People who surf the Web also seem to love playing games. Among online adults, 27 percent own a gaming console, with another 10 percent planning to buy one over the next year, says a report released Tuesday by Nielsen Online.
Nintendo's Wii was the top console in May, owned by 14.3 percent of Web surfers tracked. That compares with a 9.4 percent market share among online adults for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and 5 percent for the Sony Playstation 3. But Sony's older Playstation 2 scored top honors, owned by 17.3 percent of online users.
Web sites for gaming consoles also proved to be hot spots in May. Nintendo's Web site enjoyed the largest audience with 2.2 million visitors, while Sony's site grew the fastest with 16 percent more traffic last month than a year ago.
The blogosphere has also been buzzing with gaming news. Blog stories about the Wii, Xbox 360, and Playstation more than doubled on June 2, the first day of the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3), versus the prior week. This year's E3 generated 30 percent more blog activity than last year's expo.
Bloggers have also been busy writing about the latest gaming news. Microsoft's upcoming Project Natal created more blog noise than any other recent announcement. Blog activity also was boosted by news of Nintendo's two new Mario games for the Wii and Sony's new motion controller.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal had a story about Arbitron's People Meter, a new portable device that helps the radio ratings measurement company determine the exact amount of time a user spends listening to particular radio stations. Radio stations insert an inaudible signal that only the device picks up, and testers are supposed to carry the devices at all times, so regardless of where they listen (work, home, car, grocery store), the People Meter knows. This is more accurate than the old way of asking radio listeners to record their habits in a paper diary--users tended not to record every station change or stations they heard inadvertently.
In Philadelphia, one of the first two markets where the People Meter is being used, it's finding that users listen to more radio than was previously thought, switch stations more often, and listen to more classic rock and less urban contemporary. (Although the latter point may be because many younger users aren't carrying the meters as much as Arbitron expected--a problem that's caused the company to offer refunds if it can't meet promised sample sizes.)
Arbitron's also tested the device for use with in-store radio networks such as the InStore Broadcasting Network (in use in more than 12,000 stores nationwide) and Mall Radio Network, and TV and Internet ratings giant Nielsen has similar technology.
Imagine if content owners, working with Arbitron or Nielsen or another enterprising company, could convince digital distributors (like iTunes) to insert watermarks into their songs. Then, these companies could measure every time a user listened to a downloaded song--a computer, an iPod connected to an external source (I'm not sure if it could possibly work with headphones), a file burned to CD and subsequently re-ripped and traded. Instead of relying on DRM, content owners and distributors could allow unfettered trading, create some sort of pooled payment system--a sort of tax on blank CDs and Internet access and music software, for instance--then compensate copyright holders based on actual usage.
The biggest problem: most shared songs are ripped from CDs. And it's too late to insert any sort of watermarks into those CDs. Horse, barn door, open. So any such plan would cover only content distributed through approved downloading services. Then again, Apple has sold more than 3 billion songs through iTunes, so it's not exactly insignificant.
Also, it's in the interest of radio stations to cooperate with Arbitron, as that's how advertising dollars are allocated. In the case of digital music, many of the distributors are actually trying to sell something else--usually the hardware devices or associated software necessary to play the files. (That's certainly the case with Apple and Microsoft, and other device makers, like Nokia, are getting into the act as well.) They don't really care what happens to the files after they're downloaded. So any such push would probably have to come from content owners, who aren't exactly known for promoting cutting-edge digital technology.
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Sony Computer Entertainment America has joined forces with ratings mogul Nielsen to develop a measurement system for the nascent in-game advertising industry, according to a joint release from the two companies on Monday.
Sony will now share its game network data from the PlayStation 3 console as well as the PlayStation Network (which encompasses its new virtual world, PlayStation Home). Nielsen will then combine this with its game usage data, which currently encompasses the activities of more than 12,000 U.S. households. Then, beginning this fall, Nielsen will begin tracking audience statistics and user activity through its GamePlay Metrics system, incorporating in-game advertising figures into the final product. Later this year, we'll see the first reports from this new project.
Nielsen, still best-known for its TV ratings, has been gradually expanding into newer forms of media. It's operated its NetRatings online metrics system for several years now, and first announced GamePlay Metrics last year. Earlier this summer, Nielsen expanded into tracking mobile media use.
In-game advertising is seen as a lucrative and untapped sector of the advertising industry; Microsoft and Google have both acquired in-game ad firms in the past two years, but it's nevertheless still getting off the ground. Sony and Nielsen's goal with the new in-game ad metrics is to help make it a more competitive field by providing some numbers for the oft-amorphous business.
They say many dogs look like their owners. Now, according to a Nielsen Media Research study, the brand of cell phone you use may say a lot about your personality. At least if you're Australian.
If you use this phone, you're probably an Australian young woman from the future.
The Sydney Morning Herald has a story about the results of the study, which concluded that Nokia users are family-minded, Motorola users are fashion-conscious, Sony Ericsson users are ambitious young men, LG users are stay-at-home parents, and Samsung users are young women.
From the Sydney Morning Herald story:
Sydneysider Dane Maddams, 21, of Concord, agrees that you can tell a lot about a person by their mobile phone...
Mr. Maddams has a Sony Ericsson K800i and says he could be described as an ambitious young man trying to make his mark.
"I'm definitely not a middle-aged woman," he said, adding that if someone were to pull out a "crappy old brick of a Nokia" they would be harshly judged by his peers.
Wow. Add "Nokia-hater" to the list of Sony Ericsson user traits. In Australia, at least.
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