“For Microsoft this year it’s a big, big milestone because the products we’ve been working on for many years that are foundational products are now moving into the marketplace,” Gates told the audience.

In addition to demonstrating heretofore unseen features of Windows Vista, Gates announced new partnerships with Nickelodeon, Showtime and Starz to bring entertainment content to Windows Media Center, and a collaboration with FOXSports on a new feature of Media Center called SportsLounge, which combines live TV with real-time sports scores and other sports-related media. Lisa Sikora, group marketing manager of Microsoft’s Casual Games division, also showed off a cross-platform version of the game “UNO!,” which demonstrated a Vista feature that will let PC gamers play against those using the Xbox 360 on the Xbox Live network.

Robbie Bach previewed the upcoming Xbox 360 IPTV service, which will deliver TV content over the Internet through the Xbox 360 console. In November, Microsoft introduced a pay-per-download movie service on the Xbox, which outperformed competing service Unbox from Amazon.com as of the end of December. Xbox IPTV should be available by the end of 2007.

“Our challenge,” added Bach, “is bringing those two concepts together in a powerful way. Now, you don’t just do that by having great hardware, or by having great software, or by having an innovative service. You do that by combining those three things with an integrated concept of hardware, software, and service that can deliver connected entertainment.”

The status quo:

While the purpose of ad-servers is to increase productivity and maximize efficiency, there are some involved who prefer the status quo to migrating to a new system that would cut time and costs. The reason for this is fear: fear of being rendered obsolete and losing his or her job. A complex system requires training; depending on the system, this training can be fairly extensive. More complex systems require users to input commands manually as opposed to more advanced systems that perform these operations automatically in the back-end. This leaves more room for human error and consequently loss of revenue.

All this points to an inescapable trend: more work for the CTO and traffic managers. Suppose company A migrated to a more efficient, easier-to-use ad-server. Little training would be needed and a strong IT presence would not be necessary. The system would cause fewer problems and sales people would be able to use the ad-server autonomously, eliminating the middle man that is technical support i.e. traffic managers, IT, etc. The upshot of all is that a better system would make some tech people redundant. If the new system optimizes inventory and delivery automatically, fewer traffic managers are needed. If the new system is intuitive, IT support would be minimal.

Technical staff have a vested interest in the type of system a company uses because it affects their livelihood. Because of this vested interest, their opinions and recommendations, while ostensibly professional, are ultimately compromised by self-preservation. Therefore, decision-makers would do well to bring in consultants for objective recommendations.

Development is not cost-effective:

Unfortunately, the main objective for many companies in this industry is not to provide the best products and services possible but rather to create viable revenue streams. Some of the bigger names in the industry have their fingers in a lot of pies. These business models do not require product development because the return on investment is not as promising as other revenue streams. Some of the market leaders, for example, make most of their money by selling licenses. Or even by competing with their customers.

Market share also plays a factor in the lack of product development. Companies with a significant market share face little competition and so spend their time building on their market share and creating new revenue streams rather than fine tuning their products, because that is more cost-effective.

Usually, over-the-air ads cannot be broadcasted online due to AFTRA (American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) regulations, leaving dead space that needs to be filled with other advertising, music, PSA’s or station IDs.

The new version of the Abacast Injection System (AIS) allows broadcasters to convert their terrestrial radio streams into Internet streams, switching out ads automatically or manually as needed and replacing them with Internet-centered ads that don’t violate AFTRA guidelines and increase profitability. On the side, Abacast educates broadcasters about online ad practices like synchronized banners, call-to-action discounts and cross-media campaigns.

The AIS system uses a distributed network to serve audio streams. A central server coordinates the use of often unused upstream bandwidth provided by other listeners or streaming clients, providing greater redundancy and fewer stream hiccups, since the actual audio someone is listening to is being delivered from multiple sources.

AIS 2.0 will fit ads into a time slot even if they aren’t the same size, giving broadcasters more flexibility. It also provides an improved user interface to schedule and monitor all online content to be injected into the stream.

DAVE.TV uses DAVE’s “Social Online Community & IPTV Application Library” (S.O.C.I.A.L.) technology, which lets partners use DAVE’s API system and can let users create personalized profiles, upload and share content using DAVE.TV’s video creation tools, create a blog or video blog, and communicate via message boards. Partners can also let users re-post content to their own sites with DAVE’s MyTVBoxT media player.

“It is only a natural step for organizations and businesses to develop community portals which will foster customer interaction,” said DAVE CEO Rex Wong in a statement. “Our S.O.C.I.A.L. platform enables companies to embrace the concept of promoting creative free reign, user-generated content development and social interaction to build audience participation.”

DAVE will customize each video portal to meet the needs of each partner’s customer or fan-base. Sites already using S.O.C.I.A.L. include MGM’s Stargate SG-1, Earth, Wind and Fire, and the Urban Sports League.

“While you wait, think about the fundamental ways our relationship to the unit of information known as a ‘book’ changes when that unit becomes a table in a database.

Marketers, think about how much more you know about me when I search and copy a paragraph from one book, and then another, versus what you knew about me when I ordered those two books form Amazon. What can I do with that kind of information?

Now, apply this to video and audio.”

This is where it’s going to get interesting. Homework assignments: Seek out and read things like if:book, Attention Trust, and study up on the current push to put all things print into the digital realm.

In The Future of the Book, Umberto Eco states that he believes that computers will not supplant books completely and I partially agree with him. However, Eco has apparently not spent as much time with the ‘third-screen generation’ as I have and therefore has not observed the interaction with text as it exists today. The reader/book relationship that develops around technologies like SMS and email is fundamentally different than the traditional reader/book relationship.

From an attention-data standpoint, the granularity of the usage information I can gather about a reader who orders a book about a particular subject, versus the usage patterns that develop around users interacting with a table of information in a database, known as a ‘book’ are different by many levels of degree. The digitization of books will only increase this kind of evolution of the user/reader/book/journal relationships. Look at systems like eBrary and Safari for current examples of this kind of interface into book units.

The next wave that will become ‘hot’ in the search space is undoubtedly the derivability of audio, video and multimedia formats. When users can search video archives based on any number of criteria and have the relevant segments returned (search: video: brown rice on table with red flowers: movies: IMDB listed: US EN) the rules of engagement become as granular as those I outlined above for digital books.

Marketers, take note here. The above examples highlight where your ability gather long chains of relevant behaviors will get interesting. But, get ready to pay for the privilege. As the gathering of data crosses formats and platforms (look into what Tivo and cable companies are proposing) consumers are going to become more and more aware that their data is being harvested and used to sell back to them. Expect grassroots consumer movements to arise that will demand compensation for the usage privilege. There is already chatter among the digerati about ‘Attention Economies’. Be prepared to do revenue shares or rebate programs in order to access people’s attention data in the future.

However, this should not cause you distress, because this signifies a ‘opt —in’ on the part of the user, which is generally a good thing for quality of data. As time progresses, users will also demand tools and access to data in order to allocate usage permission levels. In essence, the ‘Attention Economy’ will spawn a attention data management economy all its own.

Social networking, which I have written about ad nauseam, plays into all this only from the perspective of what SocNet and Social media have become. Namely, a set of features that are de facto included in most Web-based applications these days. These features encourage flocking and swarming behaviors which help to segment and identify affiliations and behaviors. Like most useful technologies, the ‘hype’ is finally wearing off of social media, allowing us to get down to the practical and useful applications.

Until next month, happy networking.

The tech news site Techmeme automatically updates itself with the latest tech news. Gabe Rivera, the site’s creator, has launched a new sponsorship model for the site. Instead of showing standard banner ads in the side bar, Techmeme lists the most recent blog posts from the blogs of three sponsors: oDesk, a company that helps connect businesses with IT professionals, Socialtext, a company that helps businesses wikis, blogs and other forms of social software, and Wink, a social search engine. The sponsored sidebar listings display the latest excerpt from each corporate blog post. When the sponsors update their blogs, the ad on Techmeme is automatically updated as well.

Pros — There are some obvious advantages to Gabe’s blog advertising method. The content is editorial, and much more engaging than an image of a flying monkey. A user who finds the ad interesting will not just click on it or forget about it. If the blog content is interesting, they may actually spend more time actually reading it. More time means better brand recognition. Rivera has wisely included each company’s logo in the ad.

Advertisers can also change content on-the-fly without having to learn any special interfaces or ad platforms. Since the ads on Techmeme acquire their content via each blog’s RSS feed, there’s no need for the advertiser to learn some fancy system for setting up their campaign. And if they have a corporate blog anyway, they don’t even need to expend energy developing a campaign for this or that ad platform. And when they need the ad to be updated with fresh content, they only need to post new stuff to their corporate blog.

Cons — Unfortunately with an advertiser-driven system, the publisher has less control over exactly what appears on their site. All banner content is controlled by the advertiser and is not first reviewed by the publisher. There’s no guarantee that what a sponsor posts on its blog will be something that a publisher will welcome on their site, or that visitors to will necessarily be interested in.

And since the ad’s content is pulled directly from the advertiser’s corporate blog, there’s no way for an advertiser to promote one thing through the ad and write about something completely different on the blog at the same time.

Needs Progress — Both parties need a way of measuring performance. I haven’t been able to talk to Rivera about this yet, but the hyperlinks in the sponsored blog section of Techmeme don’t contain any of the click-tracking information you find with other forms of sponsored link advertising.

Online advertisers are spoiled. Unlike TV or print advertisers, they’re not satisfied with statistical estimates. They need to know exactly how many people clicked where, how many actions were performed, how many new subscribers were gained, etc. and they want to know it all in real-time, minute-by-minute. At the same time, publishers need to know if they’re charging a fair price for placement.

“The ’10-foot’ interactive viewing environment is largely unexplored space, but it’s a huge opportunity in terms of advertising effectiveness and consumer engagement, which are top priorities for all our clients,” said Omnicom Media CEO Daryl Simm in a statement.

Omnicom and Intel will be hashing out ideas for “10 foot” ad templates that will contain interactive elements specially tailored for viewing in the living room. They’ll be using AOL’s 10 foot AOL Video service as a starting point. Both Intel and Omnicom are interested in bringing other partners onboard, and the companies want the standards they’re developing to be open and useable by all.

Earthcomber’s method transmits ads only if the user has stated an explicit preference for the product or service, as advertisers cannot legally transmit messages to mobile consumers without their permission. Along with being a key enabler for mobile advertisers, like directory publishers, the patent is expected to provide a foundation for social networking on mobile devices since users can be alerted about nearby friends or people with common characteristics.

“Personalization and privacy have become so important to mobile users,” said Jim Brady, founder and CEO of Earthcomber LLC. “With our approach, users build profiles to suit their preferences — essentially a ‘DNA’ of all your personal tastes and interests. Then, when you do a search, you get back only those things nearby that match your preferences.”

He added that, “Our approach transforms mobile search into a positive environment in which buyers and sellers connect for mutual benefit.”

The methodology is featured in Earthcomber’s location-based personal navigation suite for Palm OS, Windows Mobile Pocket PC, and Java-capable cell phones and PDAs.

According to Moore, the life cycle contained gaps between these phases, attributable to dissociations between adjacent groups. The gap between the “early adopters” and the “early majority” was so significant that it was labeled a “chasm.” If a marketer loses momentum trying to cross the chasm, it can mean the difference between success and failure for the product.

Innovation and Media Adoption
Because technology innovation underlies many of today’s emerging interactive media, it follows that the technology adoption life cycle applies to media adoption as well. An important difference, however, lies in the value proposition to the end user. Technology products and services often result in productivity benefits for the end user. While interactive media can provide productivity benefits, the value proposition is multi-dimensional.

Consider, for example the vast amount of online information at our fingertips. Search engines help us gain access to this content in an efficient manner. But the Internet, and other media segments built on its infrastructure – blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, short videos, and music downloads – provide entertainment and communication as well.

With technology products, marketers receive some assistance from change agents standing at the edge of the chasm. They are drawn there by economic opportunity, and they are willing to place a bet that a product is worthy of mass adoption. With software, this can be value-added resellers and consultants, who promote the product to clients and become experts in implementation. With hardware, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) leverage a component’s benefits and package it into new and improved products of their own.

If an emerging media succeeds at crossing the chasm, advertisers know the “majority” by a different name. We call it “audience.” And sometimes we’re willing to place a bet on a successful chasm-crossing in advance, so that we’re well positioned to scale our advertising programs when mass adoption hits.

New Media Change Agents
Just like there are change agents that help technology marketers cross the chasm, the economic opportunity draws individuals and companies to the banks of the new media chasm. These are the early adopters who are willing to place a bet that a media will be successful. They adopt it themselves, learn all about the key benefits, understand barriers to adoption, and help shape the media for advertiser adoption. As advertisers peer across the chasm at emerging media, these new media evangelists assist in several ways by:

• Defining the type of messaging that’s appropriate for the media
• Determining how the messaging will be delivered
• Aggregating the media to create scale sooner, rather than later

The new system will let advertisers and content owners embed WAP Internet addresses into printed barcodes. Consumers with camera phones can then simply snap a picture of the barcode and link directly to a WAP site. ConnexTo uses a new type of code, called mCode, designed specifically to be read by camera phones and mobile devices.

“We are excited to be working with iLoop Mobile. They have terrific clients and technology to deliver content,” said Nextcode CEO Jim Levinger in a statement. “By integrating our ConnexTo technology with their systems, we can improve the user experience making it faster, easier and more fun for consumers.”

Nettwerk Music Group is the first company to use the new technology, and is placing Nextcode images in promotional advertising, in-store advertising, and tour posters for the band Barenaked Ladies. When a consumer snaps a photo of one of the Nextcode images, they’re taken directly to the Barenaked Ladies iLoop-hosted mobile Internet site, where they can view band-related news and purchase mobile-only content.