NBC Universal and News Corporation partnered to launch hulu.com, an online channel with free TV shows, movies and clips. Hulu means “cease” and “desist” in Swahili.

On an online watch-on-demand presentation of “Lost,” an HP commercial prefaces the show, and four short HP clips repeat in regular commercial breaks throughout the show in 22 to 27 second segments. A fifth commercial advertises ABC shows coming up, creating another commercial break in the “Lost” episode.

After each commercial break, a continue arrow appears, allowing the viewer to continue watching only after clicking the button. Commercials can’t be bypassed.

The shows are best viewed with a connection of 2 Mbps or more and fast computer with 128 MB Video RAM and 1 GB. Some of the clips can be embedded on websites or in email.

References:

www.techcrunch.com

www.nytimes.com

www.news.com

With Yahoo’s recent rejection of Microsoft’s $42 billion bid, all eyes are on Yahoo. comScore, a leading internet research company, recently posted the January 2008 visitor counts accumulated by vertical market categories across the web.

Interestingly, Yahoo surpassed Google with 138 million visits while Google came in a near second, at 134 million unique visitors. With Microsoft at a distant 119 million, the lead Microsoft could get over Google by acquiring Yahoo is enticing.

Are we in recession or are we not, that is the question. If we are in recession, it stands to reason people would be looking up tax info and career sites. But, why are visits to travel sites up also?

According to comScore.com, tax preparation sites received a 202 percent increase in traffic over December, making it the top gaining category in January. 24.8 million career seekers flocked to CareerBuilder, LLC while by Yahoo! HotJobs attracted 17.4 million, and Monster welcomed 17.1 million visitors. Political websites saw a 65 percent increase to 13.8 million visitors over December 2007.

More curiously, travel sites stats revealed increasing ground/cruise visitor traffic up 27 percent to 11.3 million visitors, car rental sites up 26 percent with 5.1 million visits, and hotels/resort sites up 23 percent with almost 31 million visitors.

So, who plans a big vacations during a recession? The jobless?

Take a look at all the comScore figures across the board here:

www.comScore.com

With increased the attention on global warming, environmentally conscious consumers are looking for companies that share the same eco-friendly views.

By offering smaller bottles of more concentrated cleaning solutions, plain recycled paper packaging, planting trees and offering more “green” products, these companies are finding that they are not only helping the environment but their bank accounts as well.

According to a Cone Environmental Survey 85% of Americans would switch brands for environmental reasons, and 21% have donated money to save the environment. These “green” consumers are willing to pay more for the eco-friendly products and will more often frequent eco-friendly businesses. By reducing, reusing and recycling businesses can not only help the environment but can attract those environmentally conscious customers that are willing to spend more for a good cause.

Enterprise Rent – A – Car launched a program, Carbon Offset, which offers customers the option to pay a fee of $1.25 per rental that will fund certified offset projects that work to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. This cost is based on the average CO2 emissions generated by a rental car operating in their fleet. Their charitable foundation will match customer contributions dollar-for-dollar up to a total of $1 million.

Malloy, a printing company, strives to be both environmentally literate and responsible. They do this by offering recycled paper, ink, and by printing with vegetable or soy based inks.

Malloy stated, “We don’t profess to be experts on all things ecological, but we are paying attention. We are happy to share some of what we know, and, more importantly, what we do to protect our air, water and land.”

One of Malloy’s primary ink suppliers, Braden Sutphin Ink Company, provides them with a high quality line of inks called Earth Pride. Braden’s Earth Pride Inks are better than soy inks because they contain no petroleum oil but have 50 percent more linseed oil. Malloy does still use petroleum based inks for specific attributes that soy or vegetable inks can not provide and continue to recycle their ink.

Tide’s newest 2x Ultra laundry detergent is being promoted as having the same “stain fighting” power in a smaller bottle with less water added. They are using up to 43% less plastic, due to it being concentrated and in a smaller bottle, and it contains 44% less water than before. On Tide.com it states that:

By choosing 2X Ultra Tide, you’re showing you care. Not only about your family. But about everyone’s. In fact, a little bottle can make a difference — for today and tomorrow.

MySpace isn’t just for teenagers any more. Social networking will continue to be a key online activity this year, with 44% of US consumers using social networking at least once a month in 2008. MySpace and Facebook will continue dominating the market but there are changes ahead that will extend social networking activities allowing user profiles to become portable. With this portability, consumers will be able to use their single profile in many different places on the internet. Social networking will also be an enhanced feature offered when shopping online, searching and even sending e-mail.

According to Debra Aho Williamson, Senior Analyst with eMarketer.com, Ad spending on social networks is projected to climb from $ 920 million in 2007 to $1.6 billion in 2008, which represents a 70% growth rate. Targeted advertising will continue to cover the bulk of the $1.6 billion, but other forms of social network marketing like advertising, widgets and e-commerce, will catch marketers attention.

Social networking is just one tool that can be used to reach your target market. On these social networks you can post your company bios, blogs, videos and more, to extend company presence.

Stay tuned for more “New Ways to Reach Your Prospects”.

www.forbes.com

Interesting that Vodafone, the 2nd largest cellular provider, has struck up a deal with YouTube, to offer users the capability of uploading videos from their cell phones. Vodafone also completed a deal with News Corp., so users can edit their MySpace pages via mobile phones.

http://www.forbes.com

Bandwidth has got to be a draw-back for the video to YouTube cell connection, at least initially. Yet early computer trends often arrive with speed short-comings that are later surmounted with new technologies, making the early versions exciting, but presumptuous. Trend seems to incentivize technological direction and possibly speed it up, particularly if the economic reward is obvious.

So, if technology is moving to mobile, what will your computing look like two years from now. Will you buy an IPhone or a Q, or something else altogether? It’ll be interesting to watch the competitive shift. Yeah, iPhone.

Forrester predicts that the next wave of cell phone services will include mobile internet in a fixed rate package similar to the was just released in the UK. Attractive to consumers,� the flat-rate service includes calling feature such as connection to the internet and instant messaging. In the UK this combination of services is provided through a partnership of Skype, Yahoo! and Windows Live Messener.

http://www.forrester.com

In the US, Skype is currenting offering free long-distance and local phone service via Voice Over Ip. TeleGeography, a research and consulting firm, reports that though Skpe marketshare is increasing, it is still small when compared to over-all world, long-distance volume. In 2005 Skype provided about 2.9 percent of the international calls, while in 2006 that grew to 4.4 percent. TeleGeography predicts that eventually all calls will be routed over the internet.

http://www.telegeography.com

Regarding the movement toward television over the internet, YouTube recently announced that its video system will be availble to mobile phones, through an agreement completed with Verizon V CAST. The videos will be viewable on Verizon handsets that are V CAST enabled.

The online advertising market grew by 30% in 2005 to $12.5 billion according the IAB/PricewaterhouseCoopers.

http://youtube.com/t/fact_sheet

Pew Internet, a research company that studies the impact the internet has on work and life, reports that visits to online classified websites rose by over 80% this year. They also found that 17% of internet users, or 25 million people, have sold things online. Those most likely to sell online are casual users with broadband connections. Of those, 26% are 29 to 40 years old, and 20% of the total are men. 21% of college students sell online.

www.pewinternet.org

With regard to podcast downloads, about 12% of internet users say they have downloaded a podcast to listen to later. 26 million Americans use the internet daily for news, and about 42% of Americans now have high-speed internet at home.

www.pewinternet.org

With the increase in high-speed access in the home and the rise in classified selling and buying, the prediction that this will be a peak online buying holiday season seems a reasonable speculation and that the online buying trend will continue to increase, particularly in retail, throughout 2007.

Click-to-call features are now popping up all across the web. On Google maps, click the call link next to the search results, you enter your phone number, and the vendor immediately calls you. There is also a send-to-phone feature that sends travel and road route directions directly to your phone.

www.google.com/maps

On Windows Live Local (http://local.live.com/), the click-to-call feature is called Call-for-Free. You enter your phone number on your search results, and your phone rings to connect you.

In another example, if you click on the Request for Quote button on the Autobytel.com website, the car dealership closest to you automatically call you to supply specific pricing.

http://www.autobytel.com

Skypecasts are voice calls that are pre-scheduled realtime discussions of up to 100 phones. Skype 2.5 Beta for Mac has also just been released (Nov 15, 2006), allowing you to send SMS messages using Skype. The Mac version also support free chats with up to 10 people conferencing.

http://skype.com

With higher bandwidth becoming available everywhere, it’s a natural to add voice and video to blogs and WIKIs.

For example, multiple group members could link up for online scientific discussions, sharing research. If the chats are retrievable visual and audio files, this creates a powerful repository of knowledge on specific topics, making publically available information that may not be otherwise retrievable.

Skype, a leader in the telephone-over-internet arena, just introduced a fabulous new upgrade to their software that allows you to embed audio and video into your blogs. And, you can hotlink your internet phone numbers on your website!

Imagine the convenience and, possibly, the spam. Your site visitors click on a link and it dials your phone for them, automatically.

Skype currently offers free long-distance phone calling over the internet, video conference calling, and computer to landline phone calls. Sign-up for a free Sky account here:

skype.com

Reuters Article: MORE>>

If the recent Forbes report is correct, Kurt Cobain estate’s annual earnings this year hit $52 million while Elvis Presley only $42 million, and John Lennon, $24 million.

Cobain died at age 27 in 1994, Presely died at 42 in 1977, and John Lennon at age 40 in 1980.

It’s the marketing machine that makes the ticker. That and the resonance of the product correctly identifying audience language.

The right touch of chemistry is magically powerful, and when that element strikes a cord, it provides something that stands out, is unusual, yet not so over the top as to be creepy or obscure.

All of these are branding issues, focusing presence-building on the uniqueness of the product. Though the marketing mechanics are different, and the target audiences vary, many of the same techiques and overall theory can be applied to branding strategies for consultants, public speakers, and professionals such as attorneys, CEOs, writers. The personality is the product and the power is in an under-current of emotional impact that speaks in new ways to common concerns.

www.Forbes.com

Here�s something interesting. Blogads.com did a survey of 56,000 blog readers and found this out about you, dear blog readers, you. See if you fit the profile. A crowd of affluent consumers, likely to vote liberal:

27% of you are 41 � 50 years old;
72% are males;
More than half have a household income of $60,000 to $90,000;
Your job title is Computer Professional, or Educator, or Retired;
Most are democrats;
50% have bought a computer or computer equipment online this year;
70% of you have never read a blog using an RSS news reader;
82% of you do not have your own blog.

And, most of you don’t listen to podcasts. Gracious, what do you do for exercise?

www.blogads.com/survey

Studies are showing that IP-connected devises are on the rise, up 14% this year.

The trend is that cameras, MP3 players, and DVD players will have direct access to the web as well as to the home network. So an iPod would be capable of directly downloading or uploading videos to YouTube sans computer (or iTunes), digital images could be uploaded to internet directly, not shuffled through another devise to gain access.

Home networks are said to be becoming more prevalent, connecting all IP devises in a household. Digital images, MP3s, videos on one devise will be accessible from any other IP connected devise in the residence.

Family photos stored on your laptop downstairs, could also be viewed on the family IP-connected television at the dinner table, for example.

Also predicted — LCD and plasma TVs will be the top revenue makers in the digital media market, above digital cameras, DVD players, and MP3 players. A projected $70 billion will be earned on panel TV sales this year, achieving 44% market share.

Given the trend, the best purchase in this equipment category probably includes IP capacity, otherwise, expect to replace it in a year.

www.strategyanalytics.com

Today Google purchases YouTube for $1.65 billion! See what founders Steve Chen and Chad Hurley have to say about it:

www.youtube.com

Steve Chen, 27 and Chad Hurley, 29, began YouTube in 2005. Both were among the first 20 employees hired for Papypal in 1999. Hurley is a designer from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen is a computer science graduate from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Chen began working at Paypal during his senior year in college.

www.Businessweek.com

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