Sucherman Consulting Group

Twitter has announced in a blog post a glorious new ability: “the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world.” At last! There are two ways of looking at this new “ability,” one optimistic and one pessimistic. One is that Twitter is now more able to effectively tailor itself to the needs of certain countries. The other is that Twitter is now more able to effectively tailor itself to the needs of certain countries. In a way, it’s a good solution: countries where it is forbidden to speak ill of God or well of Hitler will now be able to extend those restrictions to Twitter. Read More ›

Do you think Netflix is worried about the fact that Hulu Plus now has over 1.5 million subscribers? Well, think again. According to the letter its managers wrote to its shareholders today following the release of its its Q4 earnings, the film & TV streaming and DVD rental service is much more concerned about TV Everywhere and similar services than about over-the-top (OTT) pure players such as Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime. Even its conviction that Amazon will “brand their video subscription offering as a standalone service at a price less than [Netflix's]“, echoing earlier reports, doesn’t seem a major source of concern for the company. Read More ›

Mobile action codes—including 2D barcodes, QR codes, Microsoft Tags and watermarks—became much more prevalent in the top 100 U.S. magazines in 2011, increasing 439 percent from 352 codes in Q1 to 1,899 codes in Q4. Mobile marketing and technology company Nellymoser creates these types of ads for magazines and conducted the research, so the company obviously has skin in this game, but its findings are interesting for showing how marketers are changing the ways they use these action codes. (The report doesn’t focus on how well action codes are actually, you know, spurring action but I’ve asked for some follow-up data.) Read More ›

In the half year since its launch, Google has acquired 90 million users, the company says, opened brand pages and integrated with third-party social-media management systems like Hootsuite and my firm, Hearsay Social. As an example of how rapidly its clout has grown, the new Android OS (nicknamed “Ice Cream Sandwich”) prompts new users to sign up for Google+ with the personal info they’ve already entered on the phone. As for business, if you type something like “+burberry” into Google search, you will be instantly redirected to the Burberry Google+ page. Read More ›

Lawmakers want answers from Google Inc. about new privacy policies the Internet giant announced earlier this week that would allow it to consolidate all of the user data it tracks. In a letter to Google Chief Executive Larry Page, a bipartisan group of eight House lawmakers on Thursday demanded more information about the changes, including current information-collection practices, how the information will be stored and whether there are special protections for children and teens. Google on Tuesday said that it will start combining the information it has on users who use different Google products—such as Gmail and YouTube—as part of changes to its privacy policies. Read More ›

Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes has pledged to introduce legislation that would extend California’s film production incentive program — probably for five years. Fuentes said Thursday that he will introduce a bill within the next several weeks. He carried last year’s legislation, which extended the program for a single year after the original bill provided for five years. “We need to get more years to telegraph stability to the industry,” Fuentes (D-Sylmar) said in a roundtable discussion organized by incentive supporters at the Beverly Garland Hotel in North Hollywood. Read More ›

It’s been a couple years since we last took a detailed look at the way your cable dollars get split up. Takeaway from our 2010 review:You pay a whole lot of money for sports TV, whether you like it or not. Let’s take another peek, courtesy of SNL Kagan and Barclays analyst Anthony DiClemente, who has an updated list of wholesale prices by channel* Read More ›

In less than two months since launching on the Xbox 360, Epix’s video-streaming app has been downloaded more than 1.25 million times — proving the power of TV-connected devices as a way to reach viewers, according to the premium network. Epix launched on the Xbox the week of Dec. 6, as part of the game console’s interface overhaul. The app provides free short-form content, as well as a way for users who subscribe to Epix through their pay-TV provider to sign in and watch more than 3,000 full-length movies and other titles. Read More ›

As a pioneer in the mobile media space, ESPN has long seen the value of reaching fans on-the-go with sports scores, video highlights and specialized apps to feed their passion. But rather than view mobile as the oft-described “third screen,” the sports media powerhouse refers to it as the “first screen,” according to Michael Bayle, VP and general manager of ESPN Mobile. In a keynote talk Thursday at MediaPost’s Mobile Insider Summit, Bayle explained that instead of determining how to shoehorn its programming from traditional media to mobile platforms, the process is now reversed, with mobile becoming the starting point. Read More ›

Thanks to changing strategies surrounding Super Bowl advertising, a network that no longer has anything to do with broadcasting the gridiron classic was able to snare a commercial that is part of the buildup to the event on Feb. 5. Yes, that was Volkswagen ‘s Super Bowl teaser ad, featuring a now-famous pack of dogs barking out the “Imperial March” from “Star Wars,” during an episode of “The Middle” on Walt Disney’s ABC last Wednesday, Jan. 18. While not formally part of NBC’s coming broadcast of Super Bowl XLVI, the commercial’s appearance is part of Volkswagen ‘s broader Super Bowl campaign, and its presence online as well as on ABC demonstrates how widely Super Bowl ad efforts now extend beyond the game. Read More ›