Just as we’re getting over the buzz and acclaim for the new Kindle e-reader, Amazon comes right back at us. This time, it is selling    e-books for the iPhone and iPod — that’s right — through a Kindle application that can be downloaded from Apple’s App Store.

Here’s how the Wall Street Journal describes it: “Amazon’s software application, which can be downloaded free of charge, allows iPhone and iPod Touch users to read books or periodicals purchased on the Web or through their dedicated Kindle device, usually for $9.99. Using a service that Amazon calls whispersync, the program keeps track of a readers’ latest page in any given book across both a Kindle and iPhone.”

Amazon has competition, of course, from Google as well as other e-book sellers. Still, give credit to Amazon for creating big hype for its Kindle (which is still a relatively small market, regardless of all the press it gets).

“Will this put Kindle device sales at risk?” asks TechCrunch? “Not likely. The Kindle is a fairly niche product - not that reading is a niche activity (though it’s probably a bit less common than it should be), but the ideas of eBooks/e-Ink/etc are still fairly foreign to most (though Oprah’s mention definitely didn’t hurt). This lets Amazon push more copies of e-products they’ve already got licenses for, all the while coaxing the stubborn folks into the idea of reading books on an electronic screen without requiring them to drop $360 bucks on a dedicated device.”

Or as the New York Times puts it, “The move comes a week after Amazon started shipping the updated version of its Kindle reading device. It signals that the company may be more interested in becoming the pre-eminent retailer of e-books than in being the top manufacturer of reading devices.”

We haven’t had the chance yet to see the application, but paidContent’s Staci Kramer posted these thoughts today: “The text is clear but you can’t use multi-touch to zoom; instead, just as on the Kindle device, you select from a series of type sizes and it changes. I can go back to the cover and table of contents of that book; if I pick, “furthest point read” it pinpoints my location and tells me which device I was using and what time and date it was when I last dipped in. What I can’t do is access the things I might most want to read in short bursts: my subscriptions to newspapers, magazines and blogs—all limited to one Kindle. And so far, no Speech-to-Text so at least Roy Blount, Jr. should be happy.”

Keep an eye on:

• Havas, the world’s sixth-largest advertising group, delivered sharply higher profits, beating forecasts, and its chairman said he was thinking about the possibility of merging with rival Aegis (Reuters)
• Turner International, a unit of Time Warner Inc, will launch a new entertainment channel in India along with Warner Bros, but sees lower revenue growth in its top Asian market due to a slowing economy (Reuters)
• The Walt Disney Co is considering creating a subscription-based online movie and TV rental service from the company’s vast video library (Reuters)
• Hollywood reacts to Blockbuster’s troubles with a yawn (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

With the Super Bowl less than a week away, this is when the anxiety really boils on Madison Avenue. Is our spot going to bomb? Are we too late in the game? Is anyone going to watch Pittsburgh vs. Arizona? Is any of this madness worth it?!!????

Advertising Age puts at least a bit of that fear to rest:

Surely, spending $3 million on a Super Bowl ad in the midst of a crushing economic downturn is a foolish waste when chief marketing officers’ jobs are on the line?

On the contrary, it’s a bargain.

The Super Bowl presents not just a huge platform with astounding audience numbers where consumers actually lean forward to watch your ad. It also pays surprising ancillary dividends in awareness: reams of press coverage that drive word-of-mouth and stampeding traffic to websites. Most importantly, for the right company, it can establish a relationship and sell product.

Of course, you still have to get the creative right and hope that audiences are interested in the game. Feel any better?

Keep an eye on:

• Movies sales were slow, but not totally missing, at the Sundance Film Festival, which ended Sunday in Park City, Utah (New York Times)
• Publicis won a global advertising deal with French supermarket group Carrefour, boosting its shares and depressing those of rival Havas, which previously held a large part of the contract (Reuters)

(Photo: Reuters)

With financial markets in turmoil and the U.S. economy in recession, we asked top entertainment and sports executives at the Reuters Media Summit for some investment advice.

Our question: "If we gave you $50,000, where would you invest?" One rule: They couldn't pick their own company. But then we thought $50,000 was too little for well heeled executives, so we switched it to $50 million. But that seemed excessive. After all, we're talking about personal investments -- so we settled on giving them a cool $1 million.

Here's what they said:

"In a pillow ... You might look at the energy sector, you might see what happens with gold. I've got cousins who work in the banking industry. When I asked them, they told me put it in my pillow. That is your answer."
-- Havas's MPG Chief Operating Officer Steve Lanzano

"I would be in the most conservative mechanisms I could -- treasury bills, whatever, absolutely. The old trite bromide about cash is king? Well, that is true and more true today than ever before."
-- Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig

"I'd put 40 percent of it into exceedingly high-yielding senior debt securities in a diversified array of businesses. I'd put 30 percent of it with a pretty diverse array of fund managers who have a strong track record of navigating choppy times in an array of strategies. And then I'd take the final 30 percent and buy Time Warner stock ... I will tell you why I love Time Warner. OK, so it's trading at 50 percent of book, and these are people who, post AOL, were incredibly aggressive about writing down their book value. So it's trading at 50 percent of essentially tangible books, tangibles you are going to get for a media company. They are not especially exposed to advertising. A lot of their revenues are very sticky. They still own their cable assets. You are getting a free option on the value of whatever happens in the spin-off. They generate, I think, $13 billion in EBITDA right now, if I'm not mistaken. And all their debt obligations are laddered out well into the future so they have no particular financing risk. So if you figure we have three horrible years ahead of us -- and I don't believe we do, but if you do -- they are perfectly fine from a capital point of view for the next few years. And even after all obligations, all repayments, all capex, they still generate loads of free cash flow. Even if you don't think they are particularly well-positioned strategically -- they are currently yielding 2.7 percent, and I see no reason for the dividend to go down."
-- Take Two Interactive Inc Chairman Strauss Zelnick

"If I had a knife, I would probably put it in my mattress. No, seriously, I think if somebody gave you $1 million today, I think my gut tells me that the market would probably be a good place to put it ... But there's a little bit of hesitancy there. Have you reached bottom yet? Who knows. Do you actually have to actually reach bottom before it's a good time to invest? Probably not. But this might be a good time to put money in the market if somebody just hands you $1 million ... I would avoid the financial stocks for now because I'm not sure all the bad news is out. You know, you would think as low as some of those stocks are, that there would be buys, but some of them may not be around at all. So I would stay out of the financial sector. I probably would steer more toward durables and things that people are going to need year in and year out. They can be a bit volatile too, but you know that they are going to be around for years to come. I don't think I would invest in domestic auto stocks today. You know, natural resources and products that are going to continue to be in demand, even some of the medical and drug companies."
-- Regal Entertainment Group CEO Mike Campbell

"Pay off my mortgage would be number one. Yes, absolutely, I would pay my mortgage. And then other than that I would ... because I live in California and my family does it for a living, I think real estate is a great buy right now in California. There's a lot of depressed prices -- business is out there and real estate out there. I like real estate. It will come back."
-- Live Nation CEO Mike Rapino

"It looks to me like there are buys all over the place. I am not an investor or an economist, but just generally speaking, it looks like these companies that we deal with that I know are well managed, companies like Coca-Cola or Disney that are well managed, many of them are just going to be good buys. But I'm not an investor, so what do I know?"
-- NASCAR CEO Brian France

"So 12 years... I took every dime that I had and I put it into tax-free municipal bonds. And then a year ago, but for what I own in Sirius, every dime that I have is either in insured, tax-free municipal bonds or treasuries. So I have been a terrible investor because if you look at the last 12 years, my portfolio has only grown for those 12 years about 3 percent a year. Now if you looked at the stock market during that period of time, I have left an awful lot of money on the table. But if you look, I guess, over the last year, I have done OK compared to where a lot of people were."
-- Sirius XM Radio Inc CEO Mel Karmazin

"I would invest at least 70 percent of it in stocks. I would put a big chunk in Goldman Sachs. I would put some in GE. I would put some in McDonald's. I would put some in new energy, new innovations. I would definitely put a load in Google, and I would put a chunk in Microsoft. So that's split between technology, and I would think about retailers as well. And then I would keep a chunk in cash, 20 percent. And then I'd put 10 percent in governent bonds. But I believe the valuations at the moment, the prices are so disconnected from values of some great companies with tremendous equities that there's tremendous value for the long term."
-- Interpublic's Mediabrands CEO Nick Brien

Would you put your million in the piggy bank?

(Photo: Reuters)

As if Sirius XM Radio didn’t have enough to worry about (like trying to figure out how to pay its debt and cope with the U.S. auto industry’s flameout) now its got to deal with customers grumbling about its radio stations. Some are threatening to quit the service.

That’s right, subscribers are ticked off about what they are hearing on their radios. Not the radios themselves or the quality of the signal or any of that techniclal stuff — we are talking about the actual radio content that subscribers pay $13 or more to hear each month.

Sirius this week unveiled a new channel lineup that combines XM and Sirius’ rock, pop, talk, punk, hip-hop, classical, country, jazz and sports stations. Together, it’s a robust offering of audio content, which may impress new customers. Long time listeners, familiar to particular channels playlists and on-air talent, are speaking up on blogs after the surprise shift.

Tech blogger Dave Zatz said this on his blog, Zatz Not Funny!:

“See ya, XM. I was on the fence and you pushed. Our time together has been mostly positive, but the massive lineup modifications yesterday without any advance notification isn’t the proper way to treat your customers. So I’m walking. “

The chatter is even hotter over at Ryan Saghir’s Orbitcast and the XMFan bulletin board, where thousands have weighed in. Some, for example, are pleased that the XM system that came installed in their new car now gives them access to Sirius channels they had heard before. Most of the comments however, sound like the Hatfields moved in with the McCoys and, as you would expect with rivals, hate each others taste in music.

A taste:

* “Last night, in the car, I did something I had not done in a long time…I listened to a cd. I will not keep my subscriptions if the formats remain “Sirius” ized. I’ve already purchased a car adapter for my ipod.”

* “My wife and daughter are peeved. They liked Kid Stuff on Sirius.” 

* “Mel Karmazin is determined to boost iPod sales.”

I know how they feel: most of the preset stations on my satellite radio were shifted, and two of my favorite channels — a contemporary R&B and an old school hip hop station — are gone. But it’s still mostly commercial free, and I can still get my fill of funk on “70s on 7″.

What is your take on the programming changes on Satellite Radio? Are you happy? Or maybe thinking of playing your iPod in the car from now on?

Keep an eye on:

• Advertising group Havas kept its 2008 operating margin goal on Friday although its sales growth slowed in the third quarter amid a global economic crisis (Reuters)
• Have media shares hit rock bottom? (Reuters)
• Retailers have increased fourth-quarter cinema advertising spending by triple digits on a year-over-year basis – for a variety of reasons (AdAge)

(Photo: Reuters)

There was much written in the sports pages (and in some cases the business pages) about Tiger Woods’ decision to miss the rest of the golf season and undergo reconstructive knee surgery.  

His absence is a big deal for sports fans – not to mention marketers and TV networks. After all, he is the biggest American sports machine since Michael Jordan.   

 ”Much like Michael Jordan did (Woods) has the power of drawing in the more casual viewer or participant to the sport,” Stifel Nicolaus analyst Thomas Shaw told Reuters. “He has the ability of driving some participation. It gets people excited to get out and dust off the clubs and play some.”

This hasn’t been lost on advertisers. Woods ranked second on Forbes’ Celebrity 100 list, bringing in $115 million in 2007. He promotes General Motors’ Buick line of cars, Nike, Gillette and Accenture. He also began his first licensing venture this year with Gatorade Tiger, which media outlets reported as being worth at least $100 million.

Of course, nobody is about to abandon Tiger just because he’s taking the season off. But his layoff could alter some near term plans. General Motors is one company, for instance, that will have to change course, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Buick is being forced to drop one of its advertising efforts, which has been hyping a Buick promotion and contest. TV ads, print ads and a slew of Internet ads have been highlighting a “Tee-Off with Tiger” promotion that gives entrants a chance to win the opportunity to have Mr. Woods caddie for them while playing a round of golf in October.

The TV networks will also feel some pain from Tiger’s injury. He’s carried the sport with viewers for the past decade. As the New York Times put it:

Network executives and sponsors were not visibly panicking Wednesday that Tiger Woods would be gone from golf for the rest of the year as he recovered from reconstructive knee surgery. But their disappointment was palpable.

As the newspaper points out, the numbers make clear that Tiger has a bigtime impact on ratings. It says that in 88 tournaments over the last five years, Woods finished in the top five. During those, final round TV ratings hit an average of 4.4. In those events in which he did not finish in the top five, ratings averaged just 3.4 percent.

Keep an eye on:

• French financier Vincent Bollore said on Thursday that figures for his advertising company Havas were very good so far this year and added that Havas had not been impacted by the global credit crunch (Reuters)
• Google and Yahoo face intense U.S. Justice Department scrutiny of their deal to share some advertising revenue, and the heat will likely increase under a new administration (Reuters)
• Mario Puzo’s estate filed a $1-million lawsuit against Paramount Pictures for allegedly cheating “The Godfather” author’s heirs out of proceeds from a Corleone-inspired video game (LA Times)
• Billionaire investor Carl Icahn’s new blog, The Icahn Report, would go live Thursday afternoon (USA Today)

(Photo: Reuters)

This is not an entry about Microsoft. It is an entry about Yahoo’s wagon-load of new ad partnerships announced today and what we learned about the future of online advertising exchanges. Basically, Yahoo executives told us they are trying to build a more open, more social Internet strategy vis a vis consumers and advertisers.

On the consumer side, expect Yahoo to rewire its sites, email and instant messaging so that users can manage information about themselves and their friends in a single place. 
    
At a lunch with reporters after speaking at the Advertising 2.0 conference, Yahoo President Sue Decker said those changes would become apparent late this year and early next year.
    
For advertisers, some of the new partnerships announced on Wednesday include important tie-ins to Yahoo’s Right Media Exchange, where online ad space can be bought and sold more efficiently, based on the laws of supply and demand in force everywhere else.
 
The ideas are part of a bigger shift away from expecting viewers to come to a given site, toward extending your services out to wherever your users may be.
 
“It feels like the industry is ripe right now for contributing to a larger ecosystem,” Decker said.
 
Right Media’s Mike Walrath put it diplomatically, suggesting the days of publishers or other parties who try to control their own ad pricing in an open market could be numbered.
    
“If your business is based on inefficiency, and as the market becomes more efficient … some models will strengthen,” he said.

Media agency Havas Digital is participating in one of the new deals, agreeing to build a proprietary ad trading platform based on Yahoo’s technology. Havas Digital CEO Don Epperson told us in an interview that Havas had been working with Yahoo on this for nearly 9 months, and called Yahoo’s attitude refreshing.

There’s really a new attitude where they want to be open … I think it’s some publishers out there, they very much view their technology as proprietary and therefore not open. They also want to give most information to their own sales staff and not to the full general agency.
 
What Yahoo has made the jump to … is that the more information you give the advertiser (about the market value of prices) … we’re going to buy more where we know that we can get a good deal.

(Photo: Reuters)

Quarter after quarter, analysts and the financial press keep pressing advertising executives about the economy and spending. For good reason, too, since corporations often take scissors to advertising budgets during downturns.

Thing is, the chief executives of the big ad holding companies so far have given very much the same answer during conference calls and interviews: everyone is worried, nobody is cutting spending.

Interpublic CEO Michael Roth is no exception. Here’s what he said on Wednesday about the economy/spending issue during his company’s earnings call:

“Of course, it goes without saying clients remain cautious due to broader economic concerns. To date we are not seeing signs of a pullback. But we continue to monitor the situation closely so as to be able to response quickly should the need arise.”

Here’s Publicis Groupe’s Maurice Levy:

“Not one single client has changed its plans. We continue to work with our clients according to plans.”

And Omnicom’s John Wren:

“Like most of our clients, we remain cautious about the economy, but to date, as I said, we have not seen any significant reduction in client spending.”

Havas’s Herve Philippe had this to say:

“Today we do not see any impact on our numbers from the international environment.”

So everyone seems to agree that nothing is happening — yet.

What’s that mean? It could be the industry is painting the brightest picture possible, which isn’t unheard of in advertising. Or it could mean companies aren’t yet feeling the full effects of the slowdown, and don’t need to take scissors to ad budgets. Or perhaps the thinking in the corporate world has shifted, and executives believe marketing is too important to cut. Or maybe the big cuts are just working their way through the system and will show up next quarter.

Give us your best guess. We’re interested.

(Photo: Reuters)