Content

Content in its shift to become digital

Live 8 Event: AOL To Broadcast
AOL has announced it will broadcast the Live 8 concerts in London, Philadelphia, Paris, Rome and Berlin online for free.
As “Live 8’s exclusive online partner”, America Online will stream all of the Live 8 concerts online, with the shows being available for six weeks after the event, viewable in the US and on free AOL portals in England, France, and Germany. The videos will be free of cost with no AOL subscription necessary.
The global event, organised by Bob Geldof, is intended to highlight the problem of global poverty and features a veritable galaxy of veteran stars who have dusted off the cobwebs to take part.
The free London Hyde Park concert will include seasoned acts such as Sir Elton John, Madonna, Mariah Carey, Sir Paul McCartney, Sting, U2 and R.E.M, with Stevie Wonder, Bon Jovi, 50 Cent and P. Diddy scheduled to appear in the Philadelphia show.
With emotive violins reaching a tearful crescendo, America Online chairman and CEO Jon Miller splurted: “We have seen the Internet emerge as an incredibly powerful force for good in the world…with Live 8, we have the chance to help eradicate global poverty, not by raising money, but by linking people from around the globe, so that their collective voices can be heard loud and clear.”
“Nothing like this has ever been done on this scale before, and we are proud to be a part of it,” added Miller, before going off to shine his halo.
Organiser Bob Geldof explained the aim of the Live 8 concerts was to create attention and “political heat” to persuade G8 leaders to agree to cancel Africa’s unpayable debts, double aid for the continent and make trade fair.
Geldof boomed: “The G8 leaders have it within their power to alter history. They will only have the will to do so if millions of people show them that enough is enough.”
With demand expected to be off the scale, mobile operator O2 has been charged with providing the mechanism for distributing the 150,000 free tickets for the Live 8 Hyde Park show.
The tickets will be made available through via a Text lottery, to be announced at 8am on Monday 6 June via TV, radio and newspapers.
For those unable to get tickets, the show can be seen on giant BBC screens in the centre of major cities across the UK including Birmingham, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Belfast, Leeds and Wrexham.
Live 8
Global Call to Action against Poverty
‘Live Aid’ Returns With Concerts Around the Globe
2 June, 2005
Training Foundation Launches National Online Learning Initiative
The Training Foundation has launched its Ready for Work online training programme, an employment-awareness course free to all young people in (or recently in) full-time education and those in modern apprenticeships.
Warmly welcomed by leading education and industy-based bodies such as HTI, Confederation of British Industry and the British Chambers of Commerce, the scheme is aimed at ensuring that fresh-faced young ‘uns arriving at the workplace know how to become responsible employees.
The Ready for Work program will give young workers an idea of what employers might expect of them as they start out on their working lives and, is it hoped, make the transition to employment a more pleasurable experience (I’m still waiting for that bit to happen).
The training programme consists of 12 online courses designed to raise awareness on employment issues of major concern to today’s employers.
The “interactive and engaging” programme covers subjects such as “showing respect at work, embracing diversity, being enterprising, managing workplace stress, health & safety, following drugs & alcohol policies, sensible email and Internet use, data protection and being a responsible employee.”
Each self study course ends with a short test to check the learner’s understanding, with an 80% or better grade qualifying the student for an optional Ready for Work Certificate and Ready for Work Handbook.
Certificates are awarded by ABC (Awarding Body Consortium), a leading UK awarding body with full Qualifications Curriculum Authority (QCA) recognition.
In April 2005, The Training Foundation became the first ever training organisation to be awarded the Queen’s Award for Enterprise – Innovation, and its new scheme has had industry bigwogs falling over themselves to lavish praise on the initiative.
Sir Richard Branson was first in the queue; “We need our young people, on which the Country’s future prosperity depends, to be equipped with an appreciation of business, so that they can set out with a spirit of enterprise. I welcome the Ready for Work programme. Co-operation between employers and educators on initiatives like this can do nothing but good.”
Sir Digby Jones, Director General of the CBI wanted to hug the Ready for Work program and take it home: “We need more employable young people understanding the world of work, trained in the most relevant areas and able to add value to their employer. The Ready for Work programme will help to bridge this gap.”
David Frost, Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce roared his approval: “We need initiatives such as Ready for Work, which can help to ensure that young people leaving full-time education and training are equipped with skills that are both relevant for the workplace and will help advance their careers.”
Roger Opie, HTI Trust Director, also sprinkled the scheme with love: “The partnership between business and education is critical in raising the employability stakes for young people. An understanding of the skills and behaviours required in the workplace is a shared responsibility. This free programme provides both the content and motivation to complement existing initiatives.”
The course is accessible over the Internet at The Training Foundation’s online learning portal www.readyforwork.org.
31 May, 2005
Does Anyone Understand The Ringtone Business?
It’s OK to say you don’t understand the ringtones business.
I know there are people who initially claim they do, but not one of the many people that I’ve spoken to about the ringtones business can explain its workings to me. I’m not talking about how the downloads work, but why it’s so big.
Anyone in the UK will be able to tell you at some length about the Crazy Frog ringtone – it’s been a cultural phenomenon.
When they make I Love May 2005 (inevitable), some sardonic fellow (they normally are fellow, those sardonic ones) will make a witticism about it, that’s just long enough to fit perfectly into the edit between the clips. Then those watching will be able to delight in hearing the hallowed tones again.
Reasons for this started with an incessant TV advertising[*1] campaign.
This lead to three possible reactions – the haters, the lovers and the not-bovered.
I’d imagine that lots of the UK viewing public hate it to the point of distraction, despising the ‘music’ and being irritated at their generally bafflement at ringtones. In fact 60 people chose to voice their disapproval to the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), other chose to complain about other parts of the frog, which quite honestly I can’t say I’ve been looking for. As quoted from the ASA Website.
“It wasn’t long before complaints were flooding into the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). Some viewers complained that the commercial was annoying and broadcast far too frequently. However, the main crux of the complaints related to a far more unusual and surprising subject matter. Frog genitalia.
Viewers had noticed that Crazy Frog was very definitely male due to a protrusion that stuck out from his cartoon body. The complainants found this inappropriate. Some were worried about children seeing this kind of advertising material whilst a few parents had felt embarrassed by some of the questions their children had asked them.”
The Crazy Frog was investigated and exonerated on all counts.
As to the regularity of the adverts, they said
“Lastly, though the ASA accepted that advertisements which are broadcast frequently can rankle with some viewers, it didn’t uphold the complaints, as it’s the advertiser and broadcaster who decide how often they show a commercial.”
So the ASA say it’s OK for them to continue spreading their joy among the nation – even if they don’t want it.
This has started a revolt from other advertisers who don’t want to be on the same slot as the Crazy Frog. On some channels this has lead to many Jamster ads[*2] being shown in the same break. In fact, this afternoon on E4, nearly all adverts were Jamster’s.
In the process of this it has become the first ringtone to reach number one in the charts since downloads have become included.
Popjournalism tells us
“Representatives from the UK Singles Chart said the novelty track sold 150,000 copies and was at one point outselling Coldplay’s new single “Speed of Sound” on a four-to-one basis.”
This stuff has been on the news and news quizzes. We’re told it’s sold over 11 million copies throughout Europe for goodness sake.
Ironically its popularity is the tragedy of its success.
How often do people who have chosen that as a ringtone incorrectly reach for their phone, when its played in a TV ad; on the news; a chart show on the radio; or as someone else’s ringtone? Conversely, how many have missed calls because when their phone was ringing, when they assumed it was from another source.
Its popularity defeats its main purpose – you can fail to be alerted when someone is try to contact you.
This comes to the core of my misunderstanding of ringtones.
The draw of ringtones is to individualise the phone handset. But with ringtones, there is no scarcity of supply. Everyone can have one, if they pay for it.
If a ringtone becomes well known enough, like Crazy Frog, the purchaser ends up paying for the privilege of advertising their product for them.
I can foresee the next wave of ringtone distribution will be quite different – generating the same kind of revenues (remember, 11m ringtones at £3) without the huge amount they’re spending on TV adverts.
I would mobilize their most powerful sales force – the ringtone user. By enabling each of the ringtone enthusiasts to act as sales people, they let them sell tunes directly to their friends, with a percentage of the sale to them for their trouble.
Unfortunately instant gratification for the keen purchaser is not currently possible due to the inadequacies of phone DRM, so direct transfer of music peer-to-peer is not allowed, due to the “fear of piracy”, or not trusting your customer as it’s otherwise known.
Perhaps a SMS/WAP passed token would work …
As to how do you judge what’s going to be a massive smash – I really have no idea
[*1 A sweet spot has been created. The downward pressure on the cost of advertising on the UK’s terrestrial channels, has crossed the rise in income generated by the ringtone business. This sweet spot, unfortuntley, creates very frequent TV adverts for ringtones.]
[*2 Jamster sell the Crazy Frog ringtone, other ringtones, wallpapers, etc]
An extensive history of the Crazy Frog birth is available from bloggerheads.
31 May, 2005
Vodafone 7100v: Upgrading Its Software And Syncing With PocketMac Blackberry
Following on from my recent detailed review of the Vodafone 7100v Blackberry, I thought it would be worth passing on a few tips I’d learnt over the process. One attempting to reassure readers through the scary process of upgrading the operating system on the 7100 Blackberry; the other, a solution for syncing your information with an Apple Mac – not something that is natively supported by RIM or Vodafone.
Upgrading the software on a Vodafone 7100v Blackberry
Before properly using the Blackberry, I paid a visit to the Blackberry Web site and downloaded the latest software update for my handheld. This is one of the things with advanced devices such as this: they get to be so much like computers that they have new software upgrades available on a regular basis.
Upgrading the software on the handset was quite a daunting experience, because my 7100v refused to connect correctly. I would get repeated error messages, saying it wasn’t connected properly, and the only way to get it connected was to unplug and then reconnect the cable from the handset.
Updating the software on the Blackberry essentially wipes everything off the device before putting new software on, there were a few occasions when I thought, “oh dash, I’ve broken it” because nothing seemed to be responding. These worries proved to be unfounded, as after a few minutes I was greeted by the Vodafone logo appearing on-screen signaling success of the upgrade process.
Syncing (with a Mac)
After updating the software, which by the way you need a Windows computer for, I set about syncing the Blackberry with my Mac. My existing phone, the Sony Ericsson P910i, works correctly out of the box with Mac OS X’s iSync application, syncing wirelessly over Bluetooth within a few seconds.
The 7100v, although it has Bluetooth, doesn’t have a Bluetooth synchronization profile, which in my mind is something the Blackberry developers should have thought about, as it would have been a relatively easy software fix. As a result of this, the Blackberry wouldn’t sync with iSync and the cable wouldn’t work either, as iSync had no drivers for it.
A little research on the Internet revealed a company by the name of PocketMac who make Mac/Blackberry sync software. Upon request, they kindly sent me a free license key for their software, which then allowed me to seamlessly sync my address book and calendar from my Mac to my Blackberry.
PocketMac Blackberry in operation
I did have one or two issues with it initially, but these were to do with using Apple’s new released operating system update, Tiger, which has a new version of iCal, a calendar application, which initially refused to work with PocketMac.
Some lateral thinking was needed – by getting iCal to sync to Entourage, the Mac equivalent of Outlook on Windows, and then telling PocketMac to sync calendars from Entourage, I got it working.
Despite the Tiger problem, that they tell me will be fixed soon, I was impressed with PocketMac Blackberry. It fills a large gap left by RIM’s lack of Mac support.
PocketMac Blackberry
Vodafone 7100v Blackberry
27 May, 2005
IBM, Oracle Battle For Database Market: Gartner
The insatiable appetite of hungry surfers desperate for more information, analysis and intelligence has fuelled a database market growth of 10.3 percent in 2004, according to research released by the Gartner Group.
On an oily mat somewhere in Business Land, IBM and Oracle are manfully wrestling with each other to control the lucrative relational database market.
Although IBM still holds the crown – hanging on to their slim market lead of 34.1 percent of the overall market – Oracle are laying in some mean moves, maintaining 33.7 percent and enjoying a sizeable boost from Linux.
“Oracle saw strong growth of nearly 15 per cent, much of it coming from its performance on the Linux platform,” Gartner said.
“The difference between the giants in terms of revenue was only US$30m (~£16.5), making it too tight to declare a clear winner.”
Lagging a fair way behind is Microsoft, with 20 percent of the market, followed by NCR Teradata at 2.9 percent, Sybase at 2.3 percent and all the others collectively totaling 6.6 percent.
It’s a lucrative market, growing from just under US$7.1 billion in 2003 to nearly US$7.8 billion in terms of new licence sales, although the continuing wobbliness of the US dollar may have artificially inflated market growth by some 3 to 4 percent of overall growth.
“[Overall market growth] was probably somewhere between 6 and 7 percent,” observed Gartner Inc.’s Colleen Graham, who authored the report, noting that sales outside of the United States, when converted to US dollars, added more to vendor revenue because of currency conversion, and weren’t necessarily reflecting increased demand.
In terms of overall growth, Microsoft and Teradata both led the field with 18 percent and 17 percent, respectively.
Despite being a still a relatively small part of the overall RDBMS market, the Linux segment is as hot as an extra spicy vindaloo, registering 118 percent growth in 2004, more than doubling from US$300 million in 2003 to over US$650 million in 2004.
Gartner found that Oracle is putting some distance between its rival IBM in this subsection of the market, with a growth of 155 percent.
Oracle now controls 80.5 percent of the Linux RDBMS market, up from 69 percent a year ago, while IBM slumped to 16.5 percent of the market share, compared 28.4 percent the previous year.
Linux RDBMS new license revenue grew 118.4 per cent to US$654.8m, with Oracle taking up for 80.5 per cent of that business.
In terms of growth of sales, Linux performed better in RDBMS than Windows. The platform grew 10 per cent to US$3.1bn in 2004, although Microsoft hogs a hefty 50.9 per cent of business, up from 47.4 percent in 2003.
Microsoft’s Tom Rizzo, director of product management for SQL Server, made funny faces while deriding the growth of the Linux database, chortling: “Look at it: It’s a small market. You’d expect some growth there, from such a small base.”
With chest set to ‘maximum puff’, Rizzo reminded anyone within earshot of healthy growth in the Windows database market, citing the figures as evidence that Windows is “eating away at the Linux camp” rather than the other way around.
The RDBMS market on the Windows server platform grew 10 percent in 2004. Microsoft’s market share grew 18 percent in this segment.
IBM, Oracle Race for Database Market Dominance
26 May, 2005
Skype Affiliate Programme Becomes Official
Here at VON Europe in Stockholm, Sweden, Niklas Zennstrom, CEO of Skype, has just announced the official launch of the Skype affiliate scheme. The scheme has been running as a trial for a few weeks, gaining 1,800 members.
Working with affiliate site Commission Junction, they plan to reward Skype users who promote their pay for services. In return, affiliates will get a varying percentage of the value of the purchase, depending on the service and the number of people that they sign up each month.
They do this by simply by placing a link on their site or by sending the links through via an email.
Speaking to Niklas yesterday (audio interview with Niklas Zennstrom 20mins, 19Mb), he told Digital-Lifestyles, “We’re creating a structure where Skype users who promote us, can start to make a buck out of it,” while he acknowledged that they also benefit.
There will also be “super affiliates” that will have their own Skype account manager – a first for them. The first two announced are Luna Storm in Sweden and SuperAva in Italy. Luna Storm is a online phenomenon in Sweden, having over 2m members, which in a country of 9m in total is pretty impressive.
Looking at the percentages that are offered, they give guidance as to which Skype services are the most profitable, and it’s no surprise to see that they’re SkypeIn and voicemail. SkypeOut, which connects Skype VoIP user to the public phone network, enabling them to call land-lines. When connecting to the public phone network, Skype has to pay operators for the time the call is connected.
Not surprisingly if people sign up for the normal free Skype service, the affiliate receives no financial reward.
Skype are in a position where they have grown very fast, recently hitting 3m concurrent users, but they are still vulnerable to an alternative service coming along and usupring them.
The larger their installed base of users, the larger the barrier is to competitors. They know that the more people in a Skype users social/family circle that download and sign up for Skype, the more difficult it becomes for a competitor to unseat them. The process of talking you mum, granny and sister-in-law isn’t something you want to repeat.
Skype Affiliate scheme
24 May, 2005
Vodafone 7100v Blackberry Review – In Everyday use
Part syncing a 7100 with a Mac.
I’m writing this review over a few days, using the 7100v instead of my usual phone. Today, I switched the 7100v on in the morning, received and replied to a few emails and set off for the day.
On the bus, I read the PDA edition of the BBC Web site using the built-in Web browser (more fully covered later). After lunch, I pulled it out of my pocket to check over the mail that had arrived. Imagine my horror when I spotted two huge, yellow lines covering the screen. On scrolling, these lines became more pronounced and seemed to spawn more of themselves, until they covered the whole screen. My first thought was that pixels in the screen were damaged, possibly as a result of me sitting on it, as it had been in my back pocket shortly during my lunch break. I tried switching the handset off and back on again, but the lines didn’t disappear. I was already thinking “Oh no, I’ve broken it” when I had the presence of mind to take the battery out. Miraculously, this solved the problem with the screen, suggesting this problem was possibly a software related one, as opposed to a hardware one. I never did track down what caused it but having bugs like this in released software is not a way to reassure customers that a product is beyond the early-adopter stage and while not a major problem. Occurrences like this one do make you slightly wary of purchasing such a device with your own hard-earned money.
Battery life
My initial experience of the battery life was very poor, with the battery dropping from full to empty within about 8 hours. After a few charging cycles, however, this improved dramatically, and the battery now lasts a good two days under relatively heavy use. This discovery came as a very pleasant surprise to me, as with my usage pattern the only other handset that I had managed to keep alive on a single charge for over a day was an ancient Nokia 6210. The one thing that is bad about the battery on this handset, however, is the time it takes to charge up: It takes around 6 hours (!), an unheard of amount of time in my experience of other handsets. This makes my customary “plug it in for an hour before I go out” habit worthless, as the battery doesn’t even come close to full in that time.
Screen
The screen on the 7100 is very impressive in its clarity and brightness – the contrast isn’t bad either. Images viewed on it look very solid, almost as if they are actually colour-printed backlit acetate as opposed to being displayed on an LCD.
The main downfall of the screen is when it is placed in sun-light: The screen is about 5mm below the plastic covering over the screen, and this covering isn’t of particularly high-grade plastic, leading to a badly obscured screen in bright conditions. The cover is also quite reflective, so often you can’t see anything on the screen at all. Indoors however, the screen looks great and everyone I’ve asked about it has been very impressed by it.
Web browsing/access
I have grown accustomed to doing a lot of my Web surfing on the move, or at least not while sitting in front of my computer, as I find it more comfortable that way. To me, it means that the Internet can truly take over from books and newspapers, because you can browse the Net on the sofa, while eating dinner, or anywhere else for that matter and aren’t tied to sitting in a rigid office chair staring at a screen.
As a result of this, the Web browser on the Blackberry was of particular interest to me. RIM seem to have paid particular attention to complying with standards in the design of the Blackberry’s software and this shows in the browser: It supports style sheets and javascript, both features very uncommon for a mobile device. Style sheet support means that, in theory, a Web designer can write one page that will look different when viewed with a small-screen device than when viewed with a full-size computer. This means that it is possible to, for instance, make a small-screen device employ a larger font when rendering a Web page than a computer, to take account of the small screen size. Sadly, sometimes sticking to standards isn’t enough, and this is the case with the Blackberry.
When Web pages are rendered, there are a lot of unnecessary images which would be represented instead by text. This text is usually shown in the ALT tags of the HTML from which the pages are rendered. On a lot of sites, there are a lot of navigation images, which are not good for render time on a low-powered device like the Blackberry: every time a page is opened containing images, these images are downloaded (this takes a long time with the Internet connection on a 7100v being at dial-up speeds). When downloaded these images are resized individually so as to fit on its screen.
Unless the sites that you wish to visit using your Blackberry are graphically very light with little images on them, you may despair of the slow speeds. Other handhelds get around the image problem by simply not displaying all images, only the ones that they think are vital to the site. While this can lead to problems like the right images not being loaded, these problems are uncommon, and the associated speed increase more than makes up for this.
There is a hotkey in between the answer and hang up buttons on the keypad of the Blackberry which opens the Web browser. This may suit some people more than others. Personally, I found it a bit annoying, and it would have been far better to use it as a selection softkey or at least make it configurable.
Part one of this review, looking at how to enter and retrieve information, was published yesterday. Part three will follow.
24 May, 2005
Music Fans To SMS Bands Onstage
Back in the old days when Glastonbury was a field of medieval mud occupied by confused hippies and LSD travellers, the customary way to show your appreciation of the band was to flash the occasional peace sign or waft a spliff skywards.
Come the punk revolution, and there was no better way to show your love for a band than by propelling copious amounts of phlegm in their direction.
By the 80s, over-excited fans felt the best way to express a heartfelt love for a band was to clamber onstage and then stage dive back into the audience, while the E’d up 90s rave generation couldn’t get it together to work out where the stage was so just swirled fluoro things around their person instead.
In America, it was a somewhat different story, with concert goers traditionally expressing a curious penchant for holding lighters aloft, a craze that never really caught on in Blighty because, frankly, it looks really daft.
For today’s hi-tech toy generation, new ways of bigging up a band have developed.
Mobile phones have ensured that lighters have been replaced by the blue glow of mobile phones, with forests of camera phones springing up and down at concerts like demented flamingos.
Not surprisingly, this swaying sea of interactive technology soon caught the attention of The Man, who quickly saw an opportunity to coin in it from the captive crowd.
Step forward Boomerang Mobile Media who, in partnership with Strategic Artists Management, have come up with the idea of allowing fans to send SMS messages to the band and then see their words appear on a big onstage screen. For a price, naturally.
Fans don’t even have to be at the gig, with sofa loafers stoned at home watching the gig on TV also able to ‘enjoy’ the thrill of seeing their texted mumblings appear onstage.
The concept’s already been tested out on a promotional tour for Anastacia in Europe, where around ten percent of the attendees were happy to hand over 1 euro each (~£0.68 ~US$1.26) for the privilege of blasting inane messages onstage for all to see.
We’re not sure what the remaining 90% of the crowd thought of this pointless onscreen nonsense, but we’d be reaching for our phone zappers in double quick time.
Call us old fashioned if you will, but when we go to gigs we want to see the band and not be distracted by an endless stream of “KT LUVS THE KLRZ 4EVER” and “WIL U MARRY ME THOM?” beaming in our faces.
Simon Renshaw, of Strategic Artists Management, soaked up every cash-till ringing minute of the show: “Fans loved the concept and were sending multiple text messages to our stage front screens in an effort to see their names, talk to their friends, tell Anastacia how much they love her and win prizes.”
“Fans were so excited about it that marriage proposals were proffered onscreen,” he gushed.
But the real profit may come from turning the band’s backdrop into a giant size virtual mall, with audiences able to call in and buy merchandise advertised throughout the gig.
Boomerang Mobile Media founder and CEO Glenn Field rubbed his hands and explained the scheme: “You see something you like, and we deliver it to your home.”
As Sid Vicious and the ghost of Rock’n’Roll reached maximum RPM in their graves, he continued, “These are exclusive items purchased through the security of your phone, and the day it should have arrived you’ll get a follow-up phone call to confirm you received it.”
Boomerang Mobile Media and Strategic Artists Management are already dreaming up additional e-commerce opportunities, including the ability to allow fans to send camera-phone pictures to the venue screens along with their text messages
No interactive stone is being left unturned in their attempts to fleece, sorry, offer maximum interactive retail opportunities, to the hapless punter.
The first time a consumer buys from Boomerang via a mobile, a live operator will jump into action and invite the user to register a personal PIN for future purchases and other products.
This can then be used to milk fans dry with subsequent mobile-only ‘exclusive’ offers, pre-orders and a myriad of other pocket-draining merchandising discounts.
Boomerang are applying the marketing experience they gained last year when working with Def Jam Recordings artist Ghostface on a festival bill.
“We allowed Ghostface to connect with fans who either were fans or who heard his music that day and became fans,” Field enthused.
“We projected a number inviting people to interact – to meet him, visit him on the tour bus, things like that – and when you called you heard a recorded message from Ghostface. People got to hear their favourite artist talk to them on their most personal device.”
Cash from chaos, anyone?
Boomerang Mobile Media
24 May, 2005
Time Warner Ponders AOL float
Time Warner is considering “spinning off” its AOL division to help finance acquisitions in the future, said chief executive Richard D. Parsons on Friday.
“If we get to the point where consolidation is happening in the Internet space…the possibility of an IPO is out there,” he commented, with the Wall Street Journal citing sources as saying that Time Warner would continue to hold a majority stake in the Internet company.
Parsons told investors at the company’s annual meeting in New York that Time Warner had discussed the possibility of selling AOL shares in an initial public offering but had decided not to go ahead with such a plan “at this point.”
Critical to the spin-off decision will be the success of AOL chief executive Jonathan Miller’s strategy which aims to attract more Internet users and advertisers to AOL’s site to compensate for the slump in dial-up subscribers.
Time Warner acquired AOL for US$112bn (~£61.2bn ~€89bn) in January 2001 just as the dotcom bubble began to wobble like a dancing jelly on three wheeled roller skates.
The acquisition led to a record US$98.7 billion (~£54bn~€78.6) loss in 2002, plunging shares into catastrophic freefall as the promised cash-fest and sales growth never emerged.
With Time Warner’s pockets already considerably lightened, transatlantic regulators then accused them of overstating advertising and subscriber numbers from mid-2000, with the company settling all charges with thumping great payments of US$510 million (~£279m ~€406.6m) in the States and US$300m (~£164~€239m) in the EU.
Time Warner has announced that it plans to start paying the company’s first dividend since the America Online merger four years ago, representing “the beginning of a commitment we hope will grow over time,” according to Parsons.
The upturn in the company’s profitability has been engineered by Parsons, who has slashed debt, driven sales growth, settled government investigations into the AOL unit and shelled out for cable-television assets from Adelphia Communications – the company’s biggest deal since the merger.
“The turnaround is complete. We are moving forward and picking up speed,” purred a pleased Parsons.
AOL is now trying to find new revenue sources to compensate for the loss of U.S. subscribers to its dial-up Web access service, which has declined by 5 million users in three years, to 21.7 million.
In response, Miller has unveiled a series of customer-attracting new Web products, including a local search engine, a travel site, a free e-mail service and the first upgrade to AOL’s Netscape browser for five years.
And he’s not finished yet, with a revamped version of the Aol.com site in the bag that that promises to look like a mix of the phenomenally successful Yahoo and Google sites.
Miller aims to attract more heavyweight advertisers and regain a bigger share of the US$9.6 billion U.S. online ad market, currently hogged by Google.
So far, things are looking rosy for Miller with ad sales zippily moving up 45 percent to US$311 million, although he’s still miles short of compensating for the loss in subscriber revenue, with AOL first-quarter revenue falling 3 percent to US$2.13 billion (~£1.16bn~€1.69bn).
Time Warner May Consider AOL Spinoff
Time Warner
23 May, 2005
Mobile TV Launches on Orange UK 3G
Orange has become the first UK provider to offer live television channels to its customers’ handsets.
Available exclusively to UK-based Orange 3G customers, the service will give customers access to nine channels, including ITN News, CNN, Cartoon Network, Extreme Sports, as well as dedicated Big Brother and Celebrity Love Island channels.
Mobile TV is seen as the latest hot potato in the telecoms world, with the service enabled by the DVB-H broadcast transmission standard – a digital TV technology that offers low battery consumption and robust reception.
With their announcement of a UK service, Orange have jumped the gun on rivals o2, who are still experimenting with Mobile TV trials in the Oxford area.
Orange are already broadcasting 23 TV channels over mobile phones in France, along with other European networks selling selected live TV via 3G network streaming.
“This is truly a service where 3G comes into its own. We don’t expect people to watch for hours at a time but to dip in and out,” beamed Julian Diment, head of commercial and brand partnerships at Orange.
Not surprisingly, 3G operators – who collectively shelled out £22.5bn for the networks – are extremely hopeful that mobile TV will prove an alluring attraction for consumers to sign up for their flagging service.
Keen to milk the franchise for every last penny, there are a slew of interminable reality TV show tie-ins lurking around the corner.
For the terminally sad, Channel 4 will provide live 24-hour streaming from the Big Brother house during the next series, which is launched next month.
We can’t imagine any circumstances where we’d consider paying to watch barrel-scraping Celebrity Love Island program on a mobile, but someone clearly thinks that a dire mobile channel based on the show will be a hit.
Orange’s service launches next Monday and will initially only be available on the Nokia 6680 from Orange.
Subscriptions are charged at £10 (~US$18.3 ~€14.5) a month on top of regular bills. Orange
20 May, 2005