IBM’s Watson has been helping clinicians diagnose ailments and bankers recommend the right products for customers, and with its latest job it will help brands provide better customer service and reach a wider audience. Read more »
Nielsen is rolling out a pilot product that lets TV networks track viewing of shows on their websites. The tool doesn’t yet account for viewing on mobile devices, and the pilot doesn’t include viewing on sites like Hulu and YouTube. Read more at paidContent »
Twitter’s new music app could be a great discovery tool, if the company can figure out how to make the recommendations effective — a challenge they’ve struggled with since the beginning. Read more »
In two signs of how online media consumption is changing traditional tracking services, Nielsen will begin tracking the habits of viewers who watch TV over broadband, while Billboard will begin including YouTube music video views in its charts. Read more at paidContent »
Twitter is said to be looking at acquiring Bluefin Labs, which would fit the trajectory that the real-time information network has been on for some time. But is cozying up to traditional TV the only future for Twitter? Read more »
There’s never been more video content to watch, or more ways of to watch it. That, says Jeremy Toeman, of Dijit Media, a big problem. In making TV infinite, we’ve lost its most potent benefit: escapism. Read more »
Brand advertising’s focus on cross-platform media measurement has grown dramatically in the past five years. Within the next 36 months cross-platform digital video advertising will standardize, driven by the shift in media dollars to online viewing and the adoption of the Making Measurement Make Sense (3MS) initiative. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Smartphones can enable an amazing level of connectivity, but they can also allow that activity to be monitored and used in controversial ways. But for mobile marketing to realize its full potential, consumers may need to sacrifice their privacy to one degree or another. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Social TV is any application, website or software that allows viewers to interact with television programming and share that interaction with others. Startups in this space hope to combine ubiquitous second-screen technology with well-established audience behavior to drive new value around shows. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Over the past year as more consumers have adopted smartphones the number of installed applications is up from 32 to 41. Yet the amount of time spent using those applications hasn’t changed much, indicating that developers might be challenged when it comes to increasing application engagement. Read more »
Belying several earlier research studies, which said growth of U.S. multi-channel subscriptions has slowed significantly but not stopped, Nielsen’s latest “Cross-Platform Report” says the number of U.S. homes paying a multi-channel provider for TV services last year actually declined by 1.5 million, or about 1.5 percent. Read more at paidContent »
Based on metering of 5,000 smartphone phones, Nielsen said five top retailers found that smartphone users during the holidays preferred mobile retail sites 51 percent to 28 percent for native apps. The findings suggest retailers need to focused on both native apps and the mobile web. Read more »
Call it the year of lessons learned, if not quite bubbles burst. In 2011, several trends in the connected consumer space that appeared inexorable at the start of the year seemed disorganized by the end. What does that mean for the next 12 months? From cloud-based media storage to daily deals to the fight for the digital living room, 2012 will be a year of consolidation and integration. Both entrepreneurs and investors will figure out that many once-promising standalone business models need to be grounded on more solid, integrated platforms to create real value. Companies mentioned in this report include Hulu, LivingSocial, Netflix and Zynga. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Apple’s and Android’s stronghold on the U.S. smartphone market has been the case for many quarters already, and figures out today from Niels… Read more at paidContent »
Nielsen is getting ready later this week to release is quarterly State of the Media report, which this time around will focus on mobile medi… Read more at paidContent »
Second-screen apps could soon tell you which actors are on your TV screen, what products they’re consuming and which music is playing in the background, thanks to a yet-to-be launched content-recognition platform from Gracenote. The company gave us a first look at the technology. Read more »
Nielsen reports that the amount of time spent viewing video online is growing faster than the number of viewers tuning in. In other words, those viewers have begun checking in to online streams and sticking around for ever-longer periods of time over the last few years. Read more »
Some stats out today from Nielsen for Q3 show that Android is continuing on its growth trajectory in the U.S. but in the last quarter Apple’… Read more at paidContent »
Nielsen’s third-quarter metrics show that 62 percent of the 25-to-34-year-old U.S. population has a smartphone. But the fastest-growing age group adopting smartphones last quarter is a surprise: It’s the 55-to-64-year-olds. That means mobile app developers have an opportunity right now. Read more »
Last quarter’s big headline in social media and real-time technologies came from Google, which launched Google+, its first social tech product that seems legit. In the third quarter, things were back to normal. Google+ is still growing, but Facebook’s platform update dominated the news. And as Google+ passed 25 million users and won some raves from the digerati, its competition with Facebook intensified. Additional companies mentioned in this report include Zynga, Salesforce, BranchOut and Foursquare. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Most word of mouth still occurs in face-to-face situations, but social media has emerged as a powerful tool for getting the word out about shows. Even so, until now there’s been some debate about how effective social media actually is in creating a ratings lift. Read more »
There were few surprises in the latest report from Nielsen on the mobile device market: Android continues to do well in the U.S. at the expe… Read more at paidContent »
People are getting more social and more altruistic. That’s the simple part of the takeaway from Nielsen SVP of consumer insights and analyti… Read more at paidContent »
Looks like the global rise in extreme weather events (cough, Irene) hasn’t been enough to make Americans more concerned about the issue of climate change. But extreme weather has been causing certain regions, particularly with dry, hot climates, to worry more about climate change. Read more »
Thanks to a new product from Nielsen and Facebook, the Internet could be on the cusp of become a first-class citizen in the advertising world for good. But there’s just one problem: Do Facebook users want to be part of a Nielsen family? Read more »
A recent batch of product and funding announcements points to a real trend: the infrastructure and business ecosystem for social media advertising is developing rapidly. That’s good news for marketers – and even for Facebook competitors – as it is critical for growing the market beyond ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
It won’t be long before most phones will be smartphones, which are outselling feature phones in recent sales, according to new figures from Nielsen. The firm said smartphones made up 55 percent of recent phone acquisitions in May 2011 in the U.S. Read more »
Smartphone users are consuming 89 percent more data than they did last year, but the cost per megabyte has dropped to 8 cents. But these stats miss the subtle economics of running a network, and aren’t caught up with pricing changes hitting the mobile ecosystem. Read more »
Is there any record the U.S. can’t break? Americans now watch more TV than ever, with every viewer clocking 22 more minutes per day than just a year ago, according to Nielsen. However, some people seem to prefer online video over traditional TV viewing. Read more »
TV ads will increasingly become performance-based, moving the industry beyond just trying to amass huge audiences, according to execs from media agency Initiative. That could change the way that brands and agencies think about media buying, and could be disruptive to Nielsen’s ratings system. Read more »
Asian-American consumers watch more online video than any other ethnic group in the U.S., and white people don’t seem to care much at all about video streaming. Nielsen’s latest look at ethnic media consumption habits, which raises some interesting questions about the priorities of this industry. Read more »
TV ownership has fallen for the first time in 20 years, according to Nielsen. But is that decline due to poorer, rural consumers who couldn’t afford to keep up with the digital transition? Or due to young, hip urbanites who are watching video on different screens? Read more »
Comcast has expanded the amount of TV content available through its VOD service, with all four broadcasters on board. But more important than the addition of new content is the technology behind it, which will improve tracking and monetization of VOD TV episodes. Read more »
More on the trend of users tipping over to Android devices in the U.S., with smartphones built on Google’s OS not only accounting for the mo… Read more at paidContent »
Android has been outselling the iPhone recently but Apple’s iPhone was still the most desired smartphone. Not anymore. According to Nielsen, 31 percent of respondents in March said they want their next smartphone to be an Android device, while 30 percent said they wanted an iPhone. Read more »
The number of pay TV subscribers increased over the fourth quarter, but the year-over-year growth was the slowest ever for the industry. Even worse, the percentage of households paying for TV actually declined over that period, due to a constrained economy and competition from online sources. Read more »
Statistics presented by Nielsen tday suggest that fluctuations in cable subscription numbers are due not to cord-cutting, but “cord-swapping,” with consumers switching between different services. However, that still doesn’t explain the rise of broadband-only households among the under-25 set, who are embracing cable-free life. Read more »
Did online viewers kill Caprica? Not exactly, says SyFy Digital’s GM Craig Engler. However, Hulu and Co. don’t bring in nearly as much money as traditional advertising, which is why Nielsen ratings still matter more than anything else when it comes to a show’s fate. Read more »
TV execs have often lamented DVRs usage, since timeshifted viewers tend to fast forward through ads, making them less valuable to advertisers. But new data shows that DVR users don’t just watch more TV than non-DVR owners, but they watch more ads than you’d think. Read more »
Consumer electronics companies have invested heavily to make 3-D TV a success. But the more consumers use the technology, the less likely they are to buy, with 60 percent of North American survey respondents saying they won’t buy a 3DTV set in the next year. Read more »
