(Annette Moser-Wellman) My smartphone isn't very smart. It's supposed to do fancy things but has trouble just delivering e-mail. While it was expensive two years ago, it now gets frequent brain cramps and the screen freezes. It comforts me to imagine it's possessed by an evil demon. In fact, the $279 data charge I got last month confirms it.
But some smartphones are getting smarter and new technologies are making me envy my friends and neighbors. The iPhone has ushered in a new enthusiasm for what is possible from the palm of your hand. The higher end Nokia phones also have unprecedented computing power. And if you look overseas, you'll see how the intersection of quality phones and amazing technology is changing the landscape of news.
Bhaskar Roy, Cofounder of Qik tells me, "What you see in Europe and Asia is the power of these high capability phones at work. In countries where public transportation is important, people get their news off of their cell phones. So while they're sitting on the train, breaking news comes from SMS, video or audio transcript and is pushed directly to their phone. In the U.S., mobile content will soon become highly customized and will be designed to match a person's personality."
Qik provides a platform for streaming video from cell phones directly to the Web and soon to other cell phones. This means users can send high resolution video fast to multiple sites without being tethered to the laptop. Qik is just that - quick video to many locations. With integration to Twitter, YouTube, Blogger, and more, with Qik on your handheld, you can send video immediately to a few or a few thousand. You can even chat over the video content.
The citizen journalism aspects of a technology like this are obvious. Roy tells a story of one popular video blogger, Steve Garfield. Garfield approached Duncan Hunter as he was going to talk to CNN about the fact that he was still in the presidential race even though he was not invited to the Democratic debate. Garfield ran toward Hunter and said,"Duncan, can I interview you?" Duncan said, "Okay, but talk to one of my campaign folks." Garfield said, "No. Right now through this camera on my phone." So Hunter said, "Sure. What is it that you want to know?" Duncan blurted the entire story and it hit the Internet immediately, before CNN even had the interview."
One global media organization, BBC Technology News, is using Qik in an interesting way. Reporters conduct interviews on-site with technology firms and collaborate with viewers in real-time through the phone. "Reporters can stream the story live and BBC blog viewers can interact with the reporter and say, 'Hey, why don't you ask this question? How about this? Are they doing to do this?' So the overall conversation and the interview gets richer. Now all of a sudden you have a collective mass of folks who are watching this interview and interacting to learn more. They stay engaged with the BBC Technology News blog," Roy said. In this video within a video example, a Qik user video streams an interview that BBC reporter Rory Cellan-Jones is recording on his cell phone.
Even newspapers have learned how to get more power in the hands of their reporters. The Fresno Bee and Sacramento Bee cover news with video using Qik.
Imagine what it will be like when consumers share video directly to each other as quickly and easily as they share text messages. The sources of news will expand dramatically and include exponentially more sources than the Internet alone. Viewing time will include personalized video from friends and family. Users will be able to share special moments immediately – like when a child speaks her first word or takes her first step. News events will be broadcast through informal networks and skip mainline channels. What will be the fate of YouTube when we immediately share our funny videos with only those we know and care about?
The good news for media companies is they will be able to remain relevant by providing customized choices for news, information and entertainment for their various audiences. News organizations would do well to start thinking about how to segment their consumers - to understand in detailed ways how news functions differently for different people.
To participate in this video revolution, you may need a higher quality phone. And while you're at it, will you pick one up for me too?
What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below.
This TechScout article is part of a new series of Moser-Wellman interviews commissioned by Media Management Center to explore opportunities and insights at the intersection of technology and the news media. Click here to view others in the TechScout series.
(Annette Moser-Wellman) For years, we've been waiting for the one device that will combine the "lean back" experience of TV, the computing power of your laptop and mobility of your cell phone. From Sling Box to the iPhone, manufacturers have been searching for the "killer application" that will solve all our needs for news, information and entertainment in one device and bridge the gap between our home and office.
In a recent conversation with Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment & Devices Division at Microsoft, we talked about this holy grail of devices.
"I don't believe in massive convergence of devices. I don't think there's one device. There will be two or three devices. I tend to think about it less in terms of devices and more in terms of screens. There are screens in the home, screens in your car and screens that you take with you. I think of screens instead of devices, because ultimately that's the way the consumer is going to experience whatever content they are getting," he said.
So what actually converges isn't the device itself but the ability of the user to customize the content and functionality they desire on any particular screen.
"The consumer will think, 'I have a bunch of screens around the house and I just want everything to get to those screens. When I'm at my desk, I want to get it on my screen on my desk, which happens to be connected to a PC. When I'm in my living room, I want it on my 56-inch flat panel beautiful screen, and I should be able to get it there. When I'm traveling, maybe it's my 4-inch screen which is just as crisp and sharp, and I should get it there,'" he said.
And while we can expect more power from our cell phones in the future (Bach predicts the power to run an original Xbox game on phones within the year), what will really be important are the software services. Soon most of the processing power we use won't be in the device itself; it will be in the "cloud." Cloud computing is a term for server resources available on-demand and usually provided by a third-party. Cloud computing allows the user to store data remotely rather than storing it on devices.
"That's why you see Google and Microsoft and few others building up these massive networks for data storage and data delivery. Why would you store all your music, for example, locally and risk losing it or have the hassle of moving it from one machine to another? Same thing with your video. Same thing with your documents. Why wouldn't you store it in the cloud and just have access to it?" he asked. Cloud computing supports the availability of the content the consumer wants, when they want it and on the screen they want it.
Thinking about three screens presents opportunities for content providers to customize their products for the purposes of each location. At some point, individual consumers are going to make choices about their preferences for content that will be consumed across platforms. It's incumbent upon news agencies to both be the brand of choice and provide unique value at every "screen" experience.
So the question becomes: what can the news organization offer that is specific to the driving experience versus the "lean back" experience, the mobile experience and so on?
Bach anticipates that voice and touch are going to be major changes in the ways consumers interact with screens and attendant devices. "Why do people think the iPhone is cool? It's not because the phone technology is particularly brilliant. It's not even a fast network. But people like the idea of touch. It's a cool design point."
Bach surprised me by talking about the popularity of Microsoft Sync technology available in Ford cars in which you control your radio and control your e-mail by your voice. So I asked him if I can get Internet news read to me in my car. Bach responded, "Soon it will be possible to be driving in your car and say, "Hey Web. Browse msnbc.com. Read headlines." That's not a crazy scenario at all."
What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below.
This TechScout article is part of a new series of Moser-Wellman interviews commissioned by the Media Management Center to explore opportunities and insights at the intersection of technology and the news media. Click here to view others in the TechScout series.
(Tracey Robinson-English) -- Newsvine.com, an interactive news site, is an intriguing Web innovation that gives users an instant reflection of what the world is chatting about at any given moment.
"You just read an Associated Press story about the fiery riots in France on a major news site. Why shouldn’t you be able to comment on it like you would on a blog entry?" said Mike Davidson, the site’s co-founder and CEO during a Media Management Center seminar on digital strategies earlier this year. "At Newsvine, you can. Why shouldn't you be able to chat about it with whoever else happens to be reading the story at the same time? At Newsvine you can … right within the story itself."
His news start-up incorporates content from Associated Press, New York Times, CNN and other mainstream media into an online package with arguably greater design, readability and the latest social media features, making it one of the better marriages between old media and new media.
(MSNBC was so intrigued by Newsvine that in late 2007, it purchased the company. Davidson continues as CEO of Newsvine, now a wholly owned subsidiary of MSNBC interactive News.)
Davidson noted that Newsvine users determine the content by voting on what they believe is important. So, what you see every day on the site is based on the online community's actions, he said.
"There is no editor behind a desk deciding what stories are most important," the site claims. "You decide that. Whenever you see a story on Newsvine you think is important, simply click the 'Vote' button next to the headline and you’ve just increased the importance score of that story. We feel that thousands of people are better at deciding what’s important than one."
Watch this video for more of Mike Davidson's comments during the MMC seminar.
What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below.
Tracey Robinson-English, a Northwestern alum of Medill and the School of Communication, is a consultant to the Media Management Center.
TechScout: Watching, chatting about, clipping, annotating and sharing the news
(Annette Moser-Wellman) -- Here's my latest guilty pleasure: lying on the family room couch watching mildly entertaining TV while working on my laptop. Somehow when I combine the two experiences, it seems to redeem them both. I just have to be careful not to get popcorn butter on my keyboard.
I suppose this multi-tasking activity is an awkward precursor to the convergence of devices that we hear so much about in the tech community. Device convergence is at the stage of development where it has created more questions than answers for people in the news business. Will access to the Internet on a TV screen alter the way we view news and information? Will mobile devices usher in the intersection of the Web and entertainment? When we can communicate seamlessly across mobile, TV and portable computing, will the nature of news change?
It's Venu Vasudevan's job to think about questions like these. A senior director in applications software platforms research within Motorola Labs, Venu is exploring the implications of convergence on media experiences.
"One aspect of convergence that's particularly exciting is that most devices will not only render rich content, they'll also have communication channels. We believe that when you blend content and communication – when you can talk about content, you can create some new collection of experiences that you couldn't if you were just watching content in isolation."
While Venu is talking, my mind is shifting from my laptop/TV experience to my nephew, who is a big Xbox 360 fan. His buddy is miles away and yet he and my nephew play Grand Theft Auto and chat about the game while they play. I ask Venu if this is the kind of interactivity he is talking about. He says it's similar to the video game experience, but more.
"We're looking for ways to bring back social interaction for media programs. How can you combine watching something with chat, speak, instant messaging, clipping, annotating and sharing? ‘Social TV' is a concept that digitally extends the couch, enabling my friends and me to join each other in watching a common TV program without being physically co-located. While Xbox 360 is fast paced, Social TV is a ‘lean back' experience that turns your electronic program guide into a social dashboard."
"TVlicious is a project of ours that brings a peer-to-peer content-sharing element to TV watching. Just like social bookmarking on the Web, TVlicious allows you to clip TV content to share with others and chat about it over the TV screen." The name TVlicious is an allusion to the social bookmarking site de.li.ci.ous that offers users the ability to tag Web content they are interested in and share it with others."
Sling Media has developed a similar technology it calls Clip+Sling. Users with a Slingbox can access their home TV program simultaneously on their laptops or cell phones through the Internet. With Clip+Sling, they can tag TV content, then send it to an open portal that anyone can access.
Venu believes this kind of technology will be of value to news organizations. When viewers clip stories, media companies can gauge the peaks and valleys of users' interests within a larger story in real time. News organizations can see what is propagating virally and use that information to tailor content.
"Without disturbing the TV experience, you can create a social experience around it," said Venu. You can imagine a scenario in which viewers are more interested in the news because they can interact and share their ideas online.
Venu goes further. He describes a future for TV news in which there is an overlay of content that would allow the viewer to research the subjects and characters more fully. These would be "advanced news experiences" that would allow you to access background information while you are watching. Venu likens this next-generation experience to participating in a reality show and having a relationship with the storyteller. The news ultimately becomes a dialogue.
"News is as much about the people who write the news as the news itself. The creators are also stories in and among themselves," Venu said.
When these technologies become widespread, media experiences will become intensely personal, reflecting our deeply held preferences but at the same time able to be broadly shared. We will sort out exactly what interests us and find communities with like interests.
"Personal media experiences are about convenience and about coherence. Convenience means anytime, anywhere consumption – time-shifted, play-shifted, device-shifted. Think of it as the end of appointment-based media. Coherence means that you can tailor the way the story is consumed. And that you can tailor the story to the device itself," he said.
Venu describes an application that makes convenience and coherence possible today. Advanced media synchronization software enhances the usability of mobile devices by allowing you to cache information on one device and port it to another. For example, you can pick up a story from the Internet on your desktop, then read it on your mobile as you commute home. Rather than a converged device, this application optimizes devices you already use – enabling your "ensemble" of devices to support your media needs by invisibly coordinating with each other with little or no action on your part.
The mobile experience is made effortless and "zero click" via Active Idle technologies such as Motorola's version, Screen3. Screen3 displays news items on your cell phone's menu and gives you the choice to read a few lines or the full story. It gives you the capability to record the content on your home TV or DVR so that, with this convenience, you experience a richer, more in-depth story.
"By allowing you to start an experience on mobile and continuing it on TV or start an experience on TV and continuing it to mobile, you're going away from the notion of listening or reading an item. You're instead going to the idea of consuming a story. Your devices will cater to you, and you can consume content across multiple devices," he said.
The good news is that these technologies optimize the key competitive advantage of a news organization – powerful stories. It allows the media company to focus on providing depth and information, to build out a narrative and tell a more complete story. Because a story is device-agnostic, it doesn't have to live on just the Internet, TV or a handheld. Stories have always had the ability to travel through time. And now they can travel through space as well.
What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below.
This TechScout article is part of a new series of Moser-Wellman interviews commissioned by Media Management Center to explore opportunities and insights at the intersection of technology and the news media. Click here to view others in the TechScout series.
(Annette Moser-Wellman) --- "The Internet changes everything! The Web operates on new values! Old rules just don't work on-line!" We've all heard the refrain and maybe even said it ourselves. But in a surprising interview with Albert Cheng, Executive Vice President, Digital Media, of Disney-ABC Television Group, I was reminded how rapid change also creates a bounce-back effect. We realize some important things stay the same.
"We've tried a lot of things [in news]. Some have succeeded and some didn't work. We thought, for example, user generated video would be core to our success and giving consumers the opportunity to upload what they wanted would be important. But that really hasn't come to fruition. A very small percent of people actually want to upload content. The greater majority, actually the vast majority, still want to read professionally produced, editorialized content," he said.
It's easy for any organization to get swept away in the latest craze. This is especially true in the tech space when a new, sexy feature is launched weekly on the Web. But it does a company good to step back and ask what the marketplace really wants that you should deliver.
Cheng explains, "We used to run this thing called ‘Talk Back' and we assumed people would want to talk to us, but, again, it was a very small amount of people. And that is not necessarily a good representative sample of what the general public wants. So it's an example of a nice thing to have but it's not core to your news editorial."
Cheng said they've taken other risks that have brought them back to their editorial core.
"We played around with citizen journalism, and it keeps coming back to the fact that consumers on the whole still value the editorial, so we've backed off on that. We've even tried blogging. We hired a blogger and we went through about a year of it and it stretched us to think of blogging as a way to report, but it just didn't work with our audience. Blogging wasn't what people expected out of a news organization such as ours."
Cheng believes there is ultimate value in high quality content.
"Less than 2% of users actually upload anything, even on YouTube. And that's because most people don't want to do it. What winds up being really popular on YouTube are things that are illegally pirated – things professional people have already produced. And that's why YouTube is popular -- because there is latent demand from the people who needed a place to go and see something they might have missed and that underlying demand drives the use of the technology," he said.
In a sense, media companies have exaggerated the trend for user generated content over professionally produced content, when in fact, it is the reverse.
Coming back to the consumer's wants and needs continues to be the only way to determine a ‘magnetic north' in the midst of change.
"When people talk to me about, ‘Oh, we can distribute live television over the Internet!' I look at them and go, ‘Are you crazy?' No one cares. Because it's not being able to pipe live television through the Internet that drives it. That's not what makes people care. You'd have far more success breaking up your schedule and making your content available at any time of the day," Cheng said.
In fact, this is what Disney-ABC has done both on their site and on iTunes.
Similarly, Cheng talked about the much-anticipated interactive TV in which people can click on a piece of clothing that someone is wearing and then buy it. "I have not seen that work. I think part of that is not because the technology isn't fully there to support it. I just think that consumers don't find it that interesting."
This concern for the consumers' perspective is what will finally drive the success of media companies.
As news organizations continue the sometimes-painful migration to the Web and pending mobile platforms, thinking like a technology company will be important. But first and foremost will be thinking like a content company.
Cheng said, "Our investment is in the content process and in creating good stories and creating things that people want to engage in from a content perspective. To the extent media companies can find partners in the technology space, it will only benefit them more.
"But news organizations need to spend more time really drilling down on their editorial. Where do they want to position themselves? What is compelling to my audience? The Facebooks of today will be gone tomorrow. The Googles and YouTubes aren't necessarily going to be there either because these guys differentiate themselves on technology. We differentiate ourselves on content. And we can reinvest in that."
Understanding your consumers' needs, creating content that differentiates you from the competition and investing in those choices - all sound like the classics of business leadership. Even in a world upended by technology, sometimes everything old can be new again.
What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below.
This TechScout article is part of a new series of Moser-Wellman interviews commissioned by Media Management Center to explore opportunities and insights at the intersection of technology and the news media. Click here to view others in the TechScout series.
TechScout: Moving Eyeballs and Curating Communities
(Annette Moser-Wellman) -- If you want to see into the crystal ball of the future of media, talk with someone who heads the business development function of a media company. These leaders get the 30,000-foot view of how the Internet is changing the landscape of news.
One of them is Kenneth A. Bronfin, president of Hearst Interactive Media. You'll recognize the household names of ESPN, Cosmopolitan and the Houston Chronicle in the Hearst portfolio, but have you heard of E Ink and Idilia? These are media ventures hand-picked by Ken, who's charged with blending a traditional print and television company with strategic new and emerging technology. It's a role not without risk, and coupled with Ken's aerial view of new media, it's given him a unique perspective about the future of news and media technology.
On making technology investments:
"We look for companies that are developing new technologies and platforms that we believe will change the media world – or, as I sometimes describe to my kids, move eyeballs from one platform to another. That activity stretches across many forms of media. You're never sure what's going to work, but you can't wait around to find out. We get involved in the development of these new companies and help bring them to the forefront. We invest to own five, ten, fifteen or twenty percent or more in these start-up companies. We learn from them, we contribute to their thinking, and we make connections between them and our properties."
On a couple of bets for the future:
"I'm a strong advocate of E Ink technology. This is the display technology used on Amazon's Kindle and Sony's Reader. Imagine if you will an electronic display that looks a lot like paper. Just as easy to read as paper. It can also be as flexible as a piece of paper -- you could roll up and handle it just as you would a newspaper. We are now spending a lot of time considering the ramifications to the media industry brought about by E Ink technology. This should be on the mind of everyone in the newspaper industry – those seeking to save the readers they have now, those seeking to bring back readers that may have left or those seeking to lure new readers.
"We have an investment in a company called Idilia. They've developed substantial new technology in an area called word sense disambiguation. Very simply said, their technology determines the meaning of words in a sentence. Today's search technology can certainly be frustrating and difficult - and Idilia could be the breakthrough that brings about a significant improvement for the consumer. Idilia actually determines the meaning of a string of words – they are able to figure out what each word means in the context of the query."
Editor's Note: Things are moving fast. An E Ink executive just predicted that an e-newspaper would be tested by the end of 2008 and go commercial in late 2009. On online community:
"We still believe that for a traditional media company, an ideal mix is a combination of editorial and community. It's what I call "curated community." We want our readers to come in and talk about a topic. Our goal is to have an editorial voice but at the same time intertwine the community's opinion. Quality community is very much the way our sites are going, allowing user-generated content to bring people into the story. We strive for two-way communication, and we're getting better and better at that. At the end of the day, it makes the content richer, it brings people back more often and it adds to the editorial content that's already been developed by our editors. That's something that advertisers are happy to put their brands against."
On the melding of TV and newspaper:
"We used to see our newspaper and our TV businesses as very different businesses with different distribution and completely different business models. Five years ago, Websites were only about text and graphics but now have video. So the intersection of broadcast and newspapers is here. People still see these as two very different industries, but the fact is they seek the same audience and produce the same kind of content. We send out our newspaper reporters with not only a pen and paper, but now with a still camera or video camera."
On the outlook for traditional media companies:
"I'm often the guy who's screaming to traditional media folks: ‘You got to change your ways -- now!' Most traditional media companies have been focused on meeting their quarterly earnings targets, but I believe they've been doing that at the risk of sacrificing the future of their business. It's only in recent years that the media companies have begun to endure additional risk and begun to make significant investments on the Web. You have to be ahead of the curve…"
What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below.
This TechScout article is part of a new series of Moser-Wellman interviews commissioned by Media Management Center to explore opportunities and insights at the intersection of technology and the news media. Click here to view others in the TechScout series.
TechScout: Getting the Kind of Online Metrics That Advertisers Need
(Annette Moser-Wellman) – We've all seen the stats. Online news is growing in popularity. But what do commonly-available usage statistics really tell us about the attitudes and behaviors of consumers on a news site? Wouldn't you love to have a deeper understanding of your online users? Better data to share with your advertisers? The future of online measurement is changing and Susan Hickey, Chief Marketing Officer of Nielsen Online explained to me some of the opportunities and barriers in the world of online measurement.
"We have a lot of metrics about how consumers use the Web, but when you are thinking about brand impact or consumer involvement you want to be thinking about the quality, not just the quantity. We are spending a lot of time working with clients to define engagement metrics, which may differ by industry – for example, e-commerce, media, health and consumer packaged goods," she said.
"As the Web has quickly become a communication platform for individuals, we are working to measure and analyze the impact of these consumer conversations…Who are the influentials? How does our overall online strategy work within CRM strategy? How is consumer generated media impacting our brand equity? Social networks and blogs have become the world's largest focus group," she said.
This type of consumer understanding is what advertisers are going to be looking for across the three screens of computer, television and mobile. As users consume content across platforms, measurement is going to have to merge across platforms.
Susan explains: "Advertisers don't want to differentiate between a TV campaign, an online campaign or a mobile campaign. It's all got to work together and so the metrics will have to work together. The questions they will ask are, ‘Am I reaching an incremental audience across these platforms? Or is it just the same audience in three difference places?'"
Measuring mobile content usage presents its own set of challenges. With the lack of standards in cell phone technology, it's tricky to build a software meter that translates across operating systems.
"Our clients see cell phones as a big area for growth and opportunity. Relative to other market sizes, cell phone penetration is high for things like texting and voice, but how people actually use it for content is not clear. Mobile content is still in its very early stages and will be a big growth area in the future, especially because of the global nature of it."
She noted that developing meaningful Internet metrics has always been a challenge.
"When Nielsen started measuring television 50 plus years ago, a handful, not even a handful, of networks were measured. But since Day One on the Internet, there have been potentially hundreds of thousands of sites to measure," she said.
Getting a clear picture of the who, how and why of online activity is a daunting task fraught with complications. How do you correct for traffic data without duplicating the same user from two different PC's? How do you deselect the activity of bots and crawlers? How do you use US panel data when you realize it isn't going to represent visitors coming from in around the world?
As online ad spending continues to increase relative to traditional media, these measurement questions take on a new urgency. More and more advertisers want to understand their return on investment. And they have high expectations. The Web is seen as so inherently measurable that it makes measuring the medium even more challenging.
"There are almost limitless numbers of data sets that you can get to - whether you use them to monetize your site, understand your consumers or benchmark against competitors. So establishing measurement standards, while supporting ongoing innovation, will be the key issue for the online advertising industry going forward. It's going to take the understanding and agreement of publishers, agencies and the research companies to come up with the right set of metrics we can all agree upon," Susan told me.
Even still, Nielsen is making significant strides in measurement of online video. The growth projections for both online video consumption and video advertising revenue are significant and advertisers want to know more about consumer behaviors. Nielsen's VideoCensus product combines panel and server research methodologies to provide an accurate count of viewing activity and engagement with in-depth demographic reporting.
And what they are learning about consumers is eye-opening. For example, online video watching by women tends to be more network television segments, yet men skew toward more consumer generated content. And, Susan said, "There is now a mini-prime time at work between 12:00 - 2:00. People are catching up on what they may not have seen previously."
They are finding that network websites are destinations for fans to deepen their experience – they go to see favorite scenes, episodes and outtakes. These viewers are very loyal and engaged and the Website is a place to become immersed in the program.
By contrast, with shorter clips and a viral nature, consumer generated media sites are much more about discovery and consumers are likely to view content on more than one.
Susan expects a balance will occur in measurement between the quantity of users and the quality of the content experience. In the future, there will be ways to measure the consumer engagement of a social networking function or a blog.
So accurate measurement may still lag behind adoption of technology, and certainly advertising, in many ways. But you can take comfort that someday and maybe even soon, you'll be able to get a bit closer to the who, how and why of your Website user. And won't your advertisers like that!
What do you think? Please share your thoughts, experiences and reactions by clicking on the comment button below.
This TechScout article is part of a new series of Moser-Wellman interviews commissioned by Media Management Center to explore opportunities and insights at the intersection of technology and the news media. Click here to view others in the TechScout series.
Bhaskar Roy, Cofounder of 
In a recent conversation with Robbie Bach, President of the Entertainment & Devices Division at Microsoft, we talked about this holy grail of devices. 
o commonly-available usage statistics really tell us about the attitudes and behaviors of consumers on a news site? Wouldn't you love to have a deeper understanding of your online users? Better data to share with your advertisers? The future of online measurement is changing and Susan Hickey, Chief Marketing Officer of 
