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Judging from traffic to online travel agencies and their ilk, the generalized post-Sept. 11 anxiety over traveling has been quelled. In January, leading travel sites experienced a sharp increase in the number of unique visitors, showing double-digit growth since September. Expedia.com, the Microsoft-owned site that has the largest audience, saw its traffic increase 14 percent in January over September, to 10.2 million unique visitors from 8.9 million unique visitors. No. 2 Travelocity, which stands to be repurchased in full by majority shareholder Sabre, attracted 43 percent more people in January than in September, 9.4 million unique visitors versus 6.6 million. Orbitz, the travel site created by a partnership of the top-five U.S. airlines, posted the biggest gain—72 percent, to almost seven million unique visitors from just four million in September. Finally, the web sites of two airlines also saw a lot more traffic in January. Southwest Airlines’ Southwest.com grew 17 percent, to 5.3 million unique visitors, and American Airlines’ web site drew 4.5 million unique visitors in January, an increase of 20 percent.
For a limited time, MGM OKs movie downloads
Movie studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is dabbling in the art of the download and is offering two movies online. In a partnership with online movie distributor CinemaNow, the studio will make two commercial films available for download during the next month. Once downloaded, the movies will be viewable for just 24 hours. They’re supposedly copy-proof, too. But MGM is playing it safe by offering films that not many people would want to copy. One is the Martin Lawrence-Danny Devito comedy “What’s the Worst that Could Happen?” and the other is the drama set in 17th-century France, “The Man in the Iron Mask,” starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Because the films are studio-sanctioned, the visual and audio quality is supposed to be much better than your average pirated download. It will cost $1.99 to $5.99 to see each movie, depending on how fast users' connections are and whether they download films to their hard drives or watch them directly on the web site. MGM is the first major studio to allow internet downloads of its movies. More movies will be made available if the experiment is successful.
Yahoo by Phone now voice-activated
Imagine getting lost trying to find a friend's house. You don't have the number and you have nowhere to check your email. You're stuck, right? Yahoo would disagree. Its Yahoo by Phone service, now featuring voice recognition, will allow anyone to access email, call up an address book or check news, stock quotes, sports and weather with simple voice commands, for $4.95 a month. Customers who pony up the extra cash for a Yahoo Phone Card, available in denominations of $10, $25 and $50, can claim the extra cool that comes with being able to dial domestic phone numbers with just the sound of their voice. But first, they'll have to dial 1-800-44-YAHOO. Customers will be charged 10 cents a minute.
Windows Media Player is watching you
Bill Gates really is watching you, it turns out. The latest version of Microsoft’s Windows Media Player keeps track of the video and audio clips that users listen to or watch. The offending software, which plays CDs and DVDs, comes bundled with the latest version of the Microsoft Windows operating system, Windows XP. Media Player makes a list of what tracks and genres a consumer likes, and saves it in a file on the user’s hard drive. Microsoft says it has no plans to peddle this list to marketers, but there’s little question that these lists would be a gold mine for it. In response to press reports about the list-making capability, Microsoft changed its privacy statement to make consumers aware that their preferences are being noted.
Royalty system set for online tunes
A U.S. Copyright Office panel has recommended that radio webcasters pay royalties to record companies. Under the proposal, each time a web user tunes into an off-line radio station’s online broadcast and listens to a given song, the record company would be paid 0.07 of a cent. The royalty would be twice that for webcasts that aren’t also being broadcast via radio. Neither webcasters nor the record companies are satisfied with the recommendation, however. The Recording Industry Association of America thinks that the rate ought to be higher. The Digital Media Association, on the other hand, expressed dissatisfaction with the suggested rate, saying it should be lower. The rate has not been finalized yet, but there is no doubt that it will be put into place, since the Copyright Office ruled back in December 2000 that radio stations will have to pay extra royalties if they stream their broadcasts online.
February 22, 2002 © 2002 Media Life
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