BusinessWeek reached the plateau of 1 million podcasts in the month of June, according to MediaPost. A million of anything is a big number, but monetizing podcasting remains a challenge.

The newly formed Association for Downloadable Media is addressing the challenges, as covered by the New York Times.

Few consumers will pay to receive podcasts — audio files that exist on the Web, and can be automatically sent to a person’s computer. Advertising, the other potential revenue source for producers and publishers, does not work when marketers have no way of tracking how many times their advertisements are being heard or swapping out old advertisements once they have run their course..

According to eMarketer, the podcasting industry netted just $80 million in ad revenue last year. Considering that you've been able to download audio files for more than a decade, that's pretty small potatoes. For podcasting to take off, better tracking and surveying of listeners is needed to make it an attractive ad buy. And just as video companies need to figure out the pre- versus post-roll options, so podcasters need to figure out the best model for advertisers.

I see more opportunity for streaming audio, where interactive ads can be synched to the stream so that consumers can click for more information or to generate commerce opportunities. This is because the amount of non-music audio listened to online will always be much higher than offline.

Here's a bold move for TiVo that could move the company from niche player to dominant force: Give away the DVR boxes for free.



TiVos start at just $100, and even the HD version sells for $300. Assuming that the boxes last 2 years, that between $5 and $12.50 per month in cost, but that's nothing compared to the subscription fees and ad revenue that could be generated.

TiVo charges $12.95 per month, so subscription fees alone can recoup most or all of the cost, which is likely less than what consumers are charged. TiVo is just starting a partnership with Comcast, so they should split the cost with the cable companies who would share in the revenue. There's always the chance to up-sell boxes with more storage capacity and features.

But if TiVo gave away 20-50 million boxes, imagine how much the data about the viewing habits for both shows and ads would be worth. TiVo could tell the networks a more precise breakdown of who is watching and when, and advertisers would know whether 18 year olds or 55 year olds were fast-forwarding.

TiVo could be the mechanism for truly interactive advertising, like what Nike is doing with Dish Network. Full length ads, games, commerce options, you name it, it can be done.

We all know that TiVo is the best DVR platform going, and consumers will tolerate more ads and be willing to interact in exchange for access.

The extant video download services have not reached broad appeal and likely never will as long as they are strapped to the PC screen. A new study confirms that consumers are not enthralled to watch movies on their PCs if the TV is an option.

Blockbuster today acquired Movielink, one of the two (along with CinemaNow) most prominent video download services, and the first order of business should be a slick way to watch movies on a TV.

Research from Analyst firm The Diffusion Group reveals that download needs to be viewable on TVs for even a minority of Internet users (29%) to consider downloading movies. I'm not so sure that burning DVDs is the best way to get them onto a TV. Piracy issues (someone would eventually break any copy protection), and the time and energy waste of burning DVDs is a negative.

Michael Greeson, president of TDG says "consumers have been reluctant to purchase movie downloads because they usually require the user to watch the movie on a PC monitor, either because the PC is not networked with a TV or the digital movie file could not be burnt to a DVD and then "sneaker-netted" into the living room for TV viewing... However, given that the number of titles available for D2B (download to burn) is extremely limited in both number and quality (new releases are not included), even vendors such as CinemaNow and Movielink who offer a D2B service have found uptake to be poor."

Streaming videos in real-time won't be the best user experience, so a media server that sits by the TV (like the Apple TV) is the best idea. But there must be a wide variety of titles including first runs, they must be available for rentals at or equal to Blockbuster prices.

A Blockbuster video rental service that connects to a set-top box could be a huge winner for the company, keeping Netflix at bay and competing head on with the cable companies' video on demand services. Watch for it in 2008.

Shannon sent me a link this morning to the web site of artist Andy Davis. For me his artwork is inspiring and affirming but this picture in particular is by far my favorite. Not much to explain except my I like it so much.

First off, it reminds me of love. Love for my wife and love of surfing. Secondly it's just relaxing, I mean the fact that she's got a wedgy and he's got his board and neither of them really cares about their bodies but they're simply staring at the waves in peaceful bliss. Then there are the references to The Endless Summer films, best movies in the world (North Shore has a close second)! And last but not least is how artists that also surf just look at the world differently. They know the earth will keep revolving even if they don't make that extra dollar or pitch one more client or any of the other things that drive us professionally. A surfer knows that life is like the tide, it ebbs and flows and sometimes your timing is perfect and sometime it's off but eventually the conditions will be perfect. That's the place in time where swell and tide meet and we are simply witnesses along for the ride.

Andy's work masterfully demonstrates the essence of timing.

NeoMedia is putting a new twist on mobile marketing by using image capture technology to enable camera phones to link the physical with the virtual world. The company's patented technology enables camera phones to take pictures of barcodes that are connected to websites. The idea is that mobile users won't have to type in URLs to take advantage of special offers printed on billboards, poster, or promotional items.

For example, if you pass a poster or billboard or poster and snap a picture, NeoMedia's software will launch your browser to complete a special offer. I can see where this simplifies transactions, but the technology must be highly reliable to create a positive user experience. An outdoor advertiser could run a contest to see who can submit the most images of its signage to generate buzz and PR.

I'm not sure that technology is a big improvement over creating custom URLs. Also, the marketing challenge will be to familiarize people with the idea of snapping photos of billboards with their cameras so that half of the ad space isn't used up by an explanation.

MySpace is beta testing a behavioral targeting ad system, according to Silicon Alley Insider.

The ads will follow people's interest in autos or fashion, and advertisers will pay a minimum 20 percent premium over generic ads. Later this year the company plans to have 100 targeted segments.

Behavioral targeting (along with video) will be the biggest shift in online marketing during the next few years. It makes consumers and advertisers happy, although some publishers might not be so happy if it closes off some advertising opportunities for them. Fol example, if behavioral data reveals that visitors to FHM aren't really that interested in satellite radio.

Higher CPMs, and better performance are hard to argue with. The biggest limitation is respecting privacy. It's great the I'm seeing ads relevant to my geography as I browse the general web, and I won't mind seeing more ads about topics relevant to me. But there must be an opt-out policy for the tracking, and the targeting can't be so invasive as to know exactly what for and where you shopped.

Comparison shopping engines enable consumers to get the best prices across a variety of sellers, and when done right they can eliminate distribution inefficiencies.

Textbook publishing has been a cash cow for companies such as Macmillan and McGraw-Hill (a former employer of mine) who for years have worked with universities to control a near monopoly. Now that professors publish their syllabus online ahead of time and textbooks can be purchased online, the stranglehold on students paying $100 plus per book is loosening.

BigWords.com, which just re-launched with a Web 2.0 interface, has filled the comparison shopping need by enabling students to buy or sell new or used textbooks online through several services through a single query. While universities benefit by students over paying for textbooks, comparison engines will force the campus bookstore to be more competitive with online entities, so publishers will have to sell to them at better pricing.

Smart shoppers save significantly by using comparison engines, an industry that will only continue to flourish thanks to Web 2.0 technologies.

I received an e-mail invite to the much-rumored ad-supported music download site SpiralFrog. I have been skeptical all along that a "free" download service will ever exceed let alone launch, but the site is now open.

Unfortunately my attempts to download one of the 770,000 songs on the site haven't worked. You have to make sure you have a current version of Windows Media Player and if you use Firefox get a plug-in, and then install a Download Manager application.

I did all that, but in Firefox the download says it is starting but never finishes, while IE can't find the download manager even though I've installed it twice. I have a request into customer service.

For all I know the folks behind SpiralFrog and wonderful human beings, but as I've been saying since the company was first announced that I believe that an ad-supported download site is not financially viable.

Online advertising will surpass newspaper advertising in four years according to a study released by Veronis Suhler Stevenson and quoted extensively by MediaPost.

While strong growth rates are needed for online ads to take the top spot, my glass-half empty view is, why will it take that long? Newspapers are shrinking faster than Lindsay Lohan's career prospects, and Internet access is becoming cheaper and more available for all.

However, wireless access needs to be more readily available and PCs need to be cheaper for the widest possible audience to access online ads, which has been slowing the takeover of newspapers. Plus, despite 15 years of web advertising, some ad execs are still clinging to belief that print is the best way to reach people, so a change in behavior and embracing of metrics that show the actual interaction with ads (instead of relying on "reach" and sampling data) has occurred slower than it should.

Video advertising wasn't mentioned in the article. If media companies shift quickly to ad-driven TV content delivered online, newspapers could lose the top spot earlier.

The good news for "old media" is that sites linked to print and TV sites are expected to grow faster than online-only publishers. These publishers should take full advantage of RSS, blog and podcast advertising, which is projected to grow an astonishing 70 percent per year, according to the survey.

One of trickiest marketing maneuvers is to craft a press release or staged event around something in the news. Sometimes it can be clever and funny, or when organizations try to turn a tragedy into a quick sell, it can be crass and in poor taste.



For example, Ferrari Driving School in New York is capitalizing on the dangerous and stupid drunk driving escapades of the trio of trollops, Paris Hilton, Nicole Ritchie and Lindsay Lohan. The school is holding a DUI Awareness Day on August 17 in "honor" of the drunkard debutantes who will all be serving jail time this year because of their inability to control themselves.

This is good marketing because it is a serious and timely issue that leverages a pop culture phenomenon.

On the other hand, I'll never forget an Internet conference years ago when just a few days after an airliner crashed, the CEO of a video teleconferencing company told the audience that if the execs on the plane had only used a video teleconferencing software instead of traveling, they'd still be alive. The audience groaned and some even booed, highly unusual for a technology conference.

The line between savvy and tacky isn't firm, but when companies do it right, there is no better marketing pitch. The ability to do this consistently is what keeps public relations firms in business.

What's your favorite over-the-line marketing pitch?

The mobile phone and not the PC could be Napster's salvation. The company is marketing Napster Over the Air which gives cell phone customers access to the same music libraries as their PC subscriptions.

So the mobile music showdown is lining up to be Apple's iTunes, which obliterated the MP3 players, versus phone-based services. Napster has been on a roll, signing up Toshiba and HP distribute its music service on PCs and laptops, scoring a deal with NTT DoCoMo for its wireless service, and hiring a new COO.

Napster is still in the red, but at least their cash reserves are growing.

If Napster and others have success with mobile subscription services, Apple may have to consider adding a pay-to-listen service. At some point everyone gets tired of listening to their music library and wants to hear something new, right?

After a call from Allison Busch of The Blueshirt Group (for Napster), I changed the second paragraph from CEO to COO. Here is what Allison said regarding our mixup...

"Mobile Drives Napster Comeback" contains a factual error in the last sentence of the second paragraph. Chris Allen is Napster's new Chief Operating Officer, replacing Laura Goldberg. Chris Gorog is still the company's CEO.