Stephen, don't leave YouTube!

An interesting open letter to Stephen Colbert, known from The Colbert Report, written by Mark Glaser from MediaShift.

I agree with Glaser. Stephen, don't let us down.

The Bull says: Buy

Yahoo this month might have turned in a lackluster earnings report, but that didn't stop Merrill Lynch from issuing a bullish report on the company.

This morning, the brokerage house upgraded Yahoo to "buy," noting that the downturn in the company's stock price--35% year-to-date--seems to have created new opportunities for investors. "Yahoo is at an attractive entry point entering a seasonally strong holiday period and in-front of a two-year search monetization upgrade cycle, in our view," wrote analyst Justin Post. While Merrill Lynch noted that Yahoo lagged behind Google in paid search marketing--and predicted that Yahoo likely will need at least one year before it's able to compete with Google on that front--the report also pointed out that Yahoo's share of search queries has remained relatively stable. In addition, the company's new Panama platform is expected to help it compete for search dollars.

What's more, Yahoo's large audience should be a plus when it comes to drawing marketing budgets, according to Merrill Lynch. "Yahoo has a best-of-breed Web user base," states the report. "The company is well positioned for all online advertising growth opportunities, including branded, search, mobile and video."

At the same time, there hasn't been a lot of good news from Sunnyvale lately. Aside from the company's report of softness in auto and financial ads, the other notable recent news item stemmed from what Yahoo failed to do: close a deal to buy Facebook, despite reportedly offering more than $1 billion for the company.

While Merrill Lynch is upbeat about Yahoo's potential, whether the company actually can entice marketers to increase spending at the site remains to be seen.

True Sportsmanship

Yesterday Mozilla launched it's new Firefox 2.0 browser.

Microsoft sbowed true sportsmanship by sending a cake to Mozilla HQ.

Nobody is perfect

So, I have been buy lately. Anyways, I have been testing Soapbox a bit. It is the online video sharing website by Microsoft. Probably the answer to YouTube.

I am now testing the embed possiblities.

Funny compilation of bloopers at Apple keynotes. The irony :) Microsoft player showing Apple bloopers.


Video: Steve Jobs' Apple Keynote Bloopers

MySpace turning into MyAge?

When MySpace first launched, it had a strong following among youngsters, especially young musicians and their friends. But now, the over-35s have joined the bandwagon.

New data released this week by comScore shows the majority of MySpace visitors now are over 35. As the presence of boomers and Gen-Xers has grown, the share of visits from younger users has decreased. The proportion of MySpace's audience between the ages of 12 and 24 dropped to 30 percent from 44.3 percent over the last year, per comScore.

These numbers don't signify that teens are abandoning MySpace, but do show the site is skewing older than in the past. And for MySpace, this shift likely is welcome news, as it gives the company an opportunity to broaden its marketing efforts. After all, how many 15-year-olds are going to look at ads about mortgages?

In fact, Fox itself seems to be encouraging this demographic shift, with moves such as placing a "Simpsons" clip on the site. Considering the show is in its 18th season, Fox has reason to think a good number of fans are older than 35.

Even apart from Fox Interactive's apparent attempts to draw a wide range of users to the site, it's natural to expect the middle-aged crowd would eventually embrace social networking. Many cultural shifts have started with youth, then worked their way up the generational ladder. Consider, 10 years ago, how many senior citizens knew about the Internet? For that matter, how many people over 30 wore jeans two generations ago?

Some are asking whether youngsters will continue to use MySpace, now that over-35s populate the site, but that's the wrong question. It's unlikely that age alone will drive teens from the site. Young people haven't stopped using the Web because older people surf it, nor have they stopped wearing jeans simply because baby boomers do.

On the other hand, a better, more innovative product probably will have the power to draw users from MySpace. And, when such a product is unveiled, the youngest users will predictably be among the first to embrace it.

Source: Mediapost

T-Mobile loves Apple?

An interesting article where T-Mobile USA CEO outlines 2007 plans, and also talks about the allignment between T-Mobile and Apple.

Perhaps now would be a good time to buy some shares again.

Google fights global illiteracy

More than 1 billion people around the world over the age of 15 are considered illiterate, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Google Inc. unveiled on Wednesday a Web site dedicated to literacy, pulling together its books, video, mapping and blogging services to help teachers and educational organizations share reading resources.

An example of Google's Do No Evil mission, I personally really like.

The Literacy Project

Article

KPMG's Revenue Assurance on Digital Content

Last week I went to Picnic '06. A very nice event at the Westergasfabriek where all sort of companies, organisations, institutes, groups, individuals all in some way related to new and traditional media were represented.

One of the workshops I went to was from KPMG. A nice presentation on Revenue Assurance on Digital Content. In laymen's terms: How can a crative outburst (ie. a song) can be protected and be used to get revenue. Especially with people downloading songs and albums it gets harder for companies and artists to create revenue if people keep downloading from illegal sources.

A movie, created by KMPG outlines this problem. I was very impressed a company such as KPMG was so in-tune with this problem.



The white-paper KPMG wrote can be found here.