Many on both sides of the argument are citing the memory of a marathon which took place right after 9/11, with the pro-group saying it could be a positive thing for the city and the con-group saying it’s an entirely different circumstance.

“It just felt right under the circumstances in 2001 — a show of hopefulness, resilience, defiance of those who would destroy us — and it just feels wrong this year — frivolous in the face of tragedy,” wrote one commenter on the New York Times website.

Mayor Bloomberg insists that the race will go on, however, perhaps realizing that the marathon is a huge money-generator for the city.

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Gabriel Snyder
@gabrielsnyder

The generators being used for the New York Marathon could power 400 Staten Island homes. http://t.co/M3dwFkm0

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16 minutes ago via Twitter for Mac · powered by @socialditto

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The INGNYC Marathon
@INGNYCMarathon

Race to Recover. For more information and to add your support, please visit http://t.co/W2b3PzUE#ingnycm

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12 hours ago via Shoutlet API · powered by @socialditto

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Joe P
@ChicagoJoe10

I have to agree with Stephen A. Smith, postpone the NYC marathon, football and basketball games in New York/new jersey this weekend.

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44 seconds ago via Twitter for iPhone · powered by @socialditto

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Hank Chen
@Hanksterchen

Organizers of the NYC Marathon are being completely disrespectful to those who are homeless and w/o power. CANCEL IT!: http://t.co/ZPYDHEOQ

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1 minute ago via web · powered by @socialditto

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Al Iaquinta
@ALIAQUINTA

The only marathon that should be happening is a cleaning marathon, #WhatAJoke#sandy#NewYork

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Credit goes to Joe Pompeo for noticing certain Bloomberg stories appear on Yahoo Finance.  Then a Yahoo representative confirmed in an email that what Pompeo had seen wasn’t a mistake or experiment.

The Yahoo spokesperson wrote, "Yahoo! has added Bloomberg.com content to its financial news portfolio.  As the Internet’s #1 destination for financial news and information, Yahoo! Finance is committed to providing our audience with the most comprehensive coverage of the day’s market news."

And this deal should indeed help in that respect.  Bloomberg is a respected name when it comes to news, after all, and some Yahoo Finance users are bound to appreciate the extra source of information.

Plus, this arrangement makes Yahoo Finance look somewhat important, since Bloomberg execs presumably didn’t dislike the idea of aligning their brand with it.

In somewhat related news, a post on the Google Finance Blog took another shot at promoting the Google Domestic Trends tool yesterday.

“Our goal in re-launching the NFL.com Fantasy game was to provide our fans the best possible fantasy football experience,” said Hans Schroeder, Vice President of Media Strategy and Development for the NFL.

“We are excited to be working with Bloomberg Sports to offer our NFL.com Fantasy players the Decision Maker product for free as part of our Fantasy game, with the goal of further enhancing their fantasy football experience on NFL.com.”

Decision Maker gives users the ability to compare any two NFL players’ performance and predict which player at any position will have the best fantasy results.

The players are ranked by a system using analysis and formulas based on recent performance and other factors such as the opposing defense that week and the weather forecast at that week’s stadium. Decision Maker also features a Risk/Reward Index, analyzing the consistency of NFL players and indicating long shot opportunities for players performance that are the most unpredictable.
 

From a Bloomberg report, paidContent shows that, for some shows, CPMs on Hulu are actually greater than they are for broadcast TV. And when I say broadcast TV, we’re talking primetime, new episode, time-slot-leading network television. (None of that cable syndicated rerun stuff!) Bloomberg’s example:

Marketers typically pay $20 to $40 per thousand viewers for a prime-time ad. On Hulu, which began offering shows to the public in March 2008, an ad on the animated series “The Simpsons” costs $60 per thousand viewers, Michael Nathanson, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. wrote in a June 18 report.

How can the Internet, with demonstrably fewer viewers (another example, the NCAA basketball championship game, drew 17.6M TV viewers and 7.52 Internet viewers), command such high CPMs?

A couple factors: first, that the Internet is so measurable. As CBS’s chief research officer put it:

“The reason people are paying such a high premium for these ads on the Internet is they do have a captive audience,” Poltrack said. “You know you have eyes on the screen.”

Plus, Bloomberg says, there’s an extremely scarce inventory. A typical Simpsons episode on Hulu carries only 37 seconds of advertising, versus nine minutes on television. But that also means that their overall revenues per-episode are far lower, even with more dedicated viewers. Many analysts and networks worry about television companies “cannibalizing their core business.” But maybe their core business should be shifting online.

Justifying those high CPMs, Hulu commands 10% of the online video advertising market place. Hulu is a distant third in online video viewership, after Google’s properties and Fox’s properties (including MySpace and Fox News). They have only 2.4% of the overall video market and 2.3% of the Internet’s total unique video viewers. So 10% of the online video ad market is pretty impressive.

Screen Digest’s report states that broadcasters direct control 44% of the ad market, while cable operators command 22%. “Other” controls 15% of the market, Hulu 10%, and portals 9%.

Let’s look at that again—Hulu is the only website singled out there. It commands 10% of the market by itself, while the rest of the categories listed are just that—entire categories of sites.

So where does YouTube fall in there? Screen Digest says:

In contrast, third party platforms such as YouTube, Joost and other portals, which have no direct vertical affiliation with major rights holders, nor direct access to premium content rights, will struggle to aggregate ad-supported movies and TV shows. The Hollywood Studios and major rights holders will continue to limit such deals, instead preferring to build their own syndicated ad-supported online video services – such as Crackle, developed by Sony Pictures, and the CBS Audience Network.

What do you think? Is the Internet, specifically Hulu, the future of television and video advertising? Will YouTube ever be able to catch up to Hulu in terms of monetization?

Comments

Before we talk about how much more legitimate traditional news sources are though, let’s keep in mind that iReport is owned by CNN. Let’s also keep in mind that this is not the first time that Jobs himself has been the object of false reporting involving him and fatal health circumstances. Not too long ago, "trusted news source" Bloomberg accidentally posted his obituary with one critical flaw. He was not dead. Shortly after this morning’s report, CNN pulled the story from iReport and disabled the account of the user who posted it.

Apple’s stock temporarily dropped, and Silicon Alley Insider (who confirmed with Apple that the story was false) believes an SEC investigation will come about as a result of this fiasco, noting that the IP address of the "reporter" would be easily traceable.

As I tried to make the point in a recent article about CareerBuilder gaming Twitter, new media’s legitimacy deteriorates as a result of abuse on the part of some users, and it is up to the sites themselves to help eliminate offending content. CNN did the right thing by eliminating the story that was proven to be false.

Where the legitimacy shines through is in the communities themselves. There are always others to call something out as BS in new media formats where discussion is the key to coming away with useful information.

When all is said and done, it is up to readers to use their heads and think about where they are getting their info. Just as has always been the case, (even long before social media, blogs, and citizen journalism were ever heard of) you shouldn’t believe everything you read. But damning an entire medium because some abuse it is just ridiculous.

The agreement marks the first time that Bloomberg Television has provided business and financial videos to a site other than Bloomberg.com. During weekdays, AOL Money & Finance will feature 20 new video clips from Bloomberg Television.

AOL says the partnership with Bloomberg will allow advertisers to reach across AOL and Bloomberg Television with a single campaign. Advertising on the site will be sold via AOL’s digital advertising business, Platform-A, which offers display advertising, video advertising and content-targeted links.

"Bloomberg has earned its reputation for outstanding coverage of the business and financial world, and we’re excited to be the first financial site, other than Bloomberg.com, to carry its video content," said Marty Moe, Senior Vice President, AOL Money & Finance, News, Sports, Weblogs and KOL.

"With the addition of Bloomberg to our video portfolio, coupled with the other improvements we’ve made to the Money & Finance site, we can provide users and advertisers a comprehensive and engaging place to get their financial news and information."

AOL Money & Finance has more than 14.8 million unique visitors per month and is the top business site in terms of page views and total visits, according to comScore Media Metrix, August 2008.
 

Flubs like this are going to occur in the publishing industry, and this one should probably not be held too harshly against Bloomberg. They were clearly just trying to stay on top of the game for when the event actually happens, so they can break the news as fast as possible (although after this, readers might question it next time). After all, people want news as soon as it happens. In fact, pre-writing obituaries is even common practice. John C Abell at Wired explains:

As morbid as it may sound obituaries are, of course, written way in advance whenever possible, especially when the subject is getting on in years or health issues emerge. The subjects are often happily interviewed for their own media epitaphs (maybe not the media-averse Jobs, perhaps).

Maybe this is a strategy our own FamousDeadDB should use. In any case, Bloomberg at least acknowledged their mistake, which was likely just someone accidentally hitting a button that shouldn’t have been hit. They issued a retraction saying:

Aug. 27 (Bloomberg) – An incomplete story referencing Apple Inc. was inadvertently published by Bloomberg News at 4:27 p.m. New York time today. The item was never meant for publication and has been retracted.

It’s a little vague, but at least they posted it. Gawker has reprinted the entire thing, which it describes as "a bit macabre to read but should not scare you out of your Apple shares."

I’m curious to know what Jobs himself thinks of the whole thing. He is apparently doing fine, so just forget the obituary was ever posted.

Editorial content sharing deals like the one noted by Paid Content could be a more widely seen event. Jeff Jarvis called it "a model for other news organizations to take care of commodity news."

Business news forms the commodity in question here. Paid Content noted the IHT’s agreement with Bloomberg for business content expired, giving Reuters the opportunity to slip in and seal the deal.

"This is more than syndication: buying a piece of content. This is a form of outsourcing – you take care of that so I don’t have do (and so I can concentrate on my real value – hint: local)," Jarvis said on his blog.

That’s a truer statement than Jarvis may realize. Reuters has been a presence in outsourcing writing to places like India.

The outsourcing could apply to other areas. Jarvis cited several brands with strength in reporting on niches – ESPN in sports, People in entertainment – that could fill a publications content while reporters focus on local stories.

Reuters’ agreement with IHT may be a stepping stone toward deals with other publications like the New York Times. "Business by Reuters" launches on January 7th online and in print.

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An AP report on the deal said the presence of eBay auction items on Yahoo Japan should start by March 2008. The agreement also promises to interest American auction buyers too.

The report said by the middle of next year, auction items on Yahoo Japan will be available for purchase by American eBay users. Though eBay mentioned manga, CDs, and other products, we think the gadgets that abound in the Akihabara shopping district will find their way into the mix.

One analyst cited in a Bloomberg report, JP Morgan Chase &Co’s Hiroko Sato, said, “The alliance will create a very attractive service for U.S. and Japanese users as it allows them to purchase items simultaneously in both countries.”

Speaking of mix, Yahoo Japan and eBay also announced a new site called Sekaimon. Auctions on eBay will be translated to Japanese, and the site will provide assistance to Japanese shoppers. Yahoo Japan and eBay will share Sekaimon revenue, though the split was not disclosed.

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While AT&T locked up the rights to sell Apple’s iPhone and tie it to AT&T’s network, T-Mobile may have some problems making the same sweet deal in Germany.

Vodafone requested a temporary injunction against T-Mobile to prevent it from selling the iPhone. T-Mobile had been selling Apple’s hot gadget since early in November.

But a Bloomberg report said, in Vodafone’s interpretation of local laws, T-Mobile cannot sell a locked device to German consumers. A Vodafone spokesperson said in the report they want a court to "clarify whether it’s legal to sell a device that is linked exclusively to one phone company."

A court in Hamburg issued the injunction as Vodafone requested, CNNMoney said.

Apple has been engaged in a running battle with hackers who have attempted to unlock the iPhone in the US for use on T-Mobile’s network. Developers also want to be able to write applications for the closed iPhone platform, something Apple plans to permit when it issues a software development kit for iPhone early next year.

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