BARB announce rollout of web viewing meter. Following a trial project which ended in May this year, TV measurement body BARB will be rolling out a web TV viewing meter in 100 BARB panel homes during the second half of this year. BARB then plans to extend it to up to 1,100 homes during 2012, with around 2,500 people participating in the combined measurement process in a staged approach, to ensure that the existing quality of TV audience measurement and reporting is not compromised.

The announcement has been welcomed by the IPA, with Research Director Lynne Robinson calling it a significant step for the television industry.

In the online world of advertising, although Amazon has been selling ads for some time, they have been limited to ads on its own sites (such as Amazon itself and IMDB.) But news this week is that Amazon is partnering with the Triggit DSP.

Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal's "AllThingsD" carries the headline is that Amazon is creating an ad network– which perhaps undervalues the key differences between ad exchanges and ad networks; the technology of a DSP gives Amazon much clearer understanding of the value of its data and how it is being used. I've written here before about the value of Amazon's customer database, and I would expect to see this being just the first step by Amazon towards making the most of this locked-away value beyond on-site suggestions.

In a blog post, Twitter has announced that it has hit the milestone of 200 million tweets per day. As seems to be traditional when big numbers are announced, Twitter provide some real-world equivalents to help visualise what that means (along with some nice graphics and the top trending topics);

For perspective, every day, the world writes the equivalent of a 10 million-page book in Tweets or 8,163 copies of Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace. Reading this much text would take more than 31 years and stacking this many copies of War and Peace would reach the height of about 1,470 feet, nearly the ground-to-roof height of Taiwan’s Taipei 101, the second tallest building in the world.

Meanwhile, the company is facing more serious issues, as it is under investigation by the FTC for its business practices, apparently due to the way it is dealing with developers of 3rd party applications. This follows some interesting movements, as Ubermedia (a company that owns a number of Twitter clients) looked set to take advantage of Twitters "open" platform and potentially build their own business around users' end experience (for example, by selling their own advertising into users' Twitter streams, bypassing Twitters ad model.) This culminated when Twitter bought Tweedeck for $40 million- apparently in a defensive move against Ubermedia.

Another Twitter partnership is looking like it might be on shaky ground as its search deal with Google has expired. Google's "realtime" search has quietly disappeared, as the deal with Twitter to include Twitter results apparently expired on July 2nd. Although there is no official news on what Google plan to replace it with, it seems likely that it will involve the recently announced "Google+" social 'project'- perhaps tying users' own social connections to make more relevant Tweets appear in search listings? I'm sure we will see soon…

On the mobile side of things, a large patent portfolio has been up for auction in the US, where Google put forward a $4 billion bid… and lost. A consortium of six companies (Apple, Microsoft, RIM, EMC, Ericsson and Sony) won the auction of 6,000 Nortel patents and patent applications with a $4.5 billion bid. The auction (and partnerships) highlights the complexity of the mobile marketplace; the value of the smartphone market goes beyond simply selling handsets; patents on hardware and software are creating complicated deals between platform owners, and the value of patents alone can be more profitable than selling handsets- recent analysis at Asymco.com indicate that Microsoft make more money from Android than Windows Mobile.

Some interesting things have been happening in the world of mobile games– specifically with what must be one of the biggest mobile games ever; Angry Birds. Developer Rovio have already been learning interesting lessons about the mobile applications platform – apparently making over £600,000 a month from the free, ad-supported Android version (which followed the paid-for iPhone edition.) In a deal with Barnes and Noble announced this week, Angry Birds on the Nook e-reader platform will now include a location-based feature; play the game in a Barnes & Noble store, and gamers will get a free Mighty Eagle bonus…

If you don't know what the Mighty Eagle is, then you probably aren't one of the 75 million people who are spending 200 million minutes a day playing the game.) But you could always wait for Angry Birds the movie, which is apparently going to become a reality soon.

The mind boggles…

Online business continues to grow

Its a story that never seems to get old, but with a few reports published this week looking into different areas of growth of online business, it seems worth the occasional reminder that digital is still growing.

Firstly, the Global entertainment and media outlook from PwC outlines an expected growth of digital's share of all entertainment & media spending from 26% to 33%.

For the UK, PwC forecast a 4.8% increase over the next 4 years to £17.7 billion, with a rise of 11.2% for the online market (the only segment to be forecasted double digit growth.) However, although search advertising has previously been the main driver for the UK's online growth, social media and classified advertising are expected to be the source of the next wave of digital expansion.

Consumer spending on media and entertainment is expected to show slower growth of 2.7%, to hit £32.7bn by 2015, with £9.2bn being spent on accessing online media.

(Figures reported by NMA.co.uk)

Meanwhile, the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail index reported that online consumer spend in May was up 18% on last year to £5.3bn – equating to an average spend of £85 per person, with a total of £27.5 billion spent by consumers this year so far. By omitting travel (with "big ticket" spending in categories such as travel, electrical and home & garden still seeing the impact of the recession), an even more impressive growth of 21.5% is reported.

A similar report from the Office of National Statistics (PDF link) claims that ecommerce now accounts for 9.4% of the total retail market (excluding automotive fuel), up from 7.4% last year and 8.5% in April.

Guardian goes "Digital First"

But that's not to say that everything touched by digital turns to gold, as the chief executive of Guardian Media Group announced £33m in losses for last year, as while readership is moving online, revenues aren't following at the same pace, saying that they could run out of cash in three to five years if the business operations did not change.

The group is now committed to a "digital first" strategy, aiming to double digital revenues to nearly £100m by 2016. Editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger said that an "open" digital philosophy would be embraced, bringing in contributions from beyond the ranks of its own journalists.

The move indicates that the Guardian doesn't believe that the decline in the print edition can be stopped or reversed, with Miller saying that "All newspapers will ultimately exit print, but we’re putting no timeframe on that.", and Rusbridger saying that "Every newspaper is on a journey into some kind of digital future. That doesn't mean getting out of print, but it does require a greater focus of attention, imagination and resource on the various forms that digital future is likely to take."

But rather than abandon the physical product, the newspaper could expect to see a redesign, aiming to be "as relevant at 9am as 9pm" and aiming to emulate "Newsnight not News at Ten."

ICANN opens new opportunities for web domain names

Top Level Domain Names (the last part of web addresses- ".com", ".org", ".int" etc.) have, until now, been intended to refer to either the geographic location of the web services, or provide information about the sort of services on offer (for example ".gov" indicating a US governmental agency, ".biz" indicating a business, ".mobi" indicating a site for mobile devices etc.)

ICANN – the body that oversees the management of internet names and addresses – have changed the system, allowing "groups" to create top level domains in any language or script.

What this means is that – in theory – large corporations (with $180,000+ to spare) will be able to set up a top level ".google" or ".msn" domain for their own use. What is more likely is that we will see more useful naming systems- so perhaps in a few years, you will get Premiership football updates from "premiership.sport" or "football.news", listen to music from "itunes.music", or find a nearby restaurant at "london.food" or "food.london". (Maybe you will end up finding us at "emergingspaces.media" – unless we can find the cash for "emerging.spaces"…)

ICANN have published a full guide (PDF link) to how the new system will work, and there is a useful 9 things you need to know post over at Mashable.com.

Mobile applications for catch-up TV

An ITV Player Android application has been launched, giving mobile access to ITV's catch-up TV services. Available across all Android 2.2-compatible devices, the app is free, although ITV haven't ruled out micropayments for content in the future.

With similar apps expected for Apple tablets and smartphones later in the year, this follows releases earlier this year of mobile applications for iPlayer and 4OD.

4OD's application is currently free, carrying sponsorship from Heineken, but it is understood that the long term strategy is to provide access for a one-off payment.

iPlayer is free for UK users but also this week, the BBC announced the first stage of a global rollout would begin with Western Europe. (Source: NMA.com) The international iPlayer would be a "different proposition" to the UK version– instead of serving as a catch-up service for broadcast TV content, the iPlayer will be the only way of accessing BBC content, which will be available for a monthly subscription of "less than £6", with a definitive amount yet to be announced.

Disclosure: Heineken is a Starcom MediaVest Group client.

Facebook, iPad Apps and HTML5

A year since the launch of the iPad, and still no official Facebook iPad app- even though the iPhone app was ready as soon as the App Store opened.

Apparently, not for long though. According to a New York times report, an official Facebook iPad app is understood to be in the final stages of testing- although the official word from Facebook is "nothing to announce now."

But there is some interesting discussion going on around Facebook's future involvement with native apps for iOS devices.

TechCrunch has reported about a project at Facebook going under the codename "Project Spartan", aimed at building a web application in HTML5, targeted at Mobile Safari users. Like the FT app we noted recently, the web app would bypass Apple's App Store, creating a platform that Facebook would be able to build on without having to follow Apple's rules and guidelines.

This highlights some important shifts that are going on with online platforms. As a platform owner, Apple are in control of what goes onto iOS– whether that is the recently announced integration with Twitter in iOS5, or the Apps that are allowed in the App Store.

But Facebook are a software platform– developers can build applications that work within Facebook. For their platform to work effectively across both desktop and mobile devices, they need to have control over it. On the technical front, this means that applications that work within Facebook need to be able to work on all sorts of devices– including ones that can't/won't/don't support technology like Flash (which appears to be the main drive behind the Spartan project.)

Another post over at Techcrunch suggests that Facebook's PR is none too happy about the news being broken, suggesting that Apple aren't aware of what a Facebook platform that bypasses Apple's App Store might be able to offer. Because if Facebook want to develop features like Facebook Credits which allow for payments within Facebook, then they will need to either figure a way to operate within Apple's guidelines (which includes Apple's 30% cut of in-app payments), or find an alternative way of reaching users of Apple's applications.

Perhaps Apple won't mind payments made in Facebook credits (provided Facebook don't directly sell them within the application.) But it seems a safe bet that Facebook won't want to be building all their future plans on assumptions of what Apple might or might not allow– both now and in the future.

New York Post blocks iPad users from website

But Apple aren't the only ones who can control what goes onto their platform– as a surprising story from the US shows, where the New York Post is apparently blocking iPad users from accessing their website.

Although access to the site is free to web browsers on the desktop and other mobile devices (including the iPhone), iPad users attempting to visit the site (either the homepage, or following links posted elsewhere) will see a message asking them to download the iPad application from the App Store – and pay either a subscription of $6.99/month or $74.99/year to access the content.

Currently, iPad users can still use a browser other than Safari (the iPads default) to access the website– or use an alternative device. We can only assume that this is not a strategic decision in itself, but simply a step towards the implementation of a full paywall strategy and other devices will see similar blocks as soon as alternative applications are in place.

Apple reveal WWDC topics

Apple announced an outline of its annual Worldwide Developers Conference Keynote speech next Monday. Although it is unusual for Apple to pre-announce the content of a keynote speech, the announcement was doubly unusual in that it also contained the name of a new product; "iCloud". Expectations for the service are running high, with speculation ranging from a free offering similar to MobileMe (released at the same time as the iPhone, but to a considerably less enthusiastic response), a web-based iTunes (with Apple reportedly having signed 3 of the 4 major music labels, with Universal close to finalising a deal), Twitter integration, an online storage service – and many more theories beside.

With updated versions of the iPhone & iPad operating system iOS5 and the eighth version of Mac OSX, it is expected that iCloud will be deeply embedded in Apple's various products' software platforms.

The keynote itself will be presented by Steve Jobs; another surprise, since he announced a medical leave of absence earlier this year. Despite updated iPhone versions being announced at around this time of year since the original 2007 launch, new hardware is not expected to be among Apple's announcements.

Apple also announced that it's iWork suite of office applications (already available on the iPad) are now available on iPhone.

Google Wallet

Google have announced "Google Wallet", a mobile-based service which will allow users to use their phones as payment systems.

Google claim that;

In the past few thousand years, the way we pay has changed just three times—from coins, to paper money, to plastic cards. Now we’re on the brink of the next big shift.

The system will see a limited launch; only available on smartphones with built-in NFC (Near-Field Communication)- Google have announced that the system will be available at launch on the Nexus-S 4G in the US, with support for other devices to follow.

This announcement was quickly followed by the news that Google were being sued by PayPal, with accusations of Google poaching key employees and using trade secrets developed by PayPal for their own mobile payment system.

Although the convenience of a touch-to-pay system for smartphone owners seems relatively clear, whether consumers will want to move away from plastic cards and start using phones for payment is unclear. It seems unlikely that people will feel happy leaving their cards behind, as it will no doubt take some time for NFC-enabled payment systems to become as widely available as chip & pin card readers at points of sale.

AdMob ad requests triple in past year

As AdMob marked its first anniversary of being acquired by Google (following a rumoured bidding war between Google and Apple), the mobile advertising company has announced some impressive figures of growing advertising activity.

Overall ad requests have grown more than 3.5 times in the last year, with over 2.7 billion ad requests a day.

AdMob also revealed that the market for tablet ads is growing fast; more than 300% in the last six months, with 1 in 5 mobile ads now being served to tablet devices – far exceeding the ratio of tablets to smartphones in active use. AdMob's announcement included new formats for tablet ads, with full-screen interstitial ads now available to advertisers, which can include branded video, image galleries and interactive elements. Google's Doubleclick for Publishers ad serving platform has also been integrated with AdMob

SeeSaw to close

Following a strategic review by owners Arqiva, online video aggregator site SeeSaw is to close down due to lack of funding. The site started out as "Project Kangaroo", a combined TV catch-up service from the BBC, ITV and Channel 4, which was blocked by the Competition Commission due to its potential unfair dominance of the UK's online TV industry. The planned brand and technology were purchased by Arqiva, who went on to launch the service. However, facing competition from a number of sources, it has failed to have a significant impact on the UK market.

Govt to resume ad spend

Following a report that the government's freeze on advertising spending had resulted in the loss of lives, around £44m has been set aside for four advertising campaigns in England. These will include promotion of the SmokeFree anti-smoking website (which has seen traffic levels drop by a half), Change4Life campaign for healthy living (down by two thirds), and specific messages targeted at young people, and issues related to older people.

The report also set out guidelines for social media marketing activity, recommending "a shift away from traditional mass-media channels towards those channels the government already owns, such as government websites and poster sites in government buildings." Social media is expected to play a major part in these activities.