La Commission européenne a lancé vendredi sur le site américain de partage de vidéos YouTube sa propre chaîne thématique, baptisée EU Tube, pour mieux informer les citoyens des actions de l’UE.

“Il est très important que la Commission utilise tous les moyens qui sont � sa disposition lorsqu’il s’agit de communiquer avec les citoyens européens”, a expliqué la commissaire � la Communication Margot Wallström dans un communiqué.

“Nous ne pouvons ignorer l’évolution intervenue sur Internet ces dernières années, en particulier la popularité des sites de partage de vidéos tels que YouTube”, a-t-elle ajouté. (more…)

The computer appears to be well on its way toward total entertainment domination in the home. As evidence, look at new data from comScore Inc.: more than 70 percent of Internet users streamed video online in March this year. Television, movies, music and more — it’s all there in that box, awaiting full integration.

Zippier technology is driving more people to stream video online. A few years ago, if you wanted to see a video, the screen would taunt you with the words “buffering … buffering … buffering …” until you lost interest or forgot what you wanted to look at. Now, you are more likely to achieve instant gratification.

And you don’t need a heavy-duty attention span, either. The average length of a streamed video was 2.6 minutes, according to comScore.

Another factor in the streaming explosion is the rise of user-generated content, as popularized by YouTube. That explains why the highest percentage of Internet users stream video on sites run by Google, which presciently agreed to buy YouTube last October. PHYLLIS KORKKI

Source: www.nytimes.com

The award of top prize at the world’s most important advertising festival to an internet campaign for Unilever, the household goods group, may come to be seen as a milestone for the web’s development into a marketing medium.

The “Evolution” film for Dove, Unilever’s skincare brand, is among the most prominent commercials to benefit from a large element of free distribution on the web after being posted on websites such as YouTube and blogs.

Most internet advertising has hitherto been classified-style listings on search websites, but the “Evolution” clip used film techniques to show a young woman being transformed into a glamorous model.

Its capture of the film Grand Prix at the 54th Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival will re-enforce the mood of qualified optimism expressed by many senior industry figures at the event. They believe mainstream marketers are embracing the branding opportunities offered by digital media as well as recognising the threats such technology poses to traditional working practices in the $400bn-a-year global paid-for advertising sector.

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It was the year people had been waiting for in network news.

Finally things were going to change in a medium where so much seemed so constant — the format, the style, and for the previous two decades the faces of the anchors. Even the erosion of the audience was steady, roughly a million fewer viewers of nightly news a year.

This year, 2006, was expected to be different. One network hoped to create a new format of two young anchors, one in the field and one on the set — a dashing young man and a beautiful young mother — an arrangement conceived in part for demographics and in part for moving the news online.

Another network said it planned to rethink the evening newscast, to bring arguably the biggest name in the business from the morning and to shake up the content and the audience of evening news.

The medium’s long-time leader, meanwhile, seemed possibly vulnerable, losing its biggest star in the morning, and banking on continuity, not change, in the evening.

Two things seemed most likely to occur. With all the new attention, promotion and innovation, the audience for network news might suddenly begin to grow again. Or there might suddenly be more loss. When the past generation of respected anchors left their chairs, would the largely older audience decide they didn’t like the new faces and new styles and drop away? Change could revive the networks. It could also hasten their decline. (more…)

La direction du journal économique français les Echos l’a confirmé : le processus de vente du journal est engagé, tout en refusant de donner le nom de l’acquéreur potentiel.
Le groupe britannique Pearson, propriétaire du journal Les Echos pourrait bien avoir besoin d’argent frais car il se dit que le groupe pourrait s’allier avec l’américain General Electric pour faire une offre d’achat sur le groupe Dow Jones, l’éditeur du Wall Street Journal.
La direction des Echos n’a donc pas confirmé la rumeur qui fait de Bernard Arnault : patron du groupe de luxe LVMH; le mystérieux candidat au rachat du journal.
On rappellera simplement que Bernard Arnault est également propriétaire du quotidien économique La Tribune, principal concurrent des Echos en France.
Quand aux salariés des Echos, ils se sont mis en grève mardi et le journal ne paraîtra mercredi.

Source: http://www.euronews.net

By the Project for Excellence in Journalism and Rick Edmonds of The Poynter Institute.
Is the newspaper industry dying? Not now. On an average day, roughly 51 million people still buy a newspaper, and 124 million in all still read one.

The recording pre-tax profit margins in the high teens, and online editions are adding readers and advertising revenues at a healthy pace. When online and print readers are combined, the audience for what newspapers produce is higher than ever.

But the print newspaper is unquestionably ailing. Circulation is declining. Advertising is flat. As Warren Buffett said at his annual investor’s meeting in May 2006 newspapers appear to have entered a period of “protracted decline.”
The search is on for new business models, but success is not guaranteed. And while the fundamentals might reverse, there is no compelling case that they will.

Newspapers are focusing more on improving their journalism online. But it is not clear if the Web will ever make enough money to support journalism as we know it in print. The worry is that newspapers may be stuck with a traditional manufacturing cost structure that cannot be reduced or shifted fast enough.

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The following brief article answers some of the key questions readers may have about the IPTV market and technologies.

What is IPTV?

IPTV is about providing high-quality multi-channel television and streamed/downloadable video, all delivered via the web’s IP protocols and displayed on the TV set in your living room.

IPTV is currently provided by telcos around the world.

Research suggests that although there are barely 2.5 million IPTV subscribers globally today, there will be around 25 million by 2010.

The ability to pipe TV content over broadband has the potential to turn the broadcasting, film, advertising, telecoms and cable industries upside down. It’s extremely disruptive technology.

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IPTV is moving rapidly towards mass-market adoption. The involvement of incumbent telecoms operators in most major markets by 2007 (France, Spain, Italy, UK, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, for example) will provide the marketing, word-of-mouth and - for the many conservative-minded television viewers yet to switch to digital TV - the credibility that could boost the market for all IPTV providers.

Several early IPTV deployments are now reaching subscriber figures where they must be taken seriously, including Telefonica in Spain, which has over 200,000 subscribers for its Imagenio television service (launched commercially November 2004). The Spanish company is predicting one million customers by 2008. France Telecom (launched December 2003) doubled its customer count during 2005, ending the year with 200,000 subscribers for its MaLigne TV service too.

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Cinq milliards de dollars (plus de 6,2 milliards de francs). C’est le prix proposé le 1er mai dernier par Rupert Murdoch pour Dow Jones, propriétaire du célèbre Wall Street Journal et de l’agence financière Dow Jones. Des actionnaires du magnat australo-américain seraient furieux qu’il soit disposé � payer une telle somme, en l’absence de synergies évidentes entre l’un des plus prestigieux quotidiens du monde et un groupe de presse incluant des tabloïds.

Leur scepticisme rejoint celui de nombreux analystes concernant le secteur des médias dans son ensemble. La récente vague d’acquisitions semble déboucher sur des modèles d’affaire encore peu clairs. Des mariages parfois incertains entre papier et internet qui ne paraissent pas en mesure de prendre le relais d’un papier déclinant.

Malgré quelques transactions spectaculaires, comme le rachat de Reuters par Thomson pour 17,2 milliards de dollars (21,4 milliards de francs) le 15 mai dernier, le phénomène de consolidation n’est pas nouveau. En 2006 déj� , les fusions et acquisitions atteignaient 753 milliards de dollars (937 milliards de francs), selon l’agence canadienne Thomson Financial. (more…)