By Joe Garofoli,

Experts in Interactive Media say candidate never progressed beyond traditional uses

The rise and fall of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign can be told through video - from her first announcement to the suspension of her campaign, scheduled for Saturday. Some of the video was scripted fare, much of it wasn’t. Some of it aired on network TV, much of it spread virally online.

And all of it was viewed enough to dominate a news cycle - or in Clinton’s case, the campaign’s narrative.

What hurt Clinton most, political analysts say, is that she couldn’t consistently use the newfound ubiquity of video to soften her image with voters. Or, as George Washington University professor and new media analyst Michael Cornfeld said, “It’s like the Clintons, both of them, had sort of a ‘Sunset Boulevard’ thing going on. They were silent screen stars who couldn’t make the transition to talkies.”

Conquering video in the digital age has less to do with being telegenic or smart - as both Clintons are. Being a politician in the YouTube era means being comfortable with giving up control of your message, and realizing that everything you say or do can be uploaded within minutes for the whole world to see - and then mashed up into something new.

Video is the media currency of the millions of young Americans who voted in the primary seasons, many for the first time. Stories told through video percolated to traditional media from blogs and online advocacy sites, from the tirades of Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to the off-campaign script comments from Bill Clinton.

Authenticity is more prized online than high production values, as the only thing worse than being caught in a gaffe is being perceived as over-scripted. For much of the first half of the campaign, analysts say Clinton was over-scripted.

“Hillary’s announcement video had really high production values, like it was a made-for-TV movie,” said Dan Manatt, executive producer of PoliticsTV.com, a political video site. So were her first Web chats, where she answered questions from voters. They may have looked good, but they weren’t the stuff that generates buzz for a campaign.

“The Web values authenticity,” Manatt said, “And these were seen as staged and scripted and inauthentic.”

One Obama supporter seized upon Hillary Clinton’s stilted quality and created the “Vote Different” online video, a mash-up of Apple’s famous 1984 Macintosh ad and Hillary’s early Web efforts. It portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure, and pointed viewers to Obama’s website.

An Obama supporter, Phil de Vellis, created it on a Sunday afternoon because he was frustrated with the way politicians were using online video. “They were treating it just like TV. They were broadcasting things online. You have to do more. You have to interact with your audiences.” Plus, he wanted to show how an individual - using new media tools - could change the course of the campaign.

“We’re starting to see in these campaigns where being seen as too scripted can be seen as a liability,” said Patrick Ruffini, a GOP online strategist and founder of the new The Next Right blog, “in that you can be lampooned for it.”

It’s not like Obama didn’t have his YouTube nightmares - the nation surely has not seen the last of his former pastor. But at the height of the Wright controversy, Obama delivered a long, nuanced speech about race in America. Within a week, nearly 4 million people had watched it. 

SACRAMENTO, CA – In the first quarter of 2008 home foreclosures in the United States reached a peak and the pain was felt by all types of borrowers, not just those with the now infamous subprime adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs).

While subprime borrowers led the pack in allowing their homes to go to foreclosure many so-called prime and alt-a borrowers were unable to consecutively make payments on their houses as well. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association (www.mbaa.org), .99 percent of home loans in America entered the foreclosure process in the January to March time frame. The number the previous year was .58 percent.

The trade association first began measuring loan delinquency rates in 1979, and this year’s results were the highest on record at 6.35 percent.

On a positive note, the Mortgage Banker’s Association senior researcher, Jay Brinkmann, predicted that most states should see a trailing off of foreclosure activity by years end. But, troubled states like California, Florida, Arizona, and Nevada, which saw record prices spikes in residential real estate values, may see their foreclosure woes persist well into 2009.

For the homeowner who is trying to sell a house in the current market the challenge can be finding a qualified buyer who is pre-qualified for a mortgage loan. Many buyers have reported that they are simply not able to get funding for a house purchase despite having good credit and down payments available.

Real estate and foreclosure expert Patrick McGilvray, J.D., president of Sacaramento, CA-based The Home Buying Center.com (www.TheHomeBuyingCenter.com) said, “For people looking to buy a foreclosure house there are opportunities aplenty. It’s important for these buyers, though, to get pre-qualified for a home loan before they go shopping because sellers, especially lenders with a large inventory of bank owned REO houses don’t want to spend time with people who aren’t ready, willing and able to buy.”

The Dallas Morning News 

A.H. Belo Corporation, owner of The Dallas Morning News, has named longtime technology executive Dave Ellett senior vice president and general manager of Belo Interactive Media.The newspaper company is bringing in Mr. Ellett to help implement new products and business development initiatives as newspaper companies face increased competition from the Internet for readers and advertising dollars.

Mr. Ellett will report to Skip Cass, A.H. Belo’s executive vice president.

Belo Interactive Media also provides content and advertising services, as well as technical support, for the Web sites of A.H. Belo and Belo Corp.

Belo spun off its four daily newspapers in February, creating A.H. Belo. Belo retained 20 local television stations, including WFAA-TV (Channel 8).

Mr. Ellett’s background includes senior roles in several Internet-focused businesses. Most recently, he was chief executive and chairman of Powered Inc., which builds “social commerce” programs designed to combine social networking with consumer purchasing.

He also spent 13 years with Plano-based Electronic Data Systems Corp., serving as president of the Performance Services Group and in other roles.

NEW YORK — Advertisers and marketers, struggling to keep up with changing consumer habits, are about to make massive investments in new digital and out-of-home media platforms, according to a forecast out today from research firm PQ Media.

It says that companies will spend more than $160.8 billion in 2012 — up 82% from 2008 — on 18 emerging markets including online videos, store-based TV screens, sponsored events, TV and movie product placements, cellphones, video games and digital video recorders.

“Americans are spending more time out of the home, working late hours, communicating via wireless devices, shopping in malls and stuck in traffic,” CEO Patrick Quinn says. “There has to be some change in (ad/marketing) strategies to reach these people.”

He expects the new platforms to account for nearly 27% of all ad and marketing spending in 2012, up from 16% this year.

Companies will increase their sales budgets and shift dollars away from traditional media, including broadcast TV, newspapers and magazines, PQ predicts.

One risk in the forecast — which PQ calls the first comprehensive analysis of the alternative media market — is that some figures are based on data that are not time-tested nor universally accepted.

Quinn says he assumes that “businesses are going to create trade organizations and standard metrics.” Then, “Some variables could change.” Sectors that PQ expects to see the biggest gains by 2012 include:

•Online search. Spending will grow 113%, to $26.1 billion, for ads and services at giants, including Google (GOOG) and Yahoo, (YHOO) as well as smaller providers such as ClipBlast and Citysearch. The big attraction is that these sites, in addition to displaying ads, also generate leads as customers click through to a sponsor’s site.

•Event sponsorships. Companies will spend more than $33 billion, up 72% from last year, to attach their brand names to sports, music, theater and other events. The trend is already well underway: Sponsors paid more than $2 billion last year on pro football, baseball, basketball and hockey.

Here, too, companies like the opportunities events provide to connect with new customers.

•E-direct marketing. Marketers will spend $22.1 billion, up 121%, to pitch messages to consumers via e-mail and pop-up ads.

Lots of people respond to e-mails, especially those that offer special deals for products or services that they like. Still, many recipients also increasingly are turning to spam-blocking software to keep from being inundated with junk e-mail.

•Online video and rich media. Opportunities are opening to reach potential customers with ads in or next to Internet video clips. In addition, many sites provide interactive services — for example, clothing retailers make it possible for visitors to visualize how a shirt might look on them. Spending on these sites will grow 389%, to $12.2 billion.

By RYAN NAKASHIMA

The Walt Disney Co. expects to collect $1 billion in revenue from online content this fiscal year, a significant rise from estimates for fiscal 2007, CEO Robert Iger said Monday.

Iger told analysts the company has been “fairly aggressive” in expanding onto the Internet to extend consumer contact with its most popular franchises and create new revenue streams.

“If we’re not there, (people) will just access someone else’s content,” he said in comments Webcast from Bear Stearns’ 21st Annual Media Conference in Palm Beach, Fla.

Disney’s online revenue came from advertising during its ABC network hits such as “Lost” and “Grey’s Anatomy” that are rerun on ABC.com; ads on sites such as ESPN.com; subscriptions to online games; downloads of movies and music; and e-commerce that is not related to its theme parks.

Online sources account for less than 3 percent of company revenue. Disney posted total net income of $4.7 billion on $35.5 billion in revenue last year.

The last time the company estimated digital revenue was in June 2007, when chief financial officer Tom Staggs said he expected the company to post more than $700 million for fiscal 2007, which ended in September.

The company does not break out online revenue in its quarterly earnings releases.

Last month, Disney announced it had created a special studio to develop short-form dramatic and comedy series exclusively for broadcast on ABC.com and Google Inc.’s YouTube.

Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco said he and other legislative leaders had received telephone calls from Lt. Gov. David Paterson that Tedisco took as indicating a resignation from Gov. Eliot Spitzer was in the offing.

Speaking on Talk 1300 in Albany, Tedisco said Paterson’s call “indicates there is something that’s going to take place.”

Tedisco (R-Schenectady) was one of the first leaders Monday to call for Spitzer to step down after being ensnared in a prostitution scandal. The second-year governor was allegedly caught in a federal wiretap making arrangements for a prostitute from the Emperors Club VIP to meet him in a Washington hotel room on Feb. 13.

Tedisco said Tuesday morning that he was exploring the possibility of impeaching Spitzer, though he conceded an indictment or arrest of the governor would need to come first. “We’re preparing a resolution as we evaluate impeachment. We will request a resolution of impeachment by Speaker [ Sheldon] Silver to begin the process,” Tedisco said.

Asked if Spitzer should resign, Silver refused to use that word, saying the governor should do “what’s best for his family.” Silver added, “I think what’s best for the state is we have a constitution, we have continuity in government - it is now up to the governor to make a determination that’s best for his family. I pray for his children and the impact it has had. Right now, my heart goes out to him.”

On Long Island, the county Democratic leaders were divided on what Spitzer’s next move should be.

Suffolk Democratic Party chairman Richard Schaffer called for Spitzer’s resignation. “I think it’s best that he step down,” Schaffer said. “We’re all hoping he figures that out over the next couple of days. But for everyone, including his family, I think it’s best that he step aside.”

But Nassau Democratic chairman Jay Jacobs said, “I’m not going to say whether I would suggest that the governor step down — or not step down. But if he and his advisers have come up with a strategy to continue in office they are a heck of a lot smarter than me, because I can’t figure it out.”

In Albany, television trucks surrounded the Capitol and distracted lawmakers trying to focus on other issues. Lobbyists continued to stream through the marble hallways as they do every Tuesday during the regular legislative session.

The Senate’s Republican majority announced plans for a constitutional spending cap as part of its budget proposal for 2008-09.

Spitzer appeared not to have arrived at his Manhattan office as of 11:15 a.m.

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- AOL promoted Lynda Clarizio to lead its division selling ads across the Web, as the Time Warner Inc. (TWX) unit continues to remake its advertising business.

Clarizio replaces her boss, Curt Viebranz, who has left the company. Viebranz is the former chief executive of Tacoda, an online advertising business AOL bought last year.

The promotion comes at a crucial time for AOL, which has placed a renewed emphasis on becoming a hub for ad sales across the Internet. Parent company Time Warner plans to sell AOL’s Web-access business, a move many believe is a precursor to a sale or split of all or parts of the Internet unit.

Clarizio has led AOL’s Advertising.com, which matches buyers of online advertising to thousands of Web sites with extra ad space to sell. Advertising.com is one of AOL’s most successful businesses, but overall AOL’s advertising revenue lately has lagged the industry.

AOL’s challenge under Clarizio’s watch will be to unify several advertising businesses, including Tacoda and Quigo, it bought in recent months. AOL’s ad businesses compete with increasingly powerful rivals, particularly if Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) succeeds in taking over Yahoo Inc. (YHOO).

“Our strategy is to be able to offer the best possible solutions for advertisers,” Clarizio said in an interview. “If we can drive greater alignment within this organization, we should see an improvement in the numbers.”

By Michele Gershberg

WILMINGTON, Delaware (Reuters) - As a legal battle between Barry Diller and John Malone headed to court on Monday, the biggest surprise may just be that two of the media industry’s largest personalities have let their dispute get this far.

IAC/InterActiveCorp Chief Executive Diller and Liberty Media Chairman Malone are fighting over the future structure of IAC under a plan to spin off four of its largest units.

Long-time business partners, their relationship turned bitter when Diller proposed a structure that would dilute Liberty’s voting control over the spin-offs.

Both Diller and Malone are known for their strong wills and complex deal-making, but people who have followed their business dealings are surprised they were unable to settle their differences before the trial in Delaware Chancery Court.

“Diller and Malone have had a relationship for 20-plus years,” said April Horace, an analyst for Janco Partners who has long covered Malone’s Liberty Media. “Malone usually negotiates something … It does surprise me that this particular time he has not been able to.”

In the meantime, IAC’s outside shareholders continue to see their investment bleed value over fears that the spin-off will be delayed, Diller will be ousted or IAC will be forced to swap assets with Liberty at a lower price to end the dispute.

IAC shares have slid 21 percent since the two companies sued each other in late January. At least two shareholder lawsuits have been filed against IAC’s board, one of them also naming Liberty Media.

“I think the stock is worth $40 and it trades for $19.50,” said one IAC shareholder who did not want to be identified due to a company policy on discussing holdings. “It’s just insane unless you think you’re going to get completely screwed by Malone in some form that you can’t even dream of.”

Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Jeffrey Lindsay still believes the spin-off plan is the best possible outcome for outside shareholders, but he recommends waiting until some white smoke is visible from the proceedings in Delaware. While IAC shares are cheap at this point, they could represent a value trap.

“We can still see downside for IAC investors, especially if a value exchange is made to persuade Liberty Media to forgo its super-voting rights,” Lindsay said in a note to clients on Friday.

Diller moved quickly to calm nerves at the company. “At the end of the day, it’s purely a business dispute,” Diller told employees in an internal memo originally posted online by digital media blog paidContent.org. “We are highly confident in our legal position and are looking forward to proving our case to the judge.”

HSN SWAP

Malone and Diller had long discussed a potential swap for IAC’s home shopping network HSN, and possibly other assets, in return for Liberty’s stake in IAC, but were unable to agree on the proper value to ascribe to the assets. Liberty holds about 30 percent of IAC but controls 62 percent through a second class of super-voting shares.

What they have swapped is cutting remarks since the legal battle began, with Diller at one point referring to Liberty executives as “insane” and Liberty accusing the former television and film executive of staging a corporate coup.

Even though back-channel talks continued in recent weeks, the two sides remained far apart on how to reach a settlement, a source familiar with IAC’s thinking told Reuters last week. As of Sunday night, no imminent agreement appeared to be in the works.

“John is like a big cat in the Serengeti. He’s pretty fierce and he can lay in wait for quite a while for his prize,” said Mark Robichaux, editor of industry trade Broadcasting & Cable. Robichaux wrote a biographical portrait of Malone in the 2002 book “Cable Cowboy.”

But by taking their battle all the way to court, both stand to lose at least part of their demands, Robichaux said.

Liberty is unlikely to prevail in its request to oust Diller and six of his close associates, including wife Diane Von Furstenberg, from the IAC board, while Diller may not be able to go ahead with the spin-off without a major concession to Liberty on price or control.

By AMY WESTFELDT

NEW YORK Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the crusading politician who built his career on rooting out corruption, apologized Monday after he was accused of involvement in a prostitution ring. He did not elaborate on the scandal, which drew calls for his resignation.

His stoic wife at his side, Spitzer told reporters at a hastily called news conference: “I have acted in a way that violates my obligations to my family.”

“I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself,” he said. “I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.”

Spitzer’s involvement in the ring was caught on a federal wiretap as part of an investigation opened in recent months, according to a law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing inquiry.

The New York Democrat, identified in legal papers as “Client 9,” met last month with at least one woman in a Washington hotel, the law enforcement official said.

The prostitution ring, identified in court papers as the Emperors Club VIP, arranged connections between wealthy men and more than 50 prostitutes in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Miami, London and Paris, prosecutors said. Four people allegedly connected to the high-end ring were arrested last week.

The club’s Web site displays photographs of scantily clad women with their faces hidden. It also shows hourly rates depending on whether the prostitutes were rated with one diamond, the lowest ranking, or seven diamonds, the highest. The most highly ranked prostitutes cost $5,500 an hour, prosecutors said.

The scandal was first reported on The New York Times’ Web site.

Spitzer spoke hours later. Stunned lawmakers gathered around televisions at the state Capitol in Albany to watch, and a media mob gathered outside the office of Lt. Gov. David Paterson, who would become governor if Spitzer was to resign. It took opponents only minutes to call for his resignation.

“Today’s news that Eliot Spitzer was likely involved with a prostitution ring and his refusal to deny it leads to one inescapable conclusion: He has disgraced his office and the entire state of New York,” said Assembly Republican leader James Tedisco. “He should resign his office immediately.”

Spitzer, 48, built his political reputation on rooting out corruption, including several headline-making battles with Wall Street while serving as attorney general. He stormed into the governor’s office in 2006 with a historic share of the vote, vowing to continue his no-nonsense approach to fixing one of the nation’s worst governments.

Time magazine had named him “Crusader of the Year” when he was attorney general and the tabloids proclaimed him “Eliot Ness.”

But his term as governor has been marred by problems, including an unpopular plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants and a plot by his aides to smear Spitzer’s main Republican nemesis.

Spitzer had been expected to testify to the state Public Integrity Commission he had created to answer for his role in the scandal, in which his aides were accused of misusing state police to compile travel records to embarrass Senate Republican leader Joseph Bruno.

Spitzer had served two terms as attorney general where he pursued criminal and civil cases and cracked down on misconduct and conflicts of interests on Wall Street and in corporate America. He had previously been a prosecutor in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, handling organized crime and white-collar crime cases.

His cases as state attorney general included a few criminal prosecutions of prostitution rings and into tourism involving prostitutes.

In 2004, he was part of an investigation of an escort service in New York City that resulted in the arrest of 18 people on charges of promoting prostitution and related charges.

By Joseph Weisenthal

Some fresh data for the first month of the year from a handful of newspapers… Note that two of them, Media General (NYSE: MEG) and Gannett (NYSE: GCI), have announced changes to the way they report, offering less info on print, ostensibly because of the increased importance of digital. Neither, however, offered much more information on digital than they have in the past.

– Media General: It won’t get any easier to fend off the activist shareholders … Media General, under siege by Harbinger, reported total January revenue of $71.5 million, down 8.3 percent from $77.9 million in the year-ago period. Publishing revenue was down 14.9 percent to $41.2 million, on characteristic weakness, while interactive media revenue dropped 4.7 percent on weak results in online classifieds. It did say that local ad revenues were up 11.8 percent. As for the above mentioned change, compare the level of detail in today’s release to the one from the month before. From here on, the monthly report will offer less info on the print side than it used to. The company claims it’s because the traditional newspaper business is less relevant than it used to be, in light of new offerings, including its digital properties, and so there’s less reason to include as many line items. But it does have the effect of making the dead-tree business harder to analyze, while digital remains just 3.6 percent of the business.

– Gannett: The USA Today parent reported a 7.5 percent decline in January revenue to $575.4 million. Newspaper revenue slid 9.2 percent, with classifieds dropping by 16.2 percent. From now on, print ad volume will no longer be included, which, the company claims, has to do with the increasing role of digital advertising. Fair enough, but if they’re going to reduce the print data, how about some color to the digital info, particularly if the rise of digital is the reason? As it is, the only digital data point they offer is 25.8 million unique users in the month.

– McClatchy: January ad revenue fell 14.4 percent to $176.8 million from $206.7 million. Ad revenue was down 15.7 percent, with extreme weakness seen in employment and real estate classifieds. No digital data was broken out, but they’re not reducing the amount of print data for now. 

– Journal Communications: A relatively modest January decline for Journal Communications (NYSE: JRN), as it reported revenue of $31.92 million, down 3.1 percent from the year-ago period. Ad revenue at the newspaper business fell 6.4 percent to $10.72 million. Interactive revenue was up 17 percent to $1.08 million.