New York, July 7 — Nielsen has announced organizational changes which will give set top box data greater visibility in the ratings company. In addition to announcing STB analyses from Charter systems in St. Louis, Greenville/Spartanburg, and Reno, Nielsen told clients about organizational changes designed to integrate STB data “formally within our existing audience measurement product leadership teams.”

The letter to Nielsen’s clients also announced that Matt O’Grady will be responsible for testing and incorporating STB data into Nielsen’s national and multi-platform products. Cheryl Idell will have integration responsibilities for local products.

Kantar (formerly TNS Media Research), Rentrak and TiVo have existing products and client bases already using these data. Rentrack’s Station Essentials product, using AT&T and Dish Network data, has been adding clients to its sec-by-sec no-demographics alternative to traditional NSI local market data. It’s not clear from the announcement if Nielsen is upping the ante or if they are just publicizing previous efforts.

The July 7 announcement was nuanced so as not to discredit the current local and national TV measurement services which serve all DMAs with a combination of people meters, household meters and paper diaries. “While STB data is incomplete on its own, we believe combining the stability and granularity afforded by this data with the representative quality of our panels will provide enhanced capabilities, analytics and insight,” says Nielsen’s Dave Thomas and Steve Hasker.

The new Nielsen tests will compare the ratings currency to STB data “to determine if the STB data can help supply greater fidelity to our ratings projections and enable more granular reporting, including to additional stations and regional networks.”

It’s Independence Day 2010 — and many of us aren’t feeling quite as independent as we did a few years ago. At least a million people will lose their unemployment benefits this week as their eligibility expires and the Senate failed to pass an unemployment benefits extension.

The pressures of meeting a mortgage, feeding a family, paying taxes and staying afloat are obvious. Valerie Menowsky says some of the other impacts and frustrations of being less than fully employed are less visible.

To those co-workers loudly proclaiming how many days they have left till they fly the friendly skies to alluring places far away…To those friends complaining about trying to find time to pack for their Caribbean cruise…To those neighbors who are “getting psyched” for their trip to Hawaii by wearing colored plastic leis to the grocery store…ENOUGH ALREADY!  You ‘vacationers’, you ‘cruisers’, you “I have to go shopping for clothes to pack” people are particularly annoying right now.

Especially to us, the underemployed, or people who don’t get any paid vacation because we’re part of a pool of workers defined as “involuntary part time workers.” (Statistics)  We’re either professional people working in survival jobs at a greatly reduced salary outside our expertise, working two or more jobs to make ends meet or would like to work a 40 hour week but can only find part-time jobs.  According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, almost 9 million people are employed part time for economic reasons because their hours were cut or they were unable to find a full time job. (Statistics) And to add insult to injury, Gallop reports that because we spend 36% less than employed workers or $48 per day instead of $75 we are negatively impacting economic recovery. (Marlar)

We’d be glad to pump money into the economy by purchasing airline tickets and new clothes for a vacation but most part time jobs don’t offer sick pay, health or vacation benefits so if we do take a few days off, we lose money which isn’t really the rest and relaxation we deserve.

So as millions of us suffer vacation envy as we watch you return all tanned and refreshed, please be grateful for what you have, take pity and don’t show us your pictures.  And we’ll greet your return as sincerely as we can with “I hope you had a nice time.”

Valerie Menowsky is an underemployed returning college student at the University of New Orleans.

Sources:  Gallup, Economic News Release/Employment Situation Summary (Statistics, Bureau of Labor).

by Dave Zornow

If you find yourself going online to learn what’s going on around town, you’re not alone. More Americans are using digital tools to complement face time with neighbors and friends to keep current on what’s up — downtown.

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, one in five adults (20%) used digital tools to talk to neighbors and keep informed about community issues. Online blogs about community issues (21%), emailing (9%) and texting (4%) with neighbors are some of the ways that we are now wired (sometimes wirelessly) to our communities.

Interactive marketing consultant Richard Dysinger says people use digital media to  communicate because it’s faster and easier. Although the average letter is read within a week of being sent, “the average text message is read within fifteen minutes of being sent and emails on average are read within 48 hours,” he says. “This level of immediacy coupled with a buffered level of intimacy is at the heart of the new age of communication.” It’s another example of how technology is shrinking the world — making small towns even smaller. “Digital media and social media have facilitated  communication across a vast virtual network. We have gone from six degrees of separation to three,” Dysinger says.

Pew reports that there’s still a place for conversations on the front porch or over the back fence: Almost half (46%) of all Americans talk face-to-face with neighbors about community issues. The phone is used by about one in five adults (21%) — about the same number who say they stay connected with digital connections.

What’s the message here? If you are trying to get the message out about a community issue or event — or even run for public office — word of mouth is still your best friend. But more and more words are being digitized for posting, emailing and texting across town as well as around the world.

This story was also cross posted at NyackNewsAndViews.com

Source: Neighbors Online, Pew Internet & American Life Project, 4/9/2010

At the 1964 World’s Fair, AT&T introduced a new product that combined the telephone and television into a surefire hit for businesses and consumers. Three million Picturephones were predicted to be in use by the 1980’s. Instead of Picturephones, we now remember the 80’s by a different cultural failure: disco music.

AT&T is estimated to have spent up to $500 million developing the Picturephone. Why wouldn’t you want to see the person to whom you were speaking? If facial expressions weren’t important, why did those thoughtful Internet pioneers invent all of those emoticons to express what words alone couldn’t do? AT&T failed partially because they charged $21 a minute for the bandwidth hungry picture phone in a pre-fiber, barely satellite communications age. Today we can do it for free via iChat or Skype — but even free hasn’t made consumers want to be heard and be seen.

Last week Google announced a new service which will join two commonly used communications technologies. Google TV will marry TV with search to improve the consumer experience and, in Google’s words, “change the future of television.” Anyone who has ever tried to use a remote control to text search a TV interactive program guide can see the possibilities of searching “all of your channels, recorded shows,  YouTube and other Websites” in one place.

Long before the industry anointed  “convergence” as the holy grail of media synergy, AT&T learned that consumers can be a fickle bunch. Google, a dominant communications company of the 21st century, might want to take a history lesson from AT&T, which was the largest communications company of the 20th century.

Google and their technology partners hope to sell new TVs (from Sony) or new HDMI-connectible set top boxes (from Logitech) to merge your desktop and set top digital words. Google TV Product Lead Rishi Chandra says Google TV will let viewers use the voice search feature of Android phones to query Google TV. NewTeeVee.com provided a play-by-play of the new service as demoed at the Google I/O conference. First, Chandra searched for live TV content and scheduled TV programming to program a DVR.

Then he searched for House, and Google TV returned search results Hulu, Fox.com and Amazon. Clicking on the Amazon search result led to the website of Amazon’s VOD service. The search bar can also be used to directly input urls and search saved bookmarks. “It’s just as easy to go to any site on the web as it is to go to any channel on your television,” says Chandra.

Google’s business model is to make money by bringing search to TV and extending the reach of advertising through Adwords. In an interview on the Fox Business Channel, Google CEO Eric Schmidt says that because Google TV seamlessly combines TV and computers, “we know a lot more about what people are doing and can make more relevant television advertising  — which should be worth alot of money.”

Will Google succeed where AT&T once failed and Apple TV and Microsoft’s Media Center have stalled? There’s only one way to end an article that talks about almost 50 years of TV and technology: Stay tuned.

Sources: DavidZondy.com, Porticus.org, Google TV, NewTeeVee.com, Digital Daily, Fox Business Channel, BobLucky.com

See Also: Engadget, timeline.com, BusinessInsider.com

Back when HBO was new and before ad supported cable hit its stride, a handful of UHF stations in major markets offered a subscription over-the-air TV service to compete with cable. Now a Silicon Valley start-up wants to dust off that business plan with a digital twist. The San Jose MercuryNews says

Sezmi’s service differs from those of traditional pay-television operators. Its customers get local broadcast channels via the public airwaves. But the company also relies on those airwaves, via deals with local broadcasters, to send pay-TV channels to its customers. It also plans to send on-demand and Internet programming to consumers via customers’ broadband connections.

The startup promises an integrated media experience, delivering broadcast, cable and select Internet sites (READ AS: YouTube) in one place managed with a DVR. They also offer 6,000 VOD titles, too.

There’s a free three month trial in LA and the SF Bay area. Southern California testers will see Comedy Channel, TNT and CNN but deals haven’t been secured yet for Bay area viewers.

The secret sauce to Sezmi is a small digital antenna called the  “Smart Reception System.” The company says “for the first time, advanced techniques used in other applications such as wifi and wireless have been applied to TV reception.” Translation: it’s a digital antenna in an enclosure which should cover 85 percent of LA. Maybe.

These features will make cable and satellite subs yawn as most of this has been done before. Except the price:$4.99 for basic service and $24.99 for premium channels. The gotcha is paying $300 for Sezmi’s proprietary equipment. You also can’t Sezmi unless you have a broadband internet connection — which means you are still most likely tied to an MSO or a Telco.

In May, 2008, USA Today reported that Sezmi  “is counting on phone companies, and perhaps also wireless carriers, to market the service as a bundle with Internet service.” The California beta tests suggest that plan may not panned out as telcos have aggressively pushed services like FiOS and U-Verse.

Sources: Sezmi, San Jose MercuryNews, Wikipedia, USA Today, 5/2008, Technologizer 11/16/09

See also: PC Magazine

Today’s announcement by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin that she will resign on July 26 caught media and pundits by surprise. Call me crazy, but her timing says more than her message.

Why would a widely-recognized publicity hound like Sarah Palin pick one of the quietest news cycles of the year to announce her impending resignation? And if she really had presidential aspirations, wouldn’t it be better to finish out her term as a very visible state governor — with an existing publicity machine — than return to private life?

Lots of people have run for president while serving out their gubernatorial terms. Doesn’t she run the risk of being called a quitter for resigning before her term is complete? A governor quitting in mid term is the political equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot (no NRA jokes intended). No politician would want to do that — unless they were trying to get out of Dodge, fast.

The AP weighed in with a little light headscratching. “Palin’s resignation, timed on the eve of the July 4 holiday when many Americans had already begun a three-day weekend, seemed designed to avoid publicity,” in their 7/3 story on the announcement.  Palin quickly called a Friday morning news conference at her home in Wasilla, Alaska allowing time for only a few reporters to be present. Security personnel prevented late press arrivals from attending the event.

The head of the Alaska’s Republican Party says Sarah wants to spend time campaigning for other candidates. Fair enough. But if that was true, wouldn’t you make that announcement next week for maximum exposure…and not on a getaway day for most of the national media? “That isn’t a reason. Seated governors just don’t resign in the last year of their term no matter,” Alaska State Representative Mike Hawker told the Anchorage Daily News. “There are a lot more questions than answers,” said the Anchorage Republican. “And until the governor chooses to reveal more of her motive here, it’s just one of those questions we will never know the answer to.”

The Huffington Post speculates that Sarah is trying to slip out of the Governor’s Mansion privately before a criminal probe becomes public.

Alaska-based reporter-blogger Shannyn Moore is hearing potentially more damaging revelations are to come. “For weeks the rumors of a criminal investigation against the governor have been brewing,” she writes. She spoke of the rumors with MSNBC’s David Shuster, saying the talk of a criminal probe into Palin has been circulating for six to eight weeks, and that today’s press conference seemed to be Palin’s effort at “damage control for news to come out later.”

The PoliticalCarnival says SBS, an Alaska building company, received a $13 million contract  from Wasilla when Palin was mayor to build a hockey arena, the most expensive construction project in the city’s history. According to the rumor, SBS supplied all of the building materials to construct the site of today’s news conference  — Palin’s Wasilla home. SBS is also a longtime sponsor of Todd Palin’s snowmobile team.

We wish Sarah the best. Without her, last year’s presidential election just wouldn’t have been the same. But something tells me we are going to be hearing from her again — very soon. And regrettably, not in a good way.

Sources: AP, Huffington Post, PoliticalCarnival, Anchorage Daily News

It’s the stuff from which Sci Fi is made. The Web Search-opoly, which has shook the bedrock of the advertising world, has invested in a company that can cause earthquakes. (Sort of. The investment is real, the earthquakes are a possibility)

What’s best is that Rule #6 of Google’s corporate philosophy is “you can make money without doing evil.” Larry Page and Sergey Brin, meet Lex Luthor and Dr. No.

It’s also about energy and using the heat of the earth to produce clean power without greenhouse gases or fragile geopolitical alliances. Google has invested $6.25 million in AltaRock Energy which plans to drill two miles below the surface to tap geothermal energy in a place about two hours north of San Francisco.

AltaRock hopes to use engineered geothermal systems to pump cold water below the surface to fracture rocks and create fissures. The water, heated under intense pressure, returns to the surface as steam used to turn electrical turbines.

However, the NYT did a little digging (I couldn’t resist) and found that a similar venture in Basel, Switzerland was shut down after it triggered man-made earthquakes which persisted for months after the drilling stopped. AltaRock says they aren’t sure that the Basel project caused the Swiss quakes although local officials in Switzerland are sure that they did.

Regarding geothermal energy, Google says we need “more aggressive government policies to help catch up to other nations, including expanded R&D funding, a national renewable portfolio standard, and reliable tax incentives.”

Here’s the pitch: Corporate greed vs. community need by do global gooders gone bad  at the cross roads of good intentions and the San Andreas fault. Wannabe script writers for History and Discovery Channels — are you listening?

Source: NYT, XConomy, GreenTechMedia, Earthetech

The undersecretary for the Bureau of Retirement On Key Entitlements says the former head of NASDAQ brings unique qualifications to the job. “We’re in bad shape,” says Les Funds. “By 2017, Social Security will be paying out more than we take in. We need someone with a ‘magic touch’ to grow the system while still allowing us to burn the candle at both ends.”

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that putting Madoff in charge of Social Security is either a publicity stunt or a good example of government learning from the private sector. Bloomberg told WNYC’s radio audience last January that “Madoff’s isn’t the biggest ponzi scheme ever. – that’s social security.” When asked to comment on today’s announcement, Bloomberg rolled his eyes and said he’s running out of political parties to quit.

Editor’s Note: This post was first created as a submission to the New York Public Radio outlet WNYC for a Satire Slam! on 4/28. It was selected as a semi-finalist in that competition.

The former administration wasn’t particularly good at accepting responsibility. Or going out of their way to communicate clearly.  Now there’s a new team in DC town. And they take their Internet seriously, as indicated by this recent post:

Housekeeping @ WhiteHouse.gov — RSS feeds repaired

If you subscribe to our RSS feed, you may have noticed a little hiccup recently having to do with multiple posts showing up in your feed reader. We’ve now corrected that problem and moving forward, it should be fine. If for some reason it continues for you please contact us.

If you don’t currently subscribe to WhiteHouse.gov content via RSS, take a look below at the options we offer — which include feeds for the blog, press office, and photo galleries, as well as podcast subscriptions.

It’s a big change from the former adminstration, which seemed to only employed high tech to snoop and spy.

In a surprise move proving her outstanding professional range, Jody Foster was elected to the Israeli Knesset in a close contest. In May she added leadership of the center-left Kadima party to her body of work including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe and Emmy-nominations as an actor, director and producer.

Just kidding. this is actually Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. But you had to look twice, right?