Media Industry Archive

During this unfolding drama of the death of the media industry as we know it, we face the constant choice of whether to essentially look backwards, and chronicle the collapse of one sector after another; or look forward and document the birth of a new media system right before our eyes. Now that my colleagues in traditional media are taking up the first challenge, as witnessed by today’s...

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Those looking for a cure for online publishing’s woes probably took notice earlier today of Google’s announcement that it was going to jump into the behavioral targeting ring, targeting ads to users’ online behavior, above and beyond the search terms they might enter into Google at any given time. (Using cookies, “BT”, as it has come to be known, will, for example,...

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Every analytics site has its own methodology, which naturally leads them to draw different conclusions from what would seem to be the same datasets, so quoting any one of them in a story needs to couched within that caveat. That said, today’s report from Compete.com is headlined by an item a little too juicy for even a skeptic of such reports to ignore. According to the analytics service,...

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Google begins behavioral advertising — Google has announced a new behavioral segment of its AdSense program. The company will collect data on the sites visited by users through cookies, and use that data to categorize the user’s interests. When the user visits a site with a Google ad, the ad that is displayed will be affected by a scan of the cookie. Previously, the content of...

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When I was growing up, one of the most reliable items found in everyone’s home in our neck of the woods was the Readers Digest. Even today, it is the number one consumer magazine in the U.S. with over ten million subscribers, plus 40 million subscribers in 70 countries overseas. But now, at the age of 87, the half-pint magazine appears headed for a rocky stretch. Moody’s has placed...

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It always comes down to porn, doesn’t it? But in polite publications such as the ones I read, the “P” word is seldom mentioned — although today is an exception since Advertising Age is trumpeting porn as one revenue stream that could help cable operators and satellite providers get through the economic downturn. The reporter, Claude Brodesser-Aker, quotes an industry exec...

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A Mediaweek story on CBS Radio’s decision to change New York’s 92.3 K-Rock into a Top 40 station has caused a comment string you don’t usually see on most trade sites; 46 comments strong, it’s certainly not populated with insights from the radio execs who might read Mediaweek. Instead, it’s dominated by fans of K-Rock, not all of them stunningly articulate, who...

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NYT sells headquarters, then leases it back - As part of a continuing effort to add cash, the New York Times has sold most of its Manhattan headquarters for $225 million to W.P. Carey & Co. The Times will lease the building for $2 million a month with an option to buy the building back in 15 years. The newspaper has been unloading assets as part of an effort to gain more breathing room in...

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Almost as if to make up for barely mentioning MySpace in her recent cover story on Facebook, Fortune writer Jessi Hempel wrote a 600-word piece for the publication’s Tech Daily last week asking if the News Corp.-owned social net could “get its mojo back.” A possible answer is yes, if it ceases to position itself solely as a social network, and spends more energy on, as Hempel...

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A new report by NetPop Research gives us some data to back up what most of us have been experiencing anecdotally the past few years: Online communication, especially within social media networks has simply exploded. The report says that overall communication online has increased 18 percent since 2006, as opposed to time spent on entertainment, which has declined 29 percent. These trends are not...

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