The MoPR Blog

NBC unveils measurement of mobile usage at Olympics. According to an article in AdAge, NBC Universal has revealed usage figures for mobile devices and the Olympics. The biggest news from the report is that the Olympics as an event seem to be driving mobile video and mobile news adoption for the masses. According to a spokesperson for NBC, half of the mobile users who are watching video or getting news from their mobiles about the Olympics, are doing so for the first time.

According to the piece, NBC also unveiled a way to measure all viewers across the board [TV, online, web, cable] with something called TAMi, or total audience measurement index, described by AdAge as:

Data capture in rudimentary fashion; the numbers of people watching Olympics content on TV, online, via mobile and through video-on-demand.

The program is still in its early stages and stats won’t be used to sell ad time says NBC – at least not yet. It’s interesting to note that the larger players such as NBC are starting to acknowledge there’s a whole new audience – the mobile consumer - that wasn’t a target even a mere four years ago during the Athens Olympics, and that in response they are starting to develop custom content to meet the needs of mobile users.

MySpace: Not just crappy bands, creepy stalkers and strippers. According to Marketing Charts, MySpace numbers shot through the roof with a record 75.2 million unique US visitors in July 2008, the highest number since its launch in 2004 - and an increase of 2.5 million from the previous month.

MySpace attributes its continued growth to recent changes it has made to its site and its ability to “make money in high interactive spend areas.”

Other positive data included:

• Total minutes spent on MySpace increased to 17.3 billion (a 7% increase month-over-month) while average minutes per visitor decreased for the total Internet
• Visitors each spent nearly 4 hours on MySpace in the month
• Visitors spent nearly three times the amount of total minutes on MySpace than on any of its closest competitors’ sites.
• MySpace total minutes were up 20% compared with the same period last year.

“BRIC” countries bigger fans of mobile entertainment. Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) mobile markets are more into entertainment-theme sites than American and European markets where the draw is information and news, says The Nielsen Company. According to Nielsen,  entertainment, gaming, and music websites rank among the top five categories visited in all four BRIC countries, but do not have a place among the top US and Europe rankings.

Email, weather, news and search are the top categories for both American and European mobile Internet users. Nielsen’s research suggests that mobile Internet users across BRIC countries are more reliant on mobile phones to provide them with entertainment content, while users across the United States and Europe view their devices more as a resource for information.

Online video market: Still ready to explode, but when? The worldwide online video market is experiencing dramatic growth, says a new report from In-Stat.

Worldwide online video revenue is expected to eclipse US$4.5 billion by 2012, up from $1.2 billion in 2008, the market research firm says. Purchased/rented videos are expected to offer the most robust growth for online video in the near term, in large part due to an increase in subscription services such as Netflix, which charges a flat monthly fee to deliver an optimal combination of packaged goods and online content that can be viewed on home TV sets. [The report was released before this week’s Netflix snafu.] http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=9676

By 2012, In-Stat forecasts that 90% of US households will have access to broadband, with 94% of these individuals watching online video. On the other hand, they say 54% of respondents of their survey still favor physical discs when purchasing movies or TV shows. The DVD isn’t dead yet, folks!

The coming text quake. We heard about the Los Angeles earthquake on Tuesday [the “little big one” as the wags are calling it] via Twitter first; not on the radio, 24-hour cable news, or even a news website. In fact, some of the bigger breaking news the past couple of months, such as the deaths of George Carlin and Tim Russert, have been relayed to us first via Twitter on our iPhone.

This means two things. One, that web users are getting their information and news from newer more untraditional sources. And two, we spend way too much time on Twitter.

A recent piece from the Los Angeles Daily News had an interesting take on how web and mobile phone users got their news during the earthquake’s aftermath.

Landline telephones were still a popular way of spreading the news and checking in with relatives; but unlike previous quakes, instant messaging, e-mail and even text messaging were used to get news and check in. According to the article, the LA mayor’s office couldn’t use its phones to contact the city’s emergency operations center and had to rely on trading instant messages via their BlackBerrys.

And, at the University of California, Los Angeles, 30,000 students and employees were sent a “Bruin Alert” text message on the quake.

Sure, the regular news outlets were still out in full force, but it’s an interesting trend and a sign that mainstream media need to think outside the box around how they can and should be delivering the news.

Women viewers turning to online network TV. According to a new report from Integrated Media Measurement Inc. (IMMI) more viewers are watching network TV shows online. The report revealed more than 20% of TV viewers watch some amount of primetime programming online. And the largest segment of online TV viewers? They’re white, affluent, well-educated, working women between the ages of 25-44.

Among online viewers, 50% are watching programming as it becomes available and appear to be beginning to use the computer as a substitute for television, IMMI said.

The other 50% are using the web to watch past programming they have missed:

•    Fill-in viewing: Either they are filling in an episode online when they have already seen the other episodes around it on TV (18.7%).
•    Catch-up viewing: Or they are catching up on an episode online after seeing the previous episodes on TV (31.3%).

The study also revealed that non-DVR owners are adopting the computer for time-shifting rather than buying a DVR. In some cases, online viewing of a particular program was higher than DVR viewing of that program, IMMI found. In general, online viewers are less likely to use a DVR.

Mobile and real-time Olympics. According to the longest press release ever (NBC internal PR, call us. We can help you) NBC is offering 2,200 hours of live streaming video of the 2008 Beijing Olympics on NBCOlympics.com.

According to the release, NBC Olympics Mobile will also present the most comprehensive sporting event coverage ever delivered on mobile phones - from live mobile TV broadcasts to breaking news and text and video alerts.

Stay tuned for an announcement from smartphone users’ favorite mobile content provider Viigo (and MoPR client!) which has some big news to share in the coming weeks around mobile coverage of this year’s Olympic games.

Mobile viruses a reality? AdaptiveMobile, a provider of mobile security solutions for enterprises and individuals, is seeing a sharp rise in the volume of mobile network virus attacks. Recent analysis of the data from the company’s mobile operator customers suggests that two virus variants - CommWarrior and Beselo – are causing particular damage on web phones.

While CommWarrior only affects Nokia Series 60 phones, Beselo attacks all smartphones, spreading via Bluetooth and MMS as a Symbian SIS installation file. Beselo is growing at four times the rate of CommWarrior.

The bottom line from AdaptiveMobile is that:

As infection rates continue to rise and higher proportions of customers are left at risk, mobile phone security will become a key differentiator for customer creation and retention – particularly among large organizations keen to ensure their staff are properly protected. The battle is heating up – and mobile operators have to make sure they are competing effectively.

Hat tip to Read Write Web’s article.

Sprint gets fee smackdown. A California court ruled this week that Sprint Nextel was wrong to charge its customers penalty fees for early termination of cell phone contracts, according to an article from the Washington Post.

According to the article:

Sprint must pay $18.3 million in cash to users who paid early-termination fees; another $54.8 million must be credited to users who were charged but didn’t pay the fees, which is open to comment until Aug. 5, when the final ruling will be made.

The decision only affects California customers, yet Sprint, T-Mobile and other wireless carriers are covering their bases from suits not only in California but in other states by “lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to adopt new federal rules governing such penalties, removing them from state jurisdiction.”

The press release: Its death greatly exaggerated. Last Wednesday the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)’ recommended that rules be set to govern how “corporations disclose their earnings and other information on their Web sites.”  This ruling could drastically impact the newswire business and shift the way IR and financial PR pros execute their communications.

Some in our industry have interpreted this decision to mean that blogs can now be used to disclose earnings information to investors and the press release is now dead.

Not so fast. Read more what we think, here.