1 billion songs promo in 2008

Pepsi always seems to play the big numbers in their promos. A few years back, they had a lottery for 1 billion dollars with a monkey doing the final draw (so I heard).

Now they started a cooperation with Amazon to offer 1 billion songs in 2008. The details of the promo will be announced during the superbowl. That should be interesting, especially since after the superbowl, there isn’t even a whole year left to give away these mp3s. It means that they will have to give a way more than 3,000,000 songs per day (roughly calculated for 300 days).

Considering the fact that iTunes sold 1.5 billion songs in the last few years, this truly is a big number. And it should resultin in an inflation of the mp3 market, lowering the value of digital songs in general. Don’t you think?

Social Media Predictions for 2008

So here is one more thought about the new year. Undoubtedly we’ll see even more Social Media activity in the new year. Especially in Germany, where I am located, there is a lot of activity to be expected, since we’re always playing catch up to what is happening in the US.

deft lab offers a list of Social Media Predictions for 2008, looking at the various big players that are out there, grouped by networks, technologies and blogs / microblogs.

Web 2.0 user statistics from Germany

Some interesting facts for my German readers: There is a new research published by TNS Infratest about about the users of web 2.0 offers. According to this research the senders or creators of content are still amongst the younger audience, while the recipients and content consumers are amongst all age groups:

Während etwa ein Drittel (33 Prozent) der Verfasser von Beiträgen [von Wikipedia] unter 20 Jahren sind, liegt der Anteil der Leser, die 30 Jahre und älter sind, bei 65 Prozent.

Also with blogs we need to differentiate:

Hier sind 41 Prozent der Personen mit einem eigenen Blog unter 20 Jahre alt. Die Blog-Leser hingegen sind deutlich älter, bereits 35 Prozent sind über 40 Jahre alt, nur 20 Prozent sind unter 20 Jahren. „Das heißt, Blogs werden zwar auch von Gleichaltrigen gelesen aber gleichzeitig scheinen sie auch für Personen interessant zu sein, die nicht direkt in der Altersgruppe des Blog-Besitzers zu finden sind. Dennoch sind aber auch Erwachsene unter den Blog-Schreibern: Immerhin ein Viertel aller Blog-Besitzer sind über 40 Jahren“

Notable is also the difference of topics chosen by men and women:

Am häufigsten werden Weblogs als persönliches Tagebuch genutzt (61 Prozent), aber auch konkrete Inhalte wie Reise & Urlaub (30 Prozent) und Wissen & Lernen (24 Prozent) werden von den Bloggern thematisiert. Frauen nutzen ihren Blog häufiger als persönliches Tagebuch (76 Prozent der Blog-Besitzerinnen). Männer behandeln eher konkrete Themen, wie Computer & Software und Nachrichten & Politik. Die Themengebiete Wissen & Lernen und Reise & Urlaub sind bei beiden Geschlechtern in gleichem Maße beliebt (jeweils ca. 30 Prozent der Blog-Besitzer).

Here you can find a PDF with some (very few) Charts.

The first Digital Advertising trends for 2008

Just last weekend, when I was buying grocery for my farewell party from Frankfurt, I noticed that supermarkets already stock christmas cookies and bakery – but it’s only beginning of September…It starts earlier every year it seems, doesn’t it?

Giles Rhys Jones is also rather early: He already predicts the Digital Advertising Trends for 2008. The trends he lists are all about the changing agency landscape. And he’s right about them, I think. The way agencies will work will change (does change already). The skills needed will change, too.