Mobile Banking: More Than Meets the Eye

The headline to this story is so much cooler than the story itself. The headline had me thinking Transformers. That said, the issue is an interesting one. How long will it take people to regularly bank on their phone? In other parts of the world --interestingly, in many poor countries without bank branches* -- mobile banking is very popular. But these forecasts can be tricky and often overly optimistic. There is a tremendous security barrier to overcome here. Clearly, these estimates are very rough since the guesstimate is between 8 million and 30 million. 30 seems very unlikely in the next four years.

* The Baron wants to thank his brother for that tip.

VideoJug, for all the how-tos in your life

I recently stumbled across VideoJug, a YouTube-like site for all the how-tos in your life. The site has short video clips about everything you could have ever possibly wondered, from the serious to the surreal. You will find everything from how to tie a Windor knot (something that would have come in handy on The Baron's wedding day) to avoiding a trapped arm while cuddling in bed (ditto) to Football 101. The Baroness liked that last one, although it was a bit too basic even for her. It's a fun site to play around on and you may actually learn something while your surfing along.

Rules of Engagement: Commenters Only Need Apply

For any content provider -- TV, online, radio -- engagement is the key. TV doesn't just want eyeballs, it wants them to pay attention to the ads. Websites don't just want unique visitors, they want active participants. Radio doesn't just want a set of ears, ... you get the point. Engagement is the most important piece to the puzzle. Measuring engagement, however, is quite difficult.

It is very easy to tell if someone has the TV on or clicked to your blog (thanks, by the way), but it's tough to tell if they do much while they're there. Businessweek.com claims to have the answer. Sort of. BusinessWeek has decided it is no longer going to measure its readership based on unique visitors and click-throughs. The site claims that it will effectively be able to measure engagement by looking at the number of comments compared to the number of blog posts for a given period of time.

I don't know about you, but there are a few blogs I read every day (have you made us a favorite yet?), and I have never posted a response on any of them. That's like judging the success of talk radio (another favorite of mine) based on the number of callers. It just doesn't work that way. Is it a helpful indication that BusinessWeek could look at with other factors to possibly make an educated guess about engagement? Sure. Does it reveal anything more than that? No.

More Changes at The Journal

Good news for you sports fans out there -- and everyone knows The Baron loves recreational play and games of chance. The New York Times is reporting that The Wall Street Journal is planning on adding a sports page to the paper. The addition will likely be located in the Personal Journal section (a favorite of The Baron's brother).

The story also notes that Journal operations will be moved into the News Corp. building in midtown. Always a plus if you live in the suburbs. Otherwise, midtown kinda sucks.

YouTube Finds Its Niche

Many in the tech media have declared Hulu and Fancast to be "YouTube killers", sites that will provide fans with (almost) all of the content they want, when they want it. But it seems to have been largely missed that there are plenty of fans who like YouTube because of its user-generated content. Certainly, if you want to watch a high-quality version of Heroes, Hulu is your best bet, but if you want to watch a parody like Brokeback to the Future or find evidence that Hitler was a Cowboys fan, then YouTube is the place.

Of course, the folks at Google are quite smart and realized this a while back. They have positioned YouTube as the place for user-generated content and are wisely branching out to countries like South Korea, where 70% of homes have high-speed Internet access. Even though Google has not yet figured out how to make money on this in South Korea, the company is smart enough to realize it had to be in that market.

But Rupert, We Were Getting Along So Nicely

If you remember, I actually complimented Rupert Murdoch in a post last week. Well, the relationship has soured. Rupert hasn't called me since the post, the thrill has gone away and we no longer seem to have things in common.

This largely stems from the announcement that Rupert is planning on keeping fees for The Wall Street Journal website -- when he was trying to purchase the WSJ, he had said he would probably eliminate the online fees. Now, just like he always does, Murdoch is twisting the knife a bit more. "'The really special things will still be a subscription service, and, sorry to tell you, probably more expensive."

I understand the guy has to make money. I just wish he hadn't gotten me so excited about all that free content. The good thing about WSJ.com is that you can split the subscription with friends like I do. Yup, even The Baron knows how to save a dime.

High-Speed Highway Robbery?

I meant to get to this a few days ago, but it got lost in the whirlwind days since we took the blog public. Time Warner Cable will begin offering a new pricing structure in which high-speed Internet customers will be charged varying rates depending on how much they download each month. Apparently, Comcast and Cox are also looking into this tiered system.

This strikes me as crazy since Netflix and Apple and Blockbuster want us to be downloading HD movies and large files all over the place. Since these companies have a tendency to screw these things up, my guess is if they implemented this nationwide, it would be a colossal disaster. Good thing they're testing things out in Beaumont, Texas first. That represents what would happen in a large city.

This plan reminds of the push toward a la carte cable. The idea sounds great at first, but it almost definitely won't lead to the promised savings for the consumer.

The Almighty Super Bowl

The power of the Super Bowl is just amazing. I swore to myself that I wouldn't write too much about sports-related stuff here -- that lasted about a week -- but the Super Bowl is an American phenomenon at this point. Apparently, there are projections that Super Bowl-related spending will be about $10 billion. Whew.

A few gems from the story:
* 3.9 million people plan to buy a new TV to celebrate the event. That number is up 50% from last year.
* Roughly 70% of consumers plan to watch the game. Since nothing else is on TV at that time, that should work out to about a 90 share for the game. Too bad Nielsen hasn't figured out how to effectively measure group watching.

Speaking of new TVs and the power of the Super Bowl, the reason they chose to wait until February of next year to make the TV switch from digital to analog? Yup, the Super Bowl. The FCC didn't want chaos to break out when people with analog TVs (yours truly!) realized they couldn't watch the big game.

Wanted: Editor Who Can Mindlessly Hack the Budget

The worst thing to ever happen to the news business is 60 Minutes. The show turned a profit way back in the 1980s and from there it was on. News became about money as much as anything.

The most glaring example of how crazy things have gotten is The Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, LA Times and Newsday, among others. Yesterday, the Times fired its second editor in 15 months because the guy wouldn't slash the budget ruthlessly. He was willing to cut, but not enough. Certainly that's what you have to do in a declining industry like print journalism, but what happened to, You gotta spend money to make money?

I never thought I would be happy that Rupert Murdoch has control of The Wall Street Journal, but here we are. The guy knows how to make money in the print industry. I don't love his methods, but since The Journal already has such a built-in audience, I can't see him turning it into the NY Post. He may make it more conservative, but I also believe he will spend money so that it becomes the right wing's answer to The NY Times.

Can You See the Wrinkles on my Facebook?

I never felt old until the social networking craze. Let me rephrase that. I didn't feel old until I set up a Facebook account, played with it for a few days and then realized that I didn't get it.

Maybe it's because I'm not single, maybe it's because I'm not 14 and maybe it's because I'm not in the market for any new friends, but I just didn't understand the big deal. Was it cool to find people I went to camp and high school and college with? Absolutely. No doubt about that, but the reason I'm not friends with most of those people from high school or college is that we didn't have enough in common to stay in touch over the years.

One guy from college sent me a friend request a few days after my account was set up. He threw in a "what's up, buddy?" to make it a little more personal. I agreed to the friend request, of course, but I realized I had NOTHING to say back to this guy. Nothing. I couldn't even fake a "hey, how's it going?" because I know that answering that request is probably the last interaction I will have with the guy. He's a nice guy, but trust me, neither of us are under the illusion that even if we were neighbors, we would be anything more than casual acquaintances.

So to make this long post short (too late), I guess I'm now officially old. I appreciate Facebook and MySpace as places for teens and college kids to have an added mode of communication with their friends. What I don't get is why I should be friends with people I have nothing to say to.

It seems that even marketers are having trouble figuring out the online world of social networking.

HBO Shows Go Online; What's the Benefit?

HBO has decided to put a large chunk of its content online free to subscribers. The cable network will roll out the HBO on Broadband service first in Wisconsin and then into other test markets.

The key question here: Who does this provide value for? The people eligible are already subscribers, who would almost definitely prefer to watch these shows on TV. If the shows are not currently on air, many can be accessed through HBO on Demand. Those episodes that can't be found there can be found on DVD. This broadband service is probably the third option to watching HBO faves like Curb or Flight of the Conchords. I could definitely be missing something, but I fail to see how this provides any value for HBO, and it only provides minimal value for the subscriber.

One small added plus is that the HBO on Broadband does feature a Slingbox quality, so folks away from home can access HBO through their PCs. I have a feeling that if you wanted that so badly, you would just go get a Slingbox.

Fancastic!

Comcast has launched a new TV/movie catch-all called Fancast. Comcast made deals with Viacom and Hulu, the NBC-News Corp online video hub, to provide the TV content, plus a deal with IMDB on the movie side.

I tried it out the TV side this morning, searching for and watching an episode of The Office. It worked well and the best part was that I didn't have to leave Fancast to watch the episode, even though it was coming from Hulu. You can also find out about upcoming episodes playing on your cable/satellite systems. Paradise for a DVR lover.

Lastly, I have to mention that you can watch old shows no longer on the air, including favorites like The A-Team and Doogie Howser, M.D. This information would have proved most valuable back in middle school.

How Has Writers' Strike Really Affected Things?

This story from the Hollywood Reporter reports on how the writers' strike is affecting TV viewing habits. The survey results tell us that people are watching 27% less network TV series. Doesn't this just mean that people don't want to watch re-runs? There's no new content on network TV.

Also, the story notes that the survey is taken solely from the 18-49 demo. Granted that is the most demo most coveted by advertisers, but this is also the group most likely to turn to DVDs and video games when there is little new content available. It would have been much more useful to see how the writers' strike has affected the entire TV-watching universe, followed by a demographic breakdown.

Be sure to vote in our first poll!

Down to the left you will find the Baron's first poll. This one is a gimme. Everyone has an opinion on this.

The Baroness and I have had Time Warner (decent), DirecTV (loved it!) and Cablevision. If Jimmy and Chuck Dolan are reading -- and we know you are -- you may want to officially change the name of your company to The Dreaded Cablevision. You know where our vote is going to go. Just awful.

Welcome

Greetings and salutations! This is my first blog post as I attempt to analyze and comment on media companies and new media consumption habits. Occasionally, we'll also throw in some outside commentary on the larger media world.

I do not own an iPod, an HDTV or a Blackberry and I hate text messaging, but I love my DVR and have an interest in how people use new technologies. If you want to read about the writers' strike or that new hit show, this is not the place, but if you care about the happs of Comcast or the dreaded Cablevision, then this is your (blog)spot.

Consider this a hearty welcome from The Baron.