Deck the Malls with Sony

I’ve learned to take my camera with me whenever I hit the local King of Prussia mall — every few months something interesting pops up. This weekend it was a new Sony holiday display. Display is probably too mild a word as the footprint of this thing is probably two thirds the size of my … Read more

TiVo Markets Customer Demographic Data

DVR powerhouse TiVo, Inc. announced that they will be offering a new service that gives advertisers detailed information customer information. “Power Watch Consumer Panel,” a partnership between TiVo Inc. and Starcom USA, fires another salvo at long-established Nielsen as TiVo attempts to further monetize the data and statistics data that their DVR service gathers. TiVo … Read more

More Hulu Details Emerge

NBC’s video streaming portal, Hulu, has entered a slightly less private beta and more details have emerged. The NY Times writes: Hulu, now an independent company with more than a hundred employees and its own offices in Los Angeles, will begin privately testing its new service with select users at Hulu.com. NBC recently removed its … Read more

Seen Around Town

I’m not much of a photographer, but that doesn’t stop me from always taking my camera with me. Here are some recent gadget shots:

The music branding and advertising at Starbucks has gone completely over the top. Above is a pic of the digital release displayed in front of the cashier. I also picked up a business-card-size promotional sheet offering a free “song of the day” by entering the download code online. Makes me wonder where Starbucks will go next. (Co-op work spaces? Theme parks?) They’re clearly more than a coffee shop these days. And what about the music distribution business? Do music studios have to sell an experience rather than just a song?

Next check out what I found at Costco and a yard sale…

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Beyond Nielsen TV Ratings

Nielsen, TiVo and Snapstream Media. One of those three is well known for tracking television viewership, but the other two: TiVo and Snapstream Media (makers of the Beyond TV PC DVR software) are not as well known in this realm, but offer a more transparent and relatively useful snapshot of what Television Viewers like you and I are watching. Would you agree that Heroes and The Office are hit shows – at least better than Dancing with the Stars or 60 Minutes? Well you’d likely agree more with TiVo and Beyond TV users.

Since the early 1940’s the television and advertising industries have relied on Nielsen Media Research to measure the popularity and success of television programming. Nielsen continues to be the leading provider of this information and their list of the top TV shows by demographic are consistently highlighted in the media and watched closely by Advertisers and the Television Networks. While I’m still interested in what Nielsen is reporting as the top shows, I’m left wanting more.

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Invasion Of The Pod Snatchers

Your Ticket To A Better Night's SleepEvery now and then, a study will be released suggesting that DVR owners don’t actually skip very many ads. While I can understand why people would want to watch certain programs live, it’s always hard for me to take this kind of data seriously, because it tracks so differently, from my own DVR experience.

I love being able to time shift my television and take full advantage of my fast forward button. If I absolutely need to see something live, I’ll still wait 20 minutes, just so that I can skip past the commercials. Over the last six years, I’ve been every marketers worst nightmare and yet, there has been one company that I have never been able to block.

Sleeptrain Mattress Centers

It’s not a major company, but this sleepy little company has been able to outsmart the DVR, by exploiting the very fast forward feature, that I love so much.

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TiVo PayPerPost Update: Program Killed

TiVo has pulled the plug on their PayPerPost advertising program. Following this forum thread, it appears that TiVo did intend to have a 5 second “bumper” on each video indicating it was a paid/sponsored clip – either TiVo or PayPerPost dropped the ball in delivering (and explaining) that asset to participants in a timely fashion. … Read more

Where’s The Retail Moxi?

While (still) sifting through my accumulation of mail, I caught this Moxi ad in Wired. The moxi.com/wired link redirects to Digeo’s Moxi home page… where there’s no news on their upcoming retail DVRs. Reading between the lines, one could assume the Moxi boxes are either running behind schedule and/or will be making an appearance in … Read more