On Wednesday, Viacom finally reached an agreement with Time Warner Cable, enabling the pay TV service provider to stream the media conglomerate’s shows on iPads, notebook computers, smart phones and other digital devices.

The agreement ends a 13-month court disputebetween the two companies, which started after Time Warner Cable began streaming Viacom cable channels including Nickelodeon, MTV, Spike TV and Comedy Central to its nearly 12 million customers.

In suing the No. 2 cable provider in the U.S., Viacom claimed that Time Warner needed to pay for the right to stream its content. The cable company claimed that its ongoing carriage deal with the conglomerate gave it those rights.

Separately, Time Warner fought Cablevision over the same issue last year. These disputes have caused many to wonder if TV Everywhere — the broad-reaching pay-TV industry initiative that seeks to broaden the reach of bundled subscription television into the digital realm — will ever get done.

With consumers expanding their video usage well beyond the living-room TV screen, the multi-channel industry sees TV Everywhere as the weapon needed to ward off new, so-called “over-the-top” competition from on-demand program distributors like Netflix.

TV Everywhere requires each program supplier to make individual deals with each multi-channel operator. At the time Viacom and Time Warner Cable entered the courtroom, there was a lack of clarity on some very basic and necessary dealmaking infrastructure — i.e. what should the ability to stream video be worth on top of already agreed-upon carriage fees?

So with a streaming deal in place between a top cable programmer and leading cable provider, are we closer to having established those basic terms?

Tough to say yes on that one.

Notably, Time Warner Cable and Cablevision settled their dispute all the way back in August, but that doesn’t seem to have created the kind of template that would spur a sudden flurry of TV Everywhere dealmaking And in the joint statement announcing their agreement Wednesday, Viacom and Time Warner included the following coda: “Neither side is conceding its original legal position or will have further comment.”

via paidcontent

The Oracle of Omaha acquired his hometown newspaper in January and just snapped up dozens more in a $142 million deal. This is supposed to be the fastest declining industry in America. What is Warren Buffett up to?

Here’s why the deal makes a lot more sense than it appears:

A “three corner pool shot”

This week’s deal makes Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, the proud owner of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and 62 other daily and weekly papers in Virginia and the South. Most of the titles, like The Goochland Gazette and The Bland County Messenger, have small circulations in the range of 5,000 – 25,000.

The Oracle himself explained the deal this way:

“In towns and cities where there is a strong sense of community, there is no more important institution than the local paper. The many locales served by the newspapers we are acquiring fall firmly in this mold and we are delighted they have found a permanent home with Berkshire Hathaway.”

Buffett can wax sentimental all he wants but he is still the same hard-nosed businessman who was tough enough to stick it to Goldman Sachs. Like any of his deals, this is all about money.

“This deal is like a three corner pool shot that accomplishes several things at once,” says Ken Doctor, a media analyst.

Doctor notes that the deal includes an enormous loan and credit line to the newspapers’ former owner, Media General, in which Berkshire Hathaway will earn 10.5 percent. Buffett’s company also obtained stock warrants that will likely pay out handsomely as Media General works on becoming a full-time broadcasting company.

But what of the newspapers themselves? Doctor says that Buffett got them for a steal, noting that they sold on average for about $2 million a pop — or the price of an expensive home in each of the towns where they’re printed.

Small town papers make money

The story of the catastrophic decline in newspapers has been driven by metropolitan papers like the Washington Post  (on whose board Buffett sat for years) where ad rates plummeted while readers embraced digital alternatives.

The experience of small towns and counties has been different. In these places, a lack of print and online competition has allowed newspapers to hold onto some of their traditional monopoly power.

“In these communities, the local paper is the sole source of everyday news — from high school sports, local events or obituaries,” says Gordon Crovitz, former publisher of the Wall Street Journal and founder of digital subscription service, Press+.

This lack of competition has not only meant a slower decline in their print operations, but also a longer time period to make the transition to digital. While some metropolitan papers have rushed in a panic from one ill-advised paywall strategy to another in an effort to stay alive, smaller papers have had the luxury of a wait-and-see approach. In the meantime, digital subscription strategies have become more refined.

Crovitz claims that 70 publications have recently jettisoned the “free online” offer for print subscribers in favor of charging 25 percent and then letting readers opt-out of the digital part of the package.  He says that 90 percent of the customers elected to keep paying more.

What all this means for Buffett is that he can treat his newspaper fleet as a longer term investment that will pay off in three to five years. Most of the papers will likely deliver a modest profit from print while Berkshire Hathaway coaxes them into a digital strategy in which a growing share of revenue comes from subscription rather than ads (Doctor predicts subscription-based revenue will soon rise from 30 to 50 percent). The company can then cut away many of the printing, distribution and other legacy costs associated with newspapers.

Buffett being Buffett

Going into the newspaper business is a strange proposition for most investors but not for Buffett. This week’s purchase is consistent with a number of his investment mantras, including sticking to what he knows.

Buffett knows this business well from owning the Buffalo News and sitting on the board of the Washington Post, but also has more personal experience in the industry such as using $5000 from his savings as a paper-boy to launch Berkshire Hathaway. He also claims to read five newspapers a day.

Buffett also has a history of squeezing value out of traditional or troubled industries that scare off many investors. In recent years, for instance, he has bet big on airlines, autos and railroads.

There is also the question of scaling. According to Doctor, Berkshire Hathaway has long excelled at finding large scale efficiencies and the company now has enough newspapers (it also has six Nebraska papers in addition to the Omaha World-Herald) to make that happen.

Finally — and this is only speculation — some might wonder if Buffett, who has been close to the Obama Administration, might enjoy owning dozens of media outlets in swing states Virginia and North Carolina in an election year.

Join us for paidContent 2012: At The Crossroads on May 23 in NYC to discuss these issues and lots more.

via paidcontent

By now, we all know that having a Facebook Brand Page is a worthwhile investment. But for some companies, one Page might not be enough. For example, if a restaurant chain prides itself on local ingredients or a business seeks to cultivate a strong community around each brick-and-mortar outlet, it might make sense to have a Brand Page for each location. But then again, does a brand really want to divvy up its audience and dilute it among several similar pages?

While chunking up an audience among numerous Facebook Brand Pages may seem counterintuitive, it does work to the advantage of some brands, such as Lululemonand Sprinkles. But other small businesses, such as Butter Lane and Sweetgreen, find that one Facebook Brand Page does a proper job of cultivating a strong community behind the brand.

Mashable spoke with a handful of businesses about their Facebook strategy, and whether they lump all stores under one umbrella or create local communities around Facebook. Does your business have more than one Brand Page? Why does your strategy work for you?

via mashable

Perhaps you’ve heard of a scrappy startup called Facebook. It’s some sort of website that lets you annoy your friends and stalk your high school crush.

If all goes according to plan, the company will hit the public market Friday with an estimated valuation just north of $100 billion. For an eight-year-old network that brought in less than $4 billion last year, that might seem a little…what’s the word?…crazy.

SEE ALSO: 13 Ways the Facebook IPO Could Affect You

It certainly got us thinking: What did other tech giants look like when they stood on the precipice of public investment? How did their revenue compare with market valuation? How many employees did it take to generate that revenue? What was the offering price of the stock, and how has it fared on the open market since?

Our friends at Statista have put everything into perspective with a snapshot of the biggest players in tech at the time of their IPO: Facebook, Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. When stacked beside other tech giants, Facebook’s value/revenue gap does not seem as large, proportionally speaking. The handy chart also adjusts dollars for inflation for easy comparison.

Do you think Facebook is overvalued? Is its growth and revenue stream sustainable? What kind of hors d’oeuvres are you serving at your Facebook IPO viewing party? Hit those comments, people.

via mashable.

If your business has ever been targeted by a cyberattack, you’re not alone: more than 300 businesses reported being the target of such an attack, according to a new study.

Performed by Neustar, an Internet-analytics company, the study says businesses across many industries were targeted. IT professionals in the telecommunications, travel, finance, and retail industries all reported they were hit by some form of cyberattack.

Cyberattacks come in many varieties, but among the most common is the DDoS, or Distributed Denial of Service attack, wherein a site is overloaded with traffic from thousands or millions of different sources, overloading servers and forcing a site outage. Such attacks can be controlled and managed for hours or even days.

Ted Swearingen, director of information security operations at Neustar, says the number of cyberattacks and the variety of industries affected have increased dramatically.

“We’ve seen a game change in last two years,” Swearingen told Mashable. “It’s significant. The damage that comes with one of these attacks — the thought of being down for a day, not being able to sell goods or services online is just amazing in terms of monetary cost.”

The costs can indeed be high. 65% of businesses said a site outage would cost them up to $10,000 an hour, 21% said it would run them $50,000 an hour, and 13% of businesses would lose $100,000 every hour if their site went down.

According to Swearingen, the financial cost of a cyberattack is higher for businesses that sell products on the front-end, such as e-retailers. Those businesses rely on their website and servers being alive and well for all of their transactions.

“On the retail side, those companies with the front door of the business online, they see much more significant costs around [cyberattacks],” he said. “Times that by 24 hours of downtime, and it gets expensive fast.”

35% of Neustar’s respondants said they’ve experienced an attack which lasted longer than a day, while 11% said they’ve seen an attack continue for more than a week. The longer an attack continues to bring down a business’ site, the more it can cost in lost transactions and brand image.

Direct cost aside, Swearingen said that cyberattacks can tarnish a company’s brand image — who wants to do business with a seemingly insecure company?

“What do your customers think when you go down,” asked Swearingen. “Maybe they ask for a refund for services lost or they go elsewhere. That’s a significant impact.”

Swearingen also said that most of these attacks aren’t being carried out for political reasons by “hacktivists” such as Anonymous, but rather they’re being carried out as a means of economic subterfuge.

“While Anonymous has been getting a lot of headlines, our data tells us that most of these attacks are happening for the old-school reasons of why you’d want to knock out a site: financial gain and competitive advantage,” he said.

What do businesses do to protect themselves? According to Neustar, more than half of respondents said they rely on “firewalls, routers or switches” as their sole means of cyber defense, and less than 5% have a “purpose-built” cybersecurity solution.

Swearingen recommends that small businesses realize the importance of investing in an active cybersecurity defense system.

“More and more, small companies are seeing headlines about cyberattacks thinking ‘everybody’s fair game,’ and they realize that attacks can be carried out by anyone with an Internet connection and a computer,” he said. “Security and normal operation is the return on investment, and that’s the message we try to get to potential customers.”

via mashable

It’s no secret that Facebook has decided the best way to spur more advertising on the platform is to encourage marketers to use their brand Pages more effectively.

With that goal in mind, Facebook looked at postings on 23 brand Pages over one month to see which posts did the best. The upshot: When you talk about things related to your brand, you’ll get more engagement.

For example, a post by a cruise line marketer (Facebook did not disclose which brands exactly were involved in the study) stating “I decided to go on my first cruise because ____,” performed better than one that said, “Hang in there everybody. Monday will be over before we know it.”

“Topics related to brand or about the brand were significant predictors of increased engagement,” says Sean Bruich, head of measurement at Facebook. “When pages post about topics related to brands, they increase engagement.”

The advice may seem obvious, but Bruich points out that many brands try to stay relevant by “just publishing the latest meme.”

Facebook’s other advice to brands is to use photos, albums and videos to generate more “Likes” and to post a clear call to action (“Like this if…”) to increase comments. The company also confirmed the conventional wisdom that asking a question in a post will lead to more engagement.

Though the study took place during the period in which brands switched over to Timeline, the research didn’t delve into the topic. Despite that, some researchers, including Simply Measured, have seen a big difference in engagement with the new platform.

Facebook’s focus on getting brands to use their Pages better coincided with the introduction of Timeline for users last fall. (Timeline for brands just became available in late February.) Facebook believes that more engaging brand Pages will become the main focus for advertisers on the platform and that amplifying status updates and other brand Page activity will be a viable alternative to traditional advertising.

With Facebook’s IPO set to hit later this week, not everyone agrees that Facebook can herd big marketers over to the new platform. Nate Elliott, a Forrester Research analyst, called Facebook’s latest ad strategy a “tiny evolution from its existing ad model” and noted that “companies in industries from consumer electronics to financial services tell us they’re no longer sure Facebook is the best place to dedicate their social marketing budget – a shocking fact given the site’s dominance among users.”

via mashable

Even if most small businesses don’t understand search engine optimization (SEO), that doesn’t mean they can’t be helped by it.  For those who don’t know SEO from their CEO, it is in essence a means of improving the ranking of your business in the Google search algorithm. This in turn, can help a business move up in Google’s search listing.

Sonam Lama, CEO of Achieve Visibility, a SEO site specializing in helping small- and medium-size businesses, says there are a few quick fixes that small businesses can take to help improve their Google rankings. The best part is they are free and simple.

Use WordPress

“WordPress is the most SEO-friendly blogging platform,” Lama said.  “It is also one of, if not the best, content management systems when it comes to SEO. Optimizing your site using WordPress, instead of the outdated website platforms which most local businesses use will help your optimization efforts.”

Keyword Research

“This is the foundation of SEO and increasing your ranking on Google and the major search engines,” Lama said. “Once you created or switched over your site to WordPress, you want to do some keyword research. Look for at least three relevant keywords you want to target.”

Onsite Optimization

“Once you’ve identified those highly searched keywords, sprinkle them onto your site and spread them around in various places,” Lama said. “You don’t want to stuff them everywhere, though, since this will be considered ‘spamming’ by Google.”

Google Places

“After you have your website properly and effectively optimized for the search engines, you want to claim yourGoogle Places business listing,” Lama said. “You do this adding basic information about your business and being as detailed as possible in each section. For example, give your complete phone number, address, business description, keywords, hours of operation, etc.  You can further improve rankings by adding photos and asking for reviews of your business.”

Back linking

“Finally, once you’ve optimized your Google places listing, you should be ranking within a few days to a week,” Lama said. “Those rankings occur within the local listings (the top portion of Google where you see the red tabs: A, B, C, D, etc.).”

The job, however, doesn’t end there.  According to Lama, businesses can also boost their ranking in the natural Google search results by back linking.

“My top methods of back linking for local business keywords range from social bookmarking to profile submissions on high page rank sites among several others,” Lama said. “Each of these methods will allow you to create a valuable link back to your site, which will increase its value and relevancy in the eyes Google.”

via mashable

It’s surprising to hear that there’s still any debate as to whether companies should allow employees to use their personal mobile devices at work. It’s particularly perplexing when IT leaders are the ones who reject the idea. That’s because the statistics are overwhelmingly on the side of bringing your own devices to work, also known as BYOD.

In a recent survey, 74% of IT workers responded that BYOD is allowed in their workplace. Another survey found that 67% of North American iPad owners are using the devices in office, and IBM claims 80,000 BYOD users in its fold. This is why CIOs and CTOs must be leaders in this movement, not barriers.

Being a leader means being prepared. IT has a great opportunity to help their business partners realize the productivity and cost benefits of BYOD while mitigating the new risks, most notably around security. Here are five steps that IT leaders can take to prepare for a positive BYOD transformation.

1. Innovate with Apps

As with consumer apps, business mobile apps can and should be engineered to leverage the native capabilities of the device and to provide a rich user experience. For example, an auto insurance claims examiner who used to transcribe a claimant’s statement on to paper, take photos of the vehicle, and have the claimant fill out various forms can now use a mobile app to record the claimant’s testimony, photograph the vehicle and capture data with drop-down menus all through an integrated and digitized flow. This results in a faster and cheaper process, higher quality data, and more satisfied clients and employees.

It will be tempting for IT to simply uplift the existing user experience of current business applications to the mobile context, but that approach would negate the potential benefits of enterprise apps. Companies likeWillowTree Apps and Taptera offer good examples of enterprise apps built the right way. Enterprise IT leaders should follow this approach in order to realize the full BYOD opportunity.

2. Plan for Multi-Platform

The iPad is emerging as a unique business instrument with capabilities beyond what a smartphone can deliver, and its dominance of the tablet market warrants even more unique handling. As a result, there are apps that will be built only for the iPad, and that leverage functions only available on the iPad. In the insurance example, the claims examiner could collect the claimant’s form data more easily with a tailored tablet app than with an app normalized for all mobile devices. IT leaders need to accept that platform-specific features are a reality in order to fulfill on the promise of enterprise mobility, but HTML5 and other common components can maximize development re-use and contain cost overruns.

3. Re-use Your Existing Logic and Data

In order to utilize consistent, customer-centric processing across all business channels, many companies moved towards a service-oriented architecture (SOA) in the last decade. This approach provides a solid foundation for enterprise mobile apps, but needs to be adapted to fit the lingua franca of the new paradigm. This can be done using an API Proxy that can map from SOAP to REST and XML to JSON, and also filter and cache data in order to limit the workload on the battery-operated mobile device.

Revisiting the insurance example, a big part of the productivity gain in having the claims examiner use the app remotely is that he or she can access their enterprise data in real-time. That means that they can have an up-to-the-minute view of the claim and the claimant, and also transmit the data they capture immediately to headquarters. IT leaders who are able to harness their existing business logic and data will be able to deliver their enterprise mobile apps more quickly and save money doing so.

4. Secure the New Perimeter

OAuth is the security standard of choice in mobile app-API integration. OAuth supports a number of use cases for authentication, authorization, and federated security, all packaged in a lightweight, token-based approach suitable for energy-conscious mobile devices. Just as for the data protocols, an API proxy can be used to adapt the OAuth protocols to the security policies and technologies that exist within the enterprise infrastructure.

Once secured, the APIs that serve the enterprise mobile apps become even more powerful. Many can be re-used for customer-facing apps. In the insurance example, the original claim could have been filed by the claimant using a smartphone app that included photos and digitized form data, through many of the same APIs that enable the claim examiner’s iPad app. IT leaders who implement flexible security for their APIs will position their company’s well for the benefits of enterprise and consumer mobility.

5. Embrace the Cloud

In this scenario, the claimant who files the insurance claim can utilize their network operator’s geo-location API, or even the Google maps API to capture precise location information regarding the claim, as can the claim examiner. This resulting ecosystem of highly usable mobile apps, accessible but secure enterprise APIs, and multi-dimensional cloud services creates a technological canvass for innovative IT leaders to advance their companies immediately and well into the future.

via mashable

Apple may not be buying a high-design German home entertainment device maker, but that doesn’t mean investors in the rumoured target company won’t make a killing – and it doesn’t mean they won’t still have a part to play in Apple’s iTV.

This is a classic weekend story conundrum…

• In the early hours of Sunday morning, AppleInsider reported an anonymous source as saying Apple has offered €87.3 million ($112 million) for Kronach-based Loewe, which makes sleek TV sets and speakers.
• By Sunday morning, a Loewe spokesperson quoted by German press (Heise Online) saidthere was “absolutely nothing to it”.

But the apparent rebuttal didn’t gain as much pick-up as the excited speculation about the sexy products Apple might be buying.

Net effect: When German markets opened on Monday morning, shares in publicly-traded Loewe rocketed by around 25 percent.

That pushed Loewe’s market cap to over €77 million ($99 million) by mid-morning – up from what had been €59.1 million before the rumours, and not far off Apple’s rumoured offer price.

And the price kept rising even after traders had a chance to read the apparent denial over their morning coffee.

What we do know is…

• Loewe in 2011 made a €10.5 million loss on €274 million revenue.
• Its largest shareholder is Sharp, with almost 30 percent.
• Sharp has formed a joint venture with Apple’s assembly contractor Foxconn.

Ahead of the weekend, Foxconn CEO Terry Gou was reported as confirming production of the forthcoming set…

China Daily: “Gou said Foxconn is making preparations for iTV … although development or manufacturing has yet to begin.

“iTV reportedly features an aluminum construction, Siri, and FaceTime video calling

“Foxconn’s recent 50-50 joint venture factory with Sharp in Japan is one of the preparations made for the new device, Gou added.”

Update: Foxconn, backtracking, makes a denial on behalf of its CEO (via The Next Web):

“In remarks at a media briefing during the groundbreaking of Foxconn’s new China headquarters in Shanghai on May 10, Terry Gou, Foxconn’s Chief Executive Officer, made it very clear that he would neither confirm nor speculate about Foxconn’s involvement in the production of any product for any customer because Foxconn’s policy is not to comment on any customers or their products.

“At no time did he confirm that Foxconn was in development or manufacturing stages for any product for any of its customers.  He did say that  Foxconn is always prepared to meet the manufacturing needs of customers should they determine that they wish to work with Foxconn in the production of any of their products.   Any reports that Foxconn confirmed that it is preparing to produce a specific product for any customer are not accurate.”

AppleInsider had reported Loewe would decide on a deal or otherwise by May 18.

via paidconten