MSN
MSN to webcast Times Square New Year’s eve celebration live
MUMBAI: A full century after the first official New Year celebration in New York City’s Times Square, people around the world will be able to experience this New Year’s Eve tradition in a way, which was never available before. MSN, which is the exclusive online provider of the official Times Square New Year’s Eve 2005 celebration, will be providing an exclusive live webcast on MSN Video.
Starting around 6 pm (EST), when the organisers light and raise the world-famous New Year’s Eve Ball atop One Times Square, and continuing through the ball drop at midnight, MSN Video viewers will be able to select from three streams that will capture all the revelry. The webcast will end at 12:15 am.
In addition to the Times Square New Year’s Eve world feed and individual environment cameras, MSN will host the first ever Times Square New Year’s Eve 2005 webcast with New York City’s own Z100 radio personality Romeo leading the festivities.
The collaboration between the Times Square Alliance, Countdown Entertainment, Clear Channel Entertainment TV and MSN allows millions to share in the excitement of the 100th anniversary of the New Year’s Eve celebration at Times Square. Limelight Networks will support the streaming video for this unique online experience.
“The Times Square 2005 MSN webcast demonstrates how interactive digital media can enable people to not only share but participate in the excitement,” said MSN director Adam Sohn. “It illustrates how digital media can provide coverage of live events beyond what a viewer can get on TV.”
“The Internet has become a widely accepted medium for viewers around the world to access live entertainment,” said Limelight Networks vice president business development Erik Gabler. “We are excited to support this trend by delivering high-resolution video streams across our scalable distribution platform on New Year’s Eve.”
The Times Square 2005 MSN Video webcast will break periodically to stream advertisements live from select companies, offering advertisers a new way to reach an audience that was previously available only via broadcast TV.
The Times Square New Year’s Eve Celebration on MSN Video can be viewed at http://msnvideo.com/newyears.
MUMBAI: Portal MSN India is celebrating six years of existence in the country. On this occasion it along with ad sales partner NDTV Media is offering a value add for clients by unveiling new advertising packages it has specially created for the portal.
The new online advertising packages feature special effects. The aim is to help brands ensure that their message reaches out a larger audience online. The company says that higher quality and enhanced graphics have been complimented with innovative newer online advertising tools. This allows advertisers a host of newer ways to promote their products.
Speaking on the same MSN and Windows Live India country head Jaspreet Bindra says that this package gives ad agencies the tools they need to help make the ad a more interactive experience for the user. It also allows for different creatives to be done for one product.
Bindra says that MSN’s package results in rich media of a better quality compared with what competing portals can offer. MSN has done innovations with clients. For instance it came out with an over the Page video ad innovation for Tata Racing. Basically the company wanted to take advantage of the interest in Formula One. MSN is also doing an ad innovation for eBay. Here if one clicks the ad it expands.
Talking about the relationship with MSN, NDTV Media CEO Raj Nayak says, “Nine months ago we approached MSN and told them that they needed to look at how they sell ads from a different angle. We decided to adopt a method that combines the way television and print are sold. We do not sell based on click throughs or page impressions.
“We sell on the basis of the period of time that an advertiser wants visibility for and daypart chosen. From 60 clients on MSN before we came onboard there are now 265 clients. We have managed to triple MSN’s revenues in six months time.”
MSN also came out with the unique concept of desktop TV. This is a section where video ads run daily. They have also done a deal with Indiantelevision.com for the desktop TV feature. In terms of dealing with clients selling in daypart means that once that time that one has bought the ad for elapses then the ad goes off the site. For instance a client can buy an ad for a month each day between 9am – 12 pm which MSN says is prime time. After 12 pm each time the video ad or banner goes off the site each day. The day is divided into six parts and the price for ads depends on the traffic MSN gets at that point of time on an average.
Bindra adds that MSN has configured the software so that video ads can run even on computers that do not have high bandwith. That is one of the factors that separates it from other portals. Also some video ads run after the user clicks on it while others start automatically once a certain page is opened. That is the choice of a client. MSN does not allow more than three ads on a page.
Nayak claims that the client drop of rate is only four to five per cent which means that clients find value in this way of advertising. “We have managed to get clients to change their way of thinking about how they advertise on the web. What we are doing marks a paradigm shift in terms of how the internet is being sold to clients.”
Another innovative way for clients to reach MSN users is through the Live Messenger. Here a Bot backend programme is created so that for instance one can chat with Munnabhai. There was a similar initiative done for Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (Kank). Bindra says that the messenger icon can be made to look like a star. The same concept can be applied to clients like Coca Cola. Plans are in the pipeline to enable the user who clicks on a banner to interact with Live Messenger from the client.
Of course for films like Kank, Rang De Basanti MSN has aimed to give users a complete experience. So one could get among other things downloadable screen savers, stills from the movie, a plot synopsis based on the story-line, details of the cast and crew etc.
