Livestation becomes AirPlay-enabled with new update

The online television streaming service LiveStation has updated its iOS app today. The update now makes the iPhone/iPad app Airplay-enabled, which means that owners of the app can now stream the video content to their Apple TV devices for watching on their television sets.

Livestation is a free app from the company of the same name that gives users the ability to watch live television on their tablet or phone from a limited, but important, selection of programmers such as Al Jazeera English, NASA TV, France 24, Press TV, BBC Arabic and others.

While the number of channels is small, Livestation is one of the few ways consumers in the US can watch Al Jazeera English which has proved itself invaluable in following events in Egypt, Libya and Côte d'Ivoire. The importance of making their app Airplay-enabled is that now there will be a way to watch these channels without having to rely on a cable or satellite provider since those companies currently do not offer this channel.

The app update also greatly improves the look of the app on the iPad. Previously the channel selection page only worked in portrait, showing that the app had been developed for the iPhone. The quality of the video streams is still fairly pixelated, but at least now the user does not need to turn their tablet around to watch content.

There is not a Livestation app currently in the Android Market, though I did find an Al Jazeera app in Google's app store.

Two reports show online business still has lots of room for growth; B2B online display advertising budgets stagnant

Two recently released marketing research reports reveal that while online advertising is enjoying strong growth compared to print, print continues to get an overweighted amount advertising compared to the medium's actual readership levels.

Despite good growth projections, eMarketer says that while US adults spend a little over 25 percent of this media consumption day online, only a little less than 19 percent of ad spending is targeted to online. Mobile media is also underweighted: 15.6 percent of media consumption is via mobile media, while ad spending on mobile makes up only 11 percent of the marketing dollars.

Newspapers and magazines -- print, that is -- are overweighted, according to the report: 8.1 percent of time is spent reading a newspaper, while newspaper get 16.5 percent of the ad dollars out there.

This phenomenon is probably the result of traditional buying habits as agencies and marketers are slow to move ad dollars from one medium to another. The raw numbers also do not measure ad effectiveness.

Forrester released a report two weeks ago that also revealed that B2B interactive marketers are also not moving dollars to online at a rate equal to the rate readers are moving to online media. According to the report, while 71 percent of B2B marketers are advertising online (display ads), this is considerable less than the 86 percent of marketers that are targeting consumers online.

Partially this can be explained by the more complex and longer sales cycle associated with B2B, but it is also reflects the rather poor job B2B publishers have done in developing and promoting their online properties. Forrester, though, says marketers have their doubts about the effectiveness of B2B online display ads.

Not surprisingly then, few B2B marketers are planning on increases to their online budgets in 2011 - only 13 percent according to Forrester, though overall spending is expected to increase this year by over 6 percent. The emphasis was added to show that at least in the area of B2B marketers are not putting their dollars where the readers are heading.

I should add a note here, however: I have not read the report, which costs $499 on the Forrester website, so I am relying on second hand accounts of the report. Having said that, their own findings are consistent with my own experience talking to B2B brands and their agencies.

Engadget-AOL story shows danger of acquisition strategy

This is a retweet of sorts of the excellent David Carr column appearing today in the New York Times. It recounts the story of AOL's website acquisition strategy, and how, especially in the case of Engadget, it doesn't always work out.

A little background: Engadget was launched in 2004 and was purchased by AOL as part of a larger acquisition of Weblogs Inc. Edited by Ryan Block, then Joshua Topolsky (and it was just announced, Tim Stevens). Now, however, Topolsky and much of the staff has or is leaving the AOL property for a new venture -- you can read all the details in Carr's story.

But this whole saga very much reminds me of other New Media acquisition strategies including that at some newspaper companies. The idea is that in order to acquire New Media cred it is is necessary to buy New Media properties. Those on the outside usually means the death (or at least the decline) of that New Media property.

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Bonnier releases Mag+ tablet publishing tools for use by publishers; software works with Adobe Air, InDesign

Magazine publishing firm Bonnier has announced that it is spinning off Moving Media+ and that the new separate company has released its Mag+ tablet publishing system for use by other publishers.

To get started a publisher needs to visit the MagPlus.com website (you can click on the logo here in this story) to register with the company. After confirming your contact information you will soon be downloading the MagPlus software.

The installation instructions are included in the download, but are fairly simple: the users must have the latest version of Adobe Air, and should keep the MapgPlus folder on their desktop in order to then install the plug-in into Adobe InDesign's plug-in folder. Then the user continues by installing the MagProd file as well as the iPad Reviewer file (very easy, believe me). Other than registering your iPad with the Mag+ team in order to activate the device for app reviewing, that is about it. An installation and application introduction PDF are included with the software.

"Mag+ puts creative people back in the driving seat – where they belong, Fredrik Strömberg, Moving Media+ Head of Concept said in the company's announcement. "Now designers and editors can get on with the business of producing beautiful work on tablets, without relying on the technical side of the house at every step.”

Publishers who use the application pay at the end of the process, when they are ready to launch their magazine app. The cost is $2500 and allows the user to publish for five months. After that, the cost is $500 per issue, or $500 per month for unlimited publishing.

For entrepreneurial publishers, the cost will be a bit of a burden until they get up to speed. But for small to mid-sized publishing houses, the platform might be a good deal, especially if the cost is spread over multiple titles.

Bonnier is using the platform on its titles Popular Science+, Transworld Snowboarding+, while IDG’s MacWorld is also on the platform.

Marketing firm Epsilon discovers its data files have been compromised; companies scramble to inform customers

Customers were informed yesterday and this morning that their email addresses are now out in the open following a breach in security at Epsilon, a marketing services firm. Customers of such companies as Chase, Best Buy, Kroger, Capitol One, Citigroup, Ameriprise and Barclays are scrambling to notify their customers that their email addresses have been accessed. The U.S. College Board is also a customer of Epsilon and this morning informed students that have signed up at the website to take the SAT that their information has been accessed.

The breach is being called the biggest email security breach in US history.

Many of the customer notices are almost identical: Barclays Bank of Delaware issued a press release stating that its vendor Epsilon has informed them that "someone 'outside their company' gained unauthorized access to files in their systems that included a large number of email addresses," the bank said in its statement.

Chase send emails to customers stating that "Epsilon, vendor we use to send e-mails, that an unauthorized person outside Epsilon accessed files that included e-mail addresses of some Chase customers."

Epsilon conducts email marketing campaigns for hundreds of customers, sending out billions of marketing emails each year. According to a statement issued by Epsilon on Friday, the company became aware of the security leak two days earlier on March 30.

Cablevision launches first iPad app that takes a different approach to delivering live television programming

While Time Warner Cable continues to battle negotiate with their programming partners on the issue of channel streaming for their iPad apps, Cablevision has released its first iPad that takes a slightly different approach. As a result, the Optimum for iPad app will allow users to view all their channels plus on-demand programming.

The free uses a "Advanced Digital Cable" television network to deliver programming to the iPad, rather than streaming. In essence, the application simply turns your iPad into another television set. The advantage, in theory, is that Cablevision believes this way of delivering live television is consistent with existing distributions agreements.

"Cablevision has the right to distribute programming over its cable system to iPads configured in this way under its existing distribution agreements with programming providers," Cablevision's press release explains.

“This application allows the iPad to function as a television, delivering the full richness and diversity of our cable television service to a display device in the home,” said Tom Rutledge,
Cablevision’s chief operating officer.

The disadvantage of taking this approach is that the iPad is anchored to the home environment through your WiFi network, though those will a bit of technical knowledge could construct a workaround. Nonetheless, what many consumers are asking for is the ability to view live programming on their mobile devices outside the home -- without adding another large cost.

“This is the future of Advanced Digital Cable televisions served with virtual set-top boxes, and just one of many digital displays we are going to be serving through a variety of applications,” Rutledge said in the company's statement.