Web Display Advertising Dropped 5.4% in 2nd Quarter 2012

Web display advertising declined in the second quarter of 2012 by 5.4 percent, Kantar Media says. The study did not track specific changes in advertising other than display formats, though. Search advertising and other "non-display" formats are not part of that specific finding. 

What the decline means is the issue. Some might speculate that mobile ads are leading to lower average selling prices. 

One can argue advertisers are shifting spending to non-display formats, or to TV or some other form of marketing. 

Whatever the reason, the declines are somewhat surprising. The continued weakness in print media is not surprising, nor is the growth of TV advertising. 

Sprint 4G LTE Coming to100 Additional Cities

Sprint announced today that its 4G LTE network build is under way in more than 100 additional cities within its existing nationwide 3G footprint. Some of the major metropolitan areas in which Sprint 4G LTE is expected to be available in the coming months are Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Indianapolis; Los Angeles; Memphis, Tenn.; Miami; Nashville, Tenn.; New Orleans; New York; Philadelphia; and Washington, D.C.,  Sprint says.

Broadband Connection Sharing Makes a Big Difference for HD Video Viewing Experience, Study Finds

After analyzing data from all its hosted video views in the United States over the course
of several weeks, Wistia found that about 18 percent of viewers cannot watch high definition video content without buffering. Wistia defines “HD capable” as a minimum of 2 Mbps per active user.

Wistia also gathered data from 25 companies and organizations including internet firms, universities, Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and technology companies.

Across these 25 organizations, the average percentage of non-HD capable views
was 25.6 percent. “In other words, a quarter of these viewers, some at Fortune
500 companies, could not watch streaming HD video,” Wistia says.

Wistia’s data on HD viewing capability at 100 hotels, ranging from national chains to luxury
establishments, indicates that 61 percent of the time, users could not view high definition video.

What is not clear is what percentage of the video views were attempted from mobile devices, on mobile networks, compared to fixed network connections.

The data does indicate that the degree of connection sharing makes a difference in user experience, whatever the aggregate total bandwidth at any location might be.

Can Wi-Fi Compete with Mobile? How Much?

Whether Wi-Fi can be a functional substitute for mobility networks was a subject of serious contemplation a decade and a half ago. The speculation might rise again. Cable operators in the U.S. market are cooperating to build bigger Wi-Fi networks that customers of any member cable TV company can use, out of market. 

Broadcom expects most major U.S. cable operators will have vast networks of public Wi-Fi hotspots activated in their respective subscribers’ homes in 12 to 18 months, according to Jay Kirchoff, Broadcom VP.

As a simple historical matter, hopes that municipal Wi-Fi networks really could provide a functional substitute for mobile service proved to be false. 

But the original thesis was based on an assumption that phones could use a municipal or commercial Wi-Fi network as a network substitute for mobile networks. 

It is at least possible that new lead applications and devices, especially tablets, plus a greater range of smart phones that can use a Wi-Fi connection, could create at least some new deployment scenarios.

Tablets, unlike mobile phones, mostly are used in "untethered" mode, not "mobile" mode. So it is at least possible that untethered applications and device usage modes could create a different and viable role for "public" Wi-Fi networks. 

In many ways, a new lead device, the tablet, could underpin new rationales for public Wi-Fi. 

Pandora Faces Monetization Issues

Pandora faces a scale problem very similar to that of Free Mobile in France, which is disrupting the French mobile market by attacking retail prices, but has to keep scaling paying customers at a high rate to reach the breakeven point. 

Where Free Mobile's problem is the rate at which is can keep growing its subscriber base, Pandora's problem is to scale ad revenue to keep pace with its rate of subscriber additions. 

Pandora already is probably one of the five biggest mobile ad businesses  in the United States, some would argue. 

Pandora mobile ad revenue has increased by 86 percent to $60 million in its fiscal second quarter of  2013. Total revenues were $101 million. Pandora also saw a 112 percent increase in the number of ads delivered. 

But  the average price per ad declined 27 percent. Both Pandora and Free Mobile have common business problems, namely the task of reaching scale in its operations and, at the same time, matching that scale to revenue growth and operating costs. 

What Apple and Netflix now Have in Common

With the news (or rumors) that Apple is going to launch its own streaming music service to rival Pandora, Apple now joins Netflix in contemplating a major expansion, possibly a repositioning, of core content services.  

The issue is the difference between real time services and pay per view. There is a market for non-real time, pre-recorded content. That's what CDs, pay per view and movies on demand are all about. But that is only part of the video business. 

Perhaps the bigger part of the business is "linear" or "real time" content, including radio, sports content, news and other real time content. 

That's why the recent Netflix moves into original "TV series" content are important. Up to this point, Netflix has been a good vehicle for enjoying pre-recorded content. In the future, Netflix will start to emulate the value of a TV network, offering a mix of pre-recorded and ultimately "live" programming. 

For similar reasons, Apple wants to sell "radio" or streaming experiences, not just pay per view or pay per listen or a different way to buy pre-recorded content. 

Video Production in the Cloud

Aframe is a cloud-based solution for video creators. The potential implications for service providers are fairly clear. Cloud-based solutions require Internet connectivity that is fast enough to compensate for the lack of local storage and processing.

Also, at least in principle, there are new requirements for cloud storage and processing services.

The cloud-based video asset management system was built with production people in mind, especially the ability to share content straight from the camera. 

Challenges in this field include moving huge amounts of data and so Aframe has worked on storage solutions so that files can be saved in the format they are created in and without compression.

On the other hand, the solution also suggests that solutions for the movie production ecosystem require universal connectivity and an understanding of business requirements, more than any specific "tweaking" of connectivity services as such.