know | Future

Two developments late last week have pushed e-readers to the fore:

• The Belgian publisher De Tidj, which is running a test of an electronic handheld newspaper reader device from Phillips, has run the first ad in the e-reader edition for Rabobank. (If you follow cycling Rabobank sponsors an elite pro team)
• Microsoft and the New York Times have announced a new software set to debut with the notorious next gen MS operating system, Vista that promises to provide a natural interface to an online version of the newspaper.

During the presentation at the American Society of Newspaper Editors 2006 Convention in Seattle, Washington. (full transcript available here) one of the tidbits that came up was that advertising size and shape will be automatically reformatted to fit the device which is being used, a radical departure from current web practice. Sadly. no mention was made of any low powered devices such as those using e-ink technology from Phillips or Sony’s Librie. Until MS supports a low power reference platform like that, I am afraid this will be just an evolutionary step, tablet pc’s or even the new handheld UMPC platform just consume too much power with their active screens.

Mass High Tech reports today that Tom Tom Go has inked a deal with iconic Dunkin’ Donuts to integrate their store locations into their products navigational database. This is a great example of how to get past the clutter and deliver the most relevant sort of advertising to drive traffic to your store and as far as I know, the first example of such an explicit deal.

There are a number of reports (here, here and here) about the Belgian newspaper De Tijd planning a pilot project of about two hundred subscribers for an electronic handheld newspaper. At A4 size (metric for 8 1/2″ x 11″) devices built by Phillips around MIT MediaLab spinoff E-Ink, will be the largest product of its kind, almost double the size of the pictured Sony Librie, and promises to be the closest experience yet to a real newspaper. Subscribers will be able to update them at special stations or at home over high speed Internet. The paper plans on offering different advertising at different times of day, and though they will not do so for this trial, they have the ability to refresh the content throughout the day. The big difference between this and reading a web based newspaper on your laptop is that E-Ink technology only uses power when changing the screen contents and hence has a very long battery life.

Via Adverlab

The New York Times reports that carriers are just raring to suck up all that high speed bandwidth you just got on your phone with video ads. Cell phone carriers in the past have been leery of infuriating their customers with advertising, but the confluence of data rates high enough to credibly do video, almost universal gps capabilities on newer handsets and the explosion of video-on-small-screens a la iPod has just proved to be too much for them to resist. The plan is to offer opt-in for the incredibly short three second ads. Leading the charge is newcomer ESPN Mobile which has already inked deals with Visa, Nike and Hilton Hotels. Analysts are breathlessly predicting a $1.2B market by 2009.

It will be interesting to see what agencies come up for a three second spot…

Premium cable channel Starz announced today ahead of CES that it will begin offering a subscription based service called Vongo that will allow users unlimited access to their current movie roster for viewing on devices supporting Microsoft’s media software. For $10 smackers a month you will be able to download movies to three devices as well as be able to stream a live feed off the Starz channel. This on the heels of further announcements from Disney that they are expanding the content they are offering on iTunes to include ESPN and ABC sports. It seems that we will be reaching a tipping point soon pushing download content to the mainstream as surely many more announcements like this will surface this week at CES. If you are not thinking about what this means to your clients, this may be a good time to start.

At the risk of making it seem like all I talk about here is DVRs, I have to bring to your attention a news item from Media News Daily about a new report issued by Ipsos in conjuncton with the Associated Press that pegs DVR penetration at 25%. They also report that 72% of those that have the DVR use it. Impressive numbers if they are representative

The Wall Street Journal is reporting this morning that TiVo is introducing a new service that will allow its users to set up interest profiles that advertisers would then use to download or record matching advertising onto their TiVo boxes. The deal was struck directly with Publicis, IPG and Omnicomm but details are still sketchy. The service is expected to launch in the Spring.

More info can be found here…

TiVo has announced that an upoming version of TiVo ToGo will allow users to transfer recorded content to their brand spanking new video enabled iPods as well as to the PlayStation Portable which more practical mobile video viewer. Details are sketchy though apparently you will need to purchase additional software to make the magic happen.

Now, if it works properly, which considering how difficult TiVo ToGo is to use I don’t expect it will, and you look past the fact that out of the total population of TiVo subscribers that use TiVo ToGo is only about 300,000, this may ultimately put the kibosh on dreams of selling tons of downloadable, drm’ed video content via iTunes. (more…)

Struggling Tivo has signed a deal with Yahoo that allows, as of today, Yahoo portal users to schedule Tivo recordings straight from Yahoo TV listings. Yahoo content would also be integrated into Tivos in an automagical way yet to be detailed. The only reason this is important is that it throws into sharp relief the failure of the Netflix/Tivo deal to allow users to have their Netflix movies delivered over broadband to their Tivos. One can only surmise that the pressure brough on by the MPAA was just too much. (more…)

Adverblog reports on two new vectors for marketers in the UK to get advertising to your cell phone:

• Over the air - In the UK, 3G operator 3 has announced a deal to deliver video advertising to users cell phones, details are sketchy but you can read more about it in this article in the Media Guardian (Free registration).
• Via Infrared - As part of the promotion of the new movie Goal! Feref Digital in the UK has deployed infrared enabled bus shelters that allow you to download the movie’s trailer and enter a contest for a walk-on roll on the planned sequel.

The question is how many people, other than professed geeks wil download stand alone advertising, completely devoid of content to clutter up the memory of their cellphones. Again, this is only the beginning as you can clearly envision the ads supporting real content download. This will keep the ever more greedy cell operators getting a revenue stream and give the users access to free cntent. Everybody wins…