Online Video Views are Not "Lost" on ABC.com

Last Tuesday, the season premiere of the hit television show "Lost" aired, and not only was it watched by over 12 million people, but it drove record online viewing at ABC.com the next day, with over 580,000 episode starts on the site. That's over 34% more than last season's premiere. ABC shared some details with us.

When asked why they think this particular episode of Lost had such an impact on online views compared with other episodes and other shows, a representative for ABC told WebProNews, "Lost has been a top performer in terms of online viewing since we began making episodes available online several years ago. Fans of the show tend to be very tech-savvy and also tend to watch episodes more than once.  They also frequently go online to review specific scenes."

On Tuesday, leading up to the airing of the show, ABC.com saw over 1.8 million unique visitors and delivered over 7.4 million page views, a 5% and 43% increase, respectively over the previous year’s premiere date, based on data from Omniture. Visitors to ABC.com logged more than 2.2 million video views of "Lost"-related short-form content on Tuesday, an increase of over 32% compared to last season.

ABC gives viewers more than just the videos though. This season, ABC.com offers interactive, community-driven features including user-created Top 5 lists which allow fans to arrange, rank and share their personalized lists of show-related favorites; and Episode Commentary where fans can access commentaries created by series' insiders, and create and share their own for each episode. 

The site will also soon unveil a Fan Art Wall, an interactive area for fans to upload, view and rate "Lost"-themed art created by fellow fans, and also give fans the opportunity to participate in a promo contest, providing users a "mash-up" tool to create and share their own "Lost" promos with a winning promo to be featured on-air.

There has been some talk about just how well TV shows will perform online in the future as Nielsen makes data available about the viewing of commercials that run in particular shows, whether they are viewed on TV or online. This could lead to online TV shows getting more ad-heavy.

"ABC.com's full episode player features interactive video advertising," ABC tell us. "Lost episodes currently feature a single national sponsor. They have 4 30-second spots which can't be skipped; additionally the local ABC affiliates sell one local spot per episode."

We won't be able to compare Lost episodes from this season with episodes after the Nielsen stuff goes down, because this is the final season of the show, but it is going to be quite interesting to see how advertising on popular shows changes, if it does in fact do so.

Spanish Telecom May Seek To Charge Search Engines

The CEO of Spanish telecom company Telefonica might soon try to obtain some money from Google and its rivals.  Cesar Alierta said today that search engines' popularity creates something of a burden for his organization, and that he'd like Telefonica to share in their profits.

As reported by John W. Daly, Alierta told Spanish newspaper El Pais, "Search engines use our network, without paying anything for it."  Installation, maintenance, and customer service costs are among the things for which he'd like to be compensated.

Considering that Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are sure to ignore (or perhaps laugh off) this idea, it's necessary to consider where Alierta will go from here.  Lawsuits always seem to represent an option, of course, or Telefonica could try to employ some traffic shaping techniques (which might well outrage consumers and cause the search engines to file their own suits).

Or - we're not trying to sensationalize anything - the whole issue could get dropped if Alierta finds that his proposal doesn't have any traction.  Daly wrote, "El Pais reports Alierta is the first CEO of a carrier to openly declare he wants to send bills to content providers."

So far, neither side's hinted at making another move.

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TuneWiki Lands Investment From Motorola

Social media music player TuneWiki has received an undisclosed amount of funding from Motorola Ventures, the strategic investment arm of Motorola.

Other new investors of TuneWiki include Intellect Capital Ventures, a venture fund initiative of TeliaSonera, HillsVen Capital, and Novel TMT. TuneWiki's previous venture capital investor, Benchmark Israel, also participated in the round.

"Teaming up with a global company like Motorola is very exciting for us," said Rani Cohen, CEO of TuneWiki.

"We are passionate about connecting people through music, and having our applications running in many countries with different languages will allow our users to explore the world of music and better understand its meaning as part of a vibrant and engaged community."

TuneWiki said it will use the investment to expand and improve its product offerings fro mobile platforms and the Internet. The company says it plans to focus on new features found in recently released smartphones, including stronger CPUs, larger displays and high-resolution screens. TuneWiki said it will also continue to focus on the use of song lyrics in new ways that connect music fans with new products, including an upcoming mobile game.

"Music is rapidly emerging as a key feature for smartphones, and TuneWiki is changing the experience of listening to music from a solitary experience to a social one," said Reese Schroeder, managing director of Motorola Ventures.

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Reasons to Have a Facebook Page and Ways to Make it Better

I don't have to tell you that Facebook can be a tremendous source of web traffic. There's a good chance that most of the people you know are on it, and the ones who aren't may be eventually. The social network is consuming more and more of people's time, and thanks to mobile devices, it is always accessible. If you don't have a Facebook Page, you may be missing out on not only traffic to your site, but a chance to engage with customers and ultimately help your brand's reputation.

One of our blog partners, Jay Baer, of Convince&Convert wrote a great piece about why you need Facebook for your company. He highlights "11 things you need to know." These things include how Facebook has 350 Million global users and counting (100 million in the U.S.), and how the average Facebook user spends 55 minutes per day on Facebook. Nearly 80,000 sites use Facebook Connect.

Editor’s note: If you have a blog related to online business, search, or social media, and are interested in becoming one of our blog partners, you may submit here.

He also notes that the Facebook Fan Box is becoming more pervasive, the average Facebook user has 130 friends and fans 2 pages per month. His statements are backed up by various reports and studies.

Perhaps you have a Facebook Page, but it's not performing how you'd like. You feel it's a waste of time. "If your Facebook fan page is a bit of a ghost town, you're not alone. A fantastic study by Sysomos of 600,000 Facebook fan pages shows that only 4% of pages have 10,000 or more fans – and only .76% have 100,000 or more," says Baer. "That’s why it is so critical to focus your Facebook strategy on activating the fans you have, not just collecting fans like baseball cards."

"The Sysomos study also found very little correlation between how frequently the Facebook page admin posted to the wall, and total number of fans. However – and this is important – there is a strong correlation between amount of other content (notes, links, photos, videos) and number of fans," he says. "Thus, if you want to grow your Facebook fan base, it is imperative that you move beyond simple Wall posts and add photos, videos, links and other content."

Another one of our blog Partners, Dave Taylor, offers some tips from Patrick O'Keefe, author of the book Managing Online Forums, on making a Facebook page more interesting. Among these are:

- Participate and make it routine
- Ask questions
- Host events on your page
- Highlight contributions from others
- Go beyond just text
- Integrate your other online presences
- Take it easy with apps, boxes, etc.
- Run offline events, if you can

One thing you want to do is pay attention to your Facebook analytics. Pay attention to stats. Pay attention to changes Facebook makes in this area. For example, recently it was discovered that some admins were starting to see impression counts for each post, as well as the number of likes and comments for each impression. Like Baer says, test content types to see what works best.

Does your Facebook Page drive traffic to your site? Does it engage customers? Discuss your strategy.
 

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Facebook Version Of "Madden" Game In The Works

The most popular video game franchise of all time is heading to Facebook.  The end result probably won't boast the lifelike graphics and complicated controls to which longtime fans have become accustomed, but Peter Moore, the president of EA Sports, has promised that some sort of "Madden NFL" tie-in will occur.

"You'll see us on Facebook going forward," he said in an interview with Bloomberg.  Unfortunately without giving too many more particulars.

Still, it's possible to speculate about a couple of details.  Moore said, "We have to make 'Madden' more accessible," so the final product will probably be less of a faithful reproduction of the Xbox and PS3 versions than an appeal to people who like Facebook's mafia- and zombie-related games.

Also, since this move presumably comes as a result of EA's acquisition of Playfish, it might even be safe to guess that the Facebook version of Madden will bear some resemblance to Playfish's games (which include Pet Society and Restaurant City) in terms of look and feel.

One last prediction: since about 63 million copies of Madden games have been sold over the years (according to NPD Group, which Bloomberg contacted), whatever debuts on Facebook is almost sure to get a big following.

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Is Google Launching a Competitor for Facebook/Twitter?

Google is rumored to be working on a Facebook/Twitter-like feature for Gmail. According to the Wall Street Journal, who cites "people familiar with the matter", the feature, which would "make it easier and faster" to share status updates may launch as soon as this week.

As I've written about a number of times, Google is really one big social network with a bunch of features, and integration is the key to harnessing that social power. A product like this could be just the ticket, because according to these same sources, it would integrate content shared through YouTube and Picasa. Who knows what else could be worked in?

Gmail currently has status updates of a sort. In the chat section, it has a menu of your contacts who also use Google, and shows their current status of they have one set. You can set one easily at any time.

Google has not yet responded to requests for comments, but if we learn more, we will keep you updated.

If Gmail offers its own Facebook/Twitter-style timeline, would you use it? Should Facebook and Twitter be worried? Share your thoughts.
 

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Android Market Share Growing By Leaps And Bounds

In many ways, the last traces of the 2009 holiday season have disappeared - you won't find many decorations up, presents out, or leftovers refrigerated (we hope).  comScore's just released a report concerning the mobile market, though, and the stats are well worth examining.

comScore's report covers the changes that occurred between September and December of last year.  During that time, RIM stayed on top in terms of smartphone platforms, but it lost a little bit of ground.  Apple, meanwhile, gained a similar amount, and so the gap between the two was effectively narrowed by a couple of percentage points.

Sadly (for them), Microsoft and Palm also wound up losers.  Then - and this is arguably the most interesting part - Google made quite a leap.

Looked at one way, Google's improvement of 2.7 percentage points is the biggest change comScore recorded during the September-to-December timeframe.  Which is impressive enough.  Yet looked at another, Google more than doubled its market share over the course of three months.

That's quite a growth rate for Android.  If it keeps up the pace for another three months, it'll pass Palm by.  And from there, it could be just a year or so away from catching up with Microsoft.

These statistics will definitely bear watching in the months ahead, even if they're a little slow to be published.

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2010: The Year of the Display Ad for Google?

This could be the year of the display ad. That's not to say that display ads aren't prevalent every year, but Google has only been involved with that for a little while, and if analysts' projections are accurate, this will be the year that Google's display ad business tops $1 billion in sales.

Last summer, Google CEO Eric Schmidt suggested that display ads would be Google's next big billion-dollar business. According to BusinessWeek, a Barclays Capital analyst says display ads will account for about 4% of Google's total sales in 2010. This would be a 40% increase from their contribution in 2009. BW's Douglas MacMillan reports:

Sales of video and banner ads on YouTube, the world's most popular video site, are expected by analysts at Barclays to contribute the bulk of Google's display revenue this year, about $700 million. And with DoubleClick, Google acquired a technology that handles the placement of display ads on sites across the Web. "Display is now a key business for us," says Susan Wojcicki, Google's vice-president of product management and one of the company's earliest employees.

Neal Mohan, the executive in charge of Google's display business, says Google will draw on its strength in search-related advertising to expand in display. It became the leader in search by using algorithms to help it know which ads to place where. "Our goal is to bring the science of search to the art of display," Mohan says.

Advertisers will probably not be shy about getting on board with that. "Research has shown that exposure to both search and display ads from the same advertiser results in a 22 percent increase for conversion rates over search alone," Rich Kahn, CEO of display ad provider eZanga told WebProNews last year.

Back in November, Google announced its acquisition of Teracent, a provider of "intelligent dynamic display advertising". It provides machine-learning algorithms, which can create customized display ads based on thousands of different creative elements.

Google says the one on the right was created with Teracent's technology.

"Teracent's technology can pick and choose from literally thousands of creative elements of a display ad in real-time — tweaking images, products, messages or colors," Google said. "These elements can be optimized depending on factors like geographic location, language, the content of the website, the time of day or the past performance of different ads."

Before that announcement, Google launched a tool to measure the impact of display ad campaigns across the Google Content Network called Campaign Insights, which Google says can give reliable data about how a campaign has raised brand awareness or active user interest in a particular product or service. Google has also repeatedly added new templates  for advertisers to use when constructing their creative.
 

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Super Bowl Ad Tweets Determine Brand Effectiveness

As WebProNews reported, Mullen and Radian6 partnered to launch BrandBowl2010, a Twitter/Super Bowl event that allowed users to see near real-time ratings of the Super Bowls commercials. The two companies have now released the results.

They determined that Doritos was the most effective brand to advertise during the Super Bowl, and that Budweiser Select55 was the least effective. The results were determined from 98,656 Tweets collected. The results from BrandBowl2010 were as follows:

The Top Ten Most Effective Brands on BrandBowl2010

1. Doritos
2. Google
3. Focus On Family
4. Snickers
5. Budweiser
6. Bud Light
7. Hyundai
8. Kia
9. GoDaddy
10. Coca-Cola

The Five Least Effective Brands on BrandBowl2010

1. Diamond Foods’ – Pop Secret
2. Honda
3. Teleflora
4. Michelob Ultra
5. Budweiser Select55

The top brands were judged on volume of tweets, and after the top three, the firms say there was a sharp drop-off. "Doritos won the title by virtue of dominating the sheer volume of tweets," the firms say. "That was enough to keep them ahead of Google, which had a higher percentage of positive tweets."

The BrandBowl site provided an overall ranking of the brands advertising on the game based on a composite score that takes into consideration both volume of tweets and sentiment (positive or negative).
 

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Global Mobile Broadband Traffic Up 72%

Worldwide mobile data bandwidth usage increased by 72 percent in the second half of 2009, according to a new report by Allot Communications.

Applications such as YouTube and Skype are driving this continued momentum in mobile broadband growth. APAC leads the growth with 86%; EMEA posted 70% growth and the Americas 59%.

The report found video to be the single most influential factor driving the need for increased mobile network capacity. P2P remains the biggest cause of cell congestion in the top five percent of cells, mobile broadband networks are still facing the same issues as fix networks-- growing bandwidth demands, congestion, as well as finding ways to improve the user experience and to lessen the negative impact of a few subscribers on the network.

Highlights from the report include:

•     HTTP streaming continues to be the fastest growing application with a 99% increase; its global mobile broadband share grew by 50% between Q2 and Q4, 2009.
•    YouTube accounted for 10% of global bandwidth during Q3 and Q4, 2009.
•    FaceBook experienced tremendous growth of 180% during the second half of 2009.
•    Skype is the undisputed VoIP traffic market leader, accounting for 77% of the global VoIP bandwidth; VoIP and IM applications have increased significantly by almost 47%.
•    HTTP downloads grew by 73%, and have become a feasible alternative for massive file sharing.
•    P2P is the single largest factor leading to cell congestion which accounts for 34% of bandwidth  utilization in the top 5% of cells.
   

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