commbasics

There's something of a controversy over the Dish Network 's technology that automatically skips over advertising on content recorded on their DVR system.  It's been the focus of Dish's advertising program as well as a Congressional investigation on the Future of Video .  Most people are pretty thrilled with the technology and it is boon to Dish.   I am a devotee of blasting through commercial breaks with my DVR and I'm a little envious of Dish subscribers who have the tech, although I'm very happy with Direct TV over anything else I've tried ( AT&T doesn't service my area with their system).  Here, however, is where the controversy rages. Dish is dropping AMC and a half dozen other channels over increasing fees , claiming there are nbot enough viewer to warrant the increase.  The problem is all the channels Dish is dropping are also subsidized by advertising and he advertisers are balking at pay rates for commercials...

The Curation Company, through it's news site the Tech Design Forum will provide the guides, news and articles (maybe video, too) and put them all together... and only for the IC design community. B2B media, after a decade of trying to hold back the tide of change, is finally moving with the times, redefining what journalism will look like for the next 50 years.  Both the good news and bad news is we still don't know what works...although we are getting closer.  UBM , Hearst and Advantage Media have all rolled out new formats and features on their various sites this year; personnel have been added, dropped and reassigned.   For UBM alone, it seems their online strategy is paying off  About a year ago, CEO Paul Miller told me that their online revenue had finally reached parity with print, partly because print revenue continued to decline and partly because online revenue was still rising.  The annual report in February showed that while print was down 22...

The numbers came out for the 2012 DAC attendance and, as usual, the organization reported "record breaking numbers," but still wasn't putting it in context. Total attendance for 2012 was 7,388 up from 6,350 last year in San Diego.  That's great.  But it's still down from 7,996 in 2009 when it was in San Francisco last...and during a worse economic period.  Subtracting booth personnel, exhibit only and full conference participation was 4,684 and in 2009 it was 5,299.  Booth staff was up this year by about 100 over the 2011 conference, but everyone really noticed the massively reduced floor space.  In 2009, DAC took up Moscone North and South but the whole show was spread out liberally over only the south hall this year.  And there was a nice size bowling alley between the meeting suites in the center. So as I pointed out last year, DAC remains flat, at best.  There was, however , a phrase that had never been used before in t...