MEDIA RESEARCH

AD AGE's MOOD OF THE MARKET - CONSUMER BEHAVIOR IN WARTIME AMERICA

http://www.adage.com/page.cms?pageId=675

Ad Age brings together all its temperature-taking stories onto one convenient page. As of late, consumers' moods are brightening, but some changes seem to be lasting. Among New Year's resolutions for 2002, dieting gave up its usual top spot in favor of enjoying life and spending more time with friends and family.

(February 2002)

AMERICAN BRANDSTAND

http://www.agendainc.com/brand.html

See which brands appear in the lyrics of Billboard's top 20 singles. Updated weekly since January 2003. So far this year, oft-sung brands include Cadillac, Hennessy, Polaroid, Rolls Royce, Cool Whip and Geico.

(March 2004)

BELOIT COLLEGE MINDSET LIST

http://beloit.edu/mailman/listinfo/mindset

Now in its fifth year, Beloit College compiles 30-50 telling facts about its entering class so professors can understand the students' mindset. It's a cure for "hardening of the references." For the class of 2006:
• A Southerner has always been president of the United States
• "Big Brother" is merely a television show
• China has always been a market-based reforming regime
• Women have always had tattoos

(February 2003, revised March 2004)

HOLLYWOOD STOCK EXCHANGE

http://www.hsx.com/

Keep your finger on the pulse of popularity. Tap the collective wisdom of thousands as they haggle the right price for 'shares' of music acts, movies and stars. Executives in entertainment, consumer products and finance watch the action to see what's hot. Of course, manipulation is always possible. Recently on eBay, an H$306 million portfolio was being auctioned for $53.51 in real money.

(September 2001, revised April 2004)

THE MEDIA CENTER CONVERGENCE TRACKER

http://www.mediacenter.org/convergencetracker/

The Media Center at the American Press Institute is tracking examples of collaboration and resource sharing among US daily newspapers, online media and broadcast media. Florida is particularly fertile ground. Factors there include the presence of large numbers of wealthy retirees and a lack of unionization. The retirees have fueled a large, competitive newspaper marketplace, and unions, concerned about the prospect of journalists doing more work without more pay, have been known to slow the pace of innovation elsewhere.

"Lack of Unions Makes Florida the Convergence State," Online Journalism Review, 4/7/04
http://ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1081317274.php

(May 2004)

NEWSFUTURES PREDICTION MARKETS

http://us.newsfutures.com/home/home.html

NewsFutures provides prediction markets worldwide - 25,000 markets to date. These forums, where participants bet imaginary money on various outcomes, is an alternative to polling, surveys and expert forecasts. Public markets include MIT's Innovation Futures, Politics & Pharma, and The World News Exchange. The current consensus in the latter market is that there's a 38% chance the US will catch or kill Osama bin Laden in 2004.

(May 2004)

READERSHIP INSTITUTE

http://www.readership.org/

Newspaper circulation has been eroding for years. The Readership Institute wants to turn that around. RI is part of the Media Management Center at Northwestern University. Having surveyed 37,000 consumers on what they want, RI invites newspaper publishers to feast on hundreds of insights, all available free at www.readership.org. Magazine publishers will also benefit.

     One low-cost high-impact tip: Publishers can improve reader usage and satisfaction with in-paper content promotion. Alerting readers to future content is most important, followed by telling them what's elsewhere in the current issue. This can convert weekday readers into all-week readers, or one-section readers into three-section readers.

(May 2002)

TRENDWATCHING AND SPRINGWISE

http://www.trendwatching.com/

http://www.springwise.com/

Free monthly Trendwatching newsletter scans the globe for interesting consumer news. The current issue tells how the Dutch postal service (TPG) now lets consumers create personalized stamps using their own pictures. Trendwatching has a business-oriented companion letter, Springwise. It notes the recent launch of easyCinema, a no-frills movie theater in Britain where you book online, bring your own popcorn, and see a movie for as little as US$0.25.

Forecasters are not always right, of course, as Wired points out in its current issue. Semiconductor production, for example, was much more volatile during the past five years than predicted, and US weather forecasts still have trouble cracking 80% accuracy.

"Your Guess Is As Good As Theirs," Wired, July 2003, p. 53
http://www.wired.com/wired/current.html

(July 2003)

THE WORD SPY

http://wordspy.com/

Join The Word Spy's free email list to stay on top of new words, new phrases, and new meanings for old words. Trend-watcher Paul McFedries gives you the background of each new phrase and notes its first sighting. Hot phrases today include "wife acceptance factor," "virtual water" and a new meaning for "brown bagging." There's also a word for blocked legitimate emails: "ham."
     See a related page, Daypop Top Word Bursts, at http://www.daypop.com/burst/

This page flags words showing up with heightened frequency in recent weblogs.

(April 2003)

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