Online, Mobile Ad Spending Explodes, Threatens Traditional Media?

Some thinking about online advertising spend in 2010 suggests that this year it's going to see serious growth, which is fabulous news for new media. But it's potentially bad news for traditional publishing.
The analysis is coming from ZenithOptimedia, which has been revising its estimates for online advertising spend in 2010 upwards for several months now. Its latest piece of thinking has attracted some attention in the online media itself because it predicts that the spend in 2010 will rise some 13.1% throughout this year, and even zoom upwards another 16.1% in 2011. That figure is an amazing indicator that the economic downturn really is over, as ad spend was one of the big indicators that the recession was biting deep.

Japanese Author Circumvents Publishers to Release New Novel on the iPad

Well-known Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami is releasing his next novel, A Singing Whale, directly to iPad owners via Apple Japan’s App Store, circumventing his traditional publisher in the process.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Murakami is working with a software company to release the novel alongside video content and music by Academy Award-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto. Pending App Store approval, A Singing Whale will be available for 1,500 yen (about $17). Apple will receive 30% of the revenue, with the remainder to be divided among Murakami, Sakamoto and the software company.
Although the author advises publishers to “read it and weep,” this doesn’t mark the beginning of the end for the publishing industry — at least not yet. What Murakami is releasing is not an e-book in the traditional sense, but a full multimedia experience that can’t be replicated in print. In some respects, it’s similar to Alice for the iPad, an app that brings Lewis Caroll’s beloved Alice () in Wonderland to life with full-color animations and interactive features. Furthermore, the author is also still in talks with its publisher, Kodansha, about releasing a hard copy of the novel.

Apple shares slide as iPhone 4 concerns grow

A customer looks at an iPhone 4 at the Apple Store 5th Avenue in New York, in this June 24, 2010 file photo.

Credit: Reuters/Eric Thayer/Files

By Carolina Madrid and Gabriel Madway

LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO | Tue Jul 13, 2010 3:05pm EDT

LOS ANGELES/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Shares of Apple Inc slid more than 4 percent on Tuesday after a poor review for its iPhone 4 from an influential consumer guide underpinned mounting complaints about the hot-selling device's reception and spurred speculation about a product recall.
Analysts thought a recall unlikely but said the world's most valuable tech company needs need to move quickly to avert longer-term damage to its widely respected brand, which allows it to charge a premium for products like the iPad and iPod. The stock should recover on Wednesday, some said.
Consumer Reports said on Monday it could not recommend the iPhone 4 -- which sold 1.7 million units worldwide in its first three days -- after its tests confirmed concerns about signal loss when the device is held in a certain way.

Google TV Explained In 141 Seconds

Google published a video explaining its forthcoming Google TV product earlier today.
The video doesn't tell us much we didn't know already: Google TV, available both from a set-top box and built-in to select televisions from Sony, will provide new ways to search for and record existing television content, as well as allowing people to display online content on their televisions.
The product looks fine, as far as we can tell, but the video itself is pretty underwhelming. It is narrated in a PSA-like monotone, and is thin on detail. As ever with Google, it's difficult to tell whether the company thinks this is an important new business or just another side project.
At least some people think Google is on to something big here. If so, it needs to do a lot more to sell the idea:

Why I Caved, Bought Cable TV, And Gave Up On My 'Hulu Household'

have a confession to make.
Late last month, I walked into the Time Warner Cable store on East 23rd Street in Manhattan and sat down with a saleswoman. I left a few minutes later with a bright orange shopping bag, a new Scientific Atlanta digital cable box, and $80+ monthly digital cable subscription.
Okay, that's not too out-of-the-ordinary. Time Warner Cable added 56,000 new digital TV subscribers last quarter, finishing the year with almost 9 million subs. I wasn't alone.
But by buying cable, I was a failure. I was admitting defeat. I was caving in to The Man.
Why? Because I'm the guy who, almost two years ago, returned my Time Warner Cable set-top box to that same store on 23rd Street. I proudly vowed to get all of my TV content from the Internet forever -- becoming a "Hulu household," as I called it.

Sorry, There's No Way To Save The TV Business

The traditional TV industry--cable companies, networks, and broadcasters--is where the newspaper industry was about five years ago:
In denial.
There are murmurings on the edges about how longstanding business models will come under pressure as Internet distribution takes over.  But, so far, the revenue and profits are hanging in there, so the big TV companies don't really care.
Specifically, the TV industry's attitude is the same as the newspaper industry's attitude was circa 2002-2003: Stop calling us dinosaurs: We get digital; We're growing our digital businesses; We're investing in digital platforms; People still recall ads even when they fast-forward through them on DVRs; There's no substitute for TV ads.  And traditional TV isn't going away: Just look at our revenue and profits!
After saying all this same stuff for years, the newspaper industry figured out the hard way that, eventually, reality intrudes, that you can't stuff the genie back in the bottle.  And over the next 5-10 years, the TV industry will figure this out, too.
Here's the problem in a nutshell:
As with print-based media, Internet-based distribution generates only a tiny fraction of the revenue and profit that today's incumbent cable, broadcast, and satellite distribution models do.  As Internet-based distribution gains steam, therefore, most TV industry incumbents will no longer be able to support their existing cost structures.
Specifically, TV business models for the past half-century, from broadcast to cable to satellite, have been built on the following foundation: