Will television ever die?

Is Network television dying the same slow death that record stores did? It will take a little longer - because, unlike the music industry, television didn't change formats requiring you to re-buy all your favorite content on a different media.

Our children and grandchildren will never know a time when television consisted of Zee TV, Star Plus, Sony television, with a few local stations thrown in for good measure.
The actual impact of an individual television ad depends on the kind of product being advertised. Some product categories are just naturally more interesting than others. More important is the creativity of the message itself.

A generation gap has opened up between parents, who still regard TV as the most important medium, than people under 25.

Internet television allows the users to choose the content or the television show they want to watch from an archive of content or from a channel directory. The two forms of viewing Internet television are streaming the content directly to a media player or simply downloading the media to the user's computer. With the "TV on Demand" market growing, these on-demand websites or applications are essential for major television broadcasters. For example, the BBC iPlayer brings in users which stream more than one million videos per week, with one of the BBC's headline shows The Apprentice taking over three percent to five percent of the UK's internet traffic due to people watching the first episode on the BBC iPlayer. Availability of online TV content continues to grow. As an example, in Canada as of May 2011 there were more than 600 TV shows available for free streaming, including several major titles like Survivor and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

It has become clear that marketers aren't always envisioning the TV set when they figure out how to use motion-and-sound video to hawk their wares. TV's biggest strength, the transmission of moving video to a national audience, has been usurped.

As a result, never before has the road to the upfront -- that annual spring ritual in which the broadcast networks and their cable counterparts attempt to sell most of their ad inventory -- been so crowded with interlopers. Recently, word broke that Big Digital (that's Microsoft, Hulu, Google's YouTube, AOL and Yahoo) would attempt to stage its own confab with advertiser’s just weeks before the biggest TV networks do.

Research from Nielsen reveals that higher web video viewing leads to less television watching.
Both streaming and TV-viewing have risen. But as trends go, both cannot continue to surge concurrently forever, so at some point, one will have to emerge as the dominant medium. Since the trend is so strong with the younger set, online videos are expected to overtake the television platform, particularly as older viewers fall off the chart.

18 to 24 year olds make up the bulk of those who stream content online, and adults aged 50 to 64 make up 25%-the largest segment-of the traditional TV audience.
It was also found that more women are glued to the television while more men turn on to online videos.
With the exception of Internet-connectivity costs many online-television channels or sites are free. These sites maintain this free-television policy through the use of video advertising, short commercials and banner advertisements may show up before a video is played. An example of this is on the abc.com catch-up website; in place of the advertisement breaks on normal television, a short thirty-second advertisement is played. This short advertising time means that the user does not get fed up and money can be made on advertising, to allow web designers to offer quality content which would otherwise cost. This is how online television makes a profit.

How Can Branding Improve Business

We've all grown up with branding surrounding us; this is because large successful corporations have been using it to their benefit for generations now. You see it on storefronts when you're out shopping, on their shopping bags when you walk out the store with the merchandise you purchased and in their advertisements for their products on the Internet, television, magazines, newspapers.

Finally small business owners and managers are starting to catch on to the branding concept, they're discovering that even though they're small they can still reap the benefits that come from branding and use it to improve their businesses. So then just what can it you do for your business and how can you get started creating and promoting your own brand?

The first thing that branding can do for your business is give it a personality, before you chuckle here, keep on reading because this is important and once you understand it you'll see how important it is. The fact is you've been dealing with companies and corporations personalities for years now without even knowing it. An example of this is; if you have a security company it would be beneficial if people equated your company with “being tough” and vigilant. So the last thing you would need is a logo and personality that depicted perhaps a lamb grazing in a pasture or a small child playing with a skipping rope. You want your company to have the tough personality, you want people think of your company as vigilant, so your brand should depict that and broadcast that tough message.

You've been watching political candidates do it for years with slogans. While one candidate spends and hours and hours discussing issues and giving speeches, the other candidate will communicate all that by way of a slogan connected to their branding, they do this because it has been proven to work.

Another way it can improve your business is to use the branding to connect yourself to positive things in your community. Look around you because environmentalism is huge now, so you may want people to think of your business as being environmentally friendly. Or another example is if you are operating in a resort community where fishing or maybe winter sports like skiing are big money makers you can use branding to connect your business to these other business sectors and reap the benefits from that.

A whole new area you may not have even considered is the use of search engines on the Internet. By branding you can incorporate words and key phrases in your advertising campaigns to reap financial benefits that you otherwise wouldn't be able to. Take a portable outhouse operator as a fine example, if you go ahead and do keyword research and you'll probably find that not very many people are looking for portable outhouses these days. However if that outhouse company incorporated a popular, relevant keyword into their company brand and then used that and other popular related keywords to promote their brand on the Internet it can be a huge game changer.

Microsoft launches Windows 8 in Qatar

Microsoft announced the availability of Windows 8 for its customers in Qatarand around the world. Beginning October 26, consumers and businesses worldwide will be able to experience all that Windows 8 has to offer: a beautiful new UI, a wide range of apps with the grand opening of the Windows Store, available on more than 1000 Windows 8 certified PCs and tablets.

Windows 8 will be available for download to upgrade existing PCs in over 140marketsand 37 languages at windows.microsoft.comandat retail locations around the world, including Qatar.

"With the launch of Windows 8, Microsoft is unveiling a re-imagined Windows to the world," said Naim Yazbeck, Microsoft's Country Manager in Qatar.

"Whether you want a tablet or a PC, whether you want to consume or create, whether you want to work or play - Windows 8 delivers a personalized experience that fits your unique style and needs."

Windows 8 will be available in two versions at retail, Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro. And for our business customers, Windows 8 Enterprise offers new possibilities in mobile productivity with features like Windows To Go, Direct Access, and Branch Cache, as well as enhanced end-to-end security with features including BitLocker and AppLocker.Launching at the same time is a new member of the Windows family designed for ARM-based tablets, Windows RT, which will be available pre-installed on new devices. Windows 8features the new fast and fluid Start screen that gives people one-click access to the apps and content they care most about, the entirely new Internet Explorer 10 that is perfect for touch, and built-in cloud capabilities with SkyDrive.

In addition to the range of new devices available, consumers can also upgrade their existing PCs.