Advertising, Archives, Discovery

More money is flowing into local search, and not all of it to newspaper sites. Attend a one-day conference on archiving video content ( in Berkeley). And the IPTV vendor in my own backyard that I never knew was there. That’s today’s radio-like rundown in mini media land.

MediaPost pointed me to Borrell Associates, a media consulting firm, which reports that “local online ad spend(ing) will climb to $4.78 billion next year–up from an estimated $3.73 billion this year.” The fastest growing slice of the local pie, says Borrell, is “paid local search (which) will nearly triple, climbing to a predicted $907 million next year from $347 million this year.”

I’ve blogged about Borrell’s reports in the past, because they routinely offer free executive summaries which contain enough information to be useful to penniless dreamers (like moi), and from their reports I learned that most local online ad dollars typically go to the web sites of local newspapers, TV stations and other incumbent media. Borrell’s most recent report offers a glimmer of hope — for the startup — or glint of fear for the incumbents, because these fast-growing search dollars being projected could be routed to emerging web sites. “”Big newspapers … are accustomed to tracking only a handful of local competitors,” states the report. “With the Internet’s low barriers to entry, they now face the prospect of being, well, nibbled to death by ducks.”

Archive this. If video is your thing, and you’re in or near Berkeley on September 30, consider attending a one-day conference pulled together by Bay Area technologist Jeff Ubois. His blog lays out the mission : “This one-day conference brings together archivists, educators, technologists, entrepreneurs, producers, legal experts, and investors to explore the enormous promise offered by the availability of online video and television content.” Be sure to check out the speakers’ lineup. Ubois is collaborating with Peter Kaufman of Intelligent TV in New York, and the effort is being underwritten by several donors, so there is no required attendance fee — simply register.

Open TV? It is humbling to learn new things, such as the existence of this San Francisco company run by a former Time Warner Cable big shot, that appears to be developing set-top box and other new video technologies in partnership with telcos, cable operators and any other entity with the wherewithal to disseminate content. (Thanks to the Informitv newsletter for pointing me to OpenTV.) I visited their site this morning and pulled down a white paper on IPTV that will teach me a lot on the subject. Check them out.

Tom Abate
MiniMediaGuy
‘Cause if you ain’t Mass Media, you’re Mini Media