SpectatorBytes

It used to be that consumers’ mainstream media habits revolved primarily around listening, watching, reading and communicating. However, the results of recent research indicate that gaming has become a mainstream behavior for digital consumers. According to Comscore, casual gaming sites attracted 86 million unique visitors in 2008 compared to 67 million in 2007. This is [...]

YouTube’s recent programming and advertising initiatives are pretty exciting. In them, I can see that YouTube is taking steps to unlock the value of online video. First, YouTube recently allowed one of its content partners, CBS, to use their own video player to broadcast “March Madness” on YouTube.com. The second was YouTube’s experiment with a [...]

Over the past couple of years, I have advised the digital companies with which I am and have been involved to minimize their marketing spending. Instead, I have advocated that management teams focus on product development and maximizing distribution, which I strongly believe is a superior recipe for success. The list of digital products that [...]

Nowadays, it seems that radio is one of the most unattractive media businesses. Radio stations are facing a significant slowdown in local advertising. The drama surrounding the recent financial difficulties of the merged Sirius and XM highlight the challenges satellite radio faces. However, in recent months, I have found myself listening to more radio than [...]

Recently, Techcrunch had an interesting article about the death of digital divisions inside major media companies. Techcrunch argued that the slowdown in M&A will mean that  most digital initiatives will now be led by the traditional divisions rather than by “digital” divisions. While this may be the case in the short-term, I believe that major [...]

The emergence of Twitter as a major consumer application on the Web has put the spotlight on “real-time” information delivery. Facebook is quickly jumping on the bandwagon with their recently announced updates to its user experience. Real-time news and information delivery has been one of the great promises of the Web. For many years, real-time [...]

Ever since I updated the software on my iPod Touch, I have increasingly found myself using it to watch full-length TV shows. I am able to watch the evening news, news talk shows, old sitcoms and some ESPN content. I enjoy my TV experience on the Touch because it is personal but more importantly on [...]