Just as it was trendy six months ago for every media site to develop a social network, it’s now becoming just as trendy to say that they shouldn’t develop a social network. We are also getting references to things like “Facebook fatigue” and the general idea that consumers have only so much time and attention. As a result, it is not uncommon to hear Interactive media executives state that it is pointless to add another social network when consumers simply will ignore it. This is a significant mistake and one that misses major big picture trends like the increasing openness of existing closed garden social nets and, most importantly, the strategic importance of interactivity.

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Traditionally, the Hispanic audience has been one of the most loyal segments of the US radio listening market. Although the Arbitron metered (PPM) results show a somewhat different story, the importance of radio with Hispanics has been highlighted in numerous Arbitron studies. As the “Hispanic” formats evolved into a sophisticated array of distinct formats, Hispanic listening and loyalty has grown rapidly. In fact, most studies in the last few years of the diary methodology have shown Hispanics to be the heaviest users of radio of all ethnic groups, with especially high listening levels for Spanish Primary listeners.


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In just the last few weeks, the music industry has been shaken up by a number of key developments. The pace of change has begun to rapidly accelerate. Consider these:

• iTunes surpassed Wal-Mart in January as the #1 music retailer in the world – This should frighten the labels even more than they already are and lead to meaningful competition in the digital world.

• Jay-Z signed a lucrative (reportedly $100 million) deal with Live Nation – The latest high-profile defection from the traditional artist-label model.

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One of the little known but important things about the Internet is that niche sites earn much higher advertising rates than mass-appeal sites. This is one of the reasons that social networking sites are struggling to grow revenue and Yahoo’s stock price is depressed despite its truly amazing suite of content sites. The real question is how narrow is too narrow? These are the kinds of things being worked out on the Internet as we speak.

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Naturally, gamers are anxiously awaiting the April 29 launch of Grand Theft Auto IV, which was delayed from its original release date last October. After all, its development has taken 4 years and undoubtedly cost tens of millions of dollars. GTA IV features high-definition graphics and more than 100,000 lines of dialogue and sound effects. In its first week, it’s expected to sell more than 6 million copies and take in a worldwide gross of $400 million, which will set a new record for video games. In fact, if GTA IV only eventually does merely as well as GTA: San Andreas, selling 21.5 million worldwide at $60 per standard game edition would gross $1.29 billion for Rockstar Games. And, GTA: San Andreas sold 23% more copies than its predecessor, GTA: Vice City!


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Tools for Application Developers

For marketers who can harness technical resources, the Facebook Platform offers the most powerful way to create engaging connections with your target audience on Facebook. Thousands of third-party applications have already been built on the Platform APIs–many of which have allowed for new kinds of deep brand experiences, and many of which turned out to be transient ad delivery vehicles that failed to take user experience into account. While I can’t tell you how to dream up a good app for your business here, I will explain the channels that your applications must absolutely take advantage of in order to achieve maximum success.

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