NBC has released additional details regarding its planned 3,500-plus hours of online summer Olympics coverage.
The Gold Zone video channel will automatically transfer viewers from a final in one sport to a live moment in another, with text commentary for each event.
NBC Olympics will work with Google+, Shazam, Instagram, Tumblr and GetGlue as social media partners. As previously reported, the network has announced deals with Facebook, Twitter, Adobe and YouTube.
NBCOlympics.com “will also include live streams of the Olympic content on four NBCU cable channels, rewinds of all the event coverage, news, highlights and athlete profiles,” reports Broadcasting & Cable.
“It will also feature multiple streams for certain sports, such as gymnastics or track and field that would allow the user to choose a stream dedicated to the long jump or javelin.”
Two apps developed by Adobe will provide digital coverage. The TV Everywhere app NBC Olympics Live Extra will feature live streams of all 32 sports for authenticated subscribers. Another, the NBC Olympics app, is offered to everyone, including those without a multichannel subscription.
“It has much less video content but includes groundbreaking ‘Primetime Companion’ features,” notes the article. “This will offer a variety of social media tools on Facebook and Twitter as well as trivia, polls, slideshows, videos and athlete bios that are synchronized to the live primetime coverage on NBC.”
We should expect to see an unprecedented amount of crossover between online social media and television broadcast coverage when the Olympics begin on Friday.
In an interview with The New York Times, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo addresses whether the micro-blog is a media or technology company, describing it as some variation of both.
“I think of the company as a technology company that is in the media business,” says Costolo. “Our business is an advertising business, we don’t sell technology… I don’t need to be or want to be in the content business.”
Instead of encouraging external Twitter apps, Costolo is building a Twitter platform with its own API.
In a recent example, Twitter featured tweets from Pocono 400 drivers and teams last month. “The NASCAR-branded page that Twitter highlighted in television ads was incredibly visceral, with pictures from inside driver’s cars. Fans could practically smell the fuel from the pit,” notes NYT.
Twitter has announced a similar page for the Olympics.
Engagement rates with ads especially on mobile have been better than with traditional Web ads.
“Our vision for the company is simple: Twitter brings you closer,” concludes Costolo. “You can say something now and broadcast and everyone around the world sees it immediately.”
Twitter is reportedly teaming up with Hollywood producers to create original video series for the social platform and, according to inside sources, the new endeavor could be coming as soon as this fall.
“Per sources, the show could live on a standalone Twitter page similar to the events page that Twitter launched in partnership with NASCAR in June, although the series’ page would more closely resemble a microsite in order to feature an expanded video player,” reports AdWeek.
“Another possibility is that the series would be distributed within tweets — promoted, organic or pinned to a brand’s Twitter page — with users clicking to expand the tweet into a full-fledged video player.”
The project is intended to enable real-time viewer participation. Moreover, tweets could even influence the show as it airs.
Twitter stands to gain more advertising revenue from the series, with product integration and promotions within the feed. Its core ad units like Promoted Tweets are frequently sold out, notes AdWeek.
Sources suggest that the move goes beyond launching a Web show to “changing the way people consume and discover media,” the article states. “Twitter wouldn’t be developing the content, but would instead serve as a distribution vehicle and advertising middleman.”
Increasing social customer engagement could mean doubling a company’s revenue growth, according to The Echo System, a company that measures the impact of brands’ social networking.
“Echo Rank tracks 500 e-commerce companies across various social indicators such as user engagement, social integration, and site performance,” VentureBeat explains. “Those include factors as diverse as follower/fan count, likes and retweeets, integration of social into a company’s site and services, and how effective a website is at converting shoppers into buyers.”
The average revenue growth since 2010 was 20.4 percent for the 500 companies in the Echo System index. However, the top five companies on the Echo Rank were able to turn social efforts into 45 percent revenue growth.
The top five companies successfully turning social into sales: FansEdge, Barney’s New York, Turn5, GameStop and Fossil.
“Our rankings show that the companies investing in social and particularly social commerce are seeing the largest gains in revenues,” says Lance Neuhauser, Echo System chief executive.
“Companies that increased their Echo Rank most over just the past two months saw year-over-year revenue growth of almost 30 percent,” adds VentureBeat.
A new study from Gartner predicts a 43.1 percent increase in global revenues from social media, hitting $16.9 billion in 2012.
Advertising accounts for $8.8 billion. Social gaming takes up the second largest portion at $6.2 billion and subscriptions will comprise another $278 million, Gartner reports.
“The advertising figure appears to be in line with a similar projection by eMarketer, which predicts $7.7 billion in social media ad revenues for 2012 and $11.9 billion by 2014,” reports Mashable.
“The U.S.’s share of such revenues will stay at around 53 percent over the next couple of years, according to eMarketer, which does not have an aggregate figure for social media revenues.”
“To put the figure in perspective, the Interactive Advertising Bureau estimates that global ad revenues for Internet advertising were $31 billion in 2011,” adds the post.
HBO has clarified that it is “not in discussions” with Netflix regarding a potential partnership.
The denial contradicts a statement from Reed Hastings, who had hinted that the companies may be ready to work together.
“HBO rushed to pour cold water on the possibilities that the Netflix CEO raised in a letter to shareholders, making it clear it had no intentions of making a deal with Hastings, who often singles out HBO as a chief competitor,” reports Reuters.
HBO offers original programming to its subscribers through the on-demand service HBO Go. Earlier this year, the channel opted not to sell DVDs of its shows to Netflix at the wholesale price it offers to retail operations.
“While we compete for content and viewing time with HBO, it is also possible we will find opportunities to work together — just as we do with other networks,” Hastings and CFO David Wells wrote in their letter.
Hastings told analysts the HBO reference was merely meant to highlight that “we’re just another network, and then when you have multiple networks, they often find ways of working together.”
Television shows, older movies and children’s fare have become the staple for Netflix, as Hollywood studios have been hesitant to cut deals on new releases for the streaming service.
However, Netflix has an exclusive deal with Epix, a Viacom-controlled channel that provides the service with fairly new releases from Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM.
At the end of this August, that exclusivity ends when the upcoming Redbox Instant — and potentially even Amazon — will feature Epix movies.
Netflix often touts exclusive rights as a big seller when signing content deals. However, CEO Reed Hastings doesn’t seem that concerned. “Epix is not a particularly large source of total viewing,” he said in an earnings call this week.
AllThingsD suggests this could be a similar situation to when Netflix lost access to movies from Sony and Disney when its Starz deal ended. “Netflix said it was willing to pay big money to keep Starz. But when it didn’t get the deal, it told investors that few people watched the movies anyway,” the article states.
The current Netflix-Viacom deal will remain in place until mid 2015.
“Safari 6 brings improved performance and many new features to OS X, including offline reading lists, a unified search field and support for Do Not Track,” reports TechCrunch, noting all of this may not be available to Windows users this time around.
“Indeed, it looks like Apple has removed all download links for Safari from its site for the time being,” explains the post. “This could be due to the fact that Apple is currently highlighting Safari’s new features in Mountain Lion (which pre-installs Safari 6), or because Apple has indeed ended development of Safari for Windows.”
It seems that Windows users can still download the old version of Safari through a hidden link on Apple’s support page.
Safari has never been a runaway hit with Windows users, who tend to prefer Google’s Chrome browser.
Additionally, Safari for Windows “was not a priority for Apple and users often complained that Safari (just like Apple’s other Windows applications) felt unnecessarily bloated and slow,” according to TechCrunch.
The latest version of Apple OS X, Mountain Lion, just hit the App Store for $19.99.
“Of course, this round is download-only, so if you want to get your grubby paws on the desktop version of AirPlay Monitoring, Messages, Share Sheets and the rest of those 200+ features, this is the only way to do it,” comments Engadget.
Notable new features include: full iCloud integration, an all new Messages app (replacing iChat), the Notification Center, Facebook integration, Gatekeeper (for safer downloading), system updater Power Nap, and a faster Safari browser.
“People are going to love the new features in Mountain Lion and how easy it is to download and install from the Mac App Store,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s senior VP of Worldwide Marketing. “With iCloud integration, Mountain Lion is even easier to set up, and your important information stays up to date across all your devices so you can keep editing documents, taking notes, creating reminders, and continue conversations whether you started on a Mac, iPhone or iPad.”
“Does Mountain Lion justify its $20 price tag? Yes. Of course it does. If you’re an OS X user with a reasonably new piece of hardware, stop what you’re doing and upgrade now. There are 200 features here — odds are you’re going to discover a couple you like,” notes Engadget in its extensive review.
“In our time with the new operating system, we experienced no major issues; just rare hiccups that can are likely to be fixed in a system update. Heck, even the installation went smoothly. Apple devotees will find a lot to like amid the long list of tweaks and new features.”
To protect the Internet against regulation, top Internet companies — including Google, Facebook, Amazon and eBay — are coming together to create The Internet Association, a lobbying group expected to launch in September.
“Those firms face a slew of regulatory issues that directly affect their businesses: privacy legislation, online sales tax reforms, cybersecurity and proposed anti-piracy and copyright laws,” reports The Washington Post.
Michael Beckerman, former deputy staff director of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will be the group’s appointed CEO.
“The Internet isn’t just Silicon Valley anymore, the Internet has moved to Main Street,” Beckerman said in a press release. “Our top priority is to ensure that elected leaders in Washington understand the profound impacts of the Internet and Internet companies on jobs, economic growth and freedom.”
Columnist L. Gordon Crovitz suggests that the idea of the government launching the Internet is an urban legend.
“The myth is that the Pentagon created the Internet to keep its communications lines up even in a nuclear strike,” he writes in the Wall Street Journal. “The truth is a more interesting story about how innovation happens — and about how hard it is to build successful technology companies even once the government gets out of the way.”
“The creation of the Arpanet was not motivated by considerations of war. The Arpanet was not an Internet. An Internet is a connection between two or more computer networks,” wrote Robert Taylor via email in 2004 (Taylor ran the ARPA program in the 1960s).
While Vint Cerf developed TCP/IP, the Internet’s protocol, and Tim Berners-Lee gets the credit for hyperlinks, Taylor says it was Xerox PARC that created the Ethernet — the precursor to the Internet.
Ethernet, which allowed the links between different networks, was the technological breakthrough that not only allowed Xerox to link computers to share copiers, but later formed the basis for the Internet.
“Then, in 1979, Steve Jobs negotiated an agreement whereby Xerox’s venture-capital division invested $1 million in Apple, with the requirement that Jobs get a full briefing on all the Xerox PARC innovations,” explains the article. “‘They just had no idea what they had,’ Jobs later said, after launching hugely profitable Apple computers using concepts developed by Xerox.”
“It’s important to understand the history of the Internet because it’s too often wrongly cited to justify big government,” concludes Crovitz. “It’s also important to recognize that building great technology businesses requires both innovation and the skills to bring innovations to market. As the contrast between Xerox and Apple shows, few business leaders succeed in this challenge. Those who do — not the government — deserve the credit for making it happen.”
Trapit’s personalized Web search is now available for the iPad. Trapit launched in 2011 as a way for Internet users to customize Web searches in a Pandora-like style. Its free iPad version makes the most of touch interface design and personalization.
“Trapit was spun out of the same DARPA-funded project that spawned Siri, and uses the same AI technology, just applied to search discovery rather than a virtual personal assistant,” reports Digital Trends.
The review suggests that while Trapit works as a novelty as a browser app, it “really makes sense” for tablets and stands out based on its personalization and superior sources.
Trapit differentiates itself from other apps such as Flipboard and Zite that use social media to customize news feeds, by recognizing that users do not necessarily want to read what their Facebook friends are interested in.
As users read stories on Trapit, they can choose to save, share, or thumbs up/thumbs down the stories. This allows Trapit to personalize news based on the interests of the user rather than the interests of their friends. Additionally, Trapit pulls content from 120,000 sources (more than Google News).
Overall, the review notes a positive step for mobile search and personalization for tablets. “You’re kept within the Trapit app the entire time; links, video, photos, sharing — nothing will pop you out of the Trapit experience — a nice, fluid approach,” comments Digital Trends.
Thursday will be an important day for Facebook, when the company releases its first earnings numbers since going public.
“The stakes could not be higher,” suggests The New York Times. “Facebook made its initial public offering in May with an eye-poppingly high valuation, but its share price has stagnated since then. Advertising, largely in the United States, accounts for the bulk of its revenue, and the company is under intense pressure to show that it is growing fast enough to justify its high value.”
“Since the public offering, Wall Street has tempered its expectations for Facebook’s advertising revenue, and shares closed Friday at $28.76, down from their initial price of $38,” notes the article.
Facebook’s greatest asset is the personal data it collects from its 900 million users. However, Google takes in about $40 billion in annual revenue from advertising — 10 times Facebook’s current advertising numbers.
“Advertisers need more proof that actual advertising on Facebook offers a return on investment,” explains eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson. “There is such disagreement over whether Facebook is the next big thing on the Internet or whether it’s going to fail miserably.”
The behavior-tracking Facebook Exchange and targeted banner advertisements on gaming site Zynga are among the social network’s latest efforts in this space.
“Orbitz, the travel company, is among the advertisers that are trying Facebook Exchange,” explains NYT. “If it sees a consumer looking for, say, a business hotel in New York, Orbitz can place an advertisement for New York hotels on that user’s Facebook page, with the hope that the user will return to the travel site and make the booking.”
If Twitter plans an IPO in a year or two, the micro-blogging service must first answer criticisms that the company can’t grow beyond tech geeks and narcissists. It seems Twitter CEO Dick Costolo aims to do just that by making the service more useful.
On the to-do list is creating a presence around major live events to help users to understand all the message blasts, improving the ability of third parties to organize Twitter posts around small events, and making it easier for companies to build off Twitter just as developers make applications for Facebook or Apple.
However, these add-on services are required to be unique, not simply imitations of what Twitter already offers — a qualification that seems slightly enigmatic.
The updates could also threaten media partners like NBCUniversal, the Wall Street Journal suggests.
“Twitter’s goal of making sense of the tweet flood could put the company into more direct competition with media companies that also edit and prioritize news and information, and sell ads to people who come looking for the information,” notes the article.
However, Costolo downplays the potential competition, describing Twitter as a “technology company in the media business.”
When Google acquired Sparrow last week, the creator of the successful email app, many customers were concerned that the app won’t be getting any new features, that the anticipated iPad version won’t be coming out, and even that the Sparrow crew won’t be working on their own, preferred projects.
The Verge takes a look at the perspective of other app developers and asks whether it may be time for a new distribution model.
“Sparrow did everything right. They built an incredible email app with broad appeal and released it into the hottest software market the world has ever seen. And yet it was a financial flop,” wrote David Barnard, the founder of App Cubby. “The age of selling software to users at a fixed, one-time price is coming to an end,” disrupting consumers’ desire to get “more and more value from software while paying less and less for it.”
Marco Arment of Instapaper agrees the current climate explains Sparrow’s decision to sell: “In the reality of our fast-paced, boom-and-bust industry, even very strong support from customers may not be enough for many companies to stay in business,” he wrote in a post.
“The Sparrow guys have homes, and families,” wrote developer Matt Gemmell. “They have every right to cash out and take new jobs. They’re winners.”
If Barnard is right and the one-time fixed price is on its way out, could new app start-ups have a better chance of going it alone and being profitable?
NBC has released additional details regarding its planned 3,500-plus hours of online summer Olympics coverage.
