In Nielsen’s latest three screen report, we find that more and more Americans are using TV and the internet at the same time.  Multitasking has not cannibalized TV viewing.  In fact, TV viewing increased by over 1 hour when comparing Q4 ’09 to Q4 ‘o8.  Those in the Media and Entertainment C-Suite are resting much easier now that concerns about cannibalizing TV have been mitigated – so much so that cross-platform efforts are being accelerated.

ESPN has launched XP to track the 2010 FIFA World Cup.  (Sounds a lot like an operating system we all love to hate but stands for cross-platform in this context.)  ESPN XP seeks to examine consumer behavior across all media – TV, Internet, radio and print.

Nielsen is one of ESPN’s key partners for XP and will provide several measurement and research services to power ESPN XP insights.  Nielsen Life360, a service that provides a “day in the life” snapshot of consumer habits and attitudes via electronic journals, will follow what consumers are doing as they watch the 2010 World Cup.  Nielsen will provide linear TV ratings as expected and the Nielsen Online unit will provide TV/Internet multitasking usage insights via a panel of more than 10,000 consumers.

ESPN realizes that over 50% of users are using TV and some other media platform.  That is more than double the rate from 5 years ago and ESPN’s cross-platform users make up nearly 75% of all time spent with ESPN.  ESPN plans to refine XP to become a standard metric they will share with advertisers so that it can be considered cross-platform currency.  Many media companies will watch with great interest as ESPN tries to define a cross-media metric that extends across multiple franchises like College Football and Monday Night Football.  Nielsen will have a key seat at ESPN’s table to extend their TV currency into a new medium.

comScore has been making moves to expand their portfolio beyond web audience measurement.  They purchased M:Metrics in 2008 to enter mobile measurement and most recently acquired ARS in February 2010 to expand into measuring advertising effectiveness .  In addition, comScore deepened their bench strength by hiring Joan FitzGerald to head up cross-platform measurement.  The charter of the group is to track consumer interaction across the “three screens” – computers, mobile phones and TVs.  comScore certainly has been assembling the pieces to execute a cross-platform measurement portfolio.

In order to be considered media currency, I contend that the source needs to be the primary source (or one of a very small handful) used to determine audience and/or firm value (See Arbitron in the radio market and Nielsen in the TV market).  I’ve taken a look at comScore mentions in online news publications over the past few days to indicate what the market says about comScore as a source of media measurement across platforms. We will focus on 5 key areas – Web Audience Measurement, Search, Mobile, Social Media and TV/Video to assess comScore’s status as media currency.

Web Audience Measurement – A Techcrunch article suggested that Facebook has eclipsed Google as the most visited property on the web but Hitwise was credited as the source.  comScore data was then used to refute the claim since comScore uses reach to measure audience share rather than share of visits.  comScore is one of the key sources media buyers and planners use to assess reach.   Therefore, comScore is one of the key players in audience measurement.

Web Audience Measurement Currency: Yes

Search - comScore recently released reports showing 46% growth in the 2009 global search market as well as February 2010 Search Engine Rankings.  comScore’s search engine market share reports are widely used and generally accepted by Wall Street.  While there are other sources of search engine market share data, Wall Street’s reliance on comScore’s qSearch and comScore’s  effect on stock price of search engines meets the currency criteria.

Search Currency: Yes

Mobile - Reports on handset market share use data from many different providers including comScore.  comScore’s methodology is slightly different that Strategy Analytics for example and leads to different conclusions. comScore measures ownership whereas Strategy Analytics measures shipments.  Shipment data is also forecasted by IDC and iSuppli as well.  We won’t go in to the specific of the reports here but there is some confusion about the appropriate way to measure mobile market share.  Given the numerous sources for data that are used to determine firm value for key players in the ecosystem I wouldn’t consider comScore a primary source here

Mobile Currency: Not Yet

Social Media – comScore measures the audience size of social networking sites but does not measure campaign effectiveness of the channel directly.

Social Media Currency: Not Yet

TV/Video – comScore is widely quoted as a source for online video rankings data.  As TV becomes more tightly integrated with online video, there is an opportunity for comScore to challenge Nielsen for TV measurement dominance.  However, that seems to be a long way off and Nielsen is not going to cede that territory without a fight.

TV/Video Currency:  Not Yet

Hybrid Measurement Controversy:   comScore recently released a hybrid measurement product to combine web publisher internal web analytics data with audience measurement panel data.  The goal here is to bridge the nearly threefold difference in unique visitor counts when comparing internal numbers from Omniture or Google Analytics to panel numbers from comScore.  In order to use the comScore solution to close the traffic gap, publishers have to pay $5-10K to have their traffic “hybridized.”  Jason Calcanis compared comScore’s approach to hybrid-measurement to Payola.  Others consider it to be found traffic since internal numbers combined with internal panel numbers generally produce higher overall web audience numbers. This Wall Street Journal article on counting web traffic is great background for understanding the key elements of the issue.

Summary: Key Player in Web Audience Measurement and Search.  Up and Coming in Mobile, Social Media and TV

Web publishers are competing  for advertising  dollars based on audience scale and the ability to articulate audience insights.  Achieving audience scale by itself is no longer enough.  Advertisers are beginning to move dollars from traditional media into interactive media because of the promise of measurability.  This promise hinges on collecting, analyzing and synthesizing data about consumers.  The more web publishers can tell advertisers about how their audience consumes content including their purchase intent, the more dollars will flow into the web.

The race to control collection of audience data is on.  Facebook has changed its privacy policy to begin mining personal interests to unlock insights from a massive behavioral database.  Apple and Google have taken the gloves off in the war to track user behavior gleaned from mobile phone usage.  Media and Entertainment companies have to ensure that they are not caught flat footed in this battle to present audience insights to advertisers, ceding control to portals and social media communities.  Data analysis and analytics is at the heart of this war.

In order to demonstrate value to advertisers, web publishers must be able to translate internal and external data into currency.   Currency is the medium of exchange that connotes value and is generally accepted as a measure of that value.  This is where the problem begins in the world of data – there really is no single metric (currency) that is generally accepted or suggests  value.    To further complicate matters, there are multiple vendors who are vying to provide the currency of data.   To provide a thumbnail sketch of the myriad of options available,  I’ve listed a few in each of the key categories below:

Reach:  3rd Party Verification of Web Publisher Audience Size  (Audience Measurement)

• comScore
• Nielsen
• Quantcast

Internal Metrics: Traditional Web Analytics or KPI Providers (Engagement/Reach)

• Omniture (Adobe)
• Google Analytics
• Coremetrics
• Webtrends

Offsite Engagement:  Social Media Engagement

Site Tools

• Facebook Insights
• Youtube Insights

3rd Party Tools

• Radian6
• Jive Software (Filtrbox)
• Mzinga
• Attensity
• Nielsen BuzzMetrics

I will take a look at each of the aforementioned areas for measurement – Reach, Internal Metrics/Web Analytics and Social Media Measurement – over the next several posts.  My goal with this series is to help web publishers, especially Media and Entertainment companies, leverage the best tools in each category to transform data into insights and ultimately into currency.

I’ve gushed about my love of The Cheesecake Factory before (Sorry Chef Chang) and I have a new found appreciation for how they operate.  In spite of the terrible economic environment for casual dining restaurants, The Cheesecake Factory continues to outperform the likes of Applebee’s and Chili’s yet The Cheesecake Factory is in the higher end of the casual dining spectrum.  The average menu price is also more than Applebee’s or Chili’s.  How does the team at Cheesecake Factory do it?  Here are the three methods they use to deliver value and drive business results at the same time.  They will work for your business too:

1. Pay attention to competitors and out innovate them.  In March, several restaurants offered cheap eats to increase foot traffic and sales.  The Cheesecake Factory was one of the few that succeeded in driving sales.  Instead of discounting existing entrees with a 2 for $20 style promotion, they launched a new menu called “snacks and small plates” that was designed to be combined to create an entire meal.  This tapas-like menu had been in the works for prior to the economic downturn according to company CMO Mark Mears.

2.  Offer customer choice without damaging the brand.  The Cheesecake Factory approach to providing consumer value enhanced the existing brand.  They created a new set of items that appealed to budget conscious consumers without cannibalizing sales from existing entrees.  The Cheesecake Factory experienced an increase in the average check size after introducing snacks and small plates as consumers spent more on drinks and of course cheesecake to accompany their “value meals.”  This is one of the reasons that Cheesecake Factory enjoys an impressive $10 million in revenue per location.

3.  Leverage social media to offer value while building loyalty.  The Cheesecake Factory is promoting Twitter and Facebook to build connections with its fans.  This helps to reduce customer acquisition costs by using loyal Cheesecake Factory fans to promote Cheesecake Factory messages.  During Cheesecake Factory’s “12 Days of Cheesecake”, they were able to increase the follower base from 2500 to 5000 in the space of a few weeks through a retweet contest.   While Cheesecake Factory’s Twitter efforts are just beginning, they have invested in Facebook over 250K Facebook fans.

To get 2010 off to a great start, take a page out of The Cheesecake Factory recipe book for success.

• See what what your competitors are doing and do it better
• Make sure what you do to match your competitors efforts to meet customer demand fits your brand and delivers bottom-line results
• Experiment with social media to lower your customer acquisition costs and build customer loyalty by giving your customers something in return for delivering your message

Happy New Year.  Have a piece of cheesecake!!!

1.  Write about what you love – Content drones and robots cannot write engaging content.  If you write dry as toast content, no one will want to read it no matter how many great keywords and tags you use to get people there.  This is critical for small business owners.  Your differentiation is you and the more “you” that comes across the better unless of course you’re a jerk.

2. Write often – Kurt no you didn’t just say that with months between blog entries.  Ok so this a bit of a case of do what I say not what I do but it’s true.  The more you write , the more you will emerge in your writings and guess what?  Google likes content depth so you will have an opportunity to develop a content library that will have value to you, your readers and Google.

3.  Make your content multimedia rich – Get a still camera, get a Flip HD video camera and an iPhone.  Visit Flickr for some new images.  Do something new and innovative.  The same text-heavy dead sea scroll length content won’t get it done.  Make your prose come alive.

4.  Study the marketplace and uncover emerging trends before anyone else – Stay ahead of the pack by anticipating what is going to be hot before the embers catch fire.  This will enable you to create authority and expertise in the marketplace through first mover advantage.   When I research trends, I use as many sources as possible.  There is an exhaustive list of tools to use on trendwatching.com that I won’t reproduce in full so here are the top  sources I think are the most valuable:

• Papers, websites, mags, blogs, books, news, newsletters
• Alerts, Search Query Volume (Google)
• Seminars, fairs, trade shows
• Customers, clients, colleagues, friends, family
• Competitors, Start ups

If you spot new trends reliably, you will become indispensable to your audience and Google will reward you as well through improved ranking as influential sites begin to link to you.

5.  Study sites and blogs with content soul – My favorite web personality/blogger/content creator example to point to is Gary Vaynerchuk.  He is sometimes a bit over the top but his content has soul and exudes passion.  Take a lesson from Gary – pick you niche and blow it out.  Gary provides great content and is a master of promoting content using social media.  Study his sites winelibrary.tv and garyvaynerchuk.com and apply them to your business.

Source:  Magna Insights

A couple of weekends ago, I had the pleasure of speaking on a panel that explored the future of the music business with some great company:

• Marcus Johnson, Billboard chart-topping jazz artist and label owner
• Fred Cannon, SVP, Government Affairs at BMI
• Julian Haffner, Partner, Richa Haffner Entertainment Law

We discussed the dizzying changes in the music landscape over the past 10 years, illustrated by the chart above.  Napster paved the way for the Apple iPod/iTunes ecosystem which forever changed the retail music landscape.  Much of the damage was created because artists and music companies did not react swiftly enough to advances in distribution technologies, platform and evolution in consumer behavior.

So how does an artist or any music business adapt to this new ecosystem with new retailers (Apple, Amazon, etc), new venues (Pandora, Last.fm) and social network evolution (MySpace, iMeem, Facebook?

Fred Cannon said it best at our panel – 1) Add value for your audience 2) Control your content

Many artists are satisfied with leaving distribution up to someone else while working on his or her craft.  This could include signing with a label, working with marketing and promotions firm to create virtual street teams on the web in MySpace or Facebook.  These are great things to do but it must all start with the artist’s brand.

Rohit Bhargava has a great post on the importance of personal branding that summarizes this quite well that works in this context as well since an artist’s music and the personhood of the artist are inextricably linked.  An artist’s brand exists outside of albums, CDs and mp3s.   Successful music businesses (great music is no longer sufficient to have a great career) must be about a relationship with fans independent of social networking sites, retailers and physical venues.

A digital hub/website that is an extension of the artist and brand that is under the control of the artist is essential to surviving the changes in the music landscape.  This website should have the ability to delight fans through delivery of content, first-look at exclusive merchandise and anything that extends the relationship between fan and artist for mutual benefit.

Judging by the dizzying rate of growth of Twitter and Facebook over the past several weeks and months, general web users, and in particular small businesses, are embracing social media.  Not to be the voice of doom and gloom but what happens if Twitter and Facebook disappear? While that is not likely, what is likely is that Twitter and Facebook will look radically different in 12-18 months.  Why? Both entities need to innovate to continue to be market leading social network services (SNS) and more importantly, they need to find a sustainable business model.  Facebook needs another cash infusion and is having difficulty securing it.  Twitter is helping third-parties like Comcast, Zappos and Dell streamline customer service but does not yet have a way to directly monetize its platform.  So while we are enjoying the free ride today, it may not last.  Somebody has to pay for the  servers, storage and bandwidth – either advertisers or users.

How do you take advantage of the growth of social networks while protecting yourself from shifting business models and implementations?

1.  Maintain An Online Hub for Your Digital Self - It is critical to have an online home for your content, your brand and your products that you own.  Use social media sites as outposts and use your website/blog as your online headquarters.

2.  Use Facebook and Twitter As Spokes – Leverage these growth engines to hone your ideas, do market research, market your brand and acquire new users.  Make sure that whatever you do points back to your online hub.  Use these sites to provide sampling/teasers to pay off at your hub.  This strategy will work when the next Facebook or Twitter competitor emerges.

3.  Create A Conversion Event on Your Online Hub – Continue to move users down the awareness-consideration-purchase (action) funnel when they get to your site.  Promote registration to a newsletter in exchange for an email address.  Determine the action that gets the user closer to driving revenue while providing value in return.

I’ll elaborate further on the 3 control techniques above in future posts.  Until then, no social networking presence takes the place of your own online hub.   Use Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and LinkedIn to your heart’s content.  Just make sure you understand why you are using them and how you will know if your goals are being met.

In the midst of some recent research on the online food and recipes marketplace, my low blood-sugar filled brain cells became fixated on cheesecake.  Strawberry, Cookies and Cream, White Macadamia Nut, Chocolate and Peanut Butter.  If my local Cheesecake Factory wasn’t so far away, I would be finishing this post from there.  Their menu has all kinds of good stuff in it, including a story on how it was founded.

Evelyn Overton began her road to cheesecake fame in the 1940s.  She opened a small cheesecake shop in Detroit but soon closed it to focus on raising her children.  She didn’t let her commitment to family stop her dream.  She continued to perfect her recipes and supplied cakes to well-known Detroit eateries.   In 1971, when she and her husband Oscar entered their 50′s , they moved to LA using the last of their savings to open a 700 square foot store.  The rest as they say is Cheesecake Factory history.

I love this story because it has universal truths and maxims for business owners trying to make it big.

• Overnight success is rare.  Evelyn Overton’s dream was deferred for 2o+ years.   Don’t expect your business to blossom instantly.  It takes time
• Passion is critical to success.  Evelyn balanced her passion for family and food rather than following one at the exclusion of the other.  Try to combine and balance your life’s passions to carve out a unique niche.
• Performance comes from refining your product.  Evelyn used her time raising her kids to perfect her recipe and study her marketplace. Starting small to perfect your product and positioning in the market is critical.  Never settle for stopping at version 1.0
• Supportive friends and family will fuel you:  Oscar (Evelyn’s husband) and David (Evelyn’s son) were key members of the Cheesecake Factory braintrust.  Go find people among your family and friends that believe in you and your dream.  You will need them.

My experience as a founder of a small business and work with friends and family attest to the truth of  the keys in the Cheesecake Factory story.  Go get a slice of cheesecake and read the menu again.  As those calories course through your veins, study the story and learn something that transcends that delightful cheesecake.  Business success takes time so make the most of your time to enjoy the journey.

• Google:  This one is pretty obvious.  Chances are that your enemy is using this too.  Find out who owns the keywords, terms and phrases critical to your business.
• Daylife:  This is a news aggregation service that allows you to search on topics and keywords.  Very helpful to get a handle on the recent articles featuring your enemy
• Compete.com:  Learn the growth trends in traffic to your enemy’s website(s)
• Twitter:   Sign-up and use the search feature at the bottom of the main page to see who is talking about your enemy in real-time
• Yahoo Site Explorer:  Find out who is linking to your enemy’s site to find potential partners or foes.  Enter the website address in the “Explore URL” box and click on “Inlinks” to get a sample.

You can even do this for your own site or brand if you have already launched your venture.

“If you know your enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.  If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.”

- Sun Tzu