RECENTLY IN New Media CATEGORY

The Wily Filipino, who recently blogged about Taken By Cars, sent over details to a recent NYU study of the correlation between the amount of blog entries vis-a-vis the success of a music album (hence, the Taken By Cars blog entry context). The study found that "the volume of blog posts about an album is positively correlated
with future sales."

If that's not interesting enough to our friends in the music industry, then there's this: "greater increases in an artist's Myspace friends week over week have a weaker correlation to higher future sales."

Read the study here. The Wily Filipino is part of the Mad Crowd Media network of publishers.

From CMSWire:

A survey by web CMS vendor Polopoly reports that, according to European newspaper execs, 40 percent of published content will be user generated. In the next three years.

There's someone at the door. It's yellow with a metallic grin.

When the New York Times announced that it will stop charging for content, and with strong rumors that the Wall Street Journal will do the same, I had to raise my arms in exaltation: all the David Brooks I can read.

Needless to say, this is also a good sign that advertising revenue on the internet has reached maturity even among the most grey of publications. To us here at Mad Crowd Media, that certainly strengthens the argument that advertising budgets can traverse the expensive and poorly segmented mass media channels and get results from the targeted offerings our network can deliver.

Furthermore, I think it is fodder for all the champions and creators of channel agnostic media planning. New media channels should be on their list, as their target market shifts to these channels. As anecdotal as it seems, the New York Times makes a strong statement for all online publishers: content is best served free. And advertising pays to keep it that way.

We've been loving your submissions on the website: 30+ so far, among them, some are real gems. While we read, discuss and read again, we're finding even more blogs and websites through blogrolls and links. One author, it seems, is another's editor.

The most interesting part of this revelation, while not so new to many, is discovering the "cliques" of bloggers and websites: the link-to-me-i-link-to-you practice tends to herd publishers together in groups, at the core of which are the most popular bloggers, whose popularity soars even further because of the links. These groups are well represented in the Mad Crowd Media network, still we believe that these herds cannot possibly hold all the gems. Quality in publishing must run deeper.

What really makes our day is finding websites that are outside of these spheres and listening posts -- sites which we seldom see in the blogrolls we've read. They're in the sidestreets and back alleys of "our" Internet, and they are just as interesting as the really popular ones. Websites like Eksena.net, which is a portal for headliners and events on the Cebu music scene. That's a destination we would otherwise have never found if we stuck to blogrolls and popularity metrics. Another is From the Boondocks, which blogs about everything that goes on in the Cordillera region.

While there could be hundreds of these fascinating publications, the message that the Filipino writer, from any and all walks of life, has a fertile and articulate mind resonates loud and clear. This is a welcome affirmation. If you're reading this, and you're reading other blogs, go ahead and spend time outside your blogosphere: it's just like making new friends from the other side of town.

It may sound like I'm going out on a limb here, but I have my beliefs. Janette Toral was being a real trooper in talking about Mad Crowd Media in her column (thanks!) and she raised a few points that's worth reiterating:

Companies are now seeing blogs as potential advertising medium. If they are presented as a bunch, rather than just one site, then it becomes more practical. The more eyeballs, more diverse blogs with only a fraction of mainstream online media cost, the better. Having collective strength will allow the group to compete fiercely with mainstream big players.

Nearly everyone we spoke to -- potential advertisers to global account managers -- and whether they've advertised online before or have never even heard of blogs, have one seed of epiphany in them: that readers are reading and paying attention online, substituting the internet for print, even television (when was the last time you watched TV?). You seldom see that kind of empathic relationship in traditional media formats; such a relationship is built with a one-on-one awareness, the kind bloggers achieve with their readers. You can argue that putting an SMS number is interactivity, but clearly bloggers are not giving any monetary incentives for readers to respond. Readers respond because what they're reading matters to them.

Acknowledging that, let's turn our attention to potential. There's a belief that the Internet attracts only the AB crowd. That's simply wrong. In Metro Manila, roughly 45% of internet users fall in the DE bracket, with nearly half of them teenagers. They're doing that Friendster thing. And, surfing blogs. We are at a 160+% internet usage growth in urban areas year-on-year, and my good money is on expansion at the same pace. With Internet Cafes sprouting everywhere, the potential is clear.

Finally, there's the matter of fragmentation. If a marketer wants to talk to a particular audience, of a particular demographic, it's very hard to achieve that in trimedia. The two largest channels have focused their efforts in attracting the multinational consumer goods manufacturers and the telcos battling it out for supremacy. What of the niche marketer? Radio is only listened to by people *in* cars.

Magazines to my mind are the lone shining stars, as they are self-selective publications. It also explains why they thrive. Advertisers who want to hit a particular target audience, say gadget lovers, can advertise in any one of many technology magazines out there. Hit the teen market? Plenty of options.

So why make this point? We view the 60+ publications in the Mad Crowd Media network as individual magazines. Bunched together in crowds like "Parenting" or "Travel and Leisure" they make a strong case for niche marketers. To these marketers, that's advertising money well spent because it hits directly at who they're after. And when they see that readers spend more than two minutes looking at your site, that's a minute and 57 seconds longer than they might take on a page in a newspaper that would cost 1000% more.

We need to prove all this, of course. And I have no doubt we will. I'm a fan of blogs and I think we can spread the same belief to those who see and want to participate in these focused media channels. Janette said "nevertheless, the time for an entity like Mad Crowd Media has come. I hope it will offer great opportunities and empower the global Filipino blogger" -- yesterday, we sent out our contracts and have happily fielded plenty of questions and the overall feedback is of a group of wise and happy publishers eager to start doing business. That's potential right there.

We've long observed that new media has become the gregarious well-loved sister of traditional media: as is often the case, when something happens, traditional media outlets like radio or TV might cover it first, but the analysis, reactions and gossip happen much faster (and juicier) online.

When Malu Fernandez wrote about feeling "suicidal" in a plane full of OFWs, she ought to have known that she was drafting her epitaph. Hundreds of blogs and online communities, most of them in the Mad Crowd Media network, lit up with coverage and commentary that snowballed into a "virtual mob" within days. Such is the power of new media: where in traditional media, people read and murmur (occasionally writing back to the editor), in new media, readers can't help tapping on their keyboards and clicking their mouses.

Yesterday, ABS-CBN news (in a role reversal of sorts) picked up the story on the internet wildfire, and its results: Malu Fernandez, confessing that "many people often find [her] direct attitude to be rude or obnoxious", had resigned from her job as a writer for People Asia and the Manila Standard.

The message to us is clear. The quality and passion of these online conversations we proudly represent have power. Our mission is to fuel this force for as long as possible.