directly with fans. Sprint chief executive Marcelo Claure will join the Tidal board of directors. Continue reading Sprint Buys One-Third of Jay Z’s Troubled Tidal Music Service

Google Competes with Customers for Prime Online Ad Space

Google is among the biggest buyers of its own ads and the Silicon Valley titan is increasingly pushing its own hardware products — from Nest smart-home thermostats to the new Pixel phones — on its own site. Now a recent study shows that Google gives its own ads and those of its affiliate companies the most prominent placement nearly all the time. Google isn’t the only company competing with its customers for online ad space; Facebook and Microsoft fall into that same category. The digital advertising industry is valued at $187 billion. Continue reading Google Competes with Customers for Prime Online Ad Space

Apple Makes an Original Content Play to Beef Up Apple Music

Apple plans to focus on a new business in original TV shows and movies, say sources. The content would be available to subscribers of Apple Music, the company’s $10/month streaming music service, which continues to be an underdog to Spotify. In the wake of slowing iPhone and iPad sales, Apple has been casting about for a new source of revenue; recently, it has been in discussions with Hollywood producers to buy the rights to scripted TV programs and is trying to hire studio/network marketers to promote the content. Continue reading Apple Makes an Original Content Play to Beef Up Apple Music

Twitter Shifts Gears, Describes Itself as a Place to Get News

After years of struggling to effectively define its purpose, Twitter CMO Leslie Berland told a CES audience that the company has overcome that challenge. According to Berland, the platform no longer views itself as a social network, but rather a place to go for the latest news and world events as they unfold. “The beauty of Twitter is that you can see all sides of any conversation that is happening at any moment in time,” she said, placing an emphasis on neutrality. Instead of denying the many terms and clichés used to describe Twitter in the past, she embraces them. “We were a platform, a product, a service, a water cooler, a time square, a microphone, and we are every single one of those things,” she said. Continue reading Twitter Shifts Gears, Describes Itself as a Place to Get News

Facebook to Show Video Ads, Share Revenue with Publishers

Facebook is planning tests of a new mid-roll ad format that would enable participating video publishers to insert ads at least 20 seconds into video clips on the social platform. To start, Facebook plans to sell the ads and share 55 percent of revenue with publishers (the same deal offered by online video ad leader YouTube). According to Facebook, its users watch 100 million hours of video per day. However, publishers have seen little or no revenue from their clips since Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has not allowed pre-roll video ads. Continue reading Facebook to Show Video Ads, Share Revenue with Publishers

Beyond the Headlines: This Year’s Outliers of Interest at CES

If you look hard enough, CES is often the place to discover smaller, less publicized technologies and products that could become the seeds for something practical and useful to the ETC member companies. This year I came across several that fit this description, including a technology called SynTouch that could prove beneficial to haptic feedback R&D and physical product quality control, a simple and elegant method from ManoMotion to use hand gestures as a user interface, an OLED necklace that could lead to the launch of a social e-collectible marketplace, and a tiny chip from Chirp Microsystems that could provide a compelling motion capture solution. Continue reading Beyond the Headlines: This Year’s Outliers of Interest at CES

Marketers and Movie Producers Try Out New VR Experiences

When “Assassin’s Creed” opens in U.S. theaters on Dec. 21, moviegoers will get a chance to experience the cinematic version of a role-playing game via virtual reality. At select AMC theaters, the moviegoer can put on an Oculus Rift VR headset and become a passive character in an action scene with star Michael Fassbender. To create this challenging VR experience, the movie’s producers teamed with chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), which provided graphics expertise in exchange for being associated with the popular franchise. Continue reading Marketers and Movie Producers Try Out New VR Experiences

Nielsen and Foursquare Ink Partnership for In-Store Visit Info

Although Nielsen already offers tools to help track when consumers buy products in-store after seeing online ads, the measurements company has inked an agreement with Foursquare to create an improved product. Location data company Foursquare will offer information which, combined with Nielsen’s marketing tools, will offer a more complete picture of consumer activity. The new capabilities will come at a price. Nielsen digital measurement clients will be required to buy into the version with Foursquare data included. Continue reading Nielsen and Foursquare Ink Partnership for In-Store Visit Info

Warner Bros. Acquires Machinima for Digital Networks Division

Warner Bros. announced its plan to purchase the rest of gamer-centric YouTube network Machinima, which the studio first invested in two years ago. The digital media company will join the recently created Warner Bros. Digital Networks arm to help the studio develop new digital and over-the-top offerings. “With Machinima now wholly under its control, Warner Bros. hopes to tap deeper into the network’s loyal audience of young consumers who devour video game-related programming — especially content related to Warner’s own franchises including DC,” reports the Los Angeles Times. Machinima also “provides video programming for services including Playstation Vue, Amazon Prime and the CW network.” Continue reading Warner Bros. Acquires Machinima for Digital Networks Division

Amazon Readies Launch of Prime Video in 120 More Countries

Amazon is expected to debut its streaming Amazon Prime Video in about 200 countries and territories, say sources close to the matter. Although a launch in India was already announced, Prime is currently only available in the U.S., U.K., Germany, Austria and Japan. The news was leaked by Jeremy Clarkson, star of the upcoming Amazon automotive show “The Grand Tour,” who tweeted that “Amazon has gone global,” with the show to be available in 200 territories. With a global reach, Amazon will be in direct competition with Netflix. Continue reading Amazon Readies Launch of Prime Video in 120 More Countries