Best Buy Planning For DVD-Death with Movie
Download Service from Sonic

Best Buy and Roxio CinemaNow announced a partnership today that wil result in a whole new movie downloading service. It'll apparently be integrated into pretty much every web-enabled device Best Buy sells too, which is a good way of ensuring success.

The way Best Buy sees it, digital distribution is the way of the future--by 2012 the company's predicting it will be a "double digit percentage" of the money generated by home movie-watching. And while that figure covers anywhere from 10% to 99%--which is, shall we say, quite a width--it at least allows Best Buy to be confident in its predictions.

The service has not been named yet, but Best Buy is planning on installing compatible software on the devices it sells. Samsung and Sony have been mentioned as hardware providers. Pursuing a multiple-platform route to making the service work seems like an immediately sensible idea, since it frees Best Buy from having ties to just one provider. But one very big name is missing from the list of providers, and it might be a significant one: Apple. With rumors that Apple's interested in getting TV networks on board for a subscription model for TV shows through iTunes, iTunes' existing movie sales, and the relatively closed-platform status of the iPhone, it's hard to see Apple as anything other than a competitor to Best Buy's plans.

Best Buy does have one big advantage though: All those bricks and mortar stores. With big advertising in front of millions of consumers every week, it'll be able to launch the download service with a massive fanfare, getting it into the public consciousness very effectively. Sonic Solutions is also a sensible partner to work with, since it already runs Blockbuster's movie download system--which is obviously a competitor to Best Buy's plans.

And maybe, with declining DVD sales beginning to become ominous, this is the right time to start the enterprise off--or perhaps even a few years too late. Let's hope that Best Buy has more success in downloadable movies than Wal Mart and Hewlett-Packard did with their online movie service, now dead for nearly two years.

[Best Buy Brings On-Demand Entertainment to Its Customers Through a Broad Range of Consumer Electronics]

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Best Buy Planning for DVD-Death With Movie
Download Service From Sonic

Best Buy and Roxio CinemaNow announced a partnership today that will result in a whole new movie downloading service. It'll apparently be integrated into pretty much every Web-enabled device Best Buy sells too, which is a good way of ensuring success.

The way Best Buy sees it, digital distribution is the way of the future--by 2012 the company's predicting it will be a "double digit percentage" of the money generated by home movie-watching. And while that figure covers anywhere from 10% to 99%--which is, shall we say, quite a width--it at least allows Best Buy to be confident in its predictions.

The service has not been named yet, but Best Buy is planning on installing compatible software on the devices it sells. Samsung and Sony have been mentioned as hardware providers. Pursuing a multiple-platform route to making the service work seems like an immediately sensible idea, since it frees Best Buy from having ties to just one provider. But one very big name is missing from the list of providers, and it might be a significant one: Apple. With rumors that Apple's interested in getting TV networks on board for a subscription model for TV shows through iTunes, iTunes' existing movie sales, and the relatively closed-platform status of the iPhone, it's hard to see Apple as anything other than a competitor to Best Buy's plans.

Best Buy does have one big advantage though: All those bricks and mortar stores. With big advertising in front of millions of consumers every week, it'll be able to launch the download service with a massive fanfare, getting it into the public consciousness very effectively. Sonic Solutions is also a sensible partner to work with, since it already runs Blockbuster's movie download system--which is obviously a competitor to Best Buy's plans.

And maybe, with declining DVD sales beginning to become ominous, this is the right time to start the enterprise off--or perhaps even a few years too late. Let's hope that Best Buy has more success in downloadable movies than Wal-Mart and Hewlett-Packard did with their online movie service, now dead for nearly two years.

[Via Best Buy Brings On-Demand Entertainment to Its Customers Through a Broad Range of Consumer Electronics]

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What are BRIC ETFs

BRIC ETFs are exchange traded funds which invest in stocks associated with BRIC nations, which are Brazil, Russia, India and China. These are countries which are considered as the leaders of emerging economies because of steady and fast economic (GDP) growth in the past and are constantly exploring their high levels of natural/human resources. BRIC ETFs allow investors to passively benefit from this growth.

BRIC ETFs are excellent ways to diversify the investment portfolio. They are also believed to offer better returns than ETFs tracking NYSE and S&P; or American and European markets as a whole. Different BRIC ETFs may have different weightage for different countries; for example Claymore BRIC ETF (EEF) has the following allocation proportions - Brazil 46%, Russia 5%, India 13% and China 36%. Apart from tracking the securities traded in BRIC exchanges, many BRIC ETFs also track stocks of BRIC countries traded in American and European markets.

Many investors consider BRIC ETFs as an alternative way to profit when the dollar and US economy are weak. BRIC ETFs usually have higher expense ratios than traditional ETFs. They are also considered risky as the political climate of these nations can change drastically. The recent recession, which hit these economies too, has also raised some concerns over these economies. The decoupling theory of emerging markets, which stated these economies will grow independently, has also proved wrong so far.

NobleTrading.com Offers Online Stock Trading, Online Options Trading
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RFD-TV: How an Ex-Farmer Built a $25 Million
Media Empire for Rural America

COUNTRY BOY Patrick Gottsch, in the office of his Nebraska home, launched a cable network for people like him and personally green-lights every show. | Photograph by Brent Humphreys

How a scrappy ex-farmer from Nebraska built a TV channel for rural America. Hee Haw? Yeehaw!

Patrick Gottsch peers out the window of his rented private jet as it surges above the tree line. "That's our audience," says the squat, worn-faced founder of rural cable channel RFD-TV, pointing down toward the farms jigsawed together along the Iowa-Nebraska border. What people don't understand, he later adds, is that every one of those squares will generate roughly $300,000 this year.

For nearly two decades, coastal financiers and TV honchos laughed at Gottsch for thinking he could make money by broadcasting shows aimed at America's heartland. They were wrong. Those squares he was pointing out? There are hundreds of thousands of them. Today, Gottsch's networks, based in Omaha, Nebraska, reach 40 million homes in more than 20 countries. RFD, the most successful cable network you've never heard of, boasts a weekly aggregate audience of 11 million and is available through every major cable carrier in the United States. Gottsch's success demonstrates that while global media seems to be consolidating, consumer tastes are more diverse than ever -- and cable TV, like the Web, offers rewards for those who can discover and exploit new niches in the marketplace.

A former farmer and Chicago Mercantile Exchange broker, Gottsch, 56, hawked satellite dishes door-to-door in the 1980s. Customers often griped about a lack of rural programming. Westerns like Gunsmoke had become a rarity, overtaken by shows about urban cops or suburban housewives.

Vowing to serve his neglected neighbors, Gottsch launched RFD in 1988. It went bankrupt after a year. He plotted a relaunch during the 1990s, but investors dismissed it as lacking financial upside. When RFD finally returned in 2000, it was a one-man public-service not-for-profit, broadcasting "stuff that was embarrassing to put on," Gottsch says, including cattle auctions.

Today, RFD's more diversified lineup includes shows in four categories: agriculture (This Week in AgriBusiness), equine (Training Mules and Donkeys), entertainment (Big Joe Polka Show), and rural lifestyle (Ms. Lucy's Cajun Classroom). RFD offers advertisers, including General Mills and Geico, access to two underserved groups: the roughly 27 million U.S. households outside cities and towns, and the lucrative over-50 demographic. In other words, people like Gottsch. The median household headed by someone aged 55 to 64 earns well over $50,000 per year, above the overall national median. A McKinsey & Co. study predicts that, by next year, people over 50 will account for more than half of U.S. consumer spending.

But a channel built around shows such as Hee Haw -- its reruns are RFD's top-rated program -- has still been a tough sell to cable giants headquartered in Philadelphia and New York. Conglomerates such as Viacom, owner of MTV and Nickelodeon, use their massive leverage to negotiate their new channels into clogged lineups. Tiny RFD, armed with only market research and letters from potential viewers, until recently relied almost wholly on viewers who owned Dish Network and DirecTV satellite dishes.

Since going for-profit in 2007 -- after the Federal Communications Commission ruled that airing cattle auctions no longer qualified as public-interest programming -- Gottsch has been on a quest to broaden his audience. He leased a studio in Nashville, Tennessee, to create original shows, and hired veteran TV execs, including Ed Frazier, ex-CEO of Liberty Sports. And RFD inked a contract to simulcast radio host Don Imus's show. That helped close national carriage deals with Comcast and Time Warner. This past summer, RFD signed an agreement with Cox Cable, the last of the majors that didn't carry its programming.

RFD remains about one-fifth the size of mature networks such as country-music-focused CMT. In August, when reports of Imus's move to the even smaller but higher-profile Fox Business first surfaced, RFD ended its simulcast of his show. ("Don has done the job that we brought him on to do -- give RFD exposure to East Coast major cable companies," Gottsch says.) RFD's ad and subscriber growth have also slowed amid the economic downturn. RFD "is not necessarily a bad small business," says Erica Gruen, ex-CEO of the Food Network. "It's not a robust idea for a television network."

Gottsch has heard that kind of thing for more than 20 years and is responding as he always has: by trying to prove the naysayers wrong. He's adding staff and launching new programs -- a variety show hosted by country legend Marty Stuart debuted last winter and is a hit -- and networks, including Britain-based Rural TV. Later this year, he also plans to make good on promises of a rural-news department with bureaus in Washington, D.C., and London.

Gottsch expects Rural Media's sales -- 25% each from cable subscribers, advertisers, programmers, and ancillary revenue (subscriptions to RFD: The Magazine; ticket sales at its Branson, Missouri, theater) -- to be near $25 million this year. He also expects a profit, in spite of spending on new ventures. As the media industry moves toward an on-demand model via Internet and cable, enthusiast-focused networks like RFD could have an advantage. "Their content is ripe for where the world is moving," says Boston Consulting Group managing director John S. Rose.

Gottsch now spends most of his 16-hour workdays plotting RFD's expansion and savoring his minor miracle of a network. "We had to eat so much baloney for eight years, being told what a foolish idea this was and how it'd never get launched," he says. You could call it a vision thing, and it is: Gottsch says he simply saw a huge opportunity -- one that he feels that other TV execs are still ignoring. "When they travel between New York and Los Angeles," he muses, "are they not looking out the window of the airplane?"

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Ad Industry Fights Back at Bill That Expands
FTC's Power

The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) is calling out theFederal Trade Commission on a new bill that would expand its power to making iteasier for them to bring civil lawsuits and create new rules. The ConsumerFinancial Protection Agency Act passed in the House Energy and CommerceCommittee last Thursday, and is expected to pass in the House as well.

The FTC is beginning to more aggressively police the online space, having recently announced a new set of guidelines requiring bloggers to disclose the freebies and gifts that they write about.

Mike Zaneis, the vice president of public policy for theIAB, says certain provisions of the latest bill make it a "fast track vehicle forexpansion of the FTC" and calls it "Washington D.C. at its finest." He alsosays that while they expected the committee to pass the bill, the urgency forlobbying against the provisions is increasing.

In October,the IAB had already made an open call to the FTC to repeal bloggerrules, calling the extra rules imposed on blogger--and not those of traditionalmedia like TV--unconstitutional.

MediaPost even says that if the bill is passed, FTC ChairJon Leibowitz would essentially become an "internet czar," while Leibowitz toldthe energy and commerce committee the bill would help them fight fraud.

Supporters of the bill include groups like the ConsumersUnion and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, who are infavor of the FTC playing a bigger role in regulating online marketing andadvertising to protect consumers.

Current rules support industry self-regulation--are consumersreally so susceptible to fraud that we really need government regulation?

[photo via Ralph Alswang]

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Brand Booster 21 Day 2: Assembling Your Branding
TEAM

It is very important that if you are taking the time and effort to address branding, you assemble a small group that have a stake in your company’s success to play a role in the development of your brand. This way you will get opinion on your prand from different perspectives.We would suggest assembling a [...]

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Assembling Your Branding TEAM

It is very important that if you are taking the time and effort to address branding, you assemble a small group that have a stake in your company’s success to play a role in the development of your brand. This way you will get opinion on your prand from different perspectives.We would suggest assembling a [...]

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Watch the XPERIA X10's Rachael Interface in
Action

In case you missed it, the XPERIA X10 got official overnight. Besides the 1GHz Snapdragon processor and big 4-inch capacitive touch display, it's Sony Ericsson's beautiful Rachael interface sitting on top of Android that impresses. Take a look:

At the event, Sony Ericsson also said that the X10 is just the flagship in a new Android-powered range, and that the Rachael UI will also likely end up on its Symbian phones. Interrresting.

SlashGear points out what Engadget noticed, too: the software running on the pre-production handset shown overnight was sluggish because it's not yet optimized for the Snagdragon processor. That will no doubt change by the time the phone ships early next year. [SlashGear, ElectricPig, and Sony Ericsson]

XPERIA X10 SpecsCamera 8.1 megapixel camera Up to 16x digital zoom Auto focus Intelligent face recognition features Geo tagging Image and video stabilizer Photo and video light Send to web (photo and video upload) Smile detection Touch focus Video recording Recent shot trayMusic Album art Bluetooth stereo (A2DP) Media player Music tones (MP3/AAC) PlayNow TrackIDWeb Bookmarks Google search (from standby) Web feeds WebKit web browser Communication Sony Ericsson Timescape Speakerphone Vibrating alertMessaging Conversations Email Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync Picture messaging (MMS) Predictive text input Text messaging (SMS)Design Auto rotate Gesture control Picture wallpaper TouchscreenEntertainment 3D games Media browser Infinite button Video streaming Video viewing YouTubeOrganiser Alarm clock Calculator Calendar Flight mode Infinite button Office suite Phone book with dialer World clockLocation-based services A-GPS Google Maps Wisepilotâ?¢ turn-by-turn navigation* (free trial version) *The service may not be available in every market. For more information, go to www.sonyericsson.wisepilot.comConnectivity 3.5 mm audio jack Bluetoothâ?¢ technology Micro USB connector Synchronisation USB support Wi-FiPreloaded applications Sony Ericsson Timescapeâ?¢ Sony Ericsson Mediascape Sony Ericsson Home with clock widget Sony Ericsson Sync Android Marketâ?¢ Client Gmail Google Calendar Google Maps with Street View Google Media Uploader Google phone-top search Google search widget Google Talk Google Voice Search Network Location Provider Set-up Wizard YouTubeScreen 262,144 colour TFT touchscreen 4.0 inches 480 x 854 pixels (WVGA) Scratch-resistantAccessories In-Box: XPERIA X10 Battery Stereo portable handsfree8 GB microSD card Micro USB cable for charging, synchronisation and file transfer User documentationOptional: Hi-Fi Wireless Headset with FM Radio MW600 Car Charger AN300 Screen Protector ET902Facts Size: 119 x 63 x 13 mm Weight: 135 grams Phone memory: Up to 1 GB Memory card support: microSD Memory card included: 8 GB Operating system: Google Android Donut, version 1.6 Processor: 1GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon QSD8250Availability and versions Networks UMTS HSPA 900/1700/2100 GSM GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 UMTS HSPA 800/1900/2100 GSM GPRS/EDGE 850/900/1800/1900 Available in selected markets in Q1 2010Color Sensuous Black Luster White

In partnership with

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Googled, by Ken Auletta

"If we solve search," Google cofounder Larry Page told a class at Stanford in 2002, "that means you can answer any question. Which means you can do basically anything." Googled tells the story of the search rocket's relentless ambition and how it has upended every corner of the media business. Auletta creates an engrossing narrative from this clash between Google's engineering mind-set and old media's grip on the buggy whip of the status quo. Although Google appears indomitable, he identifies several potential Achilles' heels, from naïveté to arrogance to a chaotic management structure. And from the company's myriad initiatives, he hints that the most important to watch is whether Google can successfully monetize YouTube. If it can do so, then, as CEO Eric Schmidt says, "that's the creation of the equivalent of the CBS network in the 1950s." If not, we may remember it as the company's MySpace moment. -- DAVID LIDSKY

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 03 Read GoogledBy Ken Auletta

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The Double Opt-In Introduction

I'm sure everyone out there gets email intros. Someone who knows you sends you and someone you don't know an email suggesting you meet. I send emails like that a lot. I might send a half a dozen or more...

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tml

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