Articles by: "Rande Price, Research VP – DCN"

Local publishers meet consumer expectations

August 17, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Newspaper publishers appear certain that consumers still value local newspapers for their quality and trustworthy content. In fact, four in 10 publishers (40%) report overall confidence in the strength of the newspaper industry compared to other news sources according to the recently released 2016 HubCiti Publishers’ Confidence & Technology Report.

At least 33% of newspaper publishers think that the industry is getting better. What’s contributing to this confidence? For publishers it’s most likely the new digital and social products offer strong opportunities to monetize news content. As for consumers, easy access to engaging content at their fingertips is a sure winner.

Moreover, 41% of respondents stated they prefer a digital version of print content compared to 26% that said they like to search for specific content. In addition, 36% of consumer respondents reported that they mainly receive their local news from TV, and 23% said from online news aggregators.

Digital is a popular consumer access point for newspaper content. Consumers of news reported that they are more likely to view news on a mobile app or website than print. Only one in 10 respondents (8%) stated they are tolerant to watch an ad in order to read an article or watch a video, compared to 28% that would not watch an ad at all. Further, close to two-thirds of respondents (60%) said they would not pay for special digital content.

While subscriptions and advertising are still primary revenue sources for publishers, new monetization streams offer healthy opportunities. Not surprisingly, nine in 10 publisher respondents (87%) ranked print ads and classifieds as very important to revenue generation with subscriptions and website revenues ranking second (74%) and third (64%). Publishers also reported that they plan to see a 50% increase in revenue from both website and mobile app activity in the next 12 months. Almost forty percent of publishers plan to hire new employees for digital service implementations, with 54% planning to also hire a third party firm.

Local publishers are clearly ramping up their digital services and seeking third party relationships to meet market and consumer expectations. In doing so, they are also expanding their local offering to reach smaller and active communities. Experimentation for publishers is key to determine news content that is both engaging to consumers and offers opportunities for monetization.

*Important to note this online survey is not based on a probability sample and therefore no estimate of theoretical sampling error can be calculated.

Report: http://hubcitiforms.com/appsites/video/con_tech_report.pdf

Advertising | Industry-Research

Publishers increase mobile investment

August 10, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Mobile is an ever-increasingly important platform in digital publishing as consumers spend more time on their devices. In fact, three-quarter of publishers (75%) stated they will increase their mobile investment in the next 12 months, reported AOL’s 2016 Publisher Outlook Report, which surveyed 300 publishers in the U.S.

Further, nearly half of the publishers plan on increasing their mobile investment up to 25% more and 10% plan on increasing their investment from 50-100% more in the next 12 months. Publishers also anticipate video ad sales to be the top revenue performer of the year.

Ad blockers, quality creative and quality experiences are top challenges publishers face today, while better audience metrics, interactive and engaging ad units, mobile-first video and faster ad loads offer big opportunities.

Publishers rank their biggest mobile opportunities as:

Better audience metrics – 43%
Interactive, engaging ad units – 43%
Mobile-first video (creative and formatting) – 42%
Faster ad loads – 42%
More mobile web-based content – 42%
Cross-screen tracking and measurement – 40%
Customized / personalized creative – 39%
More app offerings – 38%
Mobile commerce – 38%
Gamification of content – 27%

And rank their primary challenges as:

Ad blockers – 49%
Quality of consumer experience – 44%
Quality of content/creative – 42%
App installations – 38%
Measurement deficits – 31%
Platform and service costs – 30%
Off platform monetization – 30%
Off network traffic / audience – 27%
Lagging advertising spend – 27%
Inadequate revenue/ROI – 24%

Distribution platforms for content have also emerged this year. Companies like Facebook, Apple, Twitter and Snapchat are all trying to attract readers to keep using their platforms while consuming publisher’s content. Over 90% of publishers believe distributed media has had a positive effect; 53% report it’s “extremely positive.” By and large, publishers also said that syndication is vital with approximately 25-50% of their traffic coming via syndication referrals.

More and more publishers are increasingly assessing new and alternative monetization strategies beyond advertising. For now, more than 75% of publishers pursue subscription and ad supported business models. Of those focused on subscriptions, over 75% expect to grow their subscription choices in the next 12 months.

While publishers are still very dependent on advertising revenue, the way of doing business has changed. Seven in 10 publishers (71%) sell inventory via programmatic with many using a private marketplace. Private marketplaces allow publishers to offer their own inventory to buyers in a more transparent and controlled environment. More than half of publishers (56%) depend on at least one private marketplace and 28% use multiple PMPs.

Publishers continue to evolve with the times, building new technologies, developing new revenue sources and even creating internal agencies to develop new creative. Publishers must continue to re-think how people are consuming content, how to deliver it, how it lives across platform and how to monetize it beyond advertising dollars.

Industry-Research | Video

Streaming dominates video content piracy

August 3, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

At least since the Sony Betamax case, content creators and the law have struggled to keep up with the technological advances in piracy. Just this year, HBO hired anti-piracy partner, IP-Echelon, which sent out thousands of copyright warnings for alleged piracy of its popular series “Game of Thrones” to internet service providers. The warnings contained the IP addresses of users suspected of sharing “Thrones” episodes. HBO’s and IP Echelon are still monitoring this situation and consider it critical to their business.

It turns out that online video streaming is now the primary means of pirating video content. In contrast, a decade ago peer-to-peer file sharing via torrent websites was the top method to download pirated video files. New data from the MUSO’s Global Film & TV Piracy Market Insight Report 2016 provides data showing pirate streaming sites had more than 57 billion visits last year. Out of the total 78 billion film and television piracy site visits, 74% of all visits to piracy sites were to those that stream content illegally.

MUSO’s analysis reports on over 14,000 visits to the main global piracy websites from 226 countries. Overall, MUSO tracked 141 billion visits to pirate sites last year. The U.S. tops the list of video pirate visits, representing 12% of total traffic, almost 10 billion visits. France, Germany and the UK are all included in the top 10 countries globally based on total piracy visits.

Torrent site traffic has shown gradual decline for illegal video content consumption. Approximately 17% of the piracy traffic went to torrent sites and direct download sites accounted for 8% of video piracy visits. Users predominately use desktops on both streaming pirate sites and torrent sites, 72% and 77%, respectively. Therefore, mobile piracy remains comparatively small. Interestingly, mobile download registered a slight increase (5%) in visits from the first 6 months to the visits from the last 6 months in 2015. However, the usage of downloads was still relatively low, compared to torrents and streaming traffic. Overall, the piracy environment is engaging in streaming consumption versus content downloading or sharing. However, piracy tactics have not transitioned to mobile at the same pace as other content consumption habits.

Industry-Research

Hispanic digital divide narrows

July 27, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

The Hispanic population, now at 55 million, is one of the fastest and youngest growing groups in the U.S. today. As a key demographic, Hispanics have narrowed the digital divide with adult internet usage at 84%, up from 64% in 2009. While internet usage also grew among white adults (from 80% in 2009 to 89% in 2015) and black adults (from 72% to 81%); use among Hispanics grew at a much faster rate. In addition, the gap in internet usage between Hispanics and whites decreased to 8% from 16% in 2009 according to a Pew Research Center report, “Digital Divide Narrows for Latinos as More Spanish Speakers and Immigrants Go Online.”

It’s not just the English-dominant Hispanics (94%) who are online but also bilingual Hispanics (86%) have internet access, up from 87% and 76%, respectively in 2009. Further three-quarters of Spanish-dominant Hispanics (76%) are also internet users and registered the most growth from 36% in 2009. Interestingly, most of the change in Hispanic internet use took place in the last three years among foreign born Hispanics.

Not surprisingly, younger Hispanics are more likely to be online than older adults. Nine in 10 of Hispanic adults 18-29 (95%) and Hispanic adults 30-49 (93%) are more likely to be online than older Hispanic, ages 50-64 (67%) and ages 65+ (42%).

Mobile access is the majority of Hispanics connect to the internet. Eighty percent of Hispanic adults reported using a mobile device, cellphone, smartphone or tablet, to access the internet. A full nine in 10 of younger Hispanic adults, ages 18-29 (94%) use their mobile device for internet access.

In terms of connecting at home, half of Hispanics adults (46%) reported that they use a broadband connection to access the internet. Surprisingly, while internet usage among Hispanic has increased, broadband access has shown little growth since 2010 when it was at 45%.

The fact that the Hispanic digital divide is closing is an important factor for companies to think about when exploring marketing tactics to target this key demographic group. The Hispanic audience is a fully engaged digital audience and often attracted by the social offerings of digital technology. Now more than ever before there is an opportunity to reach a full Hispanic audience across digital platforms.

Industry-Research

Do the UK’s public service broadcasters effectively serve the people?

July 20, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

The convenience and flexibility of watching television continues to grow with the ability to time shift and stream programming. These patterns hold true for viewers of public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom; Channel 3 services, Channel 4, Channel 5, S4C and BBC. According to their mandate, public service broadcasters must offer quality programming which informs an understanding of the world, stimulates knowledge and learning, reflects the strength of the UK’s culture and represents diversified viewpoints.

PSB channels are committed to the practice of fulfilling the programming criteria. The Office of Communications (Ofcom), the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications, assesses public services channels’ yearly performance in its report, PSB Annual Research Report. The report evaluates three key areas to gauge effectiveness of the of public service channels: 1) audience opinion 2) viewership and 3) programming and spending.

According to its most recent report, a full 73% of those who have ever watched a PSB channel reported being satisfied with the programming. Viewers reported strong levels of importance and delivery correlating to the objectives of PSB channels. The highest rated in terms of importance were “it provides a wide range of quality and UK made programming for children (88%)” and “its news programs are trustworthy (86%).” Viewers highest scores for delivery were “it provides a wide range of quality and UK made programming for children (85%)” and “its programs help me understand what’s going on in the world today (74%).”

The report also looks at time spent watching broadcast television, with demographic breakdowns, as well as the quantity and quality of public broadcast content. In all, viewers watched 3 hours 36 minutes of measured broadcast TV in an average day in 2015, almost a half hour less per day than in 2010. As we have also seen in the U.S., viewership declined notably for adults 25-34 (19%) and adults 35-44 (17%) during this same time period. These declines were attributed to adult usage of on-demand services such as BBC iPlayer, All 4, Netflix or Amazon, especially among those aged 15-24s and 25-34.

Further, according to the BARB data, viewing of national and international news on broadcast TV increased year-to-year to 96 hours per person 4+ after a three-year decline. Total viewing hours to broadcast TV news also increased (approximately 3 hours) among adults 35+ to 142.5 hours per person in 2015 in contrast to the declines among Persons 16-34 (32.4 hours in 2015 from 33.5 hours in 2014). Where are the younger viewers going for their news? Six in ten Persons 16-24 reported using the internet or apps for news compared to 51% who cited using television.

In 2015, the PSB channels broadcast 31,974 hours of first-run UK originated network programming, an 8% decrease from 34,689 hours ten years ago. A shift in genre production from big-budget dramas to relatively low-cost original programs allowed for a decreased spending with sacrificing too many programming hours.

Importantly, public service channels must support six core characteristics:

high quality
original
innovative
challenging
widely available
distinctive

These values act as important guidelines in delivering effective programming. Adhering to these characteristics, as well as, noting the changes and differences between younger and older adult viewership, will allow PSB channels to meet the expectations of its viewers.

Advertising | Industry-Research | Perspectives

CMOs: Do You Know Where Your Ads Are? New research proves why it matters.

July 14, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Editor's note: The comScore study “The Halo Effect: How Advertising on Premium Publishers Drives Higher Ad Effectiveness” was not commissioned by Digital Content Next (DCN) or any of its member companies. While the results were shared with DCN prior to publication, DCN did not have any influence over the design of the research or its findings.

Programmatic advertising and its aggregation of inventory are often viewed as the key forces behind the commoditization of digital ad impressions. The shift to audience-centric media buying from earlier practices emphasizing context has left many questioning whether or not the environment surrounding advertising really matters. It is important that we examine what extent does quality drives advertising effectiveness.

Today’s release of comScore’s independent research, “The Halo Effect: How Advertising on Premium Publishers Drives Higher Ad Effectiveness” presents empirical findings that Digital Content Next member sites delivered significantly higher branding effectiveness results than other sites.* Importantly, the research finds that the primary driving force for the brand lift is the positive impact of the “halo effect” of the contextual environment in which an ad is seen. In other words: A good environment drives better ad campaign effectiveness. In fact, while some of the positive effect can be contributed to higher ad viewability and less invalid traffic on premium sites, comScore found that the most significant driver of increased effectiveness is the halo effect of appearing on premium sites. This “premium” designation is one that our own research has borne out as a distinguishing factor in other areas, such as the quality of ad inventory and the significantly lower bot traffic on DCN member sites.

What value does the halo factor have for marketers? Used properly, it can help a brand cut through the clutter and save money on marketing by using this momentum to operate effectively and efficiently throughout the marketing funnel, particularly in the brand consideration stage where the “halo” lift was 3x.

This is demonstrated by the research, which first compared the overall brand lift effectiveness of ads delivered on DCN members’ sites versus non-DCN premium publishers sites. DCN premium publisher sites significantly outperformed those on non-DCN sites—by 67% (0.89 brand lift vs. 0.53). Measuring brand lift answers some of the biggest questions marketers have such as are my ads influencing consumer behavior, are they influencing sales and to what degree. Knowing a campaign is 67% more effective in influencing consumer behavior and intent to purchase is a win-win situation giving marketers a lead in the marketplace.

comScore also identified ad effectiveness metrics in other parts of the marketing funnel. DCN publisher sites performed 32% better on top funnel metrics, which includes awareness, recall and message association (.56 brand lift vs. .42). The mid-funnel—where consumers have the potential to develop a stronger interest in your brand—performed more than three times as effective for DCN publisher sites with a 1.87 brand lift vs. 0.51. Premium publisher sites can influence the mid-funnel by 255% more effectiveness, a potential accelerator of brand sales. The lower and final part of the funnel includes purchase intent and share of consumer choice metrics. DCN premium publishers performed 9% better on the bottom-funnel metrics (.38 brand lift vs. .35).

We know that the quality of ad inventory and the substantially lower bot traffic on DCN member sites is a positive driving force but the comScore research determined how much of a factor this is in driving higher ad effectiveness. To arrive at the pure value of the “halo effect,” comScore factored these elements out of the equation deriving that DCN publisher sites drive a “halo effect” of 51% higher ad effectiveness.

comScore’s independent research provides a clear message that brands benefit from advertising on premium publisher sites. While the research found that premium publishers perform better across all phases of the marketing funnel, the value in driving mid-funnel metrics is especially important to convert awareness into positive brand consideration. So, while digital continues to create opportunities for targeting and increase opportunities for efficiencies, it is clear that placement within the context of quality environments provides a “halo effect” that drives ad effectiveness.

*This study was not commissioned by Digital Content Next (DCN) or any of its member companies. While the results were shared with DCN prior to publication, DCN did not have any influence over the design of the research or its findings.

Industry-Research

Consumers crave news, but what satisfies their appetite?

July 13, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Both the immediacy and the mobility of news has anchored it as an important part of today’s life. In fact, more than seven in ten adults follow national and local news somewhat or very closely and 65% follow international news with similar regularity. Digital access appears to fuel American’s hunger for news, according to a new report from Pew Research Center, which conducted a study in association with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. For example, at least a full 81% get at least some news through websites, apps or social networking sites.

Some key Findings:

Friends and family are important sources for news, even though consumers still rely on news organizations as their primary source. Trust in news reporting is an overarching problem however today’s online news consumers tend to place as much trust in the information they get from news organizations as they do in information coming from family and friends. Still, online news organizations play the larger role: 36% of online news consumers often get news from news organizations compared with about half as many who do so from people with whom they are close (15%).

Consumers are more cautious about news coming through social media. Close to two-thirds of U.S adults (62%) get news on these social platforms, however just more than one-third (34%) trust the information a lot/some.

Just as many consumers are loyal as are not loyal to their news sources. Just over three-quarter of respondents (76%) reported turning to the same sources over and over again. Importantly, consumers do pay attention to their digital sources. Among those who got their news three or more times from a link in a given week, at least 70% remembered the source half the time.

Consumer believe strong media bias exists in news reporting. Close to three-quarters of consumers (74%) feel that the news media favors one side. Another 75% of consumers credit the news organization for keeping leaders accountable and honest.

The majority of consumers prefer to watch news on TV. When asked where consumers get their news, 57% reported TV, 38% stated online and only 20% said they get their news from newspapers. As one would expect, only 5% of younger consumers, ages 18-29s, often got news from a print newspaper in contrast to close to half (48%) of adults, age 65.

News remains an important part of public life with digital news consumption becoming increasingly mobile. As more people get their news online, it’s important to distinguish between those who seek out the news online versus those who stumble upon it. This is an important consumer distinction as news sites look to market to the news consumer.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Positive viewing experience and ad-recall correlate to screen size

July 6, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Consumers pay more attention to advertising on televisions than advertising viewed across other screens according to a new report Evaluating Engagement & Recall by Platform. Nielsen and the Council of Research Excellence hired independent researcher Hub Entertainment Research to measure how people watch television.

In the study, consumers viewed the same five shows “Bones,” “Family Guy,” “The Big Bang Theory,” “Survivor” and “Family Feud” with identical ad loads across TV, computers, smartphones and tablets. Interestingly, 62% of TV viewers reported they were able to recall half or more advertisers compared to viewers of tablet (47%), smartphone (46%) and computer (45%). In contrast, program engagement did not register notable differences by platform.

Viewers also reported that TV (89%) offered the most positive viewing experience, followed by tablet (63%), computer (54%) and phone (43%). Further, viewers paid the most attention to advertising on television (29%) compared to 23% for smartphones, 20% for computers and 17% for tablets.

Additionally, the study found that multi-tasking negatively impacts ad recall but not program plot recall. Importantly marketers need to understand drivers of engagement across platforms as well as those specific to their targeted demo. Identifying drivers and assigning value to each platform will better align expectations with campaign effectiveness.

Industry-Research

Half of all viewers subscribe to SVOD

June 29, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Subscription VOD (SVOD) penetration now equals DVR penetration in the United States. In fact, half of all viewers now have a subscription based service such as Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime, according to Nielsen’s 1Q16 Total Audience Report. Interestingly, close to 30% of households have both an SVOD service and a DVR. Nielsen also noted that DVR penetration has flattened while SVOD is on a strong growth path. So while consumers are still obtaining most of their content on television, live TV consumption is declining as smartphone and tablet viewing is increasing.

The older the consumer, the more time spent watching television. Among adults 18-34, 39% of media consumption occurs on digital (e.g. smartphones, tablets and desktops), 15% on connected TVs (e.g. Apple TV, Roku, Google Chrome) versus 29% on live-TV and 17% on radio. In contrast, Adults 50+ spend 53% of their time on live-TV, 21% on digital, 17% on radio and 8% on connected-TVs. It’s no wonder traditional TV networks are clamoring to remain relevant and shifting to digital options such as HBO to go, CBS’ All Access and MTV’s Snapchat Channel.

Nielsen also found that the heaviest users drove a disproportionate amount of overall time spent consuming media. Just over half of the total minutes viewed (52%) on TV came from the top quintile of TV users. In addition, 83% of smartphone video viewing, 87% of home PC streaming and 71% of connected device usage came from the top 20% of users.

Consumer behavior is responding to the growth of technologies and services and therefore reducing consumer usage on older devices. Shifts and usage of new technologies are anticipated. More media choices lead to more competition. Content providers must think about multi-platform strategies and distribution in an exceedingly connected media environment.

Industry-Research

News sites face strong market challenges

June 22, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Digital publishers face three market challenges today that are triggering the re-examination of business strategies: 1) an increase in consumption of distributed content, 2) a surge in mobile traffic, and 3) growth in adoption of of ad blocking software. In order to better understand these market shifts and their impact on news consumption the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism commissioned a multi-country study, the Reuters Institute Digital News Report, in February 2016.

Digital news publishers, in particular, are rethinking business models as social platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, are now viewed as major news resources for consumers, especially among millennials. In fact, half (51%) reported they use social media as a source of news each week. Around one in ten (12%) stated it is their main source. Further, the percentage of U.S. consumers subscribing to online news outlets has declined from 11% in 2015 vs. 9% in 2016. Many companies are thinking about taking down their paywalls in an effort to attract more users.

While personalization is often a positive experience, consumers are concerned with the personalization of their news content. Personalized content and social media applications often select news stories built on algorithms which are based on a consumer’s reading history, what his/her friends are reading and the sharing, the popularity and recency of an article. Respondents raised concerns with the algorithms selecting their news stories. In fact, six in 10 worry that personalized news applications change the nature of story selection and that they miss challenging viewpoints (60% and 59%, respectively). And half (49%) are concerned their privacy may be compromised.

In addition, the shift to mobile directly attributed to the increased use of smartphones to access news and the decreased use of desktops. Demographically, younger consumers prefer mobile for news access while older consumers look to desktop and tablet. Across multiple countries, over half (53%) reported that they use a smartphone to access news. Interestingly, consumers who report mainly using their smartphones to access news stories, do so by entering social media sites versus a branded website or app. Apps have become an impactful tool to send alerts and notifications to attract consumers and to bring them more regularly to the branded website.

The consumer adoption of ad blocking software is a most challenging problem for digital publishers, especially for those heavily dependent on advertising revenue. Of those that currently use an ad-blocker, the majority do so on a desktop with only about 8% do so on mobile. In addition, about one-third of consumers in Germany, UK, and the U.S. plan to install an ad-blocker on their smartphones in the next 12 months.

In the U.S. the key reasons for consumers using ad blocking software included:

I was fed up with the volume and distracting nature of advertisements in general, 68%
I dislike ads that follow me around from one site to another (privacy concerns, 55%
To improve the speed at which pages load, 50%
To save battery life, 13%
So I don’t use as much data on my mobile phone plan, 10%

As digital news publishers adapt to the changing marketplace, it’s important to note that consumers still want and value traditional news brands. The Reuters Institute Digital News Report speaks to digital news brands needing to clearly brand their high-quality content and provide a positive audience experience. Further, news brands need to find a balance between destination and distribution and continue to build their brand equity in order to evolve and continue to monetize their content.

Advertising | Industry-Research

Entertainment and media revenues continue to grow

June 15, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

The media environment still presents numerous growth opportunities despite the competitive marketplace and the struggle for consumer attention. Importantly, PwC’s Annual Global Entertainment and Media Outlook Report projects the U.S. media and entertainment revenue will increase and account for $632 billion, or 29.4% of the worldwide total of over $2.1 trillion. Further, the entertainment and media revenues are expected to grow at a compound rate (CAGR) of 4.4% from $1.7 trillion in 2015 to $2.1 trillion in 2020. In order to provide this forecast for 2016 to 2020, PwC analyzed historical and projection data for advertising and consumer spending in 13 major industry segments across 54 countries.

U.S. highlights:

Internet advertising in the U.S. continues as the largest market in internet advertising revenue, projected to grow from $59.6 billion in 2015 to $93.5 billion by 2020 with a 9.4% CAGR. Important to note, internet advertising ($75.3 billion) is expected to surpass broadcast TV advertising ($70.4 billion) in 2017.
Mobile has been a key driver of digital advertising revenue comprising 34.7% or $20.7 billion in 2015 of U.S. total internet revenue. PwC projects mobile video advertising revenue will grow from $3.5 billion in 2015 to $13.3 billion in 2020 for an increase of 30.3% CAGR.
Video on Demand (VOD) and over-the-top services (OTT) will drive TV and video revenue from $121.4 billion to $124.2 billion in 2020 (0.5% CAGR). In addition, TV advertising revenue is expected to rise from $69.9 billion to $81.7 billion in 2020 (3.2%CAGR).
Continued declines are anticipated for newspaper publishing, declines of 2.9% CAGR by 2020. Further publisher consolidations are expected. As well, magazine publishing revenue is not expected to decline but register a fractional increase, from $30.5 billion in 2015 to $30.7 billion in 2020. In addition, radio is predicted to increase from $21.4 billion to $23.1 billion in 2020 (1.6% CAGR).

Virtual reality devices and games will be the impetus for rising video games revenue from $17.0 billion to $20.3 billion by 2020 (3.6% CAGR). Virtual reality devices and games will be the impetus for rising video games revenue from $17.0 billion to $20.3 billion by 2020 (3.6% CAGR).

Overall, PwC projects that consumers will look for less expensive content bundles, streaming offers and less commercial interruptions. As a result, consumers’ share of time for ad-supported media will not increase. For advertisers and content providers, this means a detailed examination of the consumer experience to identify drivers of engagement and understand their impact on time spent and their influence on advertising effectiveness.

Industry-Research

Automated detection improves privacy practices

June 8, 2016 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

A consistent routine of privacy detection, measurement and practice allows websites and services to improve their privacy practices. Privacy measurement is specifically used to find out what user data companies collect, how they collect it, and what they do with it.

OpenWPM is an effective privacy measurement tool developed by Steven Englehard and Arvind Narayanan at Princeton University, who recently published a study, “Online tracking: A 1-million-site measurement and analysis.” Their tool provides an opportunity for web privacy measurement to be a more common place practice. OpenWPM collects large-scale data for simulating users, detects and classifies trackers. This automated process is designed to improve the effectiveness of browser privacy tools by efficiently updating the tracking-protection lists.

What exactly is web tracking and why is it a problem? As consumers browse different websites, they are often monitored by “first parties,” which are the sites themselves. However, they are also observed by “third parties” which are very often ad networks embedded on the web page. Third parties capture consumer browsing history through cookies to uniquely identify the user. Often third parties obtain data such as email address or user characteristics without the consumers’ awareness or permission. Interestingly, cookie syncing is also a tracking practice that allows different trackers to share user identifiers with one another.

While hard to detect, cookie syncing is transferred server-to-server by sending the ID in the request URL or in the referer URL. DoubleClick net is one of the most active in cookie syncing and shares 108 different cookies with 118 other third parties (this includes both events where it is a referer and where it is a receiver).

As Englehard and Narayanan wrote in their introduction:

Web privacy measurement — observing websites and services to detect, characterize and quantify privacy-impacting behaviors — has repeatedly forced companies to improve their privacy practices due to public pressure, press coverage, and regulatory action. On the other hand, web privacy measurement presents formidable engineering and methodological challenges. In the absence of a generic tool, it has been largely confined to a niche community of researchers.

In the course of their online tracking study, OpenWPM determined that of the top one million sites there are 81,000 third parties. Interestingly of 81,000 present, only 123 are on more than 1% of sites. In fact, the top five third parties are Google-owned domains. News sites had the most third party tracking in terms of content categories across websites.

Overall, web privacy measurement has three parts: simulating users, recording observations and analysis. The difference in OpenWPM is that it automates the first two parts of this process. It also uses 15 measurements on each site it assesses, such as stateful (cookie-based) and stateless (fingerprinting-based) tracking and multiple fingerprinting techniques.

The automated process of creating tracking-protection lists is a key benefit of OpenWPM. Its ability to scale data, detect and catalog trackers is the holy grail. As well offering a web-based analysis platform provides ease and availability to those with limited technological ability.