Microsoft Says It’s Done Buying Search. Writing Big Checks for Search? Different Story

"Because it’s her job, a Reuters reporter asked Steve Ballmer today if he’s planning to make any big, splashy M&A deals to boost his search business. And because it’s the truth, the Microsoft CEO said, no, he probably isn’t. Actual quote: “No, I wouldn’t expect it.”

What else would you expect Ballmer to say? Now that Microsoft (MSFT) has got its hands on Yahoo’s (YHOO) search business–without paying a “boatload” for it–there isn’t a whole lot left to buy."

from All Things Digital

Nielsen Ratings Shake Up – Hulu and Blinkx

Christophor Rick | August 14, 2009 | 1 Comment, Leave yours

After months of not a lot of movement going on at the top of the Nielsen reports for video traffic we suddenly get some major shake up and a new contender. The top ten saw some major moves from top to bottom last month which could pave the way for further change. Plus a dark horse that is lurking in the shadows ready to pounce it would seem.First, at the bottom of the top ten we see Blinkx sneaking into the mix. Absent from the top ten up until now Blinkx, the video search engine if you’ve forgotten, has breached the top ten with just over 86 million streams for the month and a strange 268,000 unique viewers. Apparently each of those viewers is watching roughly 320 streams each per month or about 10 per day.

Meanwhile up at the top Hulu has snuck into second place (recently having slid up to third) with 383 million streams and 10 million unique viewers for an average 38.3 streams per viewer. Just above looms YouTube larger than ever having once again shown massive growth topping 7 Billion (no, no typo there) streams for the month. Those streams went out to about 104.5 million unique viewers meaning that each averages 67 streams over the course of the month.
Apparently, Blinkx users are hardcore online video consumers since they’re watching an average of 5-10 times more streams per month per viewer. Even Nickelodeon Kids & Family viewers are only averaging about 26 streams per and Turner Sports and Entertainment is holding down 22 per unique viewer.

Now remember, Nielsen relies on user surveys and panels and as far as we know has not implemented direct tracking on any of the sites in their top ten. They state that July saw a 14.20% growth over last July and a 1.2% growth over the previous month in regards to unique viewers and a 31.4% and 11.1% growth in those categories in regards to streams.

Somewhere outside the top ten is ABC.com who, according to Nielsen has crushed NYTimes.com and FOXNews.com this past month by surpassing both of them. Last month over 16 million unique viewers hit the site. That’s more than hit many of the top ten sites including Nickelodeon, Turner, Hulu, MTV and Blinkx. They must have served less than 86 million streams for the month to not have made the top ten. Is this a glimpse into the coming months as viewers head to the network sites to catch up on the last episodes of last season before the new seasons begin kicking off next month?

Nielsen also states that around 212 minutes were consumed per viewer and the average overall was 82.4 streams each. Apparently Blinkx really tipped that scale.

Wrapping up the top ten:

YouTube
Hulu
Yahoo!
MSN/Windows Live/Bing
Nickelodeon
Turner
Fox
MTV
CNN
Blinkx

Stay tuned viewers as we find out if ABC can topple the top ten giants and breach the highest level of online video streams in August, the month historically leading up to all the new seasons.

from ReelSEO

Video search: Speech recognition, but not as we know it

Kit Thambiratnam of Microsoft demonstrates a new search technique being developed for internet video

on The Guardian web site (they don't provide embed code for their videos. Ya boo!)

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Comment: very cool indeed. Wonder if Blinkx tech is under the hood anywhere, or if this is the shape of things to come with Blinkx being licensed to set-top boxes...

Online advertising to boom

The continued migration from TV and newspapers to online advertising by business is set to double the value of Australia's online advertising sector over the next five years, from $510 million in 2009 to close to $1.2 billion in 2014.

The sector's value grew by 19% in the 2008-09 financial year, despite businesses cutting their online marketing costs due to the global economic downturn, a Frost & Sullivan report released yesterday found.

"Although 2009's overall growth is slightly down when compared to the 22% increase in 2008, it's still a very strong result given the economic environment," Frost & Sullivan senior research manger Phil Harpur told SmartCompany.

"Businesses and ad agencies that are slow to adapt will be forced to reevaluate their budget allocation to achieve their marketing goals," Interactive Bureau of Australia chief executive officer Paul Fisher says. "That's nothing different from what is happening now but it will accelerate."

For businesses with an online budget, the most popular ads were display ads such as banners, skyscrapers and pop-ups, with 59% of companies making purchases in 2009, although this fell from 64% the previous year.

But use of online video advertising grew, surging from 17% in 2008 to 25% in 2009. In addition, 49% of companies used e-newsletters in 2009, up from 39% in 2008...

from SmartCompany

WEB BEATS TV TO BIGGEST ADVERTISING SHARE

According to a report by PwC for the Internet Advertising Bureau, the Internet has overtaken television to become the UK's biggest advertising medium. In the first half of the year, online advertising grew 4.6 percent compared to the same period last year, and totalled 1.75 billion pounds. However, overall advertising fell by 16.6 percent, and as a result the Internet's share of the total market reached 23.5 percent, compared to TV's 21.9 percent. Peter Scott, chairman and joint chief executive of Engine Group, one of the UK's largest independent advertising agency groups, said: "It marks a point when things aren't going to go back to the way they were." The UK is the first substantial media market to see this kind of shift in market share.

from Reuters

AOL Points Finger At Google Over Truveo Failure

Google is treating us differently than our competitors"

The AOL-owned video search engine known as Truveo isn't doing so well. The cause of the site's poor performance isn't a mystery to its president, however; in a very interesting statement, he quite bluntly placed the blame on Google.

Two days ago, Silicon Alley Insider published an article titled "AOL Ventures is Killing Truveo." The piece documented a recent massive drop-off in traffic. Truveo President Pete Kocks responded to say, "AOL Ventures isn't killing Truveo - Google is."

Kocks later continued, "Starting June 16th, 2009, Google began removing all references to Truveo.com from Google web search and consequently our traffic took a substantial hit. At that time, we were almost completely excluded from Google results -- not even the contact page on Truveo.com was available via web search. The reality is that Truveo uses a number of industry standard techniques to increase traffic from web search and that Google is treating us differently than our competitors."

Compete statistics sort of back up Kocks's claims, too. Obviously, Truveo is having a traffic crisis. Then, if you look closer, you'll notice that Google doesn't even appear on the list of Truveo's top referral sites, whereas it's number one where YouTube, DailyMotion, and Blinkx are concerned

from WebProNews

Nice mention for Blinkx on the Mirror web site...

Who needs TV these days with so much free online viewing? Reader Keith Stroud, of Woking, Hants, writes: “Having ditched my TV and the expense of a licence, I love watching the free broadband catch-up services – iPlayer, Channel 4’s 4OD, ITV.COM and Demand Five – but it’s difficult to keep up with what’s on where.

“Now I’ve found a website called www.tv.blinkx.com that lists all shows available and sorts by genre and title."

Mirror.co.uk