Aztec Media

USA Today - Focused Product Ads In Comedy Format Come To TV & Web

USA Today has an interesting article on how American Eagle Outfitters is planning on creating 'comedy' ads for their products in a 3 minute format for some TV shows, and then 'replay' them as content on the site in 5 minute formats.  A total of 12 episodes will be done.

The article also had some interesting stats on the current state of advertising, especially on the 12-25 year old demographic.

Podcast Catchup - Web 2.0, NAB, New Media Book

I really enjoyed VentureCast#21 that included reviews of Web 2.0, NAB, and an update on what is going on at Six Apart.

I also have to recommend Chris Gondek's Invisible Hand Podcast interview with Philip Meza about his book "Coming Attractions: Hollywood, High Tech, and the Future of Entertainment".

Some Search Market Stats - Google, Yahoo, Microsoft

An article in the business section of the San Diego Union-Tribune for Sat., May 5, 2007 had a pretty detailed summary of the recent news that Microsoft & Yahoo are reportedly in close negotiation to work together to combat Google's online advertising leadership.

The article sited the following from a research firm called eMarketer that I thought was interesting.  In 2006, for everly $100 spent in online advertising: Google got $25, Yahoo got $18, and Microsoft got around $7.  In addition, eMarketer is projecting that in 2007 Google is poised to raise their take of that $100 spent to $32.  Wow!

Pointers To New Wi-Fi Media Players

PC World for April 2007 had a round down of some current and near-future WI-FI enabled media players that competes with the Music Gremlin that I thought was interesting to note:

• SanDisk Sansa Connect with support for Zing
• iRiver (player name TBD) with support for Rhapsody
• Archos 604 Wi-Fi and the Archos 704 Wi-Fi
• Polaroid (player name TBD) with support for Polaroid's DEC1000 media server
• AOL (player name TBD) with support for Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo

The article also noted that Microsoft Zune has limited Wi-Fi features that could be opened up for more functionality.

Tech Watch: Seagate DAVE

Seagate's Digital Audio and Video Experience (DAVE) looks like an interesting mobile media player  on paper.  You can get see a video demo over at Gizmodo.

Core features: wirelessly share media via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi; storage up to 20-GBs; form factor of 3.5-by-4.7-by-0.5-inches; and an estimated cost of $150.