Mediaboss Marketing

BEIJING, March 8, 2012 /PRNewswire-Asia/ -- Ku6 Media Co., Ltd., ("Ku6 Media" or the "Company", Nasdaq: KUTV) a leading internet video company in China, today announced unaudited financial results for the fourth quarter of and full fiscal year ended December 31, 2011.

Background

In 2010, Ku6 Media (formerly known as Hurray!) completed a series of transactions including acquisition of Ku6 Holding Limited in January 2010 and disposal of its wireless value-added services ("WVAS") and music businesses to Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited ("Shanda") as well as acquisition of online audio business from Shanda in August 2010, and became a company focusing on online advertising business on its online video platform of http://www.Ku6.com. As a result, the operating results of WVAS and recorded music were presented as "Operating Results of Discontinued Operations" in the income statements.

Highlights

Business results

Total revenues, representing advertising revenue from online video portal operation, were $4.42 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, representing an increase of 4.5% from $4.23 million in the third quarter of 2011 and a decrease of 34.7% from $6.77 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

In the second quarter of 2011, the Company started to generate revenues from performance advertising using a system called Application Advertisement ("AA"). The performance advertising revenue was realized through an affiliated advertising agent. 79.2% of total revenues in the fourth quarter was from this source, as compared to 72.3% of total revenues in the third quarter of 2011.

Cost of revenues was $4.23 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, representing a decrease of 22.8% from $5.48 million in the third quarter of 2011 and a decrease of 66.1% from $12.46 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. The change of content strategy since the second quarter of 2011 fromlong-form professional content to UGC is the main reason for the decrease in cost of revenues. As a result, gross profit was $0.19 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, as compared to a gross loss of $1.25 million in the third quarter of 2011 and a gross loss of $5.70 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Operating expenses were $4.38 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, representing a decrease of 61.2% from $11.28 million in the third quarter of 2011 and a decrease of 55.2% from $9.77 million in the fourth quarter of 2010. Fourth quarter operating expenses include a $0.98 million favorable adjustment due to increased forfeitures of equity compensation awards caused by greater than anticipated headcount reductions in the Company's strategic transition.

Operating loss was $4.19 million in the fourth quarter of 2011, representing a decrease of 66.6% from $12.53 million in the third quarter of 2011 and a decrease of 72.9% from $15.46 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

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Ku6 Media Reports Unaudited Financial Results for the Fourth Quarter and Full Year of Fiscal Year 2011

ONE of Australia's leading advertisers believes proposed media reforms would inflict Australians with the same limits on the free press as Russia and Cuba.

Harold Mitchell today told a Brisbane audience the reforms proposed by the Independent Media Inquiry were "crap", designed by people who did not understand free choice.

"Firstly, they believe that there should be no freedom of the press, but, you know, through all the centuries the greatest way a society can ever continue is by having a free society," Mr Mitchell said.

"You control thoughts and it just won't happen."

Mr Mitchell is founder of Mitchell & Partners and executive chairman of Aegis Media Pacific, a company that buys commercial space on all media for some of the world's biggest brands.

He is also the expert chosen by the federal government to advise on how more philanthropists can be encouraged to donate to the arts.

Mr Mitchell told the QUT business leaders forum that some of the reforms proposed by the inquiry could have an equivalent effect to jailing newspaper editors who offended vested interests.

He said: "Now, what sort of a world are we living in when that would be a notion we should have?"

The report by retired judge Ray Finkelstein, QC, presented last week to the federal government, proposes sweeping regulation of newspapers.

It urged the government to set up a taxpayer-funded body to regulate all of Australia's news and current affairs across all media: a statutory watchdog to set standards and handle complaints.

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Media reforms as bad as Russia

Andrew Bolt Wednesday, March 07, 2012 at 07:55am

Heres another thing I dont understand about the Finkelstein inquiry, which recommends more government control on a media it clearly disdains:

MEDIA executives and journalists are being offered the chance to attend a $500-a-head workshop.

The workshop will be on the recommendations of the federal governments Finkelstein media inquiry, despite no indication it will lead to a new regulatory regime.

And the co-commissioner of the $1.4 million inquiry, academic Matthew Ricketson, will deliver the keynote address at the event, despite not commenting so far on the taxpayer-funded inquiry.

I have known Matthew for years. His highest achievement is the profession that his inquiry now seeks to have controlled was media and communications editor for The Age from 2006 to 2009.

To be perfectly frank, I did not consider him to be very good in that job. He seemed to break few stories, or offer any penetrating observations. His writing is not sparkling. He was well outshone by The Australians Amanda Meade, for one, and I do not think I am being unfair. I recently spoke to a senior Age executive who endorsed my overall opinion.

So heres my astonishment: how does a man who rose to no great heights in the media wind up as the presiding expert in an inquiry to determine how much freedom to give it?

UPDATE

Tin Burrowes of Mumbrella:

More here:
How did Ricketson become the great media expert?

Samsung is making some bold choices with its new HDTVs. The company's upcoming, high-end LED-backlit and plasma HDTVs, the 8000 series, forego the traditional universal remote control entirely.

Instead, the new screens use a combination of camera, microphones, and touchpad to provide a control scheme that seems more like a cross between Microsoft Kinect and Back to the Future than normal home theaters. I played with the new interface system on Tuesday, at a Samsung press event.

The 8000 series HDTVs include Samsung's new Smart Touch Remote, a touchpad-based remote control with only a few purposeful buttons around a device that's primarily gesture- and voice-based. There are only 12 physical buttons on it, and no number pad or playback buttons at all. Instead, the touch pad in the middle nagivates the on-screen menu while most buttons bring up features like an on-screen number pad, the Media Hub menu, and a voice control prompt.

Voice control is the second part of the 8000 series' interface. By speaking either into the remote while holding the voice button or speaking directly to the screen, users can bring up menus, input commands, and even search on Google. The HDTVs come to life just by saying "Hi TV,"; after that, switching between sources and accessing different online services is a matter of a few words. Voice recognition understands words when using commands, and can convert speech to text when inputting text into the Webkit-based Web browser.

If touchpad input and voice control aren't enough, the 8000 series HDTVs also support Kinect-like gesture control. A small camera on the top edge of the bezel watches your movements and, with a shake of your hand, activates a motion-controlled, on-screen pointer for navigating menus and browsing the Web. That's not the only trick for the camera, though. It also incorporates face recognition, so it can automatically log on to social networks and show favorite services based on the user as soon as they sit down. With multiple users, a menu of all recognized faces show up, with logins for each.

To integrate the controls with a Blu-ray player or set-top box, the 8000 series include an IR blaster. The voice and gesture commands also sent commands to the cable box on display, changing channels when I told the HDTV to do so. These integration features will make switching away from a conventional remote much easier, and made the combination voice and gesture control system seem even more feasible. If you want a more conventional control system, an optional $99 Bluetooth keyboard will be available. The keyboard will also be compatible with all Samsung Galaxy Tab devices.

After playing with the controls, I'm optimistic about the change. While voice and gesture recognition wasn't completely accurate because of the noise and crowd of the venue, the basics were definitely there and the different features, in a quieter and more controlled setting, could be easy to control. We'll have a full review of the 8000 series HDTVs' control systems when we get a screen in the PCMag Labs in the near future.

The UNES8000 HDTVs, the LED-lit versions of the high-end screens, will range from $2,999 for a 46-inch model to $5,099 for a 65-inch model. The PNE8000 plasma HDTVs will range from $2,199 for a 51-inch to $3,949 for a 65-inch model. Both screens are scheduled to ship this month. The controls will also be available in the step-down UNES7500 LED-lit HDTVs, which range from $2,599 for a 46-inch model to $3,999 for a 60inch model. A 75-inch version of the UNES8000 is also planned, but pricing and availability has not yet been announced.

Samsung is staying with conventional remotes for its lower-end HDTVs, including its EH series of budget LED HDTVs, which from the 5300 series and up include built-in Wi-Fi. 32-inch EH5300 HDTVs will be available for just $579 and 50-inch models for just $1,199.

The rest is here:
Samsung's New HDTVs Destroy the Remote Control

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While the controversy continues to swirl around radio talkmeister Rush Limbaugh and his admittedly inappropriate comments about Georgetown Law Student Sandra Fluke, an analysis from the left-leaning Brookings Institution adds an economic twist to the debate over coverage of contraception.

Love them or hate them, contraceptives do save taxpayers money, Brookings concludes.

The study, from the Brookings Center on Children and Families, looked at three different ways to prevent unintended pregnancies, which account for about half of all pregnancies in the U.S.

All three approaches more than pay for themselves. But one - increasing funding for family planning services through the Medicaid program - clearly outshines the other two in terms of cost-effectiveness.

Yes, you may have heard there are lots of ways to lower the rate of unintended pregnancy. There are mass media campaigns to urge young people to avoid unprotected sex. Other programs urge teens to delay having sex, or, as a fallback, teach them how to use contraception effectively. And then there's Medicaid's help low-income women afford the most effective contraceptive methods.

But this study, using a simulation model devised by Brookings, is the first to estimate exactly how much could be saved using each method.

It found that a national mass media campaign that would cost $100 million would result in about $431 million in savings to taxpayers, largely by reducing unintended pregnancy, particularly among people who don't make much money.

Programs the Brookings researchers called "evidence-based teen pregnancy prevention," which combine an emphasis on abstinence "while also educating participants about how to use various methods of contraception" have both reduced the rate of sexual activity and increased the use of contraception.

Spending $145 million on such programs would return $356 million to taxpayers, according to the model.

Continued here:
How Birth Control Saves Taxpayers' Money