A FACT TO ASTOUND THE DIGERATI




The post that follows is clipped from my favorite wordsmith and blogger, Bob Hoffman at Hoffman Lewis. Great work Bob!
Anyone In Advertising Still Interested In Facts?


Here at The Ad Contrarian World Headquarters, our commitment to our readers is so
intense that we actually pore through media research studies to provide you with the most up-to-date, relevant, information available.

Sometimes we even do it with our clothes on (I don't know what that means, but it seemed funny.)

I have just finished reading Nielsen's "Cross-Platform Report" for the 1st quarter of 2011 and, let me tell you, it was no Great Gatsby.

Besides suffering from Melted Brain Syndrome, I am sitting here in shock and awe. I am amazed at two things.

First, I am amazed at the resilience of television.

Second, I'm amazed at how the media world continues to ignore this story.

Over the past decade, if there is one story that is absolutely astounding, unexpected, and in complete disjunction with the opinion of experts, it is the incredible resilience of television.

Yes, web usage has grown. Yes, social media is an interesting and important social phenomenon. Yes, DVR's have become commonplace. But with all the new media and all the new technology no one expected TV viewership to behave as it has.

And yet, the trade media and media research companies continue to ignore this story, and instead report on the sexier, trendier new media stories.

As I have commented before, traditional TV viewing is at its highest point ever in history. People are watching, on average, over 35 1/2 hours a week. How much more stupid TV can these nitwits watch? Five hours a day isn't enough?

And it's continuing to grow! Over the last year, TV viewership grew another 22 minutes a month, on average.

Meanwhile, with all the hysteria about TiVo, and YouTube, and mobile, no other video medium even comes close to live TV. Here are the numbers:

The average person in America watches 38.7 total hours of video a week

•92% of that is real-time television
•6% is time-shifted television (TiVo, etc)
•1.5% is online video
•Less that 1/2 of 1% is mobile video
(And, by the way, the average person spends 6 times as much time on television as he does on line.)

As a service to all of you who are under the thumb of web maniacs, here is a simple chart I've created that you can click on and print out and stick up their...well, on their desks, anyway.



TECHNOLOGY ON STEROIDS



This is 1956 photo of an IBM hard drive.

The drive weighed about a ton and could store about 5 megabytes of data. By comparison it would take 1000 of these monsters to store what a thumb drive can store today.
An analysis of the history of technology shows that technological change is exponential, contrary to the common-sense “intuitive linear” view. So we won’t experience 100 years of progress in the 21st century — it will be more like 20,000 years of progress (at today’s rate).

The “returns,” such as chip speed and cost-effectiveness, also increase exponentially. There’s even exponential growth in the rate of exponential growth. Within a few decades, machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence, leading to technological change so rapid and profound it represents a rupture in the fabric of human history.

The implications include the merger of biological and non biological intelligence, immortal software-based humans, and ultra-high levels of intelligence that expand outward in the universe at the speed of light.

And advertising fits into this picture, how?

With thanks to Business Insider for the photo and Ray Kurzweil's Accelerating Intelligence.

WARNING! ADVANCED PERSISTENT THREAT


Think you're safe? Think again.

APTs refer to a group of well-funded, highly capable hackers pursing a specific agenda. It can be to bring down a site, hack government intelligence, steal personal banking information or disable infrastructures of whole countries.

The threats are real. Secure your information.

The most significant hacks in the first few months of 2011 affected millions of individuals resulting in millions of dollars in losses. They include . . . .

Epsilon (the largest breach of personal e-mail data), RSA (hacked security keys to highly sensitive governemt intelligence), SONY (70 million playstation account compromised), Google (government e-mail accounts hacked), Michaels ( PIN pads hacked and credit cards compromised), CITI (200,000 accounts stolen, credit cards reissued), IMF (sophisticated attack over several months to gain access to government information as "political dynamite).

And in 2010 "Payback Attacks" alone numbered 33 . . . .
  1. ACS:Law acs-law.org.uk 10/03/2010
  2. RIAA riaa.org 10/29/2010
  3. Motion Picture Association of America mpaa.org
  4. Aiplex Software aiplex.com
  5. Davenport Lyons davenportlyons.com
  6. TMG Image Over Networks tmg.eu
  7. Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) afact.org.au
  8. DG Legal dglegal.com
  9. Gallant Macmillan gmlegal.co.uk 10/12/2010
  10. Ministry of Sound ministryofsound.com 10/03/2010
  11. Sociedad General de Autores y Editores (SGAE) sgae.es 10/06/2010
  12. Ministerio de Cultura mcu.es 10/06/2010
  13. promusicae promusicae.es 10/06/2010
  14. Federation of the Italian Music Industry (FIMI) fimi.it 10/09/2010
  15. International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) ifpi.it 10/09/2010
  16. pro-music.it 10/09/2010
  17. United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office ipo.gov.uk 10/16/2010
  18. Associação do Comércio Audiovisual de Portugal acapor.pt 10/18/2010
  19. Gene Simmons genesimmons.com 10/19/2010
  20. Satel Film satelfilm.at 10/22/2010
  21. Hustler hustler.com 10/22/2010
  22. FACT fact-uk.org.uk 10/24/2010 10:00 PM GMT
  23. antipiracy.fi antipiracy.fi 10/26/2010
  24. United States Copyright Office copyright.gov 11/03/2010 15:00 GMT
  25. Irish National Federation Against Copyright Theft infact.ie 11/06/2010
  26. International Federation of the Phonographic Industry ifpi.org 11/26/10
  27. Warner Bros. warnerbros.com 12/1/10 6:00 PM GMT
  28. PostFinance postfinance.ch 12/6/10
  29. Aklagarmyndigheten Aklagare.se 12/7/10
  30. EveryDNS everydns.com 12/7/10
  31. Joseph Lieberman lieberman.senate.gov 12/8/10
  32. MasterCard mastercard.com 12/8/10 10:30 AM GMT
  33. Borgstrom and Bostrom advbyra.se 12/8/10