MediaBizBuzz.com for February 18, 2008: The Way Forward and More!

The dark side of technology -- its disruptive nature -- has recently struck with a vengeance: The urgency of the Writers Strike. The format war between Blu-ray and HD-DVD. Broadcast TV's response to the accountability of Internet clicks. The decline of print journalism, esp. in advertising revenues.We're not out of the woods just yet, but we've turned a corner.  It's akin to an adolescent's growth spurt, a teenager's voice cracking in mid-song. This past week saw an official end to the WGA's dispute against the AMPTP; Reuters reports that Toshiba is throwing in the towel on its HD DVD format - and it's stock surged 5% on the news! Converter boxes for the transition to Digital TV (go here for the LA Times' Digital TV for Dummies primer) go on sale today - exactly one year from the switch. All in all, after resisting the Shock of the New, we find it's not so bad after all.

An end to the Writers Strike had one immediate, salutory effect: The Oscars are a go! The highest-rated entertainment show of the year - 2007's telecast did 87M viewers in the US alone, is not only a bonanza for ABC - charging $1.82M for a thirty-second spot, but a showcase for brands, not unlike the Superbowl. This year two prediction markets -- Hollywood Stock Exchange and Ireland's InTrade are both going heavy for No Country For Old Men in Best Director and Best Picture categories (they often go hand in hand). While coverage of the red carpet will show that the industry is open for business, nothing will hearten audiences more than the return of the shows that went black during the last three months. Multichannel News has a schedule of the rollout.

"Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes"
The recognition that something is afoot has emboldened (in some cases, coerced) media outlets to lurch forward into the abyss. Last week journalism went through its fits and starts -- CNN launched theirversion of CJReport.com, the citizen journalism Website iReport.com. While TechCrunch and paidContent were somewhat blase about the beta, let's give it a chance.  In the land of print, Gannett, Hearst, Tribune, and the New York Times Co banded together to launch quandrantONE, an ad network that hopes to make it possible to reach its aggregate 50M monthly uniques in a single bound; take that Craig Newmark!  While Nielsen bought up Audience Analytics for its Audience Watch software, last week media research company TRA ("True ROI Accountability" for Media) launched its service -- merging data culled from cable set-top boxes and consumer purchases database (think: Duane Reade loyalty cards). Even beleagured Comcast launched a trial balloon for a national interactive ad platform for cable operators; seeding its "Project Canoe" with $70M.  Across all media, PQ Media asserted that this will be the year for a surge in Branded Media - look out for Webisodes, they're predicted to jump 45% in popularity.

Yahoo! Still Dancing As Fast As It Can
Yahoo! continues to be the big story in the technology sector. Depending on the time of day, it's either been defeated from a private equity buyout; is in the midst of a family squabble between factions that want to accept/refuse Microsoft's offer; is talking to News Corp about merging with Fox Interactive Media; or has initiated talks with fellow down-on-its-luck AOL.  There's even a first wave of shareholder lawsuits.  PaidContent surveyed a handful of analysts; consensus remains that the MSFT deal's close-to-inevitable.

Clouds Crash
One tech story that temporarily re-purposed reporters from the Yang beat was the two hour and forty-five minute downtime of Amazon's S3 storage. While not as bad as the Internet cable outage in South Asia a few weeks back or the more recent Blackberry blackout, Amazon's "cloud computing" freeze affected such outfits as the New York Times (its blogging) and Twitter. S3, until now, has been 99.99% reliable, but as Google, and possibly Microsoft, embrace this direction, its important to note that it isn't infallible - not that your server would be.

The SmartMob Returns
While the end of 2007 saw a backlash in the anointing of user-generated content, crowdsourcing continues to show its strength. The actions -- and votes -- of the Superdelegates are now under scrutiny. The formerly omnipotent Church of Scientology continues to be virtually tarred-and-feathered. JackMyers Business Report contributor Elaine Liner wondered aloud whether videoclips of the rallies of Anonymous - world wide and in her hometown -- were being censored by YouTube (kowtowing to CoS pressure?) while SearchEngineWatch dug deep to find that YouTube's servers didn't count or update videos for 40 hours, and suggested that it was part of the online video sharing Website's sitewide upgrade of features for both advertisers and users. Whatever the case, the rise of this anti-Scientology movement thanks to YouTube and the blogosphere is undeniable. Anonymous' Message to Scientology -- in a mere three weeks - has garnered 2.4M views. Whether or not Scientology adopts new policies of engagement or not, technology has made its opacity untenable. Following the leads of Radiohead and Moby (who now freely licenses his music to indie filmmakers) R.E.M. has just made videos for its upcoming album open source, encouraging fans to slice and dice its content and post them on its YouTube channel. No one seems to have embraced the spirit of this age more than director Michel Gondry. His new release, Be Kind Rewind, is both an homage to Let's Put On A Show nostalgia (yesterday's UGC) and the videocassette era. This clip is his remix of New Line's trailer. Like Peter Sellers in The Mouse That Roared, he plays all major parts.