What was hot on the web this week? Get up to speed on the latest trends, news and services with some of our favorite new stories.
NBCOlympics’ Opening Ceremony Tape Delay: Stupid, Stupid, Stupid
While most of the world was watching the Opening Ceremony live, U.S. audiences were held hostage by NBC, which holds the rights to the games here. Rather than air the biggest event of the Olympics live as it happened, NBC decided to air the ceremony on a tape delay to garner more viewers.
At a time when online video and social media bring an air of immediacy to live events, tape delays seem a bit archaic. Not to mention, the @NBCOlympics Twitter account live-tweeted the event, with no apparent sense of the irony that its audiences couldn’t actually watch what it was describing. Instead of building excitement about the Games, all NBC ended up doing was frustrating its audience.
Read more here.
Revenue From Social Networks To Top $16.9bn In 2012, Advertising Alone Worth $8.8bn: Report
Social networks have already revolutionized the way we interact online, becoming the Internet itself for many. But the ‘Facebook Effect’ has gone beyond communication and is changing the way money is made on the web, with $16.9 billion set to be generated from social sites this year.
Gartner predicts that social media-based ad revenue will hit $8.8 billion this year. Social gaming – which doubled its revenue between 2010 and 2011 – is likely to fetch $6.2 billion, while subscription-based income is on target to tally $278 million.
Read more here.
Time to tune in: the Olympics will be live-streamed in HD on YouTube
For the first time in history, the Summer Olympics will be live-streamed in HD via YouTube, thanks to the tight partnerships among social media companies, traditional media companies and the International Olympic Committee.
To access the feed, go to the official YouTube Olympics page. With the new live recording features on the channel, you can see any part of an event you might have missed.
U.S. fans can also watch athlete interviews, get special tips from Olympic coaches and catch other behind-the-scenes content on the official YouTube channel of the U.S. Olympic Team.
Read more here.
Facebook’s Not the Only One Struggling With Mobile Advertising
Despite all the attention it gets, mobile advertising is still just a rookie in the industry, accounting for only $1.6 billion globally in 2011.
Compare that to the overall $498 billion global ad market and you might wonder what all the fuss is about. Even newspaper revenues, which hit their lowest mark in 60 years in 2011, were 129 times greater than those for mobile.
Investors, who calculate the value of a company based on how they think it will do down the road, see a future in which users are accessing Google and Facebook products and services more via mobile devices. Of the two, Google is doing the best; CEO Larry Page claimed a $2.5 billion run rate for mobile ads last October. Meanwhile, Facebook has offered mobile advertising for only a little more than a month.
Read more here.
