AP CEO urges media to adapt to the Web
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News and information are reaching consumers in sometimes surprising ways, pushing providers to creatively adapt their output to address online demands, Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley said Thursday.
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With the rise of user-driven content sites, Internet users have a say in what is news. A new study examines the differences between what editors think is newsworthy and what the public does.
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Repent of your public networks, says web guru
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Representatives of older and new media companies detailed their embraces of the Internet Friday at the Web 2.0 Summit conference in San Francisco, with supposed old-line companies emphasizing opportunities and dismissing any threats to longstanding business models.Executives from CBS, Comcast, Joost, and Current participated in panel sessions on media operations and the Internet. While the Internet might be seen as potentially taking viewers away from traditional broadcast and cable television, panelists noted that TV viewership still accounts for several hours per person daily and continues on its 30-year trend upward.Comcast and CBS officials both noted that the Internet can extend their businesses."We love the Internet for a variety of reasons," said Amy Banse, president of Comcast Interactive Media, which is responsible for the cable TV provider's Internet businesses. People use Comcast's pipe to access the Internet and Comcast is the largest residential ISP, she said.But Comcast also believes in cable TV and that it will be around for a while, she said. "People thought that with television, radio would disappear and with cable television, broadcast television would disappear, and we all know that that hasn?t happened," Banse said.The Internet has enabled CBS to extend beyond its largely U.S.-based audience and to gain "new eyeballs," said Quincy Smith, president of CBS Interactive, which covers Internet operations. "We, CBS, have not found the Internet to be cannibalistic to television," Smith said.Persons who see a two-minute clip of a CBS show, such as "How I Met Your Mother," might be encouraged to watch the program, he said. He recalled how a recent clip of David Letterman interviewing Paris Hilton showed up on YouTube and drew a lot of traffic; this was embraced by CBS, which carries Letterman's show.Asked by panel moderator Josh Quittner, of Fortune magazine, if she was worried about Google, Banse dismissed this."You want me to be a dinosaur running scared. I'm really not," she said. Google has been a "wonderful partner" for Comcast, with people accessing the search site via the Comcast pipe, said Banse.?In a subsequent panel session, officials from Joost, which provides broadcast-quality Internet television service, and Current, which blends broadcast TV with interactive Internet communications, shared their companies' visions."We wanted to bring the magic of the Internet to television, not the dumbness of television to the Internet," said Joel Hyatt, co-founder and CEO of Current. A community has been fostered to submit video that can be viewed on Current TV.Joost, meanwhile, is making peer-to-peer-based video distribution software that can run on PCs and the Macintosh, said Mike Volpi, Joost CEO. High-quality is streamed, with some of it professionally created by companies such as CBS and Viacom. Other content is developed by persons who are not so familiar. Joost is trying to develop an advertising-supported model.Both Joost and Current embrace advertising as a business model."I believe advertising is definitely the way to go," Volpi said. Advertising thus far has not blended well on the Internet because it has been offered in the form of banner ads or keywords, he said. But there are plenty of ad dollars to be gained by going after targeted users, he said.
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Executives at The Atlantic hope that a rise in the magazineâs Web traffic brings the publication something it hasnât had in many years: a profit.
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(InfoWorld) - Reactions to Time Warner Inc.'s decision to sack AOL LLC's chief executive officer (CEO) range from lukewarm endorsement to strident disapproval, as the industry tries to make sense of a move many observers find perplexing. Jonathan Miller, who guided AOL through a complicated transformation from an Internet has-been to a credible player, got his walking papers last Wednesday. Randy Falco, a TV industry veteran who was president and chief operating officer of the NBC Universal Television Group, will take over as AOL's chairman and CEO. "It's a strange move, because AOL is on the way up. Miller was responsible for turning around the ship successfully, so it's not clear to me why they're replacing him," says industry analyst Greg Sterling of Sterling Market Intelligence. Miller, named chairman and CEO in August 2002, had the difficult task of changing AOL's business model from one focused on dial-up Internet access subscriptions to one centered on online advertising. This involved tearing down AOL's "walled garden" and making freely available on the Web the content and services it previously reserved for paying members via its proprietary software. This leap of faith assumes AOL will make up and surpass with online advertising the revenue it will give up by abandoning its Internet access business. Early indications suggest the plan is working. Although in Time Warner's third quarter, which ended Sept. 30, AOL's revenue declined 3 percent, due to the shrinking access business, online advertising revenue increased 46 percent, faster than the industry average, which hovers between 33 percent and 37 percent. This prompted Time Warner officials and financial analysts to shower Miller and other AOL top leaders with praise. Privately, however, the recovery signs may have come too late and been underwhelming for Time Warner. At a time when an Internet startup like YouTube Inc. gets bought for $1.65 billion, Time Warner may have astronomical expectations for AOL that it didn't see Miller meeting. "Miller's accomplishment is that he transitioned AOL from a fee model to a free model, which gives AOL a future. The problem is that AOL remains a property in trouble, one that isn't performing particularly well, certainly behind Google and Yahoo. That has been the big disappointment. Today, if you have a [company with a] Web model, you're looking for a very rich return on investment," says industry analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group. But as it searches for bigger online ad growth with an Internet industry outsider as CEO, Time Warner risks turning AOL's recovery into a relapse. "Falco doesn't really know the business. That's going to be the problem: he's going to be learning on the job. It may not be a huge problem if he's packaging the company up for sale, but if he's going to try to run it, it's probably going to be a [long] learning experience," Enderle says. As learning goes, Miller is also credited with synchronizing AOL to varying degrees with key trends driving the rebirth of the Web economy, such as blogging, Internet search, digital music, online video and open-development platforms. Lately, he had been spurring AOL product teams to shift their philosophy from making simple yet integrated products and services to developing outstanding ones. "The emphasis today is to make stuff great," Miller said at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco a week before he was dismissed. He added then that this focus is key if AOL wants to increase traffic to its Web sites, which in turn fuels its online ad business. Unlike his successor, Miller was no stranger to the Internet business when he joined AOL. He had been president and CEO of USA Interactive's USA Information and Services (USAIS), which included at the time businesses like Ticketmaster.com, Citysearch, Match.com, USA Electronic Commerce Solutions and Expedia.com. A Time Warner spokesman disputed claims that Falco is an Internet newbie, saying that at NBC he oversaw the launch of several Web sites, including one tied to the network's Olympic Games coverage , and of online initiatives, such as the joint portal for U.S. Hispanics that Yahoo and NBC's Telemundo network announced in May. Ultimately, however, Falco comes on board because of his ad sales and traditional media background. "His TV experience and advertising connections really dovetail perfectly with AOL's focus on video and advertising going forward," the spokesman said. "Randy Falco is the right person to take AOL to the next level." Falco will provide more details about what that "next level" goal is when he takes over at a yet undetermined date, according to the spokesman. Miller remains at AOL for now but will leave Time Warner at a date that also has yet to be determined, the spokesman said. At least one high-profile AOL official has decided to jump ship rather than work under Falco. Jason Calacanis, who sold his very successful Weblogs Inc. company to AOL last October and continued to run it as a stand-alone subsidiary, resigned on Friday, after writing on his blog about his disappointment over Miller's removal. Of course, there are precedents among Internet companies appointing chief executives from traditional media companies, like Terry Semel, who became Yahoo's CEO in 2001 after 24 years with Warner Bros., says James C. Goss, a media and entertainment financial analyst at Barrington Research. Whatever Falco does, it's clear his key mandate will be to leverage his experience in the TV industry to accelerate AOL's ad sales business. If he fails at that, his appointment will be seen as a major mistake. "Obviously, AOL has changed its stripes and this just seems like a reaction to the shift in its business, to have somebody as CEO who has a lot of experience in the media side and, from an organizational standpoint, with a large operation of that nature," Goss says. "This is reflective of the dramatic business model change and of the aspirations" that come with it. Be that as it may, some Internet industry observers remain befuddled. "From the outside, it doesn't seem to make any sense," Sterling says. Â ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
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A Web blockbuster is evolving to try to stay ahead of rivals.
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By David Singleton  Editorial Intelligence, the networking group that created a media stir when it launched a year ago, is to venture into web TV.
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InfoWorld - The Internet has an ever-growing role to play in allowing free expression across the globe, but only if attempts to reign it in are unsuccessful, Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt said Tuesday.
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IAC/InterActiveCorp. Chief Executive  Barry Diller said on Monday he saw opportunities as news  increasingly moves to the Internet from newspapers, and his  company was close to announcing a new product.
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This old media company is capitalizing on growth initiatives.
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An older, more serious USA Today is facing the challenge of readers and advertisers fleeing to the Internet.
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It is the news that internet users do not want to hear: the worldwide web is in danger of collapsing around us. Patrick Gelsinger, the chief technology officer for computer chip maker Intel, told a conference
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Eric Schmidt, the chairman and chief executive of the world's largest search engine, needs to update his profile on company Web site.
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Practices and technologies from the public-facing Internet have great potential but face challenges, executives say.
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Blog: As the ground shifts underneath, why is it taking the media industry so long to get out ahead of a game-changing technology curve?
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By The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio  Sep. 10--Apolitician couldn't get far today promising a chicken in every pot or even a car in every back yard, but with the revolution in computer technology, there could be a contemporary equivalent: a computer and Internet access in every household.