The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) has released a report about the increase of online video (11.5 billion videos viewed in March, according Comscore). Its title is “Zooming In on Online Video: A Development & Growth Guide for Newspaper Web Sites.” Here is the download link.
Main conclusion: everyone needs to jump on online video. “While still a small percentage of total and local online advertising, online video represents an enormous opportunity for newspapers to grow revenue and audience,” says the report.
“As competition heats up for online video mindshare, newspapers have an excellent opportunity to leverage their skills and content and capture an even larger share of online advertising spending.”
Local online video advertising was a $400 million business in 2007, according to Borrell Associates.
The survey shows that online video is not solely the domain of the Web department. Although online editors and producers are involved in shooting, editing and publishing video for the newspaper’s Web site, reporters and photographers are also heavily involved.
CBS buys CNET for $1.8 billion
CBS bought CNET Networks –that includes cnet.com, bnet.com, news.com, tv.com, gamespot.com, mp3.com and search.com, among others- for $1.8 billion in cash, a substantial 45 percent premium to where the stock closed on Wednesday.
During the dot-com boom, shares of CNET reached nearly $80 (now is $11.50), but the company’s fortunes have fallen since then, and it recently announced layoffs.
The acquisition makes CBS one of the 10 most popular Internet companies in the U.S.
“There are very few opportunities to acquire a profitable, growing, well-managed Internet company like CNET Networks,” said CBS Interactive in a press release.
CBS has picked up smaller Web properties in the last year or so, including Last.fm, a music Web site for which it paid $280 million. It also acquired Wallstrip, an irreverent financial Web program, and DotSpotter, a celebrity gossip site.
“There are very few opportunities to acquire a profitable, growing, well-managed Internet company like CNET Networks,” he said in a press release Thursday. “Together, CBS and CNET Networks will have significant additional exposure to the fastest-growing advertising sector and can accelerate our growth through a number of new content, promotion and advertising initiatives.”
AP Mobile News Network on your iPhone
AP has launched a pretty cool mobile venture: APNews.com. They call it Mobile News Network. This is a site easily accessible from an iPhone or other smartphone, and it features news, sport, entertainment, photos and even video.
A great data/map mashup
See the data/map mashup site of Cincinnati.com called CincyNavigator. Since it was launched, on September 2007, it spawned 570,000 page views, and increased the average user session from three minutes to five minutes.
It is however an interesting way of getting at the why of news or the trends. After all in a metro area of 2 million plus people, individual robberies and the like aren’t really interesting to everyone but if you can spot trends and provide analysis then that is useful to a lot of people.
It took nearly a year to put the site together. Experts consider it was well worth the work, with a simple interface and great data navigation.
Certainly it is a great idea when spotting robberies and crimes, showing how safe is any specific neighborhood.
