Archive for November, 2007

Gripe Fest: Comcast Must Die Blog

November 30th, 2007 No Comments

Having problems with Comcast cable? Had a terrible customer service experience with the cable company? Want to air your frustrations to the world (and with Comcast, possibly)? Then check out the Comcast Must Die blog hosted at Blogspot.

There’s a great post that contains a chat log between a customer and a Comcast customer support person. Plus, the site’s author, Bob Garfield, says he will host a podcast on December 11th, which will feature callers and hopefully, a Comcast executive to answer all our questions. I haven’t seen any specific details about it so far, but it seems kind of interesting.

Garfield encourages comments and he even tells them to include their Comcast account numbers when leaving comments because he said Comcast will call them back.

I don’t know about that, but I personally wouldn’t give out my account number on the Internet for all to see. Garfield says it’s ok, since there’s nothing personal about it, but I’m still not convinced.

If you like Comcast, you might want to check out the Comcast Rocks blog, started by a Comcast employee.

Posted in Administration

Dirty Secrets Behind Creating Viral Videos

November 30th, 2007 No Comments

Over at TechCrunch, a guest post written by Dan Ackerman Greenberg is stirring up some animosity over YouTube spamming. Greenberg wrote a story called “The Secret Strategies Behind Many ‘Viral’ Videos”, where he talks about how his viral video marketing company, The Comotion Group, helps makes YouTube videos viral.

Greenberg starts out the piece:

Have you ever watched a video with 100,000 views on YouTube and thought to yourself: “How the hell did that video get so many views?” Chances are pretty good that this didn’t happen naturally, but rather that some company worked hard to make it happen – some company like mine.

And then he details some secrets like:

  1. Not all viral videos are what they seem
  2. Content is NOT King
  3. Core Strategy: Getting onto the “Most Viewed” page
  4. Title Optimization
  5. Thumbnail Optimization
  6. Commenting: Having a conversation with yourself
  7. Releasing all videos simultaneously
  8. Strategic Tagging: Leading viewers down the rabbit hole
  9. Metrics/Tracking: How we measure effectiveness

Commenters were hating on this post saying how this is just spamming. Even Michael Arrington said he was “disgusted” by this post.

[tags] YouTube, TechCrunch, viral videos, [/tags]

Bonus: Read the follow-up article by Greenberg where he says that some of the original flavor of the post was lost due to TechCrunch’s editing of the story.

Posted in Video Sharing, YouTube

Video Phone Sales to Double by 2010

November 28th, 2007 No Comments

According to Infonetics Research, worldwide sales of video-enabled cell phones will double by 2010 with video subscribers  growing to 58.6 million. Sales will also grow to about $125 billion by 2010 from nearly $58 billion last year.

North America is lagging other worldwide regions. However, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa are leading regions for mobile video service revenue last year with 42% of the worldwide total.

[tags] mobile, cell, video phone, mobile TV, mobile video [/tags]

Posted in Mobile, research

TV Networks Streaming Millions of Shows

November 28th, 2007 No Comments

According to an AP story, TV networks are streaming millions of TV shows over the Internet, with “Heroes” and “Jericho” the two top shows. ABC won’t say what their most popular streamed shows are, but bets are “Grey’s Anatomy” is number 1 for them.

Some quick facts from the story:

  • NBC has streamed 5 million individual episodes of its shows.
  • ABC streamed more than 2.5 million in the first two weeks of the new season.
  • ABC says the average age of its online viewers is 29; for television viewers, it’s 46.
  • NBC said it has hit the “5 million mark in total downloads” with “Heroes” accounting for about half of the downloads.

None of the top four networks say how many people watch their shows online, however and Nielsen is still about 18 months away from launching an online TV measurement system. So the next big thing is by checking total web site traffic.

Visitors to ABC.com jumped 224 percent between August and September, to 181 million, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. NBC went up 30 percent while CBS was up 3 percent.

[tags] Hollywood, Nielsen, ratings, ABC, CBS, NBC, streaming, downloads [/tags]

Posted in TV Ratings

22% of Analog TV Users Will Do Nothing for Digital TV

November 27th, 2007 No Comments

According to a survey by the Consumer Electronics Association, 22% of people with analog TV sets plan to “do nothing” when local broadcast stations switch entirely to digital signals in February 2009. The breakdown:

  • 22% said they would subscribe to a cable or satellite service
  • 33% said they would use a government-issued $40 coupon to purchase a digital-to-analog converter box
  • 23% plan to purchase a new digital television set.
  • 22% said they would do nothing

The CEA estimates that come Feb. 17, 2009, between 22 million and 28 million TV sets will need to continue receiving broadcast TV signals.

Many industry people are worried that U.S. consumers won’t be ready for the switch With over 20 million analog sets still in use today, there will be a big need to distribute digital-to-analog converter to continue to watch TV on their old sets.

However a massive public awareness campaign will start next year in a variety of media.

[tags] CEA, TV, digital, HDTV [/tags]

Posted in HD

Comcast Moving to Multi-Room DVRs in 2008

November 26th, 2007 No Comments

Comcast’s Chief Technology Officer, Tony Werner, said that the company plans to begin using multi-room DVRs in 2008 in select markets. Werner was speaking at the keynote for the first ever Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) technology conference.

However, Light Reading also suggests that Comcast is looking to launch a “Start Over” type of TV service that allows customers to watch replays of TV shows. It’s something that has been gaining in popularity in other cable systems since it doesn’t require a DVR box or service.

Multichannel News reported that Comcast is looking to launch a “Start Over” service much like Time Warner Cable’s Start Over.

Start Over, as offered by Time Warner, is a VOD service that provides replays of as many as 22,000 cable and broadcast TV shows per month, available only during the show’s broadcast window. Time Warner has agreements with more than 100 networks for the service.

Aside from these restrictions, Time Warner’s service lets viewers view shows for only a limited time after they’ve aired and does not allow fast-forwarding through commercials.

[tags] Comcast, Time Warner, cable, DVR, on-demand, TV, Start Over [/tags]

Posted in Administration

U.S. Cable Penetration Dispute: 60% or 70%

November 26th, 2007 No Comments

The Federal Communications Commission infuriated cable companies last week after saying that cable TV operators had a penetration rate over 70% . Meanwhile, a Wall Street analyst, Craig Moffett, said that the number was not “mathematically possible” and was closer to 60%.

Why is this a big deal? Apparently, if cable companies go over 70% a federal rule is triggered. Explains Multichannel News:

“After looking at the total number of cable subscribers and the total number of homes passed by all cable companies, and after adjusting to exclude vacant households, Moffett determined that cable penetration was no higher than 60.5%.

and

“The FCC gets a booster shot of power over cable when 70% of households are passed by a cable system with at least 36 channels — and 70% of those households, in turn, subscribe to such cable systems.”

This important difference showcases the fallibility of research methods and data. The original researcher said the data is “accurate but not reliable because some cable operators withheld their subscriber and homes-passed totals.” FCC panel members are now closely looking at these numbers as well as those from Moffett.

Posted in research

Almost Half of Adults Play Video Games

November 19th, 2007 No Comments

Almost half of all adults play video games, according to results from an AOL Games/The Associated Press poll.

Playing with Family. 43% of parents said they never play with their kids. Younger parents were found to be more likely to play games with their kids than older parents.
Holiday Season: 18% said they were very or somewhat likely to purchase a video game console during the upcoming holiday season. 35% said they were very or somewhat likely to purchase video games. 51% of those planning to buy a console said that price was the most important factor followed by recommendations from friends and family (34%).

Demographics: More than half of all adult gamers are under 40 years old, while 27% are under the age of 30. Only a third of all adult gamers are married and have children.

Time Spent Playing VGs. The typical adult gamer spends 2 hours each week playing video games. This number increases to 4 hours per week for fans of shooter games, and 5 hours for fans of adventure and role playing games.

Where They Play. 93% stated they usually play online games at home, while 5% admitted to playing at work or school.

Hardcore Gamers. 41% of all gamers are “hardcore gamers,” spending at least 3 hours per week playing video games. Hardcore gamers are younger than other gamers with 59% under the age of 40 and 32% under 30. 58% of hardcore gamers are male, while 42% are female.

Light Gamers. Light gamers (31%) play less than an hour per week on average. Light gamers are more likely to be female, in their 40’s and employed full-time. A majority (68%) of light gamers are married versus 50% of hardcore gamers.
Other tidbits:

  • 80% of children (4 to 17)  regularly play computer games.
  • 81% of all children play at least occasionally
  • 38% of all adults admit to playing video games.
  • 45% are actually female.

[From PC World.]

Posted in Video Gaming, research

arm

November 18th, 2007 No Comments



arm

Originally uploaded by jalvear


Posted in Administration

omelet

November 17th, 2007 No Comments



omelet

Originally uploaded by jalvear


Posted in Administration
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