The Open Handset Alliance announced Android, an open-source mobile phone operating system. Members include three of the big five handset manufacturers -- Samsung, Motorola, LG (but not Sony/Ericsson or Nokia) -- as well as HTC. Members include mobile operators China Mobile, Telefónica, T-Mobile, Sprint, Telecom Italia and NTT DoCoMo (see: Wikipedia top 20 global mobile network operators).

Look for the Android Software Development Kit (SDK) release November 12.

See also: phandroid.com

One 8.5x11" sheet of paper takes 13 ounces of water to make from wood (two ounces from post-consumer recycled paper).

sources:
Peter W. Huber and Mark P. Mills, "Dig more coal -- the PCs are coming," Forbes magazine, May 31, 1999.

Laura Hudson, "The Paper Problem," Comic Foundry, October 1, 2007.

What don't people fast-forward through? Movie trailers and direct response ads, apparently.
Doesn't look like putting your ad first or last in a pod gets people to actually watch it.
Includes a great quote about 30-second ad coming under scrutiny.

National Association of Broadcasters, April 14-19, 2007

Having a MySpace page doesn't make you an expert. Audiences are averse to the hard sell. Don't be a poser.

Image giant Getty buys Scoopt, one of a wave of online companies that collect amateur images and make them available to the press and as stock and royalty-free art. Reuters and the AP recently added ways of submitting user-generated content.

Google is auctioning local newspaper ad space and radio ad time. 900 radio stations have signed up. The New York Times and The Seattle Times report revenue increases. TV execs are watching closely.

The US radio ad market is a $20 billion business.
The US newspaper ad market is a $42 billion business.
The US television ad market is a $68 billion business.

Mike Lemke, Sr VP for Sales and Marketing at The Seattle Times, believes his paper is reaching new advertisers.

Google began its first trial November 2006, letting 100 advertisers bid for space in 50 newspapers.

Nielsen/Netratings and Podtrac continues to monitor.

July 2006, Nielsen announced that 6.6% of the U.S. adult online population, or 9.2 million users, have recently downloaded a podcast, and that 5.2 million people in the U.S. have downloaded a vodcast.

Web users age 18-24 are twice as likely to download a podcast as Web users on whole. Web users 25-34 and 35-44 were also more likely than Web users on whole to download a podcast.

A Spring 2006 Podtrac poll suggested the presence of over 22 million podcast listeners and viewers:
56% use content on computers; the rest use portable devices
88% listen to or view the entire program
41% of adults online at the end of 06Q1 were aware of the term "podcasting," up from 32% 05Q4.
75% of podcast listeners come from iTunes
(Podtrac claims a database of over 55,000 detailed demographic records of podcast users.)

A December 2005 Podtrac survey suggested that:

32% of respondents were familiar with the term "podcast"

about 11% had listened to a podcast; of those, about two in five had done so in the past week

78% of those who had ever listened to a podcast were male, but 51% of the respondents who had listened in the last week were female.

Pew Center for Internet and American Life's Jan-Mar 2005 survey of digital music player (DMP) ownership, found that, by race and ethnicity:
16% of African-Americans and English-speaking Latinos
9% of non-Latino whites

The same survey estimated that 36 million Americans download music or video files and that 22 million U.S. adults (11% of the population) now carry digital music players (DMPs).

On campus, the iPod is more popular than beer.

Student Monitor found that 73% of 1,200 U.S. undergraduate students said Apple iPod was "in," up from 59% the previous year.

iPods: 73% of students (Hispanic students: 77%*; women: 76%)
drinking beer: 71%
facebook.com: 71%
drinking other alcohol: 67%
text messaging: 66%
downloading music: 66%
going to clubs: 65%
instant messaging: 63%
working out: 62%
coffee: 60%

Incidentally, although not technically related to vodcasting, in early July 2006, YouTube's estimated audience grew by 75% in one week.

Percent of High School and College Graduates of the Population 15 Years and Over:
80% high school graduate and higher
24% bachelor's degree or higher

Bachelor's degree or higher
27% non-Hispanic white alone
10% Hispanic of any race

(civilian noninstitutionalized population)

The authors studied the poor (households living on less than $2/day) and extremely poor (less than $1/day) in 13 countries: Cote d’Ivoire, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Pakistan, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, South Africa, Tanzania, and East Timor. One of many findings was that radio ownership varied widely, from 11% in rural Udaipur, to more than 70% in South Africa and Peru, in rural areas in inverse proportion to money spent attending festivals.

According to new rates released by the United States Copyright Royalty Board, streaming 16 songs an hour to 1000 listeners will cost:
$111,900 in 2006
$153,900 in 2007
$195,800 in 2008
$251,800 in 2009
$265,700 in 2010