It seems McDonald’s has used the show Iron Chef to plant a subliminal message (Video in YouTube). I’m not lovin’ it. | via MIT Advertising Lab

After having revolutionaized the long distance call market, the founders of Skype set out to do the same thing for television. Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis have been working on a project codenamed ‘the Venice Project’ (named after the conference room the first meeting was held in). A few days ago, the projects real name was revealed as being Joost.

The idea of Joost es to distribute television content over the internet, through a Peer to Peer technology (unlike iTunes). The big advantage of the P2P network is the fact that popular content is actually easier and faster to access (since it is stored on most locations) whereas in a normal service high demand often means slow delivery.

In a first stage, Joost will be an application you install on your PC (and Mac?) which would be hooked up to your television screen. Later on, the idea is to cater other screens as well (think mobile).

The Joost application is based on Mozilla, which is open source. This means that soon we will be able to download plug-ins and overlays made by third parties, FireFox style (also Mozilla based). So not only will the service allow you to time shift content, it will also offer an enhanced viewer experience.

Imagine a plug-in that adds directors comments to a movie (who hasn’t ever dived into IMDB after watching a flick?), or a plug-in showing similar content. Obviously, there’s a lot of nice things marketers could do as well, such as linking products in a show (the casts wardrope?) to ecommerce websites.

Joost is still in Beta, for now. Below a few nice screenshots from BBC’s Fifth Gear as seen on Joost.

Various talks over the past few weeks could lead to a deal between Google and CBS. Such a deal would most probably include the following:

• CBS content available on Google Video and YouTube
• CBS radio stations added to Google’s Radio Adsense platform
• Google’s entry in TV advertising, most probably trough it’s Adsense platform

Of course that last issue is what generates most interest. | via AdAge

Yesterdays’ Macworld event brought us two new gadgets from Apple. I’m sure by now you’ve already read about both of them in about 2 million web sites out there: the long awaited iPhone and AppleTV, earlier this year announced by Steve Jobs as iTV. Rather than bringing you the news, let’s take a look at what these devices mean for advertising and marketing.

Rather than pretending these two gadgets are going to change the world, I see them as representatives for a new breed of hardware that is essentially bringing us REAL internet in our pockets and IPTV for the masses.

Let’s start with the iPhone, available starting february 2007 in the US (Apple is currently waiting for FCC approval). Apple’s independency (and the fact that it controls both hardware and software) allowed for the creation of a device that is kind of everything a tech savvy consumer had hoped for.
It’s an iPod (4GB or 8 GB), an internet communications device (using the Safari browser) and well… a phone (GSM, EDGE, WiFi and Bluetooth). The phone has only one button, and a large touch screen. It’s operated by OSX. Maybe the one thing missing might be GPS, something that is incorporated in Nokia’s N95 and others. To get a good sense of how it works, please refer to the demos on Apple website. As for marketing, let me take a look at two points:

First, Apple’s iPhone is -in my opinion- the first device to pretend to massively deliver REAL mobile internet. No WAP, but real internet using a real browser. I know it’s not the first device to pull that off, but I’ve never seen it done so well and Apple’s marketing will surely take care of spreading the news. The WiFi antenna also helps.

That combination of tech allows for a lot of interesting stuff. Apple paired with Google, delivering Google Maps on the iPhone, together of course with the powerful ad platform. Google Maps API will surely continue bringing great applications, made or optimized for the fact that people are now carrying Maps in their pockets.

It’s also easy to think of rating systems and recommendation systems helping consumers make in-store decisions.

Secondly, the iPhone is yet another screen ready to deliver content. All content available in the iTunes store can be downloaded to the iPhone. Together with IPTV, these are the technologies that are changing viewing habits (and subsequently, marketing habits). Also, these mobile content deliverers can be a great channel for branded entertainment.

What about AppleTV? AppleTV is not TiVo, it is not a DVR. It’s a device with a 40GB HD that connects to your television and syncs content from iTunes (music, video and photos). Essentially, it brings the iTunes experience to the living room.

With this technology, Apple gains strength as a content distributor, something that without doubt is one of the reasons it changed its name from Apple Computer Inc. to a plain Apple Inc. Let’s see what AppleTV means for marketing:

First of all, AppleTV lets broadband video content compete directly with cable, network or satellite television, since the two fight over the same screen: the 42 inch television in your living room. Now, even watching holiday pics means I’m not watching ‘regular’ television.

Secondly, AppleTV is an important step towards non-linear television, where viewers decide when to watch end Prime Time is history. I once described this process as Itunisation, comparing it to the music industry. First we had long play vinyls (with no control at whatsoever). Then we had CD’s (with the ability to skip, repeat, etc). Now we have iTunes (we can buy one single song and we can mix Beethoven with Beastie Boys). Television is undergoing a similar process, the traditional channels being the equivalent of the LP.

Also, devices like AppleTV are a contribution to media democratization. Generating content was already easy (videocasting). Distributing it was no problem either (just some bandwith). The missing part was receiving the content, since that little iPod screen or the laptop just didn’t do. AppleTV solves this problem, completing a great channel for the public as well as for marketers to explore.

Finally, of course, buying ad free content on iTunes just got a but more attractive now that I can watch it in my couch.

Again, I don’t expect just these two specific products to pull off the job, but I sure think Apple is spearheading some very interesting developments here.