Marcel Reichart Blog

Glam Media

I work on Glam since Burda took the first investment right after DLD 2008. Since Glam Media performed so well internationally (110+ mio. uniques) and in the German market, leading in women's category Comscore, Burda took a further investment and stepped up this partnership.

Here my interview with Holger Schmidt of FAZ on this step and why I think the Glam vertical media model and technology is attractive for users, publishers and brands.

Glam Media has also launched new channels as Brash for men, video network Glam TV and the live blogging platform Tinker.com. Glam just was said to be amongst the TOP20 companies heading for IPO or sale by PaidContent.Stay tuned.

Big Think

Big Think. Peter Hopkins launchte seinen Videoproduction und -syndikation Anfang des Jahres. Der dann 24-jährige arbeitete bei Charlie Rose, einer US-Show. Das Konzept: günstige Produktion von Videointerviews aus einem Studio in New York nähe Columbus Circle. Konnte die Kostenbasis kaum glauben, als ich ihn fragte. So hat BigThink in Kürze ein beträchtliches Videoinventar aufgebaut, das an Publisher und Portals syndiziert wird, die dieses in ihre Seiten nehmen und vermarkten.

Die Videos, alle ca. 2 Minuten, sind nach Ressorts verteilt, weitvertaggt, embeddbar und neben dem Fenster kann man den Sprechtext lesen. Peter verwendet eine spezielle Kamera, um eine natürliche Gesprächssituation zu befördern. Zehn Fragen stellt er. Fand ich spannend. Ach so, Investoren sind Peter Thiel (Founders Found) und Larry Summers (Ex-Präsident Harvard). Hier ein Interviewbeispiel mit Physikerin und DLD friend Lisa Randell, wo die Wissenschaftskultur steht.

Scienceblogs hits a magic number

Last week Scienceblogs hit a magic number: 1 million comments. Congratulations! This shows how much there is a need for conversation in science and amongst scientiests and the public. At Scienceblogs.de which we launched earlier this year, we are about to reach the 10.000 comment level and the ratio of posts to comments is increasing steadily. Heads and minds up! I am looking forward to our special new channel on women and science which we just started and is supported by L'Oreal.

Chanel's art bag

Art, style, architecture and mobility seem to merge with Chanel's Mobile Art Container travelling around major capitals this year. To start with Hong Kong where it landed like a spaceship. Design by Zaha Hadid and commissioned by Karl Lagerfeld a definite 21century installation creating an immersive brand experience of its bag line and using the city as staging ground. The normadid character to me is expressing the mobility of a global society and creates a time exclusivity. And the iconic images are framed by the media reporting in their arts & style sections or blogs like this.

By chance, we met curator Fabrice Bousteau in a Paris café last week, he has selected the group artists showing their contemporary works. More photos via the cool hunter.

Kaufzeit

Kaufzeit im Netz legt Etsy eine Finanzierungsrunde über 27 Mio. Dollar auf, Bravo Rob and Matthew, beide DLDsters, und Microsoft bietet 44 Mrd. Dollar für Yahoo. Long expected und nun Realität, wie das Internet selbst.

Wie Condé Nast in den USA seine Websites entwickelt

Mehr darüber in diesem News.com Artikel. Offensichtlich setzt Condé Nast in den USA stärker auf  webonly destination sites wie NaturalData.com (aqkuiriert für 25 Mio. $), Epicurious.com und style.com. Die Compagnion-Sites sind zu den Magazin-Brands haben eher Unterstützungsfunktion. Der Aritkel zitiert Experten, die eine großes Potential auch in starken magazine destinations sites sehen. Das ist interessante Frage, die von der Markt– und Portfoliosituation der Marken beeinflusst ist. Any thoughts?

Condé Nast buys online health site

Magazine publishers expand into digital brands: Now Condé Nast announced that it has acquired NutritionData.com, a health and nutrition Web site that provides tools and information to consumers eager to embrace a healthier lifestyle... NutritionData.com has a growing audience of 600,000 monthly unique visitors (via Heiko).

NY Times Web Revenue Reaches $66 Million

According to The New York Times Company's earnings report released Tuesday, the company's online properties grew to $66.1 million last quarter - or 7.7 percent of the total. Web sites in the company's News Media Group saw ad revenue growth of 25 percent, while About.com revenue surged 63 percent.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers announced in June that 1Q06 U.S. Internet advertising revenues grew 38%. Comparing these numbers, there still seems to be potential for Internet ad growth within the News Media Group don't you think?

Google: Magazine Ads Disappoint

Google’s recent foray into print advertising fell short of the company's expectations, a company executive said Wednesday. Speaking on a conference read more…  

NyTimes.com relaunched

Via Jochen: New York Times relaunched its website nytimes.com, the most-linked website on the web (see technorati report).  Here the homepage shot:

 

My first impressions: transparent full screen layout, central eyecather picture, reduced leftside vertical navigation (no vertical navigation on section sites like business or health), prominent search bar, most-popular (read, emailed, searched) boxes, prominent opinion columns, visual “inside” teaser. How do you like it ?

Time.com relaunched

Another relaunch of a major magazine brand has taken place: TIME magazine owned be Time Inc. has relaunched its site time.com. Have a look:

Media News Remix 3/27

Here a few articles, I found of interest of today:

 

Luxury Travelers Rely On Search: (Media Daily). Nearly 90% who go on high-end vacations use the Internet to shop for travel, according to a study released Wednesday by Yahoo Search Marketing. … and 61 percent--also used the Internet to purchase their most recent vacation.

 

College Grads March To A New Beat (Center for Media Research). The recently issued Y2M: eGrad 2005 College Graduate Survey concludes that new technologies and explosive growth in Internet usage are rapidly changing the buying habits and needs of college graduates.

 

TV's Viral Future John Battelle, renowned search luminary and Google specialist, discusses his vision for the future of television, which he says will be impacted by social networking and search technology. Will we have a TV rank?

 

Yahoo, CBS To Launch '60 Minutes' Site. Yahoo News and CBS Corp. will produce a co-branded Web site dedicated to "60 Minutes," … Yahoo intends to launch a preview site, sponsored by Buick, which will feature 23 short clips of footage from Ed Bradley's interviews with Tiger Woods.

 

Yahoo.com Homepage relaunched

I just saw that Yahoo.com has relaunched its homepage. Perhaps I missed it, since I haven’t checked for a week or so.   

What a key features (at least I saw first hand)?

• prominent left-site vertical navigation, based on alphabetical order. Some newspaper portals have given this up, e.g. WashingtonPost.com. However, tby this they emphazise their news content.
• integrated web services box on the the right side. That seems logic since personal web services are a core product of Yahoo
• increased plasticity through shadow borders and 3D-effects in menue bars. This goes along the trend to make websites more touchable and so ease attention momentum for our brain. Also colours are reduced to a highly transparent blue-silver.
• shorter site. Also a trend you see at current relaunches. A sign of conversion between TV screens and internet sites? 
• ad space focused on a single banner on the right just below the web services. Also a move to reduce information overflow and by less offerings increased attention value?
• flipping menues and bars, e.g. in the news section. Here also a lot of video offerings, indicating that broadband becomes standard.

Yet Yahoo.com is one of the most valuable real estates on the web. Therefore, one can be sure the new design has been tested intensivly to further enhance usability and ad efficiency. This makes the homepage a trend indicator for other portals and destinations sites. As far as I see, major subportals such as finance, auto or entertainment keep their current layout. What is your opinion on the Yahoo.com relaunch? 

Future of media, current article links

A few current article links on the future ot media which I found of interest:  

Web Execs: TV Merging With Internet (MediaPost) Internet companies will increasingly rely on TV networks to provide online content, Yahoo Executive Vice President Greg Coleman predicted…. Clark Kokich, president of Avenue A/Razorfish Worldwide, did offer one bold forecast, saying: "In three years, the content offered by these companies will be virtually identical."

5 ways to fix Time Warner (Business 2.0 Magazine) - Running a media conglomerate these days is no easy task. Just ask this magazine's uberbosses at Time Warner. The audience is fragmenting, distribution is under siege, the Internet is stealing advertisers from print and TV… A modest proposal for saving Time Warner and the entire industry from themselves…

Major Marketers Avoid MySpace (MediaPost) – Social networking site my space has grown to 60 million members, adding 8 million to million new members in the last few months alone, and now accounts for around 12.5 percent of all online display ads. But major brand marketers continue to shun the site…

Bill Gates: The future according to the world's richest man (The Independent) – An exclusive interview with Bill Gates in which the Microsoft founder and world's richest man talks to Ian Burrell in New York - and identifies the gadget that he thinks will one day provide media consumers with their every need…

Nike, Google Kick Off Social Networking Site (Business Week) – The sportings good giant and the Internet search kind have teamed up to create Joga.com and connect soccer fans around the world…

Rupert Murdoch's New Universe

Die WELT published a translated version of Rupert Murdoch’s recent speech at Stationers Hall. Murdoch is looking back into history and then gives his vision where the media industry is heading towards.

A piece to read in these days, and WELT’s policy to keep the articles linkable helps a lot here and the newspaper’s online edition to build further link value.  

From Web to Print

Following my post on MediaBistro’s story about magazine brands beeing launched first online and then go print, I found this detailled overview by MPA. It shows a number of others recent cases, e.g. Babycenter, beststuff, or nerve. Sure, most of these magazines are targeted, bimonthly or even less frequent, howeber it underlines the trend how the internet is used to test the market entry due to lower cost and a rapid feedback cycle.   

Meredith goes video

The publisher of Better Homes and Garden, Meredith Corp., will add more video contents to its magazine sites and hence formed a new unit called “Meredith Video Solutions” (reported by MediaPost). Plans are that “…the unit could send video cameras on magazine shoots, adding a video component to, say, a photo session with Teri Hatcher, on the cover of this month's Ladies' Home Journal.” Merediths interactive division has increased revenues by 80% over the year. Also Meredith is said to have hired a video-syndication expert.

Meredith is decisivly leveraging its magazine brands “beyond print”. I remember the MPA 24/7 conference in Dec. last year when Lauren Wiener of Meredith Interactive showcased their online strategy.

It seems that video and audio content on magazine sites works well. I could give examples of the German market, e.g. lifestyle podcasts or news or fashion videos features. Magazines engage readers in topics they are passionate for. Offering targeted content in video and audio – clearly emotionalizing –, enlarges the brand experience to digital plattforms and provides video content they typically wouldn’t find on TV. A big oppurtunity for magazine brands. For instance, also see the sailing content of Sail.tv (via Rupert).

WPP invests in search

The ad industry is adapting to market changes: NYTimes just reports that WPP has formed a division at Ogilvy to build up its search marketing capacities, namely search engine optimization. “NeoSearch@Ogilvy” wil start with 150 employees in key markets. Also NeoSearch is said to buy Catalyt on-line specialized in healthcare marketing.

I would argue, these moves by the leading ad networks will further fuel the growth in online and search marketing. The latter market volume is said to rise to 10bn $ in 2010. Ad agencies will integrate search marketing in their services offering, instead of have their clients go to specialists. In consequence, larger clients such as automotive, health, financial services are likely to increase online marketing in their media plans.

Ebay takes 10% in Meetup

I read this news via Business Week: Ebay takes 10% in the online meeting platform Meetup founded by Scott Heiferman in 2002 (I had the chance to meet him briefly at GEL2004). The investment remains undisclosed, but is said to be less than 10 Mio. $.

I found interesting what impact Meetup’s recent decision to take a subscription fee of 19$ monthly had: The listings dropped from 54.000 to almost 10.000, but more members are reported to attend the meetings. Heiferman sees this as a move into quality. For Ebay-Founder Omidyar is a Meetup a way to connect to more consumers and to enlarge Ebay’s communities.

BTW there are a number of Germany-related Meetup sites, if you enter “Germany” in the search window, e.g. ex-pat sites or German language sites.

Office Pirates is live

Recently, I posted on Time Inc.’s first online-only magazine, Office Pirates. It has been launched now. So how do you design and craft a magazine-like brand for the internet?

Let’s have a closer look. Office Pirates is geared towards young male city dwellers, e.g. bankers, consultants, office workers. The bywords appearing with the Google search are “Where nameless drones come to blow off steam. Or just blow off work. Free videos, jokes, rants, posters, e-cards and more!”.

So what Marc Golin, then also behind the launch of MAXIM, created, is a playful, self-ironic, a bit nasty and macho brand. The black background and scull & tie logo reminds me of a poker room or the kind of student clubs in B-Schools.

What do we find on the site? Mostly short videos, photo jokes and a few blogs. The content is produced and selected by the editorial team and by readers. (Today’s Tops…). Clearly, Office Pirates is aimed to build a community in a viral way, such as other gossip sites did successfully, e.g. Gawker. Daimler-Chrysler brand Dodge is an exclusive sponsor right now.

Thanks to strong broadband in offices today the little videos can be played instantly and sent around. Also, the brand captures its audience where they like to consume it. They can just flipp to the site when working for hours at a spread sheet or Powerpoint - a daily dose of escapism and sarcasm to cope with the office live.

How would an aequivalent print magazine look like? I don’t know, rather think I that this content can only be catered through the web. Sure, if you look at the website of Maxim Magazine, you will find a similar approach, videos, games etc. But this is what MAXIM readers look for when they are online.