111,779,449 iPhones. 1,149,336 Hummers H3. Or 513 times the NY Mega Millions Jackpot. Excluding taxes. That’s what the guys in Redmond are willing to pay to absorb one of the first web monster in the 90s. I have nothing clever to say about this, I feel that 74% of the blog posts today were about this topic. Like What Would a Combined Microsoft-Yahoo Look Like? in TechCrunch. Or Robert Scoble’s view. This is exciting though. I bet that they’re not THAT happy about it in the Googleplex.
I know that i often scare my friends and family with my obsession for good food, but worry not, I’m not writing a review about the best lunch options around our NYC Fullsix office. In the Summer ‘07 issue of our Trendwatch keynote, we had dedicated a section to Bite-size entertainment, or how we consume more and more short videos that easily fit in our spare cycles. And these videos redefine lunchtime on the workplace as we know it. If you check your co-workers’ cubicles around 1PM, chances are that most of them will be sitting in front of their screen, a Shrimp Remoulade Wrap in one hand and an XXX Vitamin Water bottle in the other, watching online videos. This sounds like a no-brainer indeed, since watching online short movies doesn’t really require the viewer to use his greasy fingers to type or use the mouse.
And media companies understood this phenomenon and have been starting to respond in the past year. Yahoo! for example launched in July 2006 a show called The 9, featuring the nine top “Web Finds” of the day, ranging from movies excerpt to gossips and weird websites. The 3:30 video compilation has a host (Maria Sansone), a sponsor (Pepsi) and is prepared every morning to be online on time for lunch.
News sites adapt their content to those specific lunch-time viewers. CNN.com will promote lighter videos (Dogs live the high life, or Comedian is living in an Ikea store), while NBC.com will push short-length highlights, versus 30-minute and longer shows in the evening, when the viewers are more available.
Studies show that consumers are more receptive to advertising at lunchtime, but also more willing to purchase the promoted product than any other time of the day. So no doubt that media companies do not hesitate to charge a premium to brands who want to advertise online between noon and 3PM!
PS: OK, I can’t resist, I highly recommend wichcraft’s awesome goat cheese and avocado sandwich in Manhattan and Chai’s disturbingly cheap and good lunch special for $5.95 in Williamsburg.
Social Networking websites work. They might just have a few users, others a million, but the fact is that they always create a buzz around a specific audience or amongst all online users. Starting with Sixdegrees.com in 1997, the Social Networking websites came as an answer to the chat publics online who demanded a static place where they could list their friends and create their own community. Since then, Social Networking has evolved, branching and spreading towards specialization. In the midst of this growing world, specific Networking websites started growing more than others – news related, content orientated and, more recently, ANSWER focused or so called Knowledge Markets - Community Drive or not. These last websites are the focus of this article, as their growth and appearance on the online scene should be considered as one of the biggest examples of internet sociology and historical evolution to this date. Continue reading ‘So many questions, so little time…’
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