Category Archives: What’s Going On

July 16, 2008 · 7:37 am

30!

I hope you don’t mind indulging me for a minute.  Today marks the 30th anniversary of our wedding ceremony.  I’m not sure if it’s persistence or laziness (as in, too lazy to break up), but 30 years, 2 kids, a few dogs, guinea pigs, hamsters, frogs, and who-knows-what-else-is-under-the-couch later, here we are.

All sorts of interesting and appropriate things happened on this date.  In 1791 – Louis XVI was suspended from office until he agreed to ratify the constitution.   I’m passionate about our leaders – business and political – not being above the rule of law (or corporate governance).  In 1951 – J.D. Salinger’s novel, “The Catcher in the Rye,” was first published. It’s one of my favorite books and my eldest daughter’s as well.  1969 – Apollo 11 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, FL, and began the first manned mission to land on the moon.  Less than 10 years later, we undertook our impossible (seemingly) mission to become partners for life.  So far, so good!

1973 – Alexander P. Butterfield informed the Senate committee investigating the Watergate affair of the existence of recorded tapes.   What an unreal summer that was, but good, our Constitution, and a free press prevailed.  Today, it’s a good reminder to everyone that in this Internet age, we all leave tracks everywhere and those funny Facebook photos may not be what employers are wanting.

A year after our wedding, in 1979, Saddam Hussein became president of Iraq after forcing Hasan al-Bakr to resign.  Nice to know we lasted longer than he did.  Some other bad things happened on July 16- JFK Jr.’s plane went down, a bad Philippine earthquake, France rounded up a bunch of Jews for the Nazi’s, and Czar Nicholas II and his family were executed.

My favorite tidbit is that 1774 Russia and the Ottoman Empire signed the treaty of Kuchuk-Kainardji, ending their six-year war.  Why is it a fave?  Because it’s about the joining of two on a day when we did the same.  Hopefully we’ll last as long as it has!

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June 25, 2008 · 5:34 pm

It’s Different

Last night I had the pleasure of attending the NY Video 2.0 Meetup.  We (myself and 449 of my BFF) heard presentations from Boxee, Hulu, Move Networks, MediaMerx and Visible Measures, all of which were interesting and pointed to the continued migration of media onto well-integrated (across devices and networks) digital platforms.  More on them in another post.

What was most interesting to me was the spirit of camaraderie that prevailed.  Most of the folks in the room were working for early- or mid-stage companies.  Most seemed no older than their mid-30’s (babies!).  All seemed enthusiastic about the business they were in and had a sense that they were helping to change the way the world consumes media.  There was, most of all, a sense of community.  People were encouraged to grab a mic and offer up positions they were trying to fill or consulting help they needed.  It was a feeling of openness and “we’re all in this together” even though you know many of these companies compete head to head and there will be both winners and losers.

Very refreshing and hopefully as a new generation of businesspeople bubble up, a spirit that will come along with them.  Way less cutthroat then the way I remember it being as I was making my bones.  Maybe a side effect of all the social networking is making people more…social!

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June 23, 2008 · 8:29 am

Reaching the young ones

Nielsen reports that per person, kids aged 2-17 viewed more video streams on the web than those over 18 and spend more time watching video from home (probably because they aren’t away at school nor at work).  The really young kids focus on sites associated with children’s TV shows and toys – no shock there.  Teens tend to focus on chat with Stickam the number 1 video site.

Strangely, they don’t seem to be spending all that much time there – be interesting to see in the numbers change a lot with school ending for the summer.  Teens 12-17 only spend about two and a quarter hours a month watching online video, roughly a minute and a half for every stream they watch.  Kids under 12 watch fewer streams but each one slightly longer – guess their web-induced ADD hasn’t kicked in yet.   Of course, these are just video numbers – Facebook, MySpace, and all the other places kids hang out are on top of this.

And yet, the gap between the 20% of time spent with media (probably even higher with this group) and the 7% of ad dollars spent in these media is still wide (yes, I”m aware that several commentators think this is unimportant – fodder for another post).  Like all of us, marketers fall into the comfort zone of doing what they did before just because they did it before.  Change is hard but when things are changing around you, what else can one do but adapt?  Yes, it’s hard to market to kids on the web, especially those under 13.  Yes, COPPA is a pain.  But you’re missing the boat (and your target) if you think you can ignore this data.  Hopefully the dollars will begin to chase the eyeballs and let’s hope as well that the places where these elusive audiences are hanging out run themselves carefully until the revenue arrives.

NOTE:  I woke up this morning and heard that George Carlin has gone on to his cosmc rewards.  More on him later.

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