Facebook Cashes in on YOU

Trying to fend off the backlash from a recent article in The Telegraph, Facebook backed off its announcement that it will be using massive amounts of personal data for marketing.

The Telegraph piece starts:

"Facebook is planning to exploit the vast amount of personal information it holds on its 150m members by creating one of the world's largest market research databases."

The article was based on an interview with Randi Zuckerberg, who, judging by her last name, should know a thing or two about Facebook. Instantly picked up and posted by tech news sites, the announcement that Facebook was selling personal information was not received well by the noisiest (and most naive) of Facebook's 150 million members.

Facebook is going to use our information to make money?? Unbelievable! Um. Not really. Google has been doing it for years.

But wait, there's more. Facebook is now claiming that the article in the Telegraph is factually incorrect and based on misinterpreted statements from Randi Zuckerberg -- Facebook's Global Markets Director and sister of the Magical Wizard of Facebook.

...So that half naked woman on my homepage "looking for love in Cambridge" is NOT selectively marketed to me? Oh...that changes everything.

Increase in ads no problem for ABC.com

Nielsen study shows no decrease in customer satisfaction

By Andrew Wallenstein

Jan 28, 2009, 08:25 PM ET

Related: More NATPE coverage

LAS VEGAS -- The more ads the merrier on ABC.com, according to new research Disney-ABC TV Group commissioned from Nielsen Media Research.

While many online video providers boast of limiting commercials to enhance the viewing experience, the Disney-Nielsen study found that doubling the ad load in a full-length program shown on ABC.com didn't decrease customer satisfaction.

The research also discovered that increasing the number of brands from one to as many as four in a single episode not only didn't diminish the advertised brand or product, but actually improved perceptions of that advertiser.

"This presents an interesting opportunity for advertisers to really look at efficiencies and how we're managing our inventory," said Albert Cheng, executive vp digital media at DATG, at a NATPE panel, Wednesday. "We can actually increase deliver, reach and frequency by looking at a model that will have more sponsors and more ads."

Also on the panel was Donna Speciale, president of investments and activation at Mediavest Worldwide, who applauded researching viewer appetite for online commercials but also cautioned the Internet video's appeal lies in not providing the levels of commercialization on TV.

"The key is what is that very fine line and balance before we push them over the edge of being pissed," Speciale said.

Speciale also cited the recent announcement from Vivaki in its recent effort to corral major online brands to dwindle the number of ad formats in online video. "We need to figure out if there's a standardization for this because the advertiser can't afford to do different creative for all the content providers and places we want to go."

HR Story: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/technology/news/e3iabb39aac80c6a278c5b91ad791a61ed6

Vatican launches YouTube channel

It seems President Obama is not the only one taking advantage of new media, now the Vatican launches a YouTube channel featuring papal messages.

This is the Full Variety article:

Vatican launches YouTube channel

By NICK VIVARELLI

The Vatican has launched its own YouTube channel in what is being touted as a watershed endorsement by Pope Benedict XVI of the new-media age.
The channel, Youtube.com/vaticanit, will feature short clips of papal messages produced by the Vatican’s television center and Vatican Radio. These include the 81-year-old pontiff’s recent appeal for peace in the Middle East.
The agreement between the Vatican and Google was unveiled in Vatican City. Google managing director of European sales and media solutions Henrique de Castro stressed there would be no advertising on the channel. “Our strategy is to get people to come to our sites,” he said.
Pope Benedict is the spiritual leader of roughly one-sixth of the world’s population.
“We must find new ways to spread voices and images of hope through the ever-evolving communications system that surrounds our planet,” the pope said in his welcome message on the Vatican YouTube channel, which has audio and text in English, Spanish, German and Italian.
The pope called the Internet a “gift to humanity” and praised the benefits of such social networking sites as Facebook and MySpace in forging friendships, though he cautioned that “obsessive” online social interaction could lead to isolation.
The Vatican, which has had its own website since 1995, also recently endorsed the iBreviary, an iTunes application to put daily prayers on iPods and iPhones.

Making YouTube industry approved.

As the Actors' Guild prepares to resume talks next week with studio execs regarding labor contracts (of which one of the main focuses are actor-related revenues from the online exposure of content), YouTube seems to be one step ahead.
The video website is apparently finishing up a deal with the William Morrys Agency (one of Hollywood's top talent agencies) that would associate the company's talents to original content, produced and broadcast exclusively by YouTube.
I think that sounds quite interesting! If it's true that networks and studios are looking toward the web to show their content, now we can see how online pioneers in the video area (like YouTube) don't want to be left behind and thus are starting to create new distribution systems in an "official" kind of way.
This should be quite interesting indeed.
The William Morris Agency represents actors, writers, directors and other personalities. J.J. Abrams is included in the list, so "Lost", "Alias" and "Felicity" (you know you watched it) fans should be pleased.
You can read the full New York Times article HERE

S. Quiroga