Forrester analyst Josh Bernoff has an interesting post reacting to today’s announcement that Google has launched Google Apps, a package of “office” tools designed to compete with Microsoft solutions in smaller companies. The bottom line: the suite won’t be a real threat until they work offline. But it won’t be beyond the wit of Google engineers to solve that problem. The Innovator’s Dilemma springs to mind….again.
There is a bit of a debate in the blogsphere about what exactly “social media” is. Robert Scoble pointed out this really comprehensive post from Marianne Richmond of Resonance Partnership, a marketing and branding consultancy, which explores the phenomenon in some depth. Worth a read if you have some time.
Tags: social media blogging
Folio Magazine has a cover feature on b2b media’s year of mergers and acquisitions.
Each media banker has a different spin on how many deals occurred in 2006 and how much was spent overall. But all agree that the market was booming. DeSilva + Phillips reports 151 transactions and a dollar volume of $20.5 billion in media transactions, making it the strongest year since 2000 (and close to that year’s total volume).
The following chart illustrates the significance of the activity very well:
Folio looked at 10 of the top deals in more detail:
• CMP Technology/United Business Media
• 1105 Media
• VNU (Renamed Nielsen)
• Penton (Prism)
• Reader’s Digest Association
• Primedia
• The Wicks Group
• Metal Bulletin
• Summit Business Media
• CondeNet
The prospects for more activity, fuelled by easy access to debt, look just as strong, says the magazine.
If you are one of the 1,343,151 people who have already seen this video, don’t bother clicking the link. If not, and you want a whistle-stop tour of the evolution of the web right up to Web 2.0, click on…
Update: John Battelle interviews the man behind the video
Steve Rubel on why is makes absolute sense to invest in “people like you…” technologies such as those pioneered by Amazon.
Interesting post from The Editors Weblog on the power of video to change the fortunes of embattled newspapers – a point which has been well-made in the past by, among others, Carolyn McCall, ceo of Guardian Media Group.
Tags: media newspapers video
PaidContent points out that the Daily Mail has launched its first “e-paper edition” this week.
The Mail eReader, a fully downloadable version of the UK tabloid with the same graphics and design as the print edition, allows readers the flexibility to either click through content as they would on the web, or flip through page by page as they would with the actual paper.
Tags: media newspapers
Steve Rubel point out that Google has just launched another tool for bloggers – the Goodle Newsbar Widget. This allows you to monitor topics you are interested in and have news stories which match your criteria constantly presented to you.
The copyright status of pictures is one of the most intractible problems on the web and this post from Wired offers what could be a sensible solution: add a tag in (X)HTML:
Currently there are eleven attributes for the img tag, two required and nine optional. Frankly the tag is already bloated enough that I don’t think one more attribute is going to matter. Something as simple as
lic="license-abbr"would do wonders for image rights on the web.
