Desktop Radio Ad

Great demo ad for a downloadable desktop radio here

Thanks to Sam Tait for the link!

MySpace Vs. YouTube in Europe

A few weeks ago I wrote that Alexa data said that YouTube had greater global reach than MySpace.

No other source has yet confirmed this, but theComScore data for July (see chart) shows that in all major markets in the UK YouTube now has more reach than MySpace. It is most extreme in Spain, where YouTube has nearly 4 times the reach.

Incidentally the global figures from ComScore still put MySpace significantly ahead, but a) ComScore does not track in all Asian markets, and b) YouTube is likely to overtake in any case in the next month or two.

Goggles - Google Maps Flight Simulator Game

Use your arrow buttons to control this small plane as it flies over Google's satellite maps. Choose your city, and chocks away!

Play now!

Tom Has 100m Friends

Today MySpace hit a major milestone - 100m members.

Every joiner to MySpace gets Tom as their first friend - Tom Anderson, one of the founders.

This means that the number of friends Tom has is also the number of members MySpace has.

MySpace was founded in July 2003, and hit it's last major milestone of 90m members at about the start of July 2006, so the last 10m has taken just over a month to recruit.

Of course this does not mean people - members are also bands, films, and other brands trying to connect with teens and young adults.

Also, crucially, this still includes profiles that have been deleted - that is if a profile is deleted - say no. 15,552,437 - that number does not get re-allocated to a new joiner.

Today at 8.38 PST, Tom hit the magic 100 million mark of all-time friends.

Who was the 100 millionth friend? Apparently (see the comment below) the profile's already been deleted, but this one is no 100,000,002, and that's about as close as it gets. This woman is no 99,999,996.

YouTube Getting Commercial - Ad for The Pulse

Signs that YouTube is getting more commercial - there's a trailer for The Pulse, a new film from dimension Films, part of The Weinstein Company, on the homepage this morning.

So far, at 10.30 UK time, it's had 57,000 views, and 190 comments.

Most of users don't seem to notice that this is an ad, and most of the comments are positive, but there are a few negative posts about the trailer, this being typical: "WTF? get this sh!t off of my front page, taking up too much room."

Other commenters, trextor for example, point out that this is far better than putting ads on the the videos - a move that I certainly don't agree with given that none of the content is screened, and advertisers don't really want their ads appearing on Crawley Kids in Tilgate Park (or far worse).

UPDATE - Ten hours later the trailer had been viewed 195,000 times, and had 350 comments. This made it the 4th most viewed video on YouTube today - how much would a brand pay for that?

Landor Quiz

One of my friends - oh go on then, it's me - runs the monthly quiz at the Landor, a pub in South London, near to Clapham North tube.

The next one is this Sunday - visit the dedicated Landor Quiz blog (including questions from previous quizzes) here