Showing posts with label Media. Show all posts

Monday, September 29, 2008

Ad Age's Media 100 List Gives Glimpse of a New Order

Google Catapults to 12th; Time Warner Prepares to Cede Top Spot to Comcast

By Nat Ives

Published: September 29, 2008

NEW YORK AdAge.com) -- Old-media guardians might find some solace in Ad Age's annual list of the 100 Leading Media Companies, which can be found on AdAge.com starting this week. Not a single company in the top 10 has budged even one spot since last year. Nineteen of today's top 20 were last year's top 20 too. And we thought there was a media revolution going on.

But linger a little, and there's enough to give any media seller the willies. Google, a company that wasn't even on anyone's radar a decade ago, has cut past former giants like a hot knife through butter to land at No. 12. Time Warner, the country's biggest media company every year since 1995 and once more this year, is poised to cede its top spot to Comcast with the pending spinoff of Time Warner Cable.

Sign of the times
So Time Warner steps from its throne to concentrate on creating great content, and Comcast, essentially a distribution company, rises in its place. That's surely a sign of the times. And as Time Warner Cable spins out from its parent in mass media, it is working with Comcast and four other cable providers to build Project Canoe -- the high-profile effort to make addressable and interactive TV ads easier to buy, sell and measure. Microsoft, 31st in this year's media-company ranking but nowhere on the list 10 years ago, just bought Navic Networks, an addressable-ad-technology provider.

Google -- whose leap to 12th from 19th last year was the only big gain in the top 20 -- has just won a deal to sell some commercials on NBC Universal networks. That deal will allow NBC Universal to share in the second-by-second viewer data Google gets from the Dish Network. Dish is No. 9 in our media ranking this year, up from 73rd 10 years ago.

"This is a changing of the guard," said Rishad Tobaccowala, CEO of Denuo Group and chief innovation officer for Publicis Groupe Media. "If you look back 20, 30 years ago, the major companies would probably be print-based. Then they move to basically be broadcast based. Now we're looking at companies that have basically digital or technology underpinnings."

"Ten or 20 years from now, I think what you will find is half of the existing players will still be around," Mr. Tobaccowala added. "They may be under different ownership. And we may see people like a Cisco and an Amazon."

New entrants
For the record, neither Cisco nor Amazon has crashed our list -- yet. But the ranks include many companies that weren't always considered media ventures. And there are plenty of brands that didn't exist when cable was the hot new technology.

"If you look back at the advent of the printing press, newspapers, telegraph, radio, TV, cable and then the internet, these are all seminal periods of change," said Patrick Quinn, president-CEO of PQ Media, a research company that's charted plenty of change itself. "Now we've gone beyond launching new platforms based on new technology to actually improving their efficiency, targeting and usability."

The newcomers are slowly but relentlessly taking the place of companies once considered the bedrock of American media. Ten years ago, newspaper owners including the New York Times Co., Gannett and Advance Publications held half of the top 10 slots on our leader board. Now it's down to two: News Corp. and Cox. That's probably a lasting phenomenon too.

"Their position in a listing is the least of their problems," said Lauren Rich Fine, a longtime newspaper analyst for Merrill who now teaches at Kent State.

"What's interesting from a historic perspective is seeing companies that pursued diversification by adding divisions are now the ones spinning them off," Ms. Fine said. "The pendulum is swinging."

Content/distribution splits
Conglomerates are indeed simplifying their stories to investors. Distributing content is easier than ever, so content companies are less determined to own the means of distribution. Companies including E.W. Scripps are splitting their newspaper operations from their broadcasting businesses. Barry Diller has been breaking IAC/InterActiveCorp into pieces.

What's less clear is how far back the pendulum will swing -- and who the buyers will be.

"When we do it in 2018, how many companies will have a significant mobile presence?" asked Leo Kivijarv, VP-research at PQ Media. "Will Verizon be No. 9? Will they buy a TV station in the next 20 years as mobile becomes more important in the U.S.?"

Increasing numbers of international players, particularly from India and China, are likely to climb the ranks here too, according to Mr. Tobaccowala. Bollywood's Reliance Big Entertainment has just agreed, for example, to invest some $550 million in DreamWorks.

"You've already seen the digital players, you've already seen the technology players," Mr. Tobaccowala said. "You're also going to see the global players."

'New paths to big-ness'
Not only does this list reflect the shifts taking place in the industry, it is perhaps itself being rendered irrelevant by them. "You're making the wrong list," said Jeff Jarvis, author of "What Would Google Do?" and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York. "There are new paths to big-ness. And those paths are not necessarily through ownership and corporate control."

Witness the astounding reach of ad-network operators such as Glam Media, Mr. Jarvis said. It reaches millions without owning the content or the distribution. Advertisers can put together ad hoc networks anytime they're will to put in the effort.

"The mass market is dead, replaced by the mass of niches," Mr. Jarvis said. "Advertising people roll their eyes at me and say, 'No, no, no.'" They cite big draws such as "American Idol," he said. "But we all know how inefficient that's been. And what's artificially propping it up has been the advertising industry, because they like one-stop shopping. They're not built to find these highly targeted networks."

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Compete Vertical Wrap-Up: August 2007

Compete Vertical Wrap-Up: August 2007
Written by Max Freiert (e-mail) --

August 13th, 2007 Listen EMail This Post
Every month, the Compete Vertical teams take a deep look into issues effecting the Automotive, Financial Services, Travel and Wireless industries. These articles tend to be very industry specific, but provide good examples of how to leverage web metrics to measure consumer demand and behavior across various industries.
AutoIntelligence – AUTOMOTIVE OEMS: LOSING GROUND TO THIRD-PARTY SITESThird-party automotive sites continue to grow in terms of both web traffic and functionality. With more consumers turning to the Internet as they research auto, how has third-party traffic compared to OEM-branded sites? Our initial approach was to study site traffic and audience overlap among the top-5 most trafficked third party automotive sites (3PT) and Total OEM Traffic (TOT). Using the most recent CYTD data (January – June), we compared 2006 to 2007. Audience overlap is defined as the percentage of total OEM site visitors who also visited at least one 3rd party automotive site.
Read the AutoIntelligence Newsletter
Financial Services Advisor – FORECLOSURE.COM: WHO’S SEEKING RICHES IN SUB-PRIME’S WAKEIn a recent Compete blog article it was noted that foreclosure.com had recently joined the ranks of sites that receive over 1 million visitors a month. That got us thinking about why the growing interest and what those people were doing once they got to the site.
Read the Financial Services Advisor Newsletter
TravelTrends – SKYBUS AIRLINES: CAN $10 FARES SPUR A FLYING FRENZY?Skybus Airlines, a new low-cost-carrier in the US market, began flying on May 22nd. As part of their business model, Skybus has committed to having at least ten $10 seats available on each of its flights. The airline is launching with routes from its home of Columbus, Ohio to Los Angeles, Ft. Lauderdale, Seattle and others. To keep down costs, add-ons such as checking baggage, priority boarding, and food/beverages are subject to additional fees.
Read the TravelTrends Newsletter
Wireless Vantage –MOBILE TV MARKET BEGINS TO TAKE SHAPESince September 2006, interest in mobile TV and video has doubled to almost 1% of all traffic on Big-4 carrier websites. When Compete first reported on the small but growing interest in mobile TV and video content at that time last year, online consumers who exhibited interest in mobile TV and video services comprised just 0.5% of all Big-4 carrier website traffic. Verizon Wireless launched V-CAST Mobile TV in select U.S. cities in March and advertising and marketing campaigns promoting V-CAST have led to a 104% increase in consumers evaluating the service on VerizonWireless.com. With AT&T planning a live video service and Sprint adding channels to its own MobiTV lineup, Compete expects consumer interest in mobile TV and video to continue to increase rapidly over the next year.
Read the Wireless Vantage Newsletter

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

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Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Torrent Site Mininova Breaches Alexa Top 100 · MarketingVOX

Torrent Site Mininova Breaches Alexa Top 100 · MarketingVOX: "Torrent Site Mininova Breaches Alexa Top 100

Mininova joins the list of 100 most visited Internet sites on Alexa, making it the first BitTorrent to join the ranks of Google, Digg and Yahoo, reports Torrentfreak.

Granted, it wasn't the only torrent in the running. For over a year Mininova battled Torrentspy in popularity, taking the lead in recent months. This week they hit Digg status in terms of growth, boasting about 2,000,000 daily visitors and nearly 20,000,000 pageviews.

Mininova has served over a billion .torrent downloads in fewer than six months.

The Alexa 100 lists domains that generate the most traffic on the Internet. Local Google domains alone comprise 25 percent of the list. Other popular sites include eBay, Wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace and Yahoo."

Monday, July 9, 2007

What's next for the Internet

Nova Spivack is racing to bring meaning and order to the chaos of the Internet. And he's not alone. Business 2.0 reports.

By Michael V. Copeland, Business 2.0 Magazine senior writer

July 3 2007: 4:44 PM EDT

(Business 2.0 Magazine) -- After taking one of the first Internet companies -- EarthWeb -- public in 1998, Nova Spivack joined some friends at a weedy airstrip deep inside the new Russia for a trip into Earth's stratosphere.

Having space travel on your resume is de rigueur for Internet entrepreneurs these days, but this was 1999, and not even the Russian pilots were sure how the flight would turn out. As Spivack was being strapped into a MiG-25 and prepped for his trip at Mach 3, about 20 miles straight up, he looked around for an ejection button or lever in case things went south.

To build a smarter Web, Nova Spivack is finding ways for machines to do more of the work.

John Giannandrea, Danny Hillis, and Robert Cook founded Metaweb Technologies with the goal of building a semantic Web structure -- think of it as a semantic Wikipedia -- for all the world's knowledge.

Thursday, May 31, 2007

Comcast Wants To Lead Interactive Ad Charge

by David Goetzl, Thursday, May 31, 2007 8:00 AM ET
COMCAST'S TOP EXECUTIVE BELIEVES IT'S "imperative" the cable operator give advertisers a user-friendly way to beam targeted messages into millions of homes within the next several years. The same philosophy applies to interactive ads, in which a viewer could potentially engage in impulse e-commerce.
"The money is humongous--and real cash," Comcast chairman-CEO Brian Roberts said Wednesday at an investor conference.
That calculus would appear to come from advertisers' increased interest in employing Internet-style targeted ad techniques on linear TV--and the massive amount of ad time Comcast has to sell via the two minutes an hour per channel that it retains for itself.
Roberts said that after Comcast, the nation's largest cable operator, moves aggressively to roll out phone service for businesses over the next year, offering widespread targeted and interactive ad opportunities becomes a chief corporate focus. The cable industry has dipped its toe into various initiatives in those areas--propelled by data and capabilities from set-top boxes--but it has yet to make a notable splash.
"It's a strategic imperative to the company, whether that's a one-year or five-year achievable milestone," he said.
He suggested that Comcast would take the lead in encouraging other cable operators to band together to offer advertisers the opportunity to run targeted or interactive campaigns well beyond Comcast's 24 million homes. The idea: national reach would provide a high-tide-lifts-all-boats phenomenon. Cablevision has expressed a similar interest in forming a turnkey service that would offer advertisers the opportunity to buy targeted or interactive ads that could potentially reach tens of millions.
"It would be really great if the cable operators could work together to present advertisers one platform, one set of metrics, one Nielsen-type data--whether it's Nielsen or whomever," Roberts said.
Multiple MSOs have held discussions along those lines and launched an initiative to develop the infrastructure. Roberts said the cable industry's research arm, CableLabs, is working on developing a system that would allow MSOs to link together and launch a one-stop-shop for the new types of ads.
Targeted ads can take many forms, from aiming ads at specific regions or neighborhoods to arguably the Holy Grail of "one-on-one" ads that reach individual homes, based on demographic and other characteristics. The latter, of course, would take longer to develop.
There have been some fits and starts in the interactive ad realm--one that could be particularly noticeable to the cable industry. Chase's credit card unit late last year launched an interactive campaign with satellite competitor EchoStar, allowing it to gauge viewer interest down to the household level by clicking on an option to receive more information.
Chase has also experimented with a household-by-household targeting initiative with Cablevision.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Old media turns combative against new media

http://news.com.com/Old+media+turns+combative+against+new+media/2100-1026_3-6182316.html

Story last modified Wed May 09 06:06:34 PDT 2007

Leading media executives took a combative tone against Internet companies on Tuesday, suggesting that Big Media increasingly considers new content distributors like Google to be more foe than friend.

At a panel discussion on the second day of the 56th annual National Cable & Telecommunications Association conference, top executives said talk of the demise of traditional media in the digital age was overblown.

While new distribution technologies like the Internet and mobile phones are siphoning television audiences, media companies argued that the Web also brings new revenue streams.

But the discussion quickly moved to criticism of the perception that traditional media businesses are dead, and to the rampant copyright offenses enabled by new digital technologies.

"The Googles of the world, they are the Custer of the modern world. We are the Sioux nation," Time Warner Chief Executive Richard Parsons said, referring to the Civil War American general George Custer who was defeated by Native Americans in a battle dubbed "Custer's Last Stand."

"They will lose this war if they go to war," Parsons added, "The notion that the new kids on the block have taken over is a false notion."

Time Warner defended its discussions on copyright protection with Internet search leader Google, which another panel member, Viacom, has sued.

Viacom, owner of the MTV and Comedy Central networks, is seeking more than $1 billion from Google and its online video site YouTube, accusing them in a lawsuit of "massive intentional copyright infringement."

Viacom CEO Philippe Dauman said on the panel his company had discussed working with Google and YouTube earlier than other major media companies, by virtue of the popularity of its programs on the Web and their resonance with young viewers.

Dauman said Viacom had little choice after failing to reach an agreement, as video clips of its shows were uploaded by YouTube users without Viacom's permission.

"So, it was only reluctantly after trying for a long period of time to reach a deal that we found that we could not tolerate having our content taken, when we've got Brian and Dick and others compensating us for it," Dauman said, referring to Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts and Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons.

"We were forced into it," he added.

Google--whose advances in applying its Internet paid search technology to the television industry, radio and print has spooked traditional media companies--owns a 5 percent stake in Time Warner's AOL Internet unit.

"We're in a world where we're a partner with everybody and we're fighting everybody," News Corp. Chief Operating Officer Peter Chernin said on the panel.

Despite the attention from Wall Street, the media industry and the press, executives said the percentage of overall sales contributed by digital businesses remained small and they should be mindful of destroying existing lucrative businesses.

"The amount of money we get from those (Internet companies) are a fraction of those we get from the cable industry," Chernin said. "We have to be careful not to disaggregate."

Now on News.com

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News Corp. is likely in a position to know how enemies today could turn into friends tomorrow.

A source familiar with the matter said News Corp.'s Fox Interactive Media, which oversees its popular Internet social network MySpace, had reached a preliminary deal to buy photo-sharing site Photobucket for an estimated $250 million.

MySpace last month blocked traffic coming from Photobucket after the photo service began running ads on photos displayed on MySpace sites. MySpace said it had violated its service terms.

"You'll see more acquisitions," Chernin said. "This is a world where the big get bigger. You'll see increased consolidation."

Monday, May 7, 2007

Cisco: Social Networks Are the Future of Media

Consumers go to marketers
Dan Sheinman, SVP of Cisco's Media Solutions Group (via CNET), recently noted social networks are the best way for media practitioners to understand where media is headed in the digital age.
Cisco acquired Linksys for $500 million and set-top box maker Scientific Atlanta for $6.9 billion last year, marking a pricey leap into the consumer electronics and home entertainment markets, unfamiliar territory for the company. In the near future they hope to reap the rewards of that commitment.
Its eyes are set on social networking, which it believes is the ultimate marketing portal to consumers.
With the aim of reaching consumers where they play, the tech industry is focusing a number of resources on further developing consumer-powered technologies - evident in such companies as Google, Skype, MySpace, and YouTube.
Additionally, the position of user-generated video in advertising has changed from something generally avoided to something sought-for. The Coke-Mentos experiment on YouTube is a case in point.
Cisco is also developing products for the user-driven mediaworld. At present it is poised to launch a line of branded set-top boxes, anticipating the connected living room of the future. The notion of a next-gen connected household has been in the works for some time, but Scheinman notes that broadband adoption is bringing the idea increasingly closer to home.
Broadband use is presently at 35 percent in the United States.
"A giant IP network is what's between content and user," said Scheinman. "That's one of the reasons we acquired Linksys and Scientific Atlanta."
Sheinman was a keynote speaker at the Digital Living Connections Conference in California.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

New Online Advertising Company Adify Debuts

Flycast founders reunite, recruit powerful, diverse management team to tackle new problems faced by today's more sophisticated online publishers.

San Bruno, Calif., August 8, 2006 - Adify Corporation today unveiled an Internet advertising platform that brings new levels of visibility, control and economic benefits to both online advertisers and publishers. Adify offers publishers new ways to grow their business by increasing their share of self-service advertising, and by participating in tightly-focused vertical networks, while delivering marketers an easy way to find and buy highly-targeted advertising online.

Adify is the latest advertising solutions company from co-founders Larry Braitman and Richard Thompson. In 1996, they formed Flycast Communications, which revolutionized online marketing by creating the first blind advertising network to service the "long tail” of Internet websites. By optimizing campaigns across thousands of websites, Flycast created a new category that continues to dominate Internet advertising today.
Despite the popularity and growth of online ad networks, and their utility as a means to monetize publishers' unsold ad space, they offer advertisers very limited control over the placement of their ads. Publishers, in turn, have minimal control over the ads appearing on their sites, and no direct relationship with their customers – the advertisers. These blind networks fail to meet the needs of advertisers that are selective about the sites on which their ads run, and inhibit the ability of publishers to create unique value around their content, audience and brand.

To overcome these drawbacks, Adify was created to enable and optimize direct, open transactions between advertisers and publishers in a context where the power, control and choice is placed in their hands, rather than in the hands of a network gatekeeper.
Adify provides a hosted, publisher-branded advertising storefront, which can be leveraged to sell text, image and rich media advertising inventory. The publisher sets the pricing and terms (CPM, CPC, sponsorship) of the ad space, and controls the display and placement of the ads. Adify provides all of the backend functionality required to execute the transaction, including ad management, tracking, reporting, billing and payment.
"Since we founded Flycast 10 years ago, online marketers and publishers have grown much more sophisticated, and are demanding greater direct control over their key advertising relationships,” said Adify co-founder and CEO Larry Braitman. "Adify addresses these emerging needs by enabling publishers to package, price and merchandize their online advertising space in a manner that enhances their unique brand and content."
Creating New Vertical Networks

In addition to enabling publishers to sell their ad space directly to advertisers, Adify has developed several vertically-oriented niche networks that address growing demand from advertisers who want to reach highly-targeted online communities.
In early July, Adify introduced Clip-Ins, a first-of-its-kind online advertising network specifically dedicated to the needs of advertisers and publishers in the cycling community. Powered by the Adify platform, Clip-Ins creates a new media option for the cycling industry, offers advertisers access to cycling publishers of all sizes, and delivers the broadest segment of cycling enthusiasts online. Adify also recently launched the Top Dog Network, an advertising community that brings together dog enthusiasts for both publishers and marketers.
"My mission is to provide the Internet's most comprehensive and useful source of information on Portland's dynamic bike scene, and as owner and operator, I'm always looking for ways to get more done in less time while improving the quality and viability of the site,” said Jonathan Maus, owner of BikePortland.org, an Adify publisher and member of the Clip-Ins Network. "Through Clip-Ins, I was able to set up a self-service storefront which included all the administrative tools required to accept advertising. In a matter of days, I was generating revenue from advertisers of all shapes and sizes without hiring an advertising sales force. Now, I can continue to focus on creating great content for the Portland cycling community knowing that I have a sustainable, long-term advertising solution in place."

Adify helps publishers maximize the long-term value of their sites. By selling directly to advertisers, publishers create stronger brands while taking more control over advertising relationships. Other ways that Adify helps publishers improve their businesses include:

Publisher-friendly commission structure increases income potential over comparable online advertising solutions;
Branded, self-service storefront enables relationships with new advertisers who prefer to buy online using self-service tools, and automates the ad sales process;
Hosted billing, ad serving, tracking, reporting, collecting and payment allows publishers to focus on developing and promoting great content;
Ability to set the price and terms of ad space sold through the storefront increases flexibility and control;
Customized storefront puts merchandising, ad space creation, advertiser approval and payment options in the publisher's hands; and
Ability to sell text, image and rich media advertising; on a sponsorship, CPM or CPC basis, improves flexibility.

Adify solutions also deliver new benefits to online marketers, including:

Easy access to highly targeted advertising opportunities;
Access new publishers of all sizes that are already connected to key target markets;
Streamlined advertising options directly on smaller sites, blogs and newsletters;
Increased control of the price and type of media buy;
Ability to purchase advertising on multiple sites in a single buy or directly on individual sites; and Unmatched visibility and control over online ad placements.

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

72 percent rise in digital revenue for U.K.'s online publishers

72 percent rise in digital revenue for U.K.'s online publishers
A recent survey has found that the U.K.’s digital publishers can expect 72 percent growth in 2007, double what they were forecasting this time last year.
by Helen Leggatt
The survey was carried out by the U.K.’s Association of Online Publishers (AOP). The AOP represents around 160 of the U.K.'s largest online content producers, including the digital divisions of newspapers, magazines and broadcasters, such as the Guardian Media Group.
According to the data, collected from the 57 participating companies, U.K. digital publishers saw an average increase of 60 percent in turnover in 2006. The total turnover for the U.K. AOP's members rose to $1.1.billion from $682 million the previous year. This year publishers are forecast to see growth of around 72 percent.
"This is a remarkable set of figures. 2006 was a year of spectacular digital growth, innovation and investment by the UK's media industry - and our forecasts show there is no sign of this letting up,” said Simon Waldman, chairman of the AOP and group director of digital strategy, Guardian Media Group.
On average, 12 percent of AOP members’ overall revenue now comes from digital channels.
Three-quarters of online revenues came from advertising, with display contributing 59 percent, classified 16 percent and paid-for content (including syndication) 12 percent.
Online revenues from paid-content has increased 50 percent, with nearly half (46 percent) of AOP members charging for content, up from 37 percent in 2006.
Tags: Association of Online Publishers, digital publishers, online revenue

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Travel marketers should embrace social networking

BizReport : Social Marketing : April 12, 2007

Travel marketers should embrace social networking
The recent TravelCom/Res-Expo, held in Las Vegas, saw keynote addresses by many ecommerce experts, and many were encouraging those in the travel industry to embrace social networking tools and user-generated content.
by Helen Leggatt

According to Henry Harteveldt of Forrester Research, 83 percent of travelers are now online, compared with 71 percent of the general public. His research has shown that 90 percent of travelers will be online by 2011.

Travelers sharing stories of exploration is nothing new, but the internet is now allowing travelers to broadcast the good, the bad and the ugly aspects of their travel experiences in words, images and video.

In his keynote speech to delegates, Harteveldt said that travel marketers can’t ignore the power of user-generated content. He advised that that 41 percent of U.S. online leisure travelers use some form of online social tool in their travel research efforts, such as TripAdvisor.com.

No longer can travel agents hide behind glossy brochures when their customers can easily distribute “real-life” photos and videos online. Nowadays, travelers can investigate the downside of locations and make a more informed purchase. In fact, says Christine Petersen, senior vice president of marketing for TripAdvisor.com, a few negative comments can lend an element of honesty and authenticity to positive user reviews.

Harteveldt backs up the power of reviews saying that 30 percent of U.S. online travel bookers researching hotel accommodation would change their choice based on a user-written review. "The customer is the driver,” he said, “and he's not letting go of the steering wheel."

Monday, March 26, 2007

NBC Universal and News Corp are teaming to distribute free TV shows and movies via the three large portals -- AOL, MSN, Yahoo -- and social networking

NBC Universal and News Corp are teaming to distribute free TV shows and movies via the three large portals -- AOL, MSN, Yahoo -- and social networking site MySpace. The initiative will launch this summer, with what the networks say are "thousands of hours" of full-length TV programs and movies.
With this deal, NBC and News Corp take aim at Google's YouTube, as well as at companies hoping to enter the burgeoning Web TV field. Just several weeks ago, Joost -- a start-up from the creators of Kazaa and Skype -- announced it will soon start offering ad-supported versions of a host of Viacom programs. Similarly BitTorrent Vice President and General Manager of Consumer Services Eric Patterson said at OMMA Hollywood that the company plans to start offering ad-supported TV programs by the end of the year.
The move also comes around six months after NBC launched its own Web syndication service, National Broadband Company, or NBBC --which appears to compete with the new venture. At the time, Randy Falco -- then president and chief operating officer of NBC Universal Television Group, now AOL's chairman -- said, "In short, we're getting back into the broadcasting business, on the Internet."
But NBBC was focused -- at least initially -- on short clips of less than seven minutes, while the new joint NBC/News Corp service aims to distribute full-length shows. At launch, shows that will be available via the joint venture include "Heroes," "24," "House," "Saturday Night Live," and "The Simpsons." Movies slated for free distribution include "Borat," "Little Miss Sunshine" and "The Devil Wears Prada." Cadbury Schweppes, Cisco, Esurance, Intel Corporation and General Motors have signed on as charter advertisers.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

BitTorrent, Joost To Create Competing TV Net Sites

by Wayne Friedman, Tuesday, Mar 20, 2007 7:00 AM ET
HOLLYWOOD, CA--BIG PEER-TO-PEER INTERNET COMPANY BitTorrent says it wants to join the race to create an ad-supported TV program Internet site.
During a panel session at the OMMA conference called "Big Media--Disintermediated," Eric Patterson, vice president and general manager of consumer services for BitTorrent, said the peer-to-peer technology company will be looking to launch a new Net TV service. Another peer-to-peer company, Joost, has already said it would launch a TV programming Internet service.
"We see us moving to an advertising-supported model at the end of the year so people can consume TV shows in the same way they consume programs on television," said Patterson, who didn't disclose any other details.
BitTorrent is a massive peer-to-peer technology company. Some 135 million people worldwide have downloaded files using BitTorrent, some one-third of all P2P traffic on the Internet. Last month, BitTorrent launched BitTorrent Entertainment Network, a new service that has compiled the rights to more than 3,000 movies, 1,000 games and 1,000 music videos from 34 participating content providers. The network has deals with Paramount Pictures, Lionsgate, Warner Bros. and MGM.
Like iTunes Music Stores, the BitTorrent business is a pay Internet service, where users can rent movies for $4 each, download-to-own TV shows and music videos for $2 each. BitTorrent also plans to add a digital-rights-management-free music download service in the near future.
Recently, Joost announced it had a deal with Viacom. As part of the agreement, the big media company would provide Joost with hundreds of TV shows. Joost is in beta test right now, and will launch later this year.
Joost founders started up Kazaa, the peer-to-peer Internet music downloading Internet company, and Skype, the peer-to-peer technology Internet phone service. Like BitTorrent, Joost executives believe that using peer-to-peer technology averts the coming broadband capacity crunch.
Both Kazaa and BitTorrent have had a history of unauthorized digital-content distribution. Now the founders of both companies are setting themselves up to provide above-board digital-entertainment services.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Report: Blogging Comes of Age

blog readership
Blogging is on the brink of a new phase that will probably include some more scandal, profitability for some, and a splintering into elites and non-elites over standards and ethics, according to the 2007 State of News Media Report.
The report unveiled statistics that show how amateur blogs are tapering off, while established blogs continue to rise in readership.
"The share of the online population that tried blogging peaked back in January 2005 at 10 percent and has hovered since at 8 percent. Blog readership, on the other hand is climbing. Some 40 percent of the online population said they have read a blog at least once," writes Steve Rubel, citing the report.
The use of blogs for political campaigns, for one, is already intensifying in the run-up to the 2008 campaign, while PR efforts are beginning to use blogs as well, often covertly. Yet what gives blogging its authenticity and momentum - its open access - also makes it vulnerable to being used and manipulated, leading to scandals like the recent Edelman PR fiascos.
At the individual level, some of the most popular bloggers are already becoming businesses or being assimilated into the established media. The report concludes: "the paradox of professionalizing the medium to preserve its integrity as an independent citizen platform is the start of a complicated new era in the evolution of the blogosphere."

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Widget Syndicator Backed By AOL Founders And Former Fox Exec

by Laurie Petersen, Tuesday, Mar 6, 2007 6:00 AM ET
WIDGET SYNDICATOR CLEARSPRING TECHNOLOGIES HAS picked up $5.5-million in second-round investment funding from a bevy of media executives including AOL founders Steve Case and Ted Leonsis and Mark Jung, the former chief operating officer of Fox Interactive Media.
Jung becomes chairman of the Arlington, Va.-based Clearspring and will help set strategic direction and open doors through his strong media industry relationships, including Fox, which owns MySpace.
Among the clients that have been testing Clearspring's widget syndication services since November are the NBA, Universal Pictures and Indianapolis Colts.
Clearspring's business was created to capitalize on the growth of distributed content, making it easier for Web 2.0 sites to put together mashups from multiple sources. The widget industry makes it possible for companies to embed code on their pages that automatically bring in content such as sports scores and movie listings, without the site owner needing to update the page manually.
The implications for the ad industry are huge, says Jung. For instance--a movie studio, he says, whose video trailer is picked up on personal blog pages, is not paying the kinds of ad rates commanded by the sites of major portals and brands. Clearspring's technology makes it possible to organize, manage, syndicate, track and monetize content.
Clearspring's CEO, Chris Marentis, said the company is already serving 30 million widgets a day.
"We've got widgets all over the world, with the exception of the polar icecaps," Marentis said. "We are completely focused on creating the most accessible and valuable product for widget developers, sites hosting widgets and end users, and it is heartening to have investors of such stature that share our vision."
Marentis, a long-time AOL executive, came onboard in May after an official round of $2 million in April 2006 from Novak Biddle Venture Partners and ZG Ventures. Leading the latest round are Phil Bronner of Novak Biddle and Miles Gilburne of ZG Ventures.
The company will use the company to add staff and offices.
"The [widget] market seems to have come from nowhere in six to 12 months," said Bronner. "Interest has far exceeded our expectations. They have a strategic advantage with their open, vendor-neutral tracking and media capabilities."
When it comes out of preview on March 15, Clearspring will be up to about 15 users, Marentis says. The company is talking to Case's startup, Revolution Health.
"We're talking to anyone who needs to monetize content," he says. "We're saying, 'Let us help you let people steal you.'"
Among the competitors are widget syndicators such as Widgetbox and MuseStorm.

Monday, March 5, 2007

The 50 Most Important People on the Web

http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070305/tc_pcworld/129301;_ylt=A0SOwmEf9.tFd2oA3AYjtBAF

Christopher Null, PC World Mon Mar 5, 4:00 AM ET

Despite what Time magazine would have you believe, you are not the most powerful or influential person on the Web. At PC World we love online personals, social networks, and videos of people falling on their keisters as much as the next person, but without the folks who create the Craigslists, MySpaces, and YouTubes of the world, much of the Web's potential would be lost among spam sites and other online detritus.
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So who's making the biggest impact online? We considered hundreds of the Web's most noteworthy power brokers, bloggers, brainiacs, and entrepreneurs to figure out whose contributions are shaping the way we use the Web. We whittled the list down to the top 50--well, actually the top 62--people, but as you'll see, there are some you just can't separate. And don't despair: Get a little more traffic on your Web site, and you may show up on the list next year.
Important People #1 through #5

1. Eric Schmidt, Larry Page, and Sergey BrinExecutives, Google

When your stock price can top $500 a share, you're collectively worth $33 billion in cash, and you run the most trafficked search engine on the Internet, you can afford to do, well, pretty much whatever you want. Sergey Brin and Larry Page's little project from Stanford has grown into the Web's most talked-about powerhouse, and one of the few names on this list to have morphed into a verb. Schmidt left Novell to join the board of directors at Google in 2001 and soon became the company's CEO. Having conquered the online advertising world, Google seems to be gearing up for an acquisition spree, its headline-grabbing purchase of YouTube marking a big step toward complete domination of the Web.

2.
Steve JobsCEO, Apple

No doubt you're sick of the media bonanza surrounding the every move of Apple's CEO, but when one man's appeal for DRM-free music reverberates around the world, it's hard to ignore the power he wields. Jobs popularized legal music downloads and legal TV and movie downloads. And though the iPhone won't be released for five months, its demonstration at
MacWorld Expo suggested that this product might finally popularize Internet browsing on a mobile device.

3. Bram CohenCofounder, BitTorrent

P2P systems like KaZaA and eDonkey are so last year. The future is all about BitTorrent, the brainchild of math wizard and programming wunderkind Bram Cohen. BitTorrent, developed in 2001, has gained in popularity as a way to download large files (like movies) by sharing the burden across hardware and bandwidth. The technology's adeptness at handling large files got Cohen in trouble with the Motion Picture Association of America, which ordered BitTorrent to remove copyrighted content from its network. But that setback hasn't slowed it down. Reportedly, more than a third of all Web traffic now comes from BitTorrent clients. BitTorrent and the entertainment heavyweights have since joined forces. The newly released BitTorrent Entertainment Network launched recently with thousands of industry-approved movies, television shows, games, and songs for sale and rental.

4. Mike MorhaimePresident, Blizzard Entertainment

In the world of online gaming, there is World of Warcraft and there is everything else. With 8 million players worldwide, Blizzard earns about $1.5 billion a year on WoW. And each player is breathlessly beholden to Mike Morhaime for the chance--if it ever comes--to obtain that Blade of Eternal Justice. As with Second Life (see #17), entire real-world businesses are based around the game. Unlike Second Life, though, these businesses--which exploit the WoW economy and gameplay--are not entirely welcome.

5. Jimmy WalesFounder,
Wikipedia

Many onliners treat Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia as their first and last stop in researching a topic; and its user generated content has become so reliable that Nature magazine declared it "close to [Encyclopaedia] Britannica" in accuracy. The site has been cited as a source of information in more than 100 U.S. court decisions since 2004. But its popularity has also made Wikipedia a target for spammers--so much so that Wikipedia temporarily blocked the entire country of Qatar from making edits. To thwart spammers, Wales decided to slap "nofollow" tags on external links, telling search engines to ignore the links in order to avoid artificially inflating the search engine ranking of the link targets. This strategy ensures that Wikipedia's prominence in search results will continue to grow. But Wikipedia may just be the beginning for Wales. He recently launched his own search engine, WikiSeek, which searches only sites mentioned in Wikipedia.
Important People #6 through #10

6. John DoerrVenture capitalist, Kleiner, Perkins, Caulfield & Byers

A former salesman for Intel, John Doerr has been the king of Silicon Valley venture capital for 27 years, investing in tech businesses ranging from Sun Microsystems to Amazon.com to Google. Jeff Bezos (see #24) once described Doerr as "the center of gravity in the Internet." He has also put his money behind his politics, backing controversial state ballot initiatives in California involving alternative energy and stem-cell research.

7. Craig NewmarkFounder, Craigslist

His Web site has no ads, charges absurdly low fees to a small fraction of its visitors, has a ".org" domain, and employs 23 people. Yet despite its humble appearance, Craigslist racked up 14.1 million page views last December and was the 52nd most viewed site last December according to comScore Media Metrix. Newmark's Craigslist has become an addiction for many, who impulsively refresh the listings of free stuff, "rants & raves," and personal ads while shirking their day jobs. Most importantly, it has almost singlehandedly demolished the offline classified advertising business. (In the San Francisco Bay Area alone, one study found, the site drains up to $65 million annually from local newspapers' help-wanted ads.) Take that, old media!

8. Peter LevinsohnPresident, Fox Interactive Media

Fox Interactive Media, owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation, is one of the Web's most powerful entities, controlling 13 sites that range from uber-popular MySpace.com to controversial FoxNews.com. A complement to News Corp's array of traditional film and television properties, this Internet-focused division ranked among the top 10 visited properties in the world in December 2006, according to comScore World Metrix. And there will probably be more to come, as Fox Interactive still has $2 billion in acquisition money to play around with, according to TechCrunch (see #30).

9. Marissa MayerVice president for search products & user experience, Google

Google's product czar oversees the search giant's increasingly diversified list of Web services and tools, such as Google Maps, Google Desktop, and Google Base--an eBay-esque e-commerce service. The first lady of Google joined the company as its first female engineer in 1999 (she was approximately employee #20) and worked on developing Google's now-familiar minimalist look. But don't accuse her of all work and no play; according to Google's Web site, she organizes employee movie nights.

10. Chad Hurley and Steve ChenFounders, YouTube

Despite Google's acquisition of the company, YouTube founders Chad Hurley (CEO) and Steve Chen (CTO) look like they'll be shaking things up for some time to come. The Internet video kingpin announced plans to pay users for videos, and it has signed several big-media content partnerships (with MTV, NBC, Warner Music, and others). Fellow co-founder Jawed Karim left the company to pursue a master's in computer science at Stanford University.
Important People #11 through #15

11. Kevin J. MartinChairman,
Federal Communications Commission

He may look innocent and unassuming, but Martin is arguably the most powerful bureaucrat on the Web. He took over the reins of the FCC in 2005, and to date he has encountered minimal controversy and none of the scandals that predecessor Michael Powell suffered. But that doesn't mean he couldn't cut off your Internet connection like that if he really wanted to.

12. Brad TempletonChairman of the board, Electronic Frontier Foundation

If you've ever found yourself on the wrong side of an electronic copyright or privacy scuffle, you know that Brad Templeton and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are your friends. They've defended file-sharers sued by the
Recording Industry Association of America and filed complaints against America Online for disclosing subscriber search terms; currently they're fighting to unmuzzle bloggers who published leaked documents related to Eli Lilly's alleged misrepresentation of side effects of the drug Zyprexa. Templeton's passion about copyright and free speech is not surprising. The Web publishing veteran got his start back in 1989 when he founded ClariNet, a company that published what Templeton calls "the Net's first newspaper."

13. Henry ChonCEO, Cyworld

Don't call Cyworld a Korean MySpace; MySpace is an American Cyworld. In
South Korea, an estimated 25 percent of the population (and 90 percent of people in their teens and twenties) have Cyworld accounts, where individuals design miniature animated avatars to represent them in its unique online space. In 2006 CEO Henry Chon brought Cyworld to U.S. shores. Though Cyworld hasn't yet achieved comparable success here, MySpace shouldn't rest easy if Chon's track record is any indication of future competition.

14. Shana FisherSenior vice president for strategy and M&A, IAC/InterActiveCorp

IAC/InterActiveCorp chairman and CEO Barry Diller loves his online enterprises. After a buying binge, IAC now owns Ask.com, Citysearch, Expedia, Match.com, Ticketmaster, and a host of other service-oriented Web businesses. But who tells Diller where to plunk down the cash? That would be his mergers and acquisitions advisor, senior VP Shana Fisher, who determines exactly where and when IAC should invest. Her control over IAC's purse strings makes her arguably the most powerful woman on the Internet.

15. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus FriisFounders, Skype and KaZaA

It seems like Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis just can't stop themselves. First they built the popular (though malware-addled) peer-to-peer file-sharing network KaZaA; then they followed that endeavor up by building the amazingly popular VoIP software Skype. After selling Skype to eBay (see #28) for $2.6 billion, the duo has gone back to the drawing board to produce Joost (formerly "The Venice Project"), a P2P video distribution service that is currently in private beta form. Will Zennstrom and Friis pull off a trifecta of killer apps? After being forced to settle an RIAA lawsuit over KaZaA for more than $100 million, they are negotiating directly with content providers as they prepare for Joost's official launch.
Important People #16 through #20

16. Matt MullenwegDeveloper, WordPress blogging site and software

Matt Mullenweg can barely buy a drink, but this 22-year-old open-source enthusiast developed WordPress, the open-source publishing software favored by blogging diehards around the world. In 2004, WordPress became well-enough known that Web publishing powerhouse CNet hired Mullenweg to work on it and other projects. Mullenweg quit in 2005, however, to work full-time on WordPress, which today is more like a content-management system, with various templates, widgets, and plug-ins, and Askismet antispam protection (we reviewed the service in January 2007.)

17. Philip RosedaleCEO, Linden Lab

Philip Rosedale took the MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) concept and spun it into the Web's most talked-about virtual destination: Second Life. But don't call it just a game. For more and more "residents," Second Life has become a first life, where they can do everything in the virtual world from getting married to launching businesses that function exclusively within the site's confines. Many real-world businesses have opened Second Life branches, too. In fact, Second Life has become so popular that the inevitable backlash has begun: Nick Denton's Valleywag (see #45) has compared the game's economy to a pyramid scheme

18. Jon Lech JohansenCreator,
DeCSS decryption program

Better known as DVD-Jon, Jon Lech Johansen is the Norwegian hacker who broke the encryption system used on DVD movies, thereby allowing them to be copied. He released the DeCSS decryption program in 2002 and was promptly prosecuted in his homeland. Eventually acquitted, Johansen went on to crack Apple's iTunes DRM (repeatedly) while working as a software developer in the United States. Beaten to the punch in cracking high-definition DVD formats by the still-anonymous muslix64, who created "backup" programs for HD DVD late last year and for Blu-ray Disc in January, Johansen nonetheless remains the renegade that big media fears most.

19. Jerry Yang, David Filo, and Terry SemelExecutives, Yahoo

Google's product innovations and its blockbuster purchase of YouTube for $1.65 billion may have pushed Yahoo out of the limelight, but the Web giant led by founders Yang and Filo and CEO Terry Semel are fighting back. In the past two years, Yahoo has acquired online photo-sharing site Flickr and social bookmarking site Del.icio.us. It also continues to launch new properties such as Yahoo Food and Yahoo Pipes (for creating custom data feeds). Yahoo's recent switch to the Panama advertising platform represents another attempt to recapture ad revenue from Google. (Full disclosure: The author of this story writes a blog hosted at tech.yahoo.com.)

20. Jack MaCOO, Alibaba.com

Want to do business in China without springing for a plane ticket to Shanghai? Alibaba.com is your best bet. Founded by Jack Ma in 1999, this massively successful business-to-business e-marketplace is the best place online to meet people and trade proposals and product offers. (Ma has been quoted as saying that the firm got its bizarre start when he was kidnapped in Malibu and released on the condition he help his captor start a business in China.) In 2005, Yahoo (see #19) made a multibillion-dollar investment in Alibaba, which now runs Yahoo China. The venture recently became mired in scandal, when it provided information that led to the imprisonment of a Chinese journalist accused of leaking state secrets.
Important People #21 through #25

21. Brewster KahleDirector, Internet Archive

Since 1996, the nonprofit Internet Archive has been collecting terabytes of data--old books, movies, music, and radio shows. Meanwhile, another feature, called the Wayback Machine, has been quietly taking snapshots of Web history to memorialize where we browsed. Take a look at the Internet Archive's old snapshots of your favorite Web sites and you may be shocked at how different they used to be. Kahle cofounded the Internet Archive with the goal of "preserving our digital heritage," but don't let the humble curatorial pose fool you: Kahle has also challenged changes to U.S. copyright law in Kahle vs. Gonzales, a high-profile First Amendment legal case.

22. Ray OzzieChief software architect, Microsoft

In 2006, when
Bill Gates abdicated the position of chief software architect at Microsoft after 30 hands-on years, observers applauded his choice of successor: software visionary Ray Ozzie. The creator of Lotus Notes and Groove collaboration software is now charged with ensuring Microsoft's technological relevance in an age in which the Web threatens to replace the traditional desktop OS. A pioneer in computer-based collaboration, Ozzie seems well equipped to do the job. One piece of unsolicited advice, Ray: You might consider updating your blog as a first step.

23. Markos Moulitsas ZunigaBlogger, Daily Kos

The left's most high-profile voice on the Web, Markos "Kos" Moulitsas, is a political powerhouse without equal online. His blog draws comments from liberals ranging from Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) to Jimmy Carter, and Moulitsas even launched a conference (broadcast in part on C-Span) for like-minded political activists. Kos's endorsements haven't always triumphed, but his backing of Ned Lamont was influential in opponent
Joe Lieberman's loss of the Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut last year, though Lieberman eventually won the general election as an independent. Kos has not indicated any desire to run for office himself as yet.

24. Jeff BezosCEO, Amazon

He may have launched Amazon.com with the goal of developing it into a big online bookstore, but Bezos proved that shlepping books and CDs across the country was just a first act. The next round: adding toys, T-shirts, and power tools. And now, for scene three, Bezos has thrown himself into Web services. What does it mean? Just the start of a new framework for developing Web sites, including "utility computing" services that let you buy server time at a rate of 10 cents an hour. While we wait to find out how his newfangled grid computing strategies pan out, don't forget that Bezos will sell you a Barbie Fashion Fever Grow 'N Style Styling Head for 50 percent off.

25. Robert ScobleVice president of media development, PodTech.net

You know a grassroots movement is a success when big business wants to join in. And for once, big business--namely Microsoft--did it right. This was largely due to Robert Scoble. At the time a Microsoft employee, he blogged about the company and revealed a human--and sometimes egg-covered--side of the Redmond empire. The glimpse into Microsoft's inner workings, cool technologies, and smart people shattered (or at least dented) the Microsoft stereotype. Microsoft blogs have subsequently become an integral part of the company's communication with users. In 2006 Scoble left Microsoft for PodTech.net, where his video podcast Scoble Show features interviews with geeks. Recent guests include PC World's editor in chief Harry McCracken, who stopped in to debate the eternal question: Mac or PC? Scoble has also interviewed 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards, whose outspoken bloggers got him into hot water.
Important People #26 through #30

26. John BattelleEntrepreneur and chairman, Federated Media Publishing

Entrepreneur and journalist John Battelle has had a ringside seat for the unfolding of Webs 1.0, 2.0 (he cohosts the Web 2.0 Summit conference with Tim O'Reilly--see #36), and (in its preliminary stages) 3.0. In addition, he founded what some would call the Vanity Fair and the People Magazine of the Internet era: Wired Magazine and The Industry Standard. His most recent venture, Federated Media Publishing, represents the A-list of online content. Its slate of more than 50 sites includes 43 Folders, Ars Technica, BoingBoing, and TechCrunch. Battelle's 2005 book The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture and his blog Searchblog are required reading for anyone who wants to understand the constantly evolving landscape of the tech industry.

27. Lawrence LessigCEO, Creative Commons

Acknowledging his kinglike status in the field, Wired once called him the "Elvis of Cyberlaw"--and the name stuck. Lawrence Lessig is a professor at Stanford University Law School and founder and chair of Creative Commons (CC), a nonprofit initiative that promotes a free but nonrevocable licensing system for online works. Designed to enable copyright holders to share content and yet still control it, a CC license spells out whether the holder wants to require attribution, restrict commercial use, or allow derivative works under specified circumstances. Musical acts such as DangerMouse and David Byrne have made songs available under the CC's Sampling Plus license for noncommercial sharing and commercial sampling, while restricting advertising uses of it. A wealth of Creative Commons-licensed media is stored in searchable form at the Creative Commons Search page.

28. Meg WhitmanCEO, eBay

If there's an industry that eBay doesn't touch, we haven't found it yet. Whether trying to score a PlayStation 3 on opening week or laboring to complete your set of Thundercats action figures, you have probably visited the venerable king of all auctions. But Meg Whitman, whose tenure as CEO of eBay is now approaching nine years (an era by dot-com standards), has more on her mind than just vintage GI Joe dolls and state quarters. She's also boss of the Web's largest online payment system, PayPal, and proud new owner of the most popular VoIP system, Skype (see #15).

29. Ron Wyden (news, bio, voting record)U.S. Senator, Oregon

Oregon's senior U.S. Senator, a Democrat, has long ranked as one of Capitol Hill most influential voices on technology issues. During his tenure, Wyden has authored or co-authored the Science and Technology Emergency Mobilization Act, the Cyber Security Research and Development Act, and the controversial CAN-SPAM Act. (Hey, they can't all be winners.) More recently, Wyden has introduced a bill called the Internet Nondiscrimination Act, which would prevent telecom companies from charging more for delivering content faster.

30. Michael ArringtonBlogger/publisher, TechCrunch

An entrepreneur and former attorney who cofounded Canada's answer to Netflix (Zip.ca), Michael Arrington turned his attention in 2005 to blogging about Web startups. Almost overnight he became a sensation, eliciting the kind of fawning attention from dot-com wannabes that is normally reserved for the likes of men with surnames like Gates and Jobs. With TechCrunch properties now sprawling across six domains, the often-irascible Arrington is indisputably the most powerful technology blogger working today.
Important People #31 through #35

31. Bruce SchneierCryptographer

Whether his focus is the Transportation Security Administration's latest boneheaded security procedures or the question of how secure a 12-character password really is, Bruce Schneier offers the most lucid (and most profoundly influential) musings on computer security you're likely to find online or off. Schneier's recent writings on security problems associated with the war on terrorism--abroad, at home, and online--are required reading.

32. Kevin RoseFounder, Digg

Everyone who has a story on the Web wants Kevin Rose's users to "digg it." The former TechTV host (and colleague of Leo Laporte--see #47) founded Digg.com in 2004, bringing the power of social networking to the news. Digg's algorithm lets users submit their favorite news stories and vote them up (or down). Digg's expansion beyond technology news to mainstream news categories in June 2006 prompted BusinessWeek to slap a goofy-looking picture of Rose on its cover along with an eyebrow-raising valuation estimate of $60 million. Whether Rose is a multimillionaire or not, his site has plenty of clout on the Internet.

33. David FarberFounder, Interesting-People.org

Since the early 1990s, David Farber has been running the Interesting-People mailing list. It started as a small e-mail list for friends and colleagues (the interesting people) and turned into the mother lode of online mailing lists. Interesting-People takes on topics from 9/11 to the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act to Net neutrality and is rife with highly opinionated commentary from some very influential people. Farber is currently a professor of computer science and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University. His past positions include a stint as chief technologist for the Federal Communications Commission.

34. John Hinderaker, Scott Johnson, and Paul MirengoffAuthors, PowerLine

Political candidates can no longer afford to ignore political blogs, and PowerLine is among the most influential political blogs out there. This neoconservative triumvirate--three lawyers who met while attending Dartmouth College--gained their street cred during "RatherGate," when they assembled compelling arguments that the Killian documents, which Dan Rather used in a 60 Minutes newscast on George W. Bush's National Guard service, were fake. Initially, Rather and CBS News poo-pooed the PowerLine bloggers; but in the end, CBS admitted the forgery and Rather resigned.

35. Vinton G. CerfChairman,
ICANN Board of Directors, and vice president and chief Internet evangelist, Google

Owing to his role in developing the TCP/IP protocols on which the Net depends, Vinton G. Cerf is one of the founding fathers of the Internet. Much of his work on the protocols occurred during the 1970s and early 1980s while he was employed by DARPA, the
Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency. (In honor of their work, Cerf and partner Robert Kahn received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.) Currently, Cerf chairs ICANN (the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers), and in 2005 he became Google's vice president and chief Internet evangelist. He has been a strong advocate of Net neutrality, notably in an appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee. He is also working with
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory on an Interplanetary Internet for more-robust space communication systems.
Important People #36 through #40

36. Tim O'ReillyFounder and CEO, O'Reilly Media

O'Reilly coined the phrase "Web 2.0," and he continues to cohost (with John Battelle--see #26) the industry's must-attend Web 2.0 Summit conference. The Harvard-educated publisher laid his foundation in computer manuals. (Many a computer enthusiast would immediately recognize the intricate black-and-white line drawings of animals that grace the covers of O'Reilly books.) But his company has grown to incorporate the new media--blogs, podcasts, and online news--he espouses.

37. Drew CurtisFounder, Fark.com

Lewd, crude, and traffic-generating, Fark.com invites its community of ad hoc commentators to participate in an ongoing brutal but frequently witty dissection of current news stories that sometimes turns into news itself. When the site recently greenlighted a news item under the descriptive headline "
Anna Nicole Smith's condition downgraded to dead," Reuters and other international news outlets reported the crack. The enterprise is still primarily run by one guy: founder and smart-ass Drew Curtis. In January 2007, he launched FarkTV on the SuperDeluxe comedy video site. He is also scheduled to release a book titled It's Not News, It's Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News in May 2007. (Yeah, but your media watchdog wants crap!)

38. Gabe RiveraCreator, Techmeme

Gabe Rivera has created a powerful content-analysis algorithm that scans traditional news media and blogs, identifies the important stories, and organizes them into easy-to-read clusters. His goal: to find the next big news story so that you don't have to. That's why influential bloggers, decision makers, and news junkies find his site Techmeme a must-read. Whereas Digg (see #32) ranks stories by vote, and Slashdot (see #44) does so by editorial opinion, the technology underlying Techmeme--and sister sites WeSmirch, Memeorandum, and Ballbug--may prove to be the most powerful way to harness the blogosphere's investigative power.

39. Dave WinerBlogger and author of RSS 2.0

If you are wasting hours a day perusing podcasts, then you have Dave Winer to thank or blame (depending on your point of view). He was one of the inventors of podcasting--and one of the first bloggers. Winer started his Scripting News blog, which is still well read, back in 1997. He also co-authored the SOAP protocol, an instrumental element in operating-system-independent Web services. Nevertheless, his work on RSS--the technology behind Web content feeds--is what really earned him his fame. That, plus his ability to persuade the New York Times to use RSS and his work in amending it to support media files (giving birth to the podcast), makes him the father of modern-day content distribution.

40. Mike SchroepferVice president of engineering, Mozilla

In the ongoing browser war, Mike Schroepfer is a five-star general who leads a massive but decentralized open-source army of staff and volunteer engineers. Its mission: to improve what is right now the best Web browser on the planet, Firefox. The open-source nature of Firefox permits a faster development cycle for incorporating new features and security fixes. The proof of its success is Internet Explorer 7's adoption of FireFox features such as tabbed browsing. See our recent comparative review, "Radically New IE 7 or Updated Mozilla Firefox 2--Which Browser Is Better?"
Important People #41 through #45

41. Perez HiltonHollywood blogger

Love him or hate him, this controversial blogger (real name: Mario Lavandeira) has changed the face of celebrity journalism. Hilton's hugely popular Web site offers around-the-clock access to celebrity gossip and photos, but that's not the only reason that he's on our list. Hilton is involved in a legal battle with photo agency X17, which has accused him of using its copyrighted photos without permission. Hilton claims that posting the photos on his site is legal, amounting simply to fair use of newsworthy images. The $7.6 million federal lawsuit could have lasting effects on how bloggers everywhere use digital photos online.

42. Paul Graham, Trevor Blackwell, Robert Morris, and Jessica LivingstonFounders, Y Combinator

Rather than sinking a whole lot of money into a handful of companies that may (or may not) turn into the next big Google, venture capital firms like Y Combinator dole out smaller sums to potential mini-Googles. Y Combinator commits to two rounds of funding and dispenses less than $20,000 (expense money, really) to coders so they can work, work, work on a prototype to parlay into more funding. In exchange, Y Combinator asks for 2 to 10 percent of the company's stock. Startups that these guys have funded include Reddit (acquired by CondeNast), Kiko, and Weebly. The names sound funny, sure, but do you remember the first time you heard the name YouTube?

43. Mikko H. HypponenDirector of antivirus research, F-Secure

F-Secure's security news blog, written by director of antivirus research Mikko H. Hypponen, is one of the Internet's go-to places for learning about the latest security threats. Too bad Sony BMG didn't think so. When directly approached by F-Secure, Sony BMG ignored Hypponen's warnings about a rootkit hidden within the antipiracy software used in certain SonyBMG audio CDs. Though F-Secure didn't initially go public with the news, Windows expert Mark Russinovich detailed the rootkit discovery process on his blog. The resulting embarrassment (and a third-party lawsuit over the rootkit) might encourage Sony to take Hypponen more seriously next time.

44. Rob MaldaFounder, Slashdot.org

In 1997, Rob Malda (aka CmdrTaco) created Slashdot, the original blog with prioritized news content discussed in posts by snarky (and often highly technical) readers. In fact, the original news story often serves as a mere jumping off point for the site's meaty comments and discussions (fodder for links to more news stories). Even if you prefer Digg (see #32), Techmeme (see #38), Technorati, or some other news aggregation blog, don't forget that it all started with Slashdot. Authors and editors still consider it a badge of honor when their news story is "slashdotted," though increased competition from other sites has stolen a bit of Slashdot's thunder.

45. Nick DentonFounder, Gawker Media

Nick Denton's blog empire is so influential and so blogged about that you probably visit at least one of his 15 properties every day through one route or another. With titles that include New York City page six alternative Gawker, Washington, D.C., gossip rag Wonkette, L.A. equivalent Defamer, and tech news site Gizmodo, Denton's empire is unquestionably the most successful independent blogging venture on the Web right now, holding considerable sway over industries from automobiles to Hollywood to high tech.
Important People #46 through #50

46. Sir Tim Berners-LeeDirector, World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

What do you do after you invent the World Wide Web and give it away for free? Start a consortium that works on making it better This British scientist designed the first Web browser, editor, and language protocol (HTTP) while employed as a scientist at
CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), and he founded the W3C in 1994. He has recently spoken in favor of Net neutrality. And like the old financial firm E.F. Hutton, when Berners-Lee talks, people listen.

47. Leo LaporteCreator, This Week in Tech (TWiT) podcast

For at least the past 15 years, the man behind Leoville has created, hosted, and written radio and television shows, most notably the former TechTV show Screen Savers. His personality-driven style demonstrated to the world that tech media could be fun. His most recent venture is the TWiT.tv podcast network, a listener-funded enterprise that has gathered some of the old TechTV crew and put them to work creating more than a dozen podcasts, including the eponymous "This Week in Tech."

48. Mohammed and Omar FadhilBlogging voice of
Iraq

Countless bloggers are filled to the bloviating point with opinions about the Iraq War. But the brothers Fadhil, who blog at Iraq the Model bring a perspective that few others can match--because they're Iraqis, based in Baghdad. Whatever your political leanings, you'll find it impossible to read the Fadhil's posts without acquiring a deeper understanding of the war, its implications, and its after-effects. There's no better example anywhere of how citizen journalism is changing the world.

49. Jesse James GarrettPresident, Adaptive Path

Garrett, the president of San Francisco Web design boutique Adaptive Path, didn't invent Ajax, the assemblage of technologies and programming techniques that gives Web-based applications such as Zoho's productivity apps and Google Maps desktop software-like interactivity and speed. But Ajax didn't really take off until Garrett identified and named it in an influential essay--and he remains one the most eloquent advocates for the innovative, effective techniques used in many of the best Web 2.0 sites and services.

50. Tila TequilaMySpace Personality

If you're friends with singer/model/actress Tila Tequila (nee Nguyen), you're hardly alone. Some 1.6 million MySpace users identify themselves similarly. Tequila proved that these MySpace friendships can generate power, fame, and wealth. In fact, she redefined the word "friend" to encompass an individual you've never met. Despite what you may think of Ms. Tequila's talents, she could certainly teach a course in the new Web economy, having channeled her online popularity into A-list (well, C-list) fame. She has posed for Stuff magazine, she has a part in an Adam Sandler film currently in production, and her MySpace page currently boasts more than 56 million page views and 1,734,374 comments.

The Heartbeat of New Media