Great blurb about marketing vs ads on Superbowl

Since I talk so much about ads on supwerbowl, I found this article extremley insightful:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/02/the-difference-between-a-show-and-a-story.html

SlingBox Pro-HD

I got myself a SlingBox Pro HD over the christmas break. During the break I tried to install it, and realized that:

1. the device does not support wifi, only Ethernet in.

2. I dont have an Ethernet drop in my living room (duh! Even the new Sony Bravia with Internet  suffers from the same issue. The reason that the Ninentendo Wiis have been so successful in getting users to connect online, is due to the fact that having wifi builtin makes it a snap connect to your home wireless network. Why do living room devices forget this simple fact?)

So I went ahead and ordered myself a LinkSys Ethernet Bridge  (a wireless bridge enables you to connect any Ethernet enabled device to your wireless network) and finally sat down to set up the whole damn thing today.

Setting up the bridge was simple and quick. I then started to connect all the A/V components from my cable box to the Slingbox. It was not too hard but it was painful to pull everything out from under the TV and sort through the zillions of component and audio wiring (where is that wireless HDMI technology that everyone talks about?). After connecting everything I downloaded and installed the Slingplayer on my PC - and viola! I could now watch my satellite TV on the PC - and I can do this no matter where I travel (as long as my PC is with me). Sling also supports viewing DVR and other sources of A/V content.

The quality was ok - not true HD (1080p) by any stretch of imagination. In addition, if you have your TV and the Slingplayer on at the same time you can notice a lag of a few seconds while the devices translates the AV and slings it over.  

Its a nifty product, but in the end, I believe if all content is moving online (Hulu.com, abc.com etc.) then why go through the hassle I just went through?

Nows the time to make it big online!

As the economy worsens, there is more and more evidence that people are going online in droves, not only to find new jobs, but also for entertainment (stats released today from comScore show that 14.3 billion videos were streamed to nearly 150 million unique viewers during Dec 2008) and to find comfort by networking with their dear ones. 

If you are an aspiring producer/director, this is the time for you to market your productions. Its free to put up on sites like youtube, costs almost nothing to market and now more than ever, there is a hungry audience waiting to be entertained.

Contact me if you want tips on how to produce and market your content online.

Video Books!

Interesting release of a video book (available via Amazon digital download store):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123362056606541549.html

TRENDS projections claim that book revenues will reach nearly $42 billion in the US alone with units at 3.24 billion by the end of 2011. E-books are happening, video e-books may be the next step. The hard part for the video phenomenon is that its not cheap to create compelling video productions that people would pay for. Case in point - would you pay to watch Youtube content?

Big News from Superbowl XLIII

- Watch highlights of the superbowl on the NFL site.

- NBC’s broadcast of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ vs, the Arizona Cardinals in Super Bowl XLIII averaged 95.4 million viewers, ranking second behind last year’s record-setting game. NBC announced on Jan. 31 its advertising spots fetched $206 million, the most ever.

- Superbowl went social and used twitter to tweet about events. From the web site it looks like thy had 2,987 followers (compared with 95.4 million viewers who watched the game.)  NFL also blogged about the event during the game. Not a huge number of followers, but definitely pointing to the merge of online and broadcast experiences.

- Hulu not only showed all the superbowl ads online immediately after their aires, they also broadcast their own ad during the live broadcast - for FREE!  Good deal considering the going rate for ads was rumored to be 2-3 million dollars.

- Doritos ad won the USA TODAY'S 21st annual exclusive Super Bowl Ad Meter: a site for real-time consumer testing of how much they liked the ads as they aired. Whats amazing is that the ad was created  for an online contest for amateurs (sponsored by Doritos) by two unemployed brothers . Certainly builds up on the momentum for user generated productions.

- You can still vote for your favorite superbowl ad on Youtube

- Oh yeah, almost forgot -  the Pittsburgh Steelers won 27-23 ;)

Superbowl online?

No official sites that are streaming Superbowl 2009 live - some not so legal ones can be found via a search. The bottom line is that the economics of streaming a highly watched event like the Superbowl does not compare with broadcast- as yet. More on this in another post.

But Hulu has the Superbowl ads online - a start since honestly this is the only reason I actually watch the Superbowl!