Americans Spend Half Their Free Time Online— (Center for Media Research) According to this research, the average broadband users spend 40 minutes, or 48% of his or her free time, online. What are they doing? Entertainment and talking to others about entertainment. CIQ: We agree with one of the authors of this report, who says, “Currently, the proportion of advertising resources devoted to the Internet (about seven percent according to ZenithOptimedia) is nominal relative to the value it generates.”

Targeted Ads Are the Future— (Light Reading) Telcos stand to gain by delivering something the cable companies promised, but never delivered: The ability to more precisely serve an ad message based on time, demographic, or psychographic. This, “would be an amazing leap forward,” says one expert.  CIQ: We believe that highly targeted, permission-based advertising is the only way that advertising will be able to survive TiVo and the digital sea change.

Dems Outpace GOP on the Web—(Star Tribune) Republican candidates are lagging behind Democrats in their use of the web. Traffic to candidate sites and to MySpace-type profiles is lower for Republicans, as is fundraising online. On explanation is that the very disciplined, top-down message style of the Republican party is ill-suited to the web. CIQ: 2008 may be the year where the web-factor actually influences the outcome of the election.

Online Health Category Surges–(Media Post) ComScore reports a 12% increase in visitors to health information sites like WebMD. That’s an average of 55.3 million monthly visitors. CIQ: We believe that niche sites will continue to enjoy strength over the generalist online portals.

Can Madison Avenue Compete with Google & Microsoft?— (Media Daily News) With the multi-billion-dollar purchases of DoubleClick by Google and aQuantive by Microsoft, “The reality is that, with the exception of certain tightly controlled traditional media, such as network TV and big consumer magazines, big agency holding companies have only a minority share of the world’s advertising marketplace.” This article raises the possible scenario of one of the big 6 advertising agencies being aquired by one of the big four digital behemoths. CIQ: One of our core beliefs is that, in an age of media emergence, you will see these kinds of “cats sleeping with dogs” scenarios.

Making Real Money on Virtual Worlds –(Business Week) Sony is said to be considering paying $400 million for ClubPenguin. Webkinz may also be a target. CIQ: There is lots of speculation about virtual worlds taking over the experience of the web. Neopets has been around for at least 7 years. We believe it’s a strong category that other players are beginning to capitalize on.

Will aQuantive Help MS Catch Google?–(Forbes.com) According to this article, “Not a chance. In the most recent quarter, which ended March 31, Microsoft’s online services business lost $200 million on $623 million in sales, and aQuantive brought in $14.2 million in net income on $142.6 million in revenues. In contrast, Google sucked in a cool $1 billion in net income on $3.7 billion in revenues for the quarter ending March 31, 2007. CIQ: These big and (in our opinion) overvalued deals remind us spookily of 2000.

Niche Websites Get Venture Backing–(NYT) Above, we have the scary reminder of 2000. Here we have the good reminder. Boot-strapped niche sites that use content, community and commerce and that advertisers love. “Take NaturallyCurly.com for instance. The site, founded in 1998 , has grown its readership to about 180,000 monthly readers, without marketing. More impressively, it has built a stable of hair care advertisers, like Aveda, Paul Mitchell and Redken, among others, and generated annual revenue in excess of $1 million. CIQ: We like a vision of the web built on singles and doubles, not huge $6 billion homers.

Print Bright Spot: Times Travel Mag Pages Up 6%–(DM News) In an industry that is declining, this is a big gain. CIQ: It proves that travel is hot. We hear that on the web, travel advertisers are insatiable

Buying off Bloggers—(WSJ) “Who says you can’t buy love? Trying to tap into the burgeoning power of blogs as promotional tools and fed up with the jaded attitudes of professional critics and TV feature writers, studios and networks are flooding bloggers with free stuff in hopes the flattered recipients will reward them with positive coverage. Flowing into the trough is everything from fancy gym bags and toasters to video iPods and free trips.” CIQ: We haven’t received any free stuff. And we feel very slighted.

Networks Struggle for Relevancy in Upfront—(NYT) In this week’s upfront, the big networks are trying to deal with the fact that commercials are being zapped and, let’s face it, TV viewership is wooed by online, ipods, games, anything but TV. ABC is presenting TV as just one medium where its content can be viewed. All the networks are proposing more innovative commercials containing original content to hold the attention of viewers. CIQ: We think the answer lies in serving viewers commercials they are interested in for products that match their interests. In other words, the technology is going to have to get a lot smarter in terms of  “permission” to engage people in commercials. In addition, content producers need to make a better value exchange with the viewer.

Copyright & the Web—(Wired) The imposition of royalty fees on web radio broadcasters will drive most out of business. “But But all is not lost. Webcasting may spiral into its own dark ages, but the resulting debate over royalties could drive Congress into overhauling copyright law and finally forcing the music industry, kicking and screaming, into the future (or at least the present).”  CIQ: This article lays out a comprehensive view of copyright law as it exists now and the hurdles it erects for new-style broadcasters.
 

DJ Value Is in Online Potential—(Bloomberg) The price Murdoch is offering for Dow Jones surpasses even Google’s valuation as a relative measure of projected earnings. According to this article, making the deal highly likely to go through. It’s a simple equation of content and distribution channel. “Content is king sounds logical, but if you can’t distribute it, it’s worthless. The Wall Street Journal has the ability to produce content, but they don’t have anywhere near the global distribution that Rupert Murdoch has.”  CIQ: We have only one quibble. Content is actually queen.

Holding Companies Buy into Digital—(Ad Age) Some of the big advertising holding companies are aggressively buying up digital assets (Publicis’ acquisition of Digitas for $1.3 billion) and others are like WPP are “meaningful but not significant.” But with Google aggressively moving into advertising, the laggards may have to catch up quickly. CIQ: We feel that traditional agencies like traditional print companies really struggle to understand and master the online medium.

Web 2.0 Efforts Compromise Good Design—(BBC News) Usability Guru Jakob Nielsen says in the rush to capitalize on Web 2.0 buzz, marketers are making “glossy but useless” sites dotted with personalization tools but ignoring best practices on the web. CIQ: We agree. It seems like a perennial problem on the web. Marketers want to cash in on the latest hype and agencies dutifully serve it up to them.