Webcast ratings all shook up

Webcast ratings all shook up

ABC Radio’s (DIS) stranglehold on Webcast audience listenership has
been broken. The perennial most-listened to radio station on the Web,
WABC-AM, is not even in the latest top 25 weekly listing published
Tuesday by MeasureCast Inc. of Portland, Oregon. The research firm said
its weekly index of the number of hours streamed by online broadcasters
also dropped as stations pulled their signals off the Internet due to
awareness than a performer’s union contract required payments for
Webcast commercials. MeasureCast’s previous weekly report listed five
U.S. commercial radio stations among the top 10. The new report includes
one, WLIR-FM/92.7 (New York). The most listened to Webcaster was
MediAmazing, a build-your-own playlist service, which reached 41,705
people during the week ending April 22. Among the strongest gainers was
ESPNRadio.com, which had a 43 percent rise in time spent listening.
MeasureCast suggested interest in this past weekend’s NFL draft could
have been responsible.

Online shopping now mainstream

Nearly half of adults in the United States have made a purchase
online, according to research by Nielsen/NetRatings (NTRT). The research
analysis firm estimated that 100.2 million people over the age of 18
have made online purchases. "Online shopping is not trivial when
more than 80 percent of all Web surfers and nearly one out of every two
Americans are involved. E-commerce has gone mainstream," said Sean
Kaldor, a vice president at NetRatings.

More than $3.5 billion was spent online in March 2001, jumping 35.6
percent from $2.6 billion in April 2000, the researchers also said. Two
product categories accounted for more than half the growth. Online
travel spiked 58.5 percent to more than $1 billion in March, while
clothing and apparel jumped 122.3 percent to $368 million. "Despite
challenges in the U.S. economy, online spending is holding strong, even
gaining four percentage points from February to March 2001," said
Kaldor. Amazon.com (AMZN) was the biggest online retailer, handling 15.1
percent of all purchases. Ebay (EBAY) was second with 14.5 percent, and
BMG.com came in third, garnering 4.3 percent of all online transactions.

Webvan CEO says he delivered

George Shaheen said he worked hard and did the best he could with a
difficult model at Webvan Group (WBVN). He resigned his duties at the
online grocer about 10 days ago. Although at criticized by some as not
being "an operator" and "the wrong man", Shaheen
refused to respond in an interview with CNET. "There’s always going
to be someone who doesn’t agree with what you’re doing," he said.
The 57-year-old former Web executive said, " I came in and worked
hard on a business model that was difficult to execute."

NAB exhibitors may boost WebTV

Microsoft’s (MSFT) WebTV and AOL Time Warner’s (AOL) AOLTV may be
beneficiaries of attention at this week’s National association of
Broadcasters Convention. Several video technology companies are showing
products for the development of Web-based content. Among them are Avid
Technology (AVID), Chyron (CHY) and Norpak. VertigoXMedia ‘s Producer
2.0 is an example, giving broadcasters tools to take Web content and
newswire text and convert the data for delivery within interactive TV
programs.

World Book on AOL

The 22-volume World Book Encyclopedia will be available through
America Online’s (AOL) and CompuServe services. World Book will also
become the primary general reference resource for the Research &
Learn channels of AOL and CompuServe. An additional 3,200 articles and
media features, will also be available at no additional cost to the
services’ 32 million members, the companies said.

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