Most Powerful Blogs Named, Baron Miffed

The Observer in the U.K. put together its list of the 50 Most Powerful Blogs. The list goes from serious to silly, but it does not include us. Ho hum. It does include engadget, which is a great tech blog, and one we've been planning to write about. Note that the list is not The 50 Most Relevant Blogs or The 50 Blogs Run By Very Likeable and Attractive People. We're sure we would have been at least an h0norable mention on those lists.

Great way for The Observer to drive traffic to its site though. You know this thing has gotten more hits than Lindsay's latest [fill in something relevant].

Hulu Prepares for Big Rollout

We have written about how much we like Hulu (the News Corp./NBC web video site) several times in the past. Well, if you're watching TV on the web and you haven't yet checked it out, you will get the chance as the site is about to come out of private beta. In other words, you'll no longer have to register to use the site.

Part of the reason The Baroness and I enjoy Hulu so much (though we only use it on occasion) is for its incredible user-friendliness. Well, Fortune Magazine has an article detailing just how fanatical the Hulu programmers were in putting together the site. Hulu did it right in taking its time and launching the site only once things worked really well. Unfortunately, a lot of this piece is the big media folks saying, "I told you so." I guess designing a great site and being humble was a bit too much to ask.

Internet is More Trusted News Source Than Print, TV

There's a new poll out with interesting info on how much trust people have in different media. The figures are surprising. Adults tend to trust radio (first) and the Internet (second) before they trust TV and print (dead last). I think the results here may have been affected by the fact that they called the print category "press," which I would take to mean the entire media field, but maybe I'm just reading too much into this.

Look, if you readers are going to trust me that much, I appreciate it. I am, after all, The Baron. But you would trust the news from me before The New York Times? There's something screwy going on with this data. It's one thing if you think the Times or the Wall Street Journal have political leanings, as they undoubtedly do, but does that mean you trust their information less than the folks at Gothamist (a site I love)? I'm totally confused. This is like when I found that women actually pay to have someone rip their eyebrows out with hot wax.

NBC Spends Money, Explains the Obvious

NBC tells us that people who watch shows online are more likely to recall ads and more likely to watch the whole show through. I can't say this is terribly surprising on either count.

As far as the ads are concerned, when you watch an episode online, there are about three ads, maybe four if you count a pre-program sponsorship. Of course, people are going to recall those four ads better than the 13-15 that normally run during a show on TV. Plus, you can't switch channels online and since the NBC player can sometimes be shaky, I hardly even want to breathe on the computer when I'm watching The Office.

This lack of channel-surfing also means that you're more likely to stay with a show all the way through. Plus, you decided to stream that show (in theory) because you want to watch it. Viewing online has a far bigger pull side than TV, where there are so many options and occasionally you just want to be mindlessly entertained for an hour. How else to explain Are Your Smarter than a 5th Grader?

Yahoo is Serious About Finding Other Suitors

You really have to admire the folks at Yahoo. These guys have made it clear to everyone that they have no interest in being bought by Big Brother Microsoft (at least at the current price) and that they still want to compete with the Google behemoth.

Today comes word that Yahoo is working on a deal with Time Warner involving AOL. (In case you missed my recent post on AOL, I'm trying to improve its grandma-like image.) Together the companies figure they can take on Google in the advertising arena. At this point, it seems the deal with Microsoft is still likely to happen, but you have to admire Yahoo trying to scare up as many potential suitors as it can to get Microsoft to play fair.

The Economist Backs My Play

Amen to my brothers from The Economist!

As a follow to my rant on the movie industry (even though they published their article first), The Economist has an article detailing Hollywood's on-again, off-again relationship with the Internet. I swear I read the article after my post. I swear!

Is AOL Going the Way of Ovaltine?

What do you think of when you see the letters A-O-L? Chances are you're probably shuddering at the thought of the dial-up days when you would write e-mails offline and then log on to send them. Good times.

Well, a decade later, AOL, which not surprisingly has seen its share price tank in recent years, is working on creating as many niche content sites as possible. AOL plans to launch at least a dozen in the next six months. That's wonderful. The brand has produced some great sites, especially its Fanhouse site for sports.

But wouldn't you change the name? The brand has tremendous recognition, but it's like Ovaltine wanting to reinvent itself. The name has recognition, but the first thing that comes to mind is something that was popular years ago. How about renaming their online content unit? Otherwise, all you think of with A-O-L is O-L-D.