MySpace Ruled U.S. Social Nets In 2007

ALTHOUGH FACEBOOK GARNERED THE LION'S share of media attention, News Corp.'s MySpace ruled the U.S. social networking space in terms of sheer volume in 2007, according to new stats from Hitwise.

MySpace received more than three-quarters of all the social networking traffic in the U.S. last year, managing to stay atop the heap of 53 social media sites despite pressures from several state Attorneys General for possibly harboring sex offenders, and the Facebook juggernaut. Not surprisingly, Facebook took the number two spot--snagging nearly 13% of all social net traffic, followed by Bebo with about 1%.

But in December 2007, traffic to MySpace was actually down by 8% from the previous year. In contrast, traffic to Facebook was up by some 51%, Disney's Club Penguin climbed by 48%, and MyYearbook shot up by more than 400% year-over-year. Traffic to all of the social nets measured was up by 4%.

Facebook took the lead in terms of increased user engagement, as members spent an average of about 20 minutes on the site in December--up 100% from the previous year. Engagement on MySpace remained relatively flat at about 30 minutes, but Bebo took a slight lead with an average time of 30:30 minutes, a gain of 4%. BlackPlanet also scored high engagement marks, with users spending an average of 25 minutes on the site--a 13% lift from 2006.

Link to MediaPost Article

Music DRM's Final Days

But will higher sales follow?

Less than a year after eMarketer asked "Is DRM Doomed?," the answer is fast becoming "yes."

As The New York Times reported, Sony is the last of the big four music labels to offer music unrestricted by DRM for download from Amazon.com.

The move is important for several reasons, but music marketers will likely be most excited by the prospect of a larger online music market.

The problem is not that consumers aren't buying digital music. Indeed, digital track sales grew by 45% last year, according to the Nielsen SoundScan "2007 Year-End Music Industry Report."

Yet digital music sales are not making up for a CD sales slump, and online music consumption will have to be far more widespread than it is today to do so.

eMarketer and other firms have pegged DRM as one of the things keeping consumers from buying more music digitally. Why should consumers buy digital music, the thinking goes, if it lets them do less with their music than a CD, such as load music onto multiple computers and portable devices?

In this light, Amazon has made a bold entry into the music download wars. The company launched Amazon MP3 in September 2007, and already it has brought the largest music labels, which had previously been skittish about parting with DRM, together on the same service.

The move threatens to undermine Apple’s leadership in this area. It had gone essentially unchallenged since the emergence of the iTunes Music Store in 2003.

By one estimate, Apple controlled 70% of the US market for single-track downloads in 2006, and there is no evidence to suggest that Apple’s numbers have shrunk considerably since then.

Paul Verna, senior analyst at eMarketer, said that Amazon has a number of competitive advantages that may change the market share picture going forward, including:

• Historic strength in online retailing, a space the Seattle company helped pioneer
• Deep expertise in music retailing through years of selling CDs online
• The potential to link customers to physical product in cases where digital product might not be available (or vice versa)
• A time-tested customer-recommendation system that could easily be parlayed into a powerful music discovery tool

Regardless of who wins the market share contest, DRM is likely to play a role. Rhapsody, Napster and MSN Music all use Windows Media Player DRM protection, and all continue to struggle with low market shares.

Mr. Verna predicted that the elimination of DRM would level the playing field for the digital music industry.

"In 2008 and beyond, the winners and losers will be decided not by technological restrictions but by how they price and market digital music, and how successfully they build online communities around music," he said.

Link to eMarketer Article

MySpace May Still Dominate in the U.S., But (Surprise!) Facebook is Catching Up Fast Worldwide

Here’s a little anti-spin on the Hitwise numbers that just came out showing that MySpace still rules social networking in the U.S. (See Duncan’s earlier post). Hitwise says that MySpace commands a 72 percent market share of visits to the top ten social networking sites, while Facebook has only gained a 16 percent market share. I find the way Hitwise discloses its data to be confusing—72 percent of what exactly? Why don’t they just tell us how many people they think visited the site? We can do our own math.

Any way you slice it, the numbers are surprising. Isn’t Facebook supposed to be on a rocket ride? So I decided to look at what comScore has to say on the matter of MySpace versus Facebook (not that they are perfect, but at least they give an actual estimate of how many people they think visited a particular site).

The numbers on comScore corroborate that Facebook is still lagging MySpace, but not by as much as Hitwise would have you think. In December, comScore reports that MySpace had 69 million unique visitors compared to 35 million for Facebook. That would give Facebook about half the market share of MySpace, not one fifth.

Maybe by”visits,” Hitwise means page views. Again, the comScore numbers confirm that MySpace is trouncing Facebook in the U.S. with 38 billion page views in December 2007, versus 13 billion for Facebook. Even so, that gives Facebook a third as much “market share” as MySpace. Of course, Hitwise data and comScore data are apples and oranges because they’ve been collected using different methods and different sources. I offer this more as a gut check.

Regardless of what data better reflects who is winning the social-networking race in the U.S., the real story is happening elsewhere. A peak at the global comScore numbers (as of November 2007) produces this doozy: Facebook has nearly caught up to MySpace with 93 million unique visitors worldwide versus MySpace’s 105 million. And in minutes spent on the site, it has actually surpassed MySpace with 21 billion minutes for Facebook versus 17 billion minutes for MySpace. (Although, it is still lagging in page views, 42 billion to 48 billion). The Web is a global game, and MySpace might be about to lose it.

Link to TechCrunch Article

Blogs Influence Availability of News, But Not Quality

Blogs Influence Availability of News, But Not Quality

According to a survey of US journalists by Brodeur, a unit of Omnicom Group, blogs are not only having an impact on the speed and availability of news but also influencing the tone and editorial direction of reporting. The biggest impact of blogs, says the study, is in the speed and availability of news, while 61.8% of the respondents said that blogs were having a significant impact on the "tone" of news reporting, and 51.1% said they influenced "editorial direction.

The majority of journalists said blogs were having a significant impact on news reporting in all areas tested, except news quality. The biggest impact has been in speed and availability of news, and secondarily to tone and editorial direction.

Impact of Social Media and Blogs on News Reporting (% of respondents)
Aspect	Very Significant	Somewhat Significant	Not Significant
Speed of news	32.0%	42.1%	24.8%
Availability of news	32.6	36.0	30.9
Tone of discussion	10.7	51.1	37.0
Editorial direction	8.4	42.7	49.4
Quality of news	12.4	30.9	55.6
Source: Brodeur, January 2008

Jerry Johnson, head of strategic planning at Brodeur, said "While only a small percentage of journalists feel that blogs are helpful in generating sources or exclusives, they do see blogs as particularly useful in helping them better understand the context of a story, a new story angle, or a new story idea."

Blogs are a regular source for journalists: Over three-quarters of reporters see blogs as helpful in giving them story ideas, story angles and insight into the tone of an issue.

Helpfulness of Certain Aspects of Blogs (% of respondents)
Insight	Very Helpful	Somewhat Helpful	Not Helpful
Getting story ideas and new anlges	23.4%	54.9%	21.7%
Gaining insight into the tone of a debate or discussion	27.3	48.9	23/9
Getting information on breaking news	10.7	36.2	53.1
Identifying and validating news sources	7.3	24.3	68.2
Finding quotes and soundbites	3.4	24.3	72.3
Source: Brodeur, January 2008

Nearly 70% of all reporters check a blog list on a regular basis:

• Over one in five (20.9%) reporters said they spend over an hour per day reading blogs
• Nearly three in five (57.1%) reporters said they read blogs at least two to three times a week
• 71% of journalists have a list of blogs that they check on a regular basis
• 47.7% have five or fewer blogs
• 23.3% have a regular blog list of six or more
• 29.9% of journalists have no regular list

One in five reporters spend over an hour a day reading blogs, and nearly three in five read blogs at least 2 to 3 times a week.

Time Spent Reading Blogs by Reporters (% of respondents)
Hours Reading	Percent Reading
>4 hours a day	2.3%
1-2 hours a day	18.6
2-3 times a week	36.2
2-3 times a month	33.3
Never	9.6
Source: Brodeur, January 2008

Journalists are increasingly active participants in the blogosphere:

• One in four reporters (27.7%) have their own blogs
• Nearly one in five (16.3%) have their own social networking page
• About half of reporters (47.5%) say they are "lurkers" - reading blogs but rarely commenting.

Johnson said, "…reporters are still creating their stories by going out and developing their own ideas and talking to their sources… The blogosphere's tail is not wagging the media body - at least not yet."

For the detailed release, please visit Marketing Charts here, or to download the PDF file, go here.

Link to MediaPost Article

Global Mobile Entertainment Market To Top $64 Billion by 2012

THE LATEST REPORT FROM JUNIPER Research is pegging the global mobile entertainment market to top $64 billion in the next four years, driven primarily by music, but with strong growth from games and TV.

UK-based Juniper Research also includes user-generated content, gambling, adult and infotainment content in the mobile entertainment mix, but the most growth is slated to come from music, with revenues rising to $17.5 billion in 2012. The 94% growth from 2007 will be fueled by the increased availability of full-track download and streaming music services.

Mobile games usage will actually surpass music in terms of revenue growth, surging by 220% to reach nearly $16 billion in the next four years. The spike will mostly stem from rapid growth in the development of casual games. Meanwhile, growth in global revenues from mobile TV will be driven by the launch of multiple mobile broadcast networks in both developed and emerging markets, to the tune of almost $12 billion.

"With revenues from voice services declining and messaging revenues flatlining, last year finally saw a number of more sophisticated entertainment services begin to fulfill their potential and redress the balance," said report author and Juniper analyst Dr. Windsor Holden. "With more widespread penetration of 3G handsets--or entertainment-focused 2.5G handsets like the iPhone--there is likely to be a much greater surge in both the adoption and overall usage in rich media services."

Link to MediaPost Article

Global Digital Music Sales Up 40 Percent, But Overall Sales Down 10 Percent

The sale of digital music globally hit $2.9 billion in 2007, up 40 percent from 2006. But, as we’ve seen in the U.S. alone, that was not enough to offset the 10 percent decline in overall music sales to 17.6 billion, according to a report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry. Digital sales now account for 15 percent of the global market. Compared to other industries, music is second only to games in its transition to digital revenues. For newspapers, it is 7 percent, for films it is 3 percent, and for books only 2 percent. (All of these are global figures).

In the U.S., however, digital sales account for 30 percent of industry sales, according to the IFPI. (Nielsen SoundScan, however, says digital music accounts for 23 percent of sales in the U.S., based on different data). The report also looks at mobile sales of digital music, including ringtones. While online sales of digital music in the U.S. are nearly double those of mobile sales, there is some evidence that gap might close (or even reverse) as mobile data networks become faster. In Japan, for instance, 91 percent of digital music sales are mobile and 40 percent are full-track mobile downloads (the rest are ringtones).

Other stats from the report:

—There are more than 500 legal music services worldwide, ten times as many as four years ago.
—About 6 million individual digital songs are available legally.
—1.7 billion digital tracks were downloaded legally last year, up 53 percent.
—Tens of billions of songs were swapped illegally.
—The ratio of unlicensed tracks to legal tracks downloaded is 20 to 1.

Link to TechCrunch Article

Online Holiday Sales Up 20%, Total Retail Almost 5% Over Last Year

Online Holiday Sales Up 20%, Total Retail Almost 5% Over Last Year

According to an update from comScore, Inc. for the 57 days of the 2007 holiday season (November 1 - December 27, nearly $28 billion has been spent online during the season-to-date, marking a 19-percent gain versus the corresponding days last year.

2007 Holiday Season To Date vs. Corresponding Shopping Days in 2006 Non-Travel Retail Spending (Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations (Billion $)
Holiday Season to Date	2006	2007	Pct Change
November 1 - December 27	$23.56	$27.96	19%
Thanksgiving Day (November 22)	$0.21	$0.27	29%
"Black Friday" (November 23)	$0.43	$0.53	22%
"Cyber Monday" (November 26)	$0.61	$0.73	21%
"Green Monday" (December 10)	$0.66	$0.88	33%
Source: comScore, Inc.

comScore Chairman, Gian Fulgoni, said "...we continue to see some relatively strong online spending days... the day after Christmas saw online sales of $545 million, more than double the sales on the same day last year... indicat(ing) that consumers were... able, to take advantage of... late-season promotions and price discounts offered by retailers this year."

Another means of gauging the strength of online holiday spending, says the study, is to examine the period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, which represents the core of the holiday shopping season. This year, there were 32-days between Thanksgiving and Christmas, compared to 31-days last year. During this period in 2007, online sales grew by 21 percent versus year ago, a full 2 percentage points higher than the overall holiday season-to-date growth rate.

2007 Holiday Season Retail Spending vs. Same Period in 2006 (Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Billion $)
	2006	2007	Pct Change
Black Friday - Christmas Eve	$14.82	$17.98	21%
Source: comScore, Inc.

Mr. Fulgoni added "Warm weather during the early part of November took its toll on online retail sales, and played a role in holding down the growth in spending over the entire holiday season to a 19-percent rate, which is below last year's level of 26 percent."

2007 Retail Online Retail Consumer Spending (E-Commerce Forecast Total U.S. - Home/Work/University Locations Billion $)
	2006	2007	Pct Change
January - October	$77.5	$93.6	21%
Holiday Season (Nov-Dec)	$24.6	$29.5*	20%*
Source: comScore, Inc. (*comScore forecast)

And, a follow-up report by Internet Retailer through December 29th, puts retail sales for the week ended Dec. 29 up 14% over the comparable week a year ago, according to the National Retail Sales Estimate compiled by ShopperTrak RCT Corp. Foot traffic to stores was up 6.9% over last year.

The late shopping push puts retail sales on track to reach the 3.6% gain in overall retail sales for the holiday season. By contrast, web measurement firm comScore Networks has projected a 20% increase in holiday online sales.

Total retail sales for the week that ended Saturday were down an anticipated 17.7% from the week ended Dec. 22, which included the busy final Saturday before Christmas, and foot traffic to stores was down 7.9%, ShopperTrak reports.

Bill Martin, co-founder of ShopperTrak, said "... on Sunday and Monday, retailers experienced the expected boost provided by procrastinating shoppers... in the days immediately following Christmas consumers flocked to stores to take advantage of post-Christmas sales and to begin redeeming gift cards... "

Link to MediaPost Article

Deloitte: Nearly Half Of U.S. Consumers Frequently Create, Post Content Online

NEARLY ONE-HALF OF U.S. MEDIA consumers are frequently creating online content for others to see, according to findings of a new survey commissioned by Deloitte & Touche USA LLP. The finding, scheduled ot be released in detail at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week, marks a 12 point escalation from a prior survey commissioned by Deloitte in the spring of 2007, challenging the conventional assumption that online content creation is limited to a niche group of technology-savvy individuals, the company said.

Link to MediaPost Article

Mobile-Only Going Mainstream

Consumers continue to cut the cord.

Traditional landline telephone service may not be a tradition much longer.

With mobile phones more popular, a growing number of US consumers are deciding to do away with their wired phones altogether.

In the first six months of 2007, 13.6% of households did not have a traditional landline telephone, but did have at least one wireless telephone, according to the National Center for Health Statistics' January to June 2007 "National Health Interview Survey."

The percentage of adults living in wireless-only households has been steadily increasing since 2005. In the first six months of 2007, one out of every eight adults lived in wireless-only households. One year before that just one in 10 adults did.

Mobile-only consumers continue to trend younger. More than three out of 10 consumers ages 25 to 29 now depend solely on wireless handsets. Nearly the same percentage of 18- to 24-year-olds are mobile-only.


The NCHS findings indicated even more mobile-only consumers than data released in June 2007 by Harris Interactive. That Harris Poll, which surveyed Internet users only, found that 11% of respondents were mobile-only.

Internet usage is widespread, and therefore the Internet-only population is similar in nature to the general US population. Yet Internet users should still be somewhat more accepting of technology than the overall population.

The fact that mobile-only usage is now higher in the general population indicates that cutting the landline is no longer just for early adopters.

Link to eMarketer Article

Marketing Catches Up with Mobile

Ads are going where consumers go.

”Mobile messaging was profitable long before it became sexy for marketing purposes,” says John du Pre Gauntt, eMarketer Senior Analyst and author of the new report Mobile Message Marketing. “The ubiquity, ease of use and low-cost of mobile messaging caused it to rocket in usage wherever it was introduced—even in the bastion of voice traffic, the US.”

Various research studies show that users give a thumbs-up to messaging. In fact, it’s among the top reasons for buying a mobile handset.

”After voice calls, messaging typically ranks second or third in the order of user desires,” says Mr. Gauntt. “Most important to marketers, messaging, especially short messaging services (SMS), is now part and parcel of youth culture everywhere.”

In terms of general use, SMS ranks with voice as one of the standard mobile services. In Europe, Forrester Research reported that nearly 100% of mobile users ages 12 to 24 sent SMS messages on a daily basis while a little more than one-half (55%) used its more robust cousin, multimedia messaging services (MMS).

”Now, SMS and other mobile messaging flavors such as MMS, mobile instant message (MIM) and mobile e-mail are in the midst of a make-over by marketers,” says Mr. Gauntt.

eMarketer projects that the global market for ad-supported mobile messaging will rise from $1.5 billion in 2006 to $12 billion by 2011.

”As the speed and sophistication with which marketers integrate other mediums such as outdoor, radio, television and the Web with SMS call to action, an ad-supported model for mobile messaging charges cannot be far off,” says Mr. Gauntt.

Amid the excitement over mobile messaging, however, there remains a sticking point regarding who should pay the network delivery charge, especially as it applies to communication between a mobile subscriber and a marketer.

”Interactive content experiences such as television voting or polling have seen success with consumers paying the freight for the network,” says Mr. Gauntt. “But it defies logic for mobile marketing to achieve its promised growth with the consumer consistently picking up the tab for various types of interactive sessions with brands or content properties.”

Link to eMarketer Article

Facebook, LinkedIn Biggest Social Network Movers

The latest social networking numbers don't jive with comScore's findings or the companies' own internal data, but nevertheless, October growth figures from Nielsen Online reaffirm what other traffic firms know: Facebook continues to outpace News Corp.'s MySpace in the growth department. Year-over-year, Facebook's October traffic surged 125 percent, from 8.6 to 19.5 million.

But that's still light-years away from MySpace's monster numbers: 58.8 million users for the month, up from 49.5 million a year earlier, representing 19 percent growth. Facebook added nearly 11 million users in October, only slightly more than MySpace, which added 9.3 million. You decide what's more important, a faster rate of growth or the actual numbers.

Other winners and losers on Nielsen's growth chart were Classmates.com, the sector's former No. 2, which actually lost 2 percent of its users over the last year, with 13.3 million, MSN's Windows Live Spaces, which added 2.4 million users to reach 10.3 million, AOL Hometown, which lost 1.4 million users, at 7.9 million, and finally, LinkedIn--surprisingly the sector's biggest mover--up a whopping 189 percent to 4.9 million. Last year at this time, the social network for professionals recorded just 1.7 million unique users. Disney's Club Penguin also receives an honorable mention for its 157 percent growth, which saw it move from 1.5 million to 3.9 million monthly uniques.

Read the whole story...

Link to MediaPost Article

Linked-In: Fastest-Growing Social Network

AMONG TOP SOCIAL NETWORKS, LINKED-IN was the fastest-growing over the last year, according to October ratings released Wednesday by Nielsen Online.

The site geared toward professional users drew 4.9 million visitors last month, up from 1.7 million a year ago.

Other fast-growing social networks included kiddie site Club Penguin, up 157% to 3.8 million users, and Facebook, more than doubling its audience to 19.5 million in the last year. MySpace remained the top social network with 58.8 million users, up 19% from 2006.

Blogger was the top blog-hosting service in October with 34 million users, followed by WordPress.com (11.4 million) and Six Apart (10.6 million.

Link to MediaPost Article

Recorded Music Sales Hit a Downbeat

NOVEMBER 14, 2007

Who’s to blame? The artists? The recording companies? The Internet? All of the above?

The global recording industry is struggling in a rapidly changing marketplace.

"Digital formats such as online downloads, ringtones, mastertones, full tracks delivered to mobile handsets and Internet and mobile subscription services are providing new and growing revenue streams," says Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report Recorded Music: Digital Falls Short.

“But these new revenue streams are simply not enough to pick up the slack from free-falling CD sales,” he adds.

Bad news. But worse is that unless there is a sudden reversal of current trends, the recording industry can look forward to continued losses in the coming years.

eMarketer estimates that worldwide spending on recorded music will actually decline—falling from $31.8 billion in 2006 to $26.2 billion in 2011.

Similarly, US spending on recorded music is expected to drop from $11.5 billion to $9.3 billion during the same period.

“The situation in the industry has gotten so bad that many top recording artists are steering clear of music companies and signing up with brand marketers whose expertise lies outside of the recording industry,” says Mr. Verna. “Witness the alliances between Paul McCartney and Starbucks, the Spice Girls and Victoria’s Secret, and Madonna and Live Nation.”

Recently, the UK band Radiohead took the unprecedented step of issuing its latest album, “In Rainbows,” in digital form and allowing its fans to determine the download price.

“Digital distribution may be no panacea, though,” says Mr. Verna. “The results of the Radiohead experiment are discouraging for the industry and the value that music fans place on recorded product.”

According to comScore Networks, worldwide only 38% of those who downloaded the full-length album chose to pay for it.

And even then the average price paid by each downloader for “In Rainbows” was merely $2.26.

“There is one caveat in comScore’s findings, however,” says Mr. Verna. “The sample audience comprised ‘home and work locations’ but not colleges.”

Given Radiohead’s popularity among college-age fans, including that group in the survey might have yielded different results.

“The next few years will be critical as labels, online retailers, mobile carriers and artists attempt to find new models, or refine existing ones, in an effort to restore some of the gold and platinum shine that the business has lost in the digital era,” says Mr. Verna.

Link to eMarketer Article

Music, Videos Drive $6 Billion Asia Pacific Mobile Market

Music and video assets are now driving a $6 billion premium mobile market in the Asia Pacific, according to research from Frost & Sullivan. According to the group, the premium mobile market grew 57.4 percent last year to reach revenues of $5.98 billion. The gains cover ten countries within the region outside of Japan and Australasia. A major stimulant comes from 3G, which is encouraging the use of music and video applications. "3G enhances user experience and encourages the development of compelling premium content applications such as music and video, identified as one of the fastest-growing segments in mobile entertainment," said senior Frost & Sullivan research analyst Jeff Teh.

The figures are enough to make stateside operators drool, though content providers are also cashing in. According to the report, third-party content providers received $4.62 billion of the action, while mobile operators retained the remaining 22.8 percent. Meanwhile, assets like text messaging and ringtones remained strong contributors, though newer formats like ringback tones, OTA downloads and mobile gaming posted strong gains. "Music and video applications are believed to hold the strongest potential to increase operators' average revenue per user (ARPU)," the group said.

Link to Digital Music News Article

Radiohead Numbers Emerge, 62 Percent Paid Nothing

Just 38 percent of Radiohead fans paid for the latest album, according to data recently supplied by comScore. The band allowed fans to name their price for the downloadable release, In Rainbows, a closely-watched experiment. While most fans grabbed the album for nothing, a significant percentage paid modest amounts. According to the data, 17 percent paid an average of $4 for the album, while 12 percent paid between $8 and $12.

The result deflates the excitement surrounding the effort, heralded by many as a groundbreaking model. It also challenges the levels of loyalty that established bands can expect from longtime fans. But 38 percent still represents a meaningful number, and earnings appear respectable. Radiohead sold well past one million units on the album, and the band no longer pays a label cut.

Elsewhere, large numbers of fans continue to grab the album outside of the Radiohead website on free file-sharing networks, another unexpected development.

Link to Digital Music News Article

Mobile Social Networks Hit Mass Market

Digital Music and the Museum Model

Since the beginning of the digital music revolution, artists have taken the lead on innovative ways to deliver music directly to their fans.

Some, like Prince, have given away front-line product free. Others, like Tori Amos and Alanis Morissette, have offered up Web-only exclusives, also free.

Then there have been the famous holdouts: Metallica, which joined the fight to shut down Napster, and the Beatles, who, despite years of rumors to the contrary, are still conspicuously absent from iTunes and the rest of the legal Web.

Now comes Radiohead with potentially the most ground-breaking move of all: putting its new album, "In Rainbows," out there for fans to pay what they want.

This museum model of a "suggested donation" is entirely untested, and the industry will be watching closely to see how the experiment plays out.

That said, it is important to keep in mind that this is a niche play from a band that already has a huge, loyal audience, not to mention ownership of its own masters. Whether fans pay for this album will have little bearing on the decisions of rank-and-file artists who don't have Radiohead's clout.

Nor is this move likely to affect the labels' digital strategies. Even if the gambit is wildly successful, it will not change the fact that the industry is staring down the barrel of free-falling CD sales and insufficient digital volume to make up the slack.

Link to eMarketer Article

Still, it will be interesting to see what happens with "In Rainbows." Some of Radiohead's legions may actually pony up some serious dough, if nothing else to reward the band for not treating its fans as if they were criminals.

While most fans will probably help themselves to the album gratis, inevitably there will be a few crackpots who will pay obscene sums for it, maybe for the attention, or maybe just because they have money to burn and can't help themselves.

It will take only a few of those to give Radiohead a much bigger and more immediate payday than it would have ever gotten from Capitol, its former label.

Link to eMarketer Article

Mobile Brand Advertising Readies for Takeoff, Direct Already on Its Way

Many of the pieces are in place for mobile brand advertising to start scaling up, according to eMarketer’s “Mobile Brand Advertising” report, which projects that worldwide mobile brand advertising will increase to $3.6 billion in 2011 - nearly 30 times more than the mere $124 million in 2006.

Also according to eMarketer’s forecast:

• During the forecast period, mobile direct marketing is projected to grow from $1.5 billion in 2006 to $16 billion.
• In 2007, mobile brand marketing spend - $277 million - is expected to constitute just 10% of total mobile ad spending, which is projected to reach nearly $2.8 billion.
• By the end of the forecast period, mobile brand ad spend - nearly $3.6 billion - is expected to make up 22% of total mobile ad spend.
• Total mobile ad spending is projected to grow from nearly $2.8 billion in 2007 to nearly $5.0 billion in 2008 (79% year-over-year [YOY] growth) and $7.5 billion in 2009 (51% YOY growth).

Among the factors driving the growth is that mobile text messaging has become more or less a mass-market service worldwide; mobile music is also climbing the rungs of the mass-market ladder; and, most important, there are mobile-centric tribes of users in both advanced and developing economies, where the mobile screen is the first place where marketers can reach them, according to eMarketer.

However, mobile marketing campaigns need to be relevant and hiccup-free so that they don’t turn off consumers sensitive to ad exposure, according to John du Pre Gauntt, senior analyst at eMarketer.

Nearly two-thirds of respondents to a Maritz Research survey of Gen Y consumers said they were unlikely or definitely unlikely to subscribe to text retail offers sent to their handsets. Moreover, a full 84% of mobile users in an Ingenio survey conducted by Harris Interactive said text messages sent by companies would be unacceptable:

Link to Marketing Charts Article

Survey: Growing Opportunities for Mobile Advertising

More than four out of five U.S. adults (85%) own a mobile phone, compared with seven in ten (71%) who have a landline or home phone - and nearly two-thirds of mobile phone owners (63%) agreed that their phone is very personal to them, according to a poll conducted by Harris Interactive and commissioned by Ingenio.

Less than a third of mobile phone owners (30%) recall seeing or hearing an advertisement on their mobile phone in the past year, suggesting that a dominant advertising model to reach the growing demographic of mobile phone users has yet to emerge, Ingenio said.

Ad-related findings:

• Regarding the kind of mobile ads they find acceptable, respondents were most favorably disposed toward sponsored text links that appear as a result of internet searches (26%).
• Close behind were audio ads that play instead of ringing when waiting for someone to answer a call (21%), and a text message from a company (20%).
• Among those who have ever called 411 from their mobile phones, commercial (74%) and restaurant (72%) phone and address listings are the most frequently sought-after types of information.
• When asked about their current and anticipated cell phone use, about half of mobile phone owners (49%) said they are already using their phones for more than just calls, including sending and receiving text messages (36%), and taking, sending and receiving photos (24%).

“An inherent difference between the mobile and PC environments is that mobile searchers want to find information and then immediately act on it,” said Marc Barach, chief marketing officer, Ingenio. “The mobile environment lets advertisers reach consumers at the point of decision, and an advertising model that connects the two when intent is at its highest will do for mobile what clicks did for the web.”

Demographics-related findings:

• Younger adults are significantly more likely than their older counterparts to own a mobile phone than a landline: among those 18-34, 89% own a cell phone or smart phone, but only 57% have a landline.
• Younger mobile phone owners are considerably more likely to use their phones for more than just phone calls (74% of adults ages 18-34 versus 20% of those ages 55 and up)
• Men are more likely than women to use their phones to check email, access the internet for something other than search and download, and find information using a search engine.
• More than half of mobile phone owners (57%) anticipate using their phones for more than just making and receiving phone calls over the next three years
• Younger mobile phone owners more likely than their older counterparts (75% of those ages 18-34 versus 33% of those ages 55 and up) to say so.

According to the study, cell phone users are demonstrating unique attitudes and behaviors toward their cell phones, including a feeling of a personal connection with their cell phones; adoption of mobile services outside of calling; a predilection for text vs. email; a movement from landlines to cell phones; and openness to mobile advertising. Additional findings from the study: In addition to 63% of mobile phone users who agree that their phones are very personal to them, 44% also say their phones have strengthened their personal relationships. Women are more likely than men to say so - 66% vs. 60% Younger mobile phone owners are especially likely to feel that their phones have strengthened their personal relationships - 60% of those 18-34 vs. 37% of those ages 35+. Women are more likely than men to admit that when their mobile phone rings they drop everything to answer it - 39% vs. 33% men. Men, on the other hand, are more likely than women to agree that their phones have made them too accessible - 55% vs. 50%. Women are more likely than men to now use their phones to send or receive text messages (38% vs. 33%), and to take/send/receive photos (27% vs. 21%). Men are more likely than women to use their phones to check email (12% vs. 7%), access the Internet for something other than search and download (11% vs. 5%), and find information using an internet search engine (9% vs. 6%). About the study: This survey was conducted online within the United States by Harris Interactive on behalf of Ingenio, Inc. between March 29 and April 2, 2007 among 4,123 adults (aged 18 and over). Figures for region, age within gender, education, household income and race/ethnicity were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population. Propensity score weighting was also used to adjust for respondents’ propensity to be online.

Link to Marketing Charts Article

Is Orkut A Social Networking Heavyweight? Comscore Says Yes.

The upcoming Orkut redesign prompted us to check out Orkut’s page view numbers according to Comscore.

U.S. Comscore data shows, as expected, barely a blip from Orkut (Facebook shown for comparison). Orkut has 425 million monthly page views compared to 15 billion for Facebook:

But, wow, take a look at the worldwide Comscore numbers - Facebook doubles to 31 billion monthly page views, but Orkut jumps all the way up to 38 billion (we’ve also included some of the other big social networks for comparison in this chart):

Not that it adds much to the conversation, but Alexa agrees Orkut is bigger than Facebook in terms of page views.

Is this accurate? I don’t know. Compete barely shows Orkut as existing, let alone anywhere near Facebook’s traffic. But Orkut is famously popular in Brazil and other Non-U.S. countries. Perhaps, somehow, it is actually a social networking heavyweight.

Link to TechCrunch Article