Netflix's Facebook Integration Marks Shift Away From Viewing 'Households'

Interesting stuff on Netflix incorporating Facebook. Makes total sense, think about how many users of Netflix are streaming on the go as opposed to ordering DVDs.

by Gavin O'Malley,


Representing a strategic about-face, Netflix says it is currently baking Facebook into its entire service -- in large part to encourage a segmenting of household accounts into multiple personal accounts.

"We're working on an extensive Facebook integration, which will further the notion of a personal Netflix account," Netflix said in a shareholder letter issued this week.

Netflix accounts have traditionally been affiliated with individual home addresses, but more screens per household -- along with more diverse offerings -- gives Netflix the opportunity to mine households for multiple accounts.

"When we were primarily a DVD-by-mail service, we measured our market in terms of households," Netflix said. "Households subscribed to Netflix and members of the household watched the DVDs as they wanted ... Online streaming video, however, is more naturally individual, since it is watched on personal screens like phones, tablets, and laptops, as well as on shared large screen televisions."

Netflix previously launched social tools, but scrapped them last year after they failed to take off. Mike Hart, previously Netflix's director of engineering for APIs, is now director of engineering for social.

"Our long-term goal is to evolve the Netflix service so that it feels more natural to have a personal account," Netflix said this week. "This evolution from household to personal relationship will take several years, and there will always be some households that only have one account."

In what may prove a challenge to Netflix's social strategy, a recent study found that the TV watching isn't as "social" an experience as one might assume. Rather, just 25% of consumers expressed an interest in sharing what they watch with friends, according to SideReel, which helps users find content and TV shows online.

Going forward, however, that may be the least of Netflix's problems. Its relationship with media companies could soon change when a deal with pay-TV channel Starz to stream movies from Sony and Disney expires. Indeed, Richard Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG research, estimated that the cost of the deal could go up from $25 million a year to more than $250 million a year.

Overall, according to research firm Screen Digest, Netflix revenues for 2010 were expected to reach $2.2 billion.

Netflix's snail-mail business was expected to account for 35% of disc-rental spending in the U.S. in 2010 -- up from 26% in 2009, according to Screen Digest.

'Apple: The First Trillion-Dollar Company?'

[ed] Dave Morgan is always one of the more astute and analytical writers in the online game.  Great reflection today on a panel of big hitters that led to a talk on Apple's growth potential...

I participate on panels at a lot of trade and banking conferences, but probably none as fun and engaging as this past Tuesday's Gridley & Company's IDEA conference in New York. On our panel, which closed out the conference, was Kevin Ryan, CEO of Gilt Groupe; George Bell, CEO of Jumptap; Russ Fradin, former CEO of Adify and now CEO of Dynamic Signal; and our moderator, Henry Blodget of Business Insider.

The panel was a repeat performance from last year and, just as they did the year before, our hosts opened up the bar before the session started, and made sure to serve the panelists in addition to the audience. As you can imagine, it only enhanced what was certain to be the kind of frank discussion you might expect to hear from some grizzled digital entrepreneurs. That chemistry led to a number of thought-provoking exchanges among Henry and the panelists, but one really stood out for me.

At the end of the session, Henry asked what we thought about Apple's prospects over the next few years. We all agreed that Apple was on a tear and that the company's growth wasn't likely to slow down for some time. Then, Henry asked how high we thought that Apple's stock price could go. Kevin jumped right in and declared that Apple could be the world's first trillion-dollar company. Apple is doing great, but that's a pretty bold statement, given the company's current market capitalization of just above $300 million dollars.

I think Kevin is right. Here's why:
Apple is out-innovating and out-executing the entire market. No other company is delivering better consumer electronics products with better content and communications experiences to the market, and iterating them constantly, than Apple. Not only that, but no one else is delivering consumer electronic products and related software and content at the scale, and with the degree of customer service, that Apple is today. Not Sony. Not Samsung. Not LG. Not Google. No one.

iPhone and iPad market apogees well in the distance. As many iPhones and iPads as Apple has sold so far, the company has barely begun. Only this week did the largest mobile carrier in the U.S. announce plans to sell and support iPhones. IPad penetration in the U.S. is less than 3% of consumers. Hardware costs for both products are falling at an extraordinary rate. It is not inconceivable that in three years iPhones will be free with a standard mobile contract and iPads will cost less than $50. And, what happens when the 700 million Chinese and Indian mobile telephone users have access to affordable iPhones and iPads?

No close competitors yet. I spent the better part of last week at the Consumer Electronics Show. For as much cool stuff as I saw, I didn't see anything that was ready to truly rival Apple's products. Certainly, competitive or even superior products will show up in the market soon. However, given the rate with which Apple's business is accelerating, it has established a lead on competitors that will be nearly impossible to close. Apple is likely to be still gaining -- not losing -- market share for the better part of this decade.

What about Facebook? Kevin also said he thought Facebook could very well be the second trillion-dollar company. Might that happen? I don't know, but Facebook is certainly building an extraordinary business with extraordinary prospects for the future. Of course, I don't think that company strategists are doing anything that necessarily makes their success mutually exclusive to Apple's.
What do you think? Will Apple become the first trillion-dollar company?

Microsoft and Diddy Teaming Up?

Microsoft and Sean P. Diddy Combs launched a social media holiday campaign this week to get fans involved with giving away thousands of dollars to charities by deciding the beneficiaries without costing them a dime.

For seven days, Sean Combs, also known as P. Diddy, will use Tag to share exclusive content with fans through a link via Twitter and Facebook. More than 3 million Twitter followers and oodles of Facebook Fans also will participate in the giveaway of $10,000 per day for five days. Proceeds will go to five charities.

Diddy uses Twitter to promote the exclusive giveaway, tweeting to followers how to find the content, scan the Tag, and unlock the gift via smartphone, either iPhone, Android, BlackBerry or Windows.

The campaign -- created for Microsoft by Izea, a social media marketing company -- gives $50,000 to charity for twelve days. During the remaining five days, those scanning tags have an opportunity to vote on how thousands of dollars are divvied up to charities.

Izea CEO Ted Murphy, who is responsible for getting Diddy on board, says Tag can more accurately read results and gather backend data compared with a QR code. He calls it the "biggest campaign of its kind" where tweets are sent through a sponsorship in a social media platform.

Marketers can build rules into the platform that only allow each individual to phone scan a tag once hourly to vote for a charity. For each day during the five, site visitors will see a list of three charities to choose from. At the end of the day, Diddy announces the winner. "We're happy to support charitable giving," says Jeff Somers, director of marketing at Microsoft.

Microsoft Tag -- a slightly different technology than QR codes, another 2D barcode -- works in color or custom code images. The technology, which lives within Microsoft's startup and incubator business group, lets marketers continually change the code on the fly to point the URL in another direction, so designers need not hardcode the URL into the campaign. That flexibility aims to encourage testing and increase the lure for marketers.

As for metrics, Tag's backend platform tracks device IDs, so it recognizes the phone type and when the user engages with the tag. This lets marketers create campaigns targeting specific phones. The backend infrastructure, designed as an end-to-end solution, allows marketers to collect data every time a phone engages with a tag. On the backend, a heat map identifies the location of the scans, as more location-based data is built and pulled into platforms.

Mark Zuckerberg is Time's 2010 Person Of The Year

While this sounds like big fancy news, we should remember that in a reader poll on Time.com, Zuck actually finished 10th behind the likes of Obama and the Chilean miners.  Not saying he isn't worthy, but it is interesting when a nation of reader's thinks your are the 10th most important, and than the publishers of said magazine comeback and say no no, he is number 1.  Facebook rules the world, we get it.

[excerpt]

On the afternoon of Nov. 16, 2010, Mark Zuckerberg was leading a meeting in the Aquarium, one of Facebook's conference rooms, so named because it's in the middle of a huge work space and has glass walls on three sides so everybody can see in. Conference rooms are a big deal at Facebook because they're the only places anybody has any privacy at all, even the bare minimum of privacy the Aquarium gets you. Otherwise the space is open plan: no cubicles, no offices, no walls, just a rolling tundra of office furniture. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO, who used to be Lawrence Summers' chief of staff at the Treasury Department, doesn't have an office. Zuckerberg, Facebook's CEO and co-founder and presiding visionary, doesn't have an office.

The team was going over the launch of Facebook's revamped Messages service, which had happened the day before and gone off without a hitch or rather without more than the usual number of hitches. Zuckerberg kept the meeting on track, pushing briskly through his points — no notes or whiteboard, just talking with his hands — but the tone was relaxed. Much has been made of Zuckerberg's legendarily awkward social manner, but in a room like this, he's the Silicon Valley equivalent of George Plimpton. He bantered with Andrew "Boz" Bosworth, a director of engineering who ran the project. (Boz was Zuckerberg's instructor in a course on artificial intelligence when they were at Harvard. He says his future boss didn't do very well. Though, in fairness, Zuckerberg did invent Facebook that semester.) Apart from a journalist sitting in the corner, no one in the room looked over 30, and apart from the journalist's public relations escort, it was boys only.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2036683_2037183,00.html

'Do Not Track' Could Revolutionize Online Ad Industry

Really interesting perspective on the hottest topic on the online ad game today, FTC vs IAB (aka government vs online ad community). Great find by my boy Mintzer.

Here's my usual points on this topic:

1) Do you have a credit card? Great, they know more than we do. Do you really care if someone knows you are trying to buy a TV?

2) The onus is on major sites to protect their information and use it wisely. This ethical business practice is no different than the way any other professional sector works. Act fairly, and the economic and social rewards will come. E.g. ESPN gives users site feature access in trade for user info. Very very positive move.

3) Give users a chance to view who's tracking their behavior and give them control mechanisms. I don't think customers want out of tracking, I think they just want to understand how it's done and why.

Do Not Track could revolutionize online ad industry - USATODAY.com

Facebook Revamps Profile Page PART II

Here's an equally boring video on the Facebook update...

Facebook Revamps Profile Page

This isn’t breaking news by any means, but Facebook’s recent revamp of the profile page has left me completely reaction-less. It’s not really that exciting. There isn’t anything in the design update that affects the business model, or leads them to any new advertising opportunity. They just changed the page.

Charlene Li, founder of digital consulting firm Altimeter wrote "I do expect there to be significant push back from Facebook members, both because of the interface changes as well as the new social dynamics that will need to be gotten used to. And of course, privacy will always remain a valid and pressing concern."

The only thing I can see causing an issue is having certain photos popping up on your profile page that you didn’t want. In theory, you should just be de-tagging those nasty head shots anyway. Halloween is way over, get those pics off your page.

The 12 Most Annoying Types of Facebookers

Great list put together by CNN.com:


The Let-Me-Tell-You-Every-Detail-of-My-Day Bore. "I'm waking up." "I had Wheaties for breakfast." "I'm bored at work." "I'm stuck in traffic." You're kidding! How fascinating! No moment is too mundane for some people to broadcast unsolicited to the world. Just because you have 432 Facebook friends doesn't mean we all want to know when you're waiting for the bus.

The Self-Promoter. OK, so we've probably all posted at least once about some achievement. And sure, maybe your friends really do want to read the fascinating article you wrote about beet farming. But when almost EVERY update is a link to your blog, your poetry reading, your 10k results or your art show, you sound like a bragger or a self-centered careerist.

The Friend-Padder. The average Facebook user has 120 friends on the site. Schmoozers and social butterflies -- you know, the ones who make lifelong pals on the subway -- might reasonably have 300 or 400. But 1,000 "friends?" Unless you're George Clooney or just won the lottery, no one has that many. That's just showing off.

The Town Crier. "Michael Jackson is dead!!!" You heard it from me first! Me, and the 213,000 other people who all saw it on TMZ. These Matt Drudge wannabes are the reason many of us learn of breaking news not from TV or news sites but from online social networks. In their rush to trumpet the news, these people also spread rumors, half-truths and innuendo. No, Jeff Goldblum did not plunge to his death from a New Zealand cliff.

The TMIer. "Brad is heading to Walgreens to buy something for these pesky hemorrhoids." Boundaries of privacy and decorum don't seem to exist for these too-much-information updaters, who unabashedly offer up details about their sex lives, marital troubles and bodily functions. Thanks for sharing.

The Bad Grammarian. "So sad about Fara Fauset but Im so gladd its friday yippe". Yes, I know the punctuation rules are different in the digital world. And, no, no one likes a spelling-Nazi schoolmarm. But you sound like a moron.

The Sympathy-Baiter. "Barbara is feeling sad today." "Man, am I glad that's over." "Jim could really use some good news about now." Like anglers hunting for fish, these sad sacks cast out their hooks -- baited with vague tales of woe -- in the hopes of landing concerned responses. Genuine bad news is one thing, but these manipulative posts are just pleas for attention.

The Lurker. The Peeping Toms of Facebook, these voyeurs are too cautious, or maybe too lazy, to update their status or write on your wall. But once in a while, you'll be talking to them and they'll mention something you posted, so you know they're on your page, hiding in the shadows. It's just a little creepy.

The Crank. These curmudgeons, like the trolls who spew hate in blog comments, never met something they couldn't complain about. "Carl isn't really that impressed with idiots who don't realize how idiotic they are." [Actual status update.] Keep spreading the love.

The Paparazzo. Ever visit your Facebook page and discover that someone's posted a photo of you from last weekend's party -- a photo you didn't authorize and haven't even seen? You'd really rather not have to explain to your mom why you were leering like a drunken hyena and French-kissing a bottle of Jagermeister.

The Maddening Obscurist. "If not now then when?" "You'll see..." "Grist for the mill." "John is, small world." "Dave thought he was immune, but no. No, he is not." [Actual status updates, all.] Sorry, but you're not being mysterious -- just nonsensical.


The Chronic Inviter. "Support my cause. Sign my petition. Play Mafia Wars with me. Which 'Star Trek' character are you? Here are the 'Top 5 cars I have personally owned.' Here are '25 Things About Me.' Here's a drink. What drink are you? We're related! I took the 'What President Are You?' quiz and found out I'm Millard Fillmore! What president are you?"

Facebook Makes It Harder for You to Hook Up

Facebook's Advanced Search (now called "Profile Search") no longer lets you search by relationship status.

Great. Mark Zuckerberg starts a service in order to meet hotties, then decides to make it harder for the 250 million people who signed on to do the same.

Google, Facebook Top Nielson's June Report...Surprised?

No, you aren't. I'm not. No one is. So why did I put that question mark in the title? Was it to garner some sort of conversation with my audience? Was it to trick you into thinking you might find something altogether shocking once you read further down? That's all for you to decide.

Anyways, Nielson's June report shows that Google is the most visited site, but Facebook is leading the way in time spent. Excuse me, I think I just wet my pants with shock. Full report here...

Social Media Ad Spend Trending Downward

And everyone is waiting for Twitter to takeoff in terms of ad revenue? Get a clue!

Total social network ad spending in the U.S. will drop 3 percent to $1.1 billion in 2009, from $1.2 billion last year, according to projections from eMarketer. This is a major reversal: spending grew an estimated 33 percent in 2008 and 129 percent in 2007. The news shows that while social nets continue to attract millions of users, the ad dollars don’t seem to be following in kind.

Blame it on MySpace: The falloff in social net spending is largely pinned on the faltering of MySpace. The Fox Interactive social net accounts for nearly half of all U.S. ad spend in the space. Back in December, eMarketer expected $630 million in ad spending on MySpace in the U.S. this year. Now eMarketer projects that US ad spending on MySpace will reach just $495 million this year, down 15 percent from the estimated $585 million it produced last year. To be sure, MySpace and Facebook began looking at expanding their overseas advertising last year, as the U.S. market was already heading into a tailspin. But observers are keenly watching as to whether MySpace’s new CEO—and former Facebook exec—Owen Van Natta can begin to turn things around in the U.S.

Facebook, widgets not affected: MySpace’s troubles appear to be unique to itself, though eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson does say that spending across social nets is diminishing. But Facebook still has a reason to smile, as eMarketer expects it to grow its U.S. ad revenues 9 percent in 2009, to $230 million, though it’s less than half of what its rival will take in. Ad spending on widgets and apps are also having very healthy growth, with projected spending to hit $70 million in ‘09, up 75 percent from the year before, albeit when spending was next to nothing. In general U.S. ad spend on all other social network sites combined is expected to rise an anemic 1 percent to $345 million.

Sprint's New Widget Gives You A Taste Of "Now"

Sprint has launched their "Now" widget and it really is unbelievably cool. It provides info on just that, "Now." Little snippets of information regarding the amount of babies being born to the top Google searches going on at this moment. It's designed to live in all the major environments; iGoogle, MySpace, Facebook, or your desktop. Give it a click and see what's "Now."

Technorati Analyzing The Blogosphere

Technorati is running a comprehensive set of articles focused on the blogosphere, and the growth over recent years. An unbelievable interesting study from both a blogger and reader perspective. Citizen journalism is really maturing into a fully fledged media channel, and has to be on the radar of anyone in or around the communications business.

Welcome to Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2008 report, which will be released in five consecutive daily segments. Since 2004, our annual study has unearthed and analyzed the trends and themes of blogging, but for the 2008 study, we resolved to go beyond the numbers of the Technorati Index to deliver even deeper insights into the blogging mind. For the first time, we surveyed bloggers directly about the role of blogging in their lives, the tools, time, and resources used to produce their blogs, and how blogging has impacted them personally, professionally, and financially. Our bloggers were generous with their thoughts and insights. Thanks to all of the bloggers who took the time to respond to our survey.

Blogs are Pervasive and Part of Our Daily Lives
There have been a number of studies aimed at understanding the size of the Blogosphere, yielding widely disparate estimates of both the number of blogs and blog readership. All studies agree, however, that blogs are a global phenomenon that has hit the mainstream.

The numbers vary but agree that blogs are here to stay:
· comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008)
o Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
o Facebook: 41.0 million MySpace 75.1 million
o Total internet audience 188.9 million
· eMarketer (May 2008)
o 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users)
o 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12%)
· Universal McCann (March 2008)
o 184 million WW have started a blog 26.4 US
o 346 million WW read blogs 60.3 US
o 77% of active Internet users read blogs

Read the rest of the article, and find links to the other pieces here.

MySpace Is Out, Facebook Is In

I hate to steal the tile and content directly from Media Post, but this is a great article about the varying differences in MySpace and Facebook as a pure social network vs. a utility.

Panel: MySpace Is Out, Facebook Is In
by Karl Greenberg

A panel at Monday's PMA Digital Marketing Summit in New York tackled social media. Its biggest conundrum seemed to be this: Which is better, Facebook or MySpace? Everyone pretty much agreed that MySpace is out, Facebook is in. Hooman Radfar, CEO and co-founder of Clearspring, a digital marketing company that centers on widgets as an ad platform, says that while he agrees that there's a migration away from MySpace, "It is still relevant from a viral perspective. It is still huge, but there's segmentation where a lot of people are viewing Facebook as a utility."

Kwasi Asare, head of new media for Bad Boy Entertainment, said the Sean Combs conglomerate is seeing people migrating away from MySpace. "I would say that my marketing is focused on cracking the Facebook puzzle," he said. "People are using it as a social networking tool, while MySpace is ... annoying."

Marshall Sponder, senior web analyst with Monster Worldwide, said social media sites like Facebook are serving as replacements for personal web sites. "But," he added, "there has not been a lot of return on advertising yet. I think what's really holding it back is the need for social networks to become ubiquitous."

Both Sponder and Radfar said the wide adoption of so-called "cloud computing" will make social media sites ubiquitous. Radfar used a program called Mint as an example. Mind is an online financial tool that requires a certain level of trust among those uploading personal banking data. "When it launched, it didn't think anyone would ever use it."

When Asare said that advertisers mulling placement on Bad Boy social media properties were balking because there's no way to control the content on social pages where ads might appear, Sponder said that's the nature of the biz. "They are not in control; you can't change that, but can monitor and moderate it."

Asare said the fact that "sexy" brands - e.g., personalities, films, fashion and music (Bad Boy's stock in trade) -- garner the best response rates in social media environments amounts to an opportunity for more prosaic brands. "The music industry is hurting for new revenue streams. Non-sexy with sexy music content. From my perspective, those are the deals I'm looking for. In the music industry, we are looking for those opportunities."