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Univision adds consumer touch points to fulfill 360-degree media strategy
By Rimma Kats
February 26, 2010
Univision launches new mobile video series
Univision Interactive Media Inc. plans to extend its reach with the %u201CNovelas y Series%u201D mobile video series, which will be accessible via a WAP site and an application.
Viewers can watch the programming straight from their handsets. The initiative will also give consumers the latest novella news, celebrity gossip and behind-the-scenes footage right to their mobile phones.
%u201CUnivision continually strives to provide the best experience, content and information relevant to Hispanics, regardless of platform or device,%u201D said Kevin Conroy, president of Univision Interactive Media Inc., New York. %u201CAs such, all of our programming launches are all-inclusive, reaching today%u2019s user wherever and however they consume content.
%u201CThe Novelas y Series channel is a prime example of this, including online and mobile sites, a comprehensive community hub that will include robust user-generated content, as well as premier video content,%u201D he said.
Consumers can also view the new video series at http://www.video.univision.com.
The launch follows the Web site%u2019s originally produced webnovela, %u201CVidas Cruzadas%u201D (Crossed Lives).
The company decided to focus on a mobile audience and bring viewers novela programming from content producers around the world.
Users can view the videos on the Univision Video application which will soon be available on all top smartphone platforms.
Additonally, the "Novelas y Series" mobile site can be accessed via any Web-enabled mobile device.
The "Novelas y Series" site will have mobile advertising opportunities for brands trying to reach Hispanic consumers.The network feels that mobile Web site advertising is an effective way to reach its users and generate an immediate response. Sponsorships of the video content will also be available via the Univision Video application.
Univision%u2019s new channel will include third-party content from Azecta America, RCN Television and Dori Media Group. It will also feature original programming from Univision Interactive Media, as well as programs from the network%u2019s top shows and special events.
%u201CWe are proud to have a very loyal user base that recognizes the value of our on-the-go offerings and has shown high levels of mobile engagement and participation,%u201D Mr. Conroy said.
According to the network, %u201CVidas Cruzadas%u201D generated more than 2.5 million U.S. video streams and is one of the Web site%u2019s top two most watched online shows to date.
Univision had a live streaming of the Paz Sin Fronteras concert last year, which it claims is now its largest live streaming event.
%u201CUnivision Communications is the most powerful brand in Spanish-language media and we recognize that Hispanics are on the move now more than ever,%u201D Mr. Conroy said. %u201CAs such, we continually strive to provide the best experience, content and information relevant to Hispanics, regardless of platform or device.
%u201CThe launch of the online and mobile "Novelas y Series" channel allows our viewers the ability to access information whenever, wherever and however they can,%u201D he said.
%u201CThese types of interactive initiatives strengthen our position not only with consumers, but also with advertisers, publishers and Web developers.%u201D
Editorial Assistant Rimma Kats covers content, gaming, media, television, music and social networks. Reach her at rimma@mobilemarketer.com.
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Saturday, February 27, 2010
Univision adds consumer touch points to fulfill 360-degree media strategy - Mobile Marketer - Television
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
In an app-mad world, we need better ways to pay. From Wired: The Future of Money - It’s Flexible, Frictionless and (Almost) Free
Cash in the clouds%u2014neither paper nor plastic.
Illustration: Aegir Hallmundur; Benjamin Franklin: CorbisThe Future of MoneyA simple typo gave Michael Ivey the idea for his company. One day in the fall of 2008, Ivey%u2019s wife, using her pink RAZR phone, sent him a note via Twitter. But instead of typing the letter d at the beginning of the tweet %u2014 which would have sent the note as a direct message, a private note just for Ivey %u2014 she hit p. It could have been an embarrassing snafu, but instead it sparked a brainstorm. That%u2019s how you should pay people, Ivey publicly replied. Ivey%u2019s friends quickly jumped into the conversation, enthusiastically endorsing the idea. Ivey, a computer programmer based in Alabama, began wondering if he and his wife hadn%u2019t hit on something: What if people could transfer money over Twitter for next to nothing, simply by typing a username and a dollar amount?
Money Over Time
A brief history of
currency technology.
%u2014Bryan Gardiner9000 BC: Cows
The rise of agriculture made commodities like cattle and grain ideal proto-currencies: Since everyone knew what a heifer or a bushel was worth, the system was more efficient than barter.
Just a decade ago, the idea of moving money that quickly and cheaply would have been ridiculous. Checks took ages to clear. Transferring money from one bank account to another could take days, as banks leisurely handed off funds, levying fees nearly every step of the way. Credit cards made it a little easier to pass money to a friend %u2014 provided that friend owned a credit card reader and didn%u2019t mind paying a few percentage points in fees or waiting a couple of days for the payment to process.
Ivey got around that problem by using PayPal. Since 1998, PayPal had enabled people to transfer money to each other instantly. For the most part, its powers were confined to eBay, the online auction company that purchased PayPal in 2002. But last summer, PayPal began giving a small group of developers access to its code, allowing them to work with its super-sophisticated transaction framework. Ivey immediately used it to link users%u2019 Twitter accounts to their PayPal accounts, and his new company, Twitpay, took off. Today, the service has almost 15,000 users.
That may not sound like much, but it sends a message: Moving money, once a function managed only by the biggest companies in the world, is now a feature available to any code jockey. Ivey is just one of hundreds of engineers and entrepreneurs who are attacking the payment ecosystem, seeking out ways small and large to tear down the stronghold the banks and credit card companies have built. Square, a new company founded by Twitter cocreator Jack Dorsey, lets anyone accept physical credit card payments through a smartphone or computer by plugging in a free sugar-cube-sized device %u2014 no expensive card reader required. A startup called Obopay, which has received funding from Nokia, allows phone owners to transfer money to one another with nothing more than a PIN. Amazon.com and Google are both distributing their shopping cart technologies across the Internet, letting even the lowliest etailers process credit cards for less than the old price, cutting out middlemen, and figuring out ways to bundle payments to sidestep the credit card companies%u2019 constant nickel-and-diming. Facebook appears to be building its own payment system for virtual goods purchased on its social network and on external sites. And last March, Apple gave iTunes developers the ability to charge subscription fees through their applications, making iTunes the gateway for an entirely new breed of transaction. When Research in Motion announced a similar initiative last fall at a session of the BlackBerry Developer Conference in San Francisco, programmers crowded the room, spilling out into the hallway. About 20 percent of all online transactions now take place over so-called alternative payment systems, according to consulting firm Javelin Strategy and Research. It expects that number to grow to nearly 30 percent in just three years.
But perhaps nobody is as ambitious as PayPal. In November, it further opened up its code, giving anyone with rudimentary programming skills access to the kind of technology and payment-industry experience that Ivey used to build Twitpay. The move could unleash a wave of innovation unlike any we%u2019ve seen since self-publishing came to the Web. Two months after PayPal opened its platform, 15,000 developers had used it to create new payment services, sending $15 million through the company%u2019s pipes. Software developer Big in Japan, whose ShopSavvy program lets people find an item%u2019s cheapest price by scanning its barcode, used PayPal to add a %u201Cquick pay%u201D button to its app. LiveOps, a call-center outsourcing firm, built a tool that streamlined payments to its operators, turning what had been a nightmare of invoicing and time-tracking into an automated process. Previously, anybody who wanted to create a service like this would have had to navigate a morass of state and federal regulations and licensing bodies. But now engineers can focus on building applications, while leaving the regulatory and risk-management issues to PayPal. %u201CI can focus on the social side of the business and not on touching money,%u201D as Ivey puts it.
PayPal is just the latest company to try to harness the creative powers of the open Internet. Google created a platform that lets anyone buy or display online advertisements. Facebook allows any developer to write applications for its social network, and Apple does the same with its iTunes App Store. Amazon%u2019s Web Services provides developers the cloud-based processing power and storage space they need to build applications and services. Now PayPal has brought this same spirit of innovation and experimentation to the world of payments. Your wallet may never be the same.
Rate of Exchange One US dollar translated into various virtual currencies.*
Social Network
Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Game
Digital Marketplace
* Values are approximate. Not all currencies are pegged to the dollar, and many are not intended to be exchanged for cash.
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Been choosy about sharing links. This one's worth it. From the NYT: North Face Campaign Sends Texts When Shoppers Near Stores
LIKE many retailers, the North Face has been having trouble luring shoppers into its stores. The company, which sells outdoor apparel and gear, is about to try a new tactic: sending people text messages as soon as they get near a store.
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This month, the North Face is beginning its first campaign aimed at customers based on where they are physically. Shoppers in and around New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston may receive text alerts when they and their cellphones are close to stores.
Advertisers have long been intrigued by the promise of cellphones, because they live in people%u2019s pockets and send signals about shoppers%u2019 locations. The dream has been to send people ads tailored to their location, like a coupon for a cappuccino when passing a coffee shop.
Despite the hype, few cellphone owners have received such ads. This year, that may change, analysts say, as companies like the North Face embrace location-based mobile ads.
%u201CTo be that close to the actual sale or physical location is such a value for marketers, and something they%u2019ve been looking for out of mobile for a long time,%u201D said Paul Gelb, national manager of emerging media at Razorfish, the digital advertising agency that is part of the Publicis Groupe.
The North Face%u2019s new campaign, which starts this month, is its first to single out customers depending on where they are physically.
The campaign was created by Placecast, a location-based mobile ad company in San Francisco. It uses a practice called geo-fencing, which draws a virtual perimeter around a particular location. When someone steps into the geo-fenced area, a text message is sent, but only if consumers have opted in to receive messages.
%u201CYou say, %u2018This is a brand I care about,%u2019 and then you go about your day and your phone tells you when something is interesting,%u201D said Alistair Goodman, chief executive of Placecast.
Placecast created 1,000 geo-fences in and around New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston, cities where the North Face has many stores and areas that get a lot of snow or rain, so the company can tailor its messages to the weather. In urban areas, the fences are up to half a mile around stores, and in suburban areas they are up to a mile around stores.
%u2022
For now, the North Face will send texts about promotions, like a free water bottle with a purchase, and new arrivals, because the company%u2019s gear is heavily seasonal. A text message would say, for example, %u201CTNF: The new spring running apparel has hit the stores! Check it out @ TNF Downtown Seattle.%u201D
The North Face plans to eventually send branded texts when people arrive at a hiking trail or mountain to alert them about weather conditions or logistics for a ski competition, for example. It also created an iPhone app called the North Face Snow Report that provides snow conditions and trail maps.
%u201CWe like things that people opt in to and that aren%u2019t going to be perceived as being intrusive, where we%u2019re bringing something to the table,%u201D Aaron Carpenter, vice president of marketing for the North Face, said.
That type of brand advertising via text message %u2014 as opposed to sending a call to action, like a coupon %u2014 is new, said Mr. Gelb of Razorfish.
%u201CAll of our highly brand-conscious clients were reluctant about text messaging because there was not as much of an engagement or sexiness to it,%u201D he said. %u201CBut here, when you have such relevance, it connects to a person%u2019s passions.%u201D
Razorfish, which is not involved in the North Face campaign, is working on campaigns with Placecast for five brands. It is signing up customers to receive the texts now and will start the campaigns around back-to-school time and the holidays.
In other uses, restaurants could text people leaving a concert, Mr. Goodman said. Location is a memory trigger, he said, so even if people do not visit a shop when they get the text, they may remember it next time they are nearby.
%u2022
To determine a cellphone%u2019s location, Placecast uses techniques including a phone%u2019s GPS signal, location data provided by carriers to companies that sell it to Placecast and information gleaned from triangulating the phone%u2019s distance to cell towers.
But shoppers should not expect all of their favorite brands to suddenly send alerts as they walk through town. According to Forrester Research, advertisers spent just $391 million on mobile last year %u2014 only 1.5 percent of what they spent on interactive advertising as a whole %u2014 and location-based ads were just a small portion of that.
They are projected to spend $561 million on mobile this year and $1.3 billion by 2014. Mr. Gelb said that this year, mobile was part of nearly every client%u2019s campaign.
%u201CIt%u2019s still nascent, but it has a lot of potential,%u201D Julie A. Ask, a vice president and mobile analyst at Forrester, said. %u201CBeing contextual and personal is the holy grail of mobile, and location is one of those aspects. But the mechanics of how this is going to work and how effective it%u2019s going to be get a bit murky.%u201D
Mobile ads are promising because they are highly personalized, but that intimacy also means the bar is higher for the ads to be well done and relevant, Ms. Ask said. Placecast sends a maximum of three texts a week to avoid annoying people, Mr. Goodman said. During a campaign last year, 6 percent of people opted out.
In addition to the mobile ads, the North Face sponsors sporting events, and runs print ads in outdoor and sporting magazines with images from its sponsored athletes%u2019 competitions, as well as outdoor and Web ads. It will run its first TV ads this year in three cities.
%u201CWhen we surround somebody with media during those key seasons is when we get the best results,%u201D Mr. Carpenter said.
Recommend Next Article in Business (8 of 33) � A version of this article appeared in print on February 23, 2010, on page B4 of the New York edition.
Thursday, February 18, 2010
And It Shouldn't Stop at E... From O'Reilly: The Convergence of Advertising and E-commerce
The Convergence of Advertising and E-commerce
by Tim O'Reilly | @timoreilly | comments: 18With hundreds of millions of users paying to download music, applications and ebooks on mobile phones, with reports of Zynga generating hundreds of millions of dollars from selling virtual goods in social games, with startups like Square making mobile payment systems the hot new startup category, it's clear that e-commerce is poised to supplant advertising as the business model of choice for new startups.
But that's only the beginning. A few weeks ago it occurred to me that there's a very real possibility that the next breakthrough in advertising itself is its convergence with e-commerce. Buying an app from the Android Market, I realized how those of us with smartphones have become accustomed to seamless purchases on our phone. That is, we search for an app, and then we buy it, directly from our search vendor.
Isn't that after all the goal of advertising? To cause a transaction. So why not do away with the intermediate step of sending someone to a website for more information? Especially with the limited screen real estate on the phone, there isn't really room for the contextual text advertising that made Google its billions. Interstitial or popup ads are intrusive and unwelcome. But how much search activity on the phone is tied to commerce already? Find a restaurant nearby and make a reservation? Why not pay as well? Point Google Goggles at a bottle of wine you enjoyed at that restaurant, and have a few bottles more show up on your doorstep?
This line of thought led me to the conclusion that Google, Apple, Microsoft, will soon be announcing e-commerce programs akin to Adsense, in which retailers will register with "app stores" to allow physical goods and services to be bought as easily as apps. We can also expect announcements of partnerships between phone providers and Amazon or Wal-Mart or other big retailers who can fulfill e-commerce requests from the phone. I have no inside information to support this contention, just the logic of the marketplace.
Interestingly enough, it was only a few days after I had this thought that I met with the folks at Siri, which bills itself as "Your virtual personal assistant." Siri does pretty much what I was imagining for Google or Apple: it searches, and then does something. In our conversation, one of the founders referred to it as a "do engine" rather than a search engine. Right now, Siri mainly interfaces with services that provide APIs for reservations, like OpenTable or TicketMaster. It isn't a general purpose e-commerce engine. But that is clearly in the future, if not from Siri, then from some other startup, and then, inevitably, from the big guys.
E-commerce is the killer app of the phone world. Anyone whose business is now based on advertising had better be prepared to link payment and fulfillment directly to search, making buying anything in the world into a one-click purchase. Real time payment from the phone is in your future.
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