Title: Global Entertainment and Media Outlook 2004-2008
Source: PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)
Date: March 2005
Abstract: PwC has just published a new edition of its Global Entertainment Media Outlook, a report that gathers the forecasts of the experts for the media and entertainment sector for the period 2004-2008. The PwC experts foresee a general market increase in spending in publicity and Internet access. In the United States and Canada, broadband will continue to be the driving force behind growth in this segment of the market. According to the forecasts for the US, this sector will grow on average by 15.6% between 2004-2008 and will reach 25,900 million dollars, while in Canada, the rate of growth will rise to 20.3% and spending will stand at 1,800 million dollars. In the EMEA region, falling prices will propel the broadband market and boost overall access spending despite a delay in 3G rollout.
The Popular Republic of China and India are two more examples. The investment in telecommunications infrastructure by both states will expand Internet access, which will lead to rapid growth in Internet usage.
Finally, in Latin America, the expansion of the Internet universe will be spurred by the emergence of broadband and improved economic conditions.
Online publicity in these countries is expected to rise by 34.8% and reach 1,800 million dollars by 2008. The report points out that online and mobile phone games will be the fastest growing segments in this market jumping from 562 million dollars in 2003 to 6,200 million dollars in 2008. The popularisation of wireless access, according to PwC, will play a major role in the huge expansion expected in the USA and Canada, the two most dynamic markets of all developed countries.mercados.

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All the ministers of Industry and Energy of the twenty-five countries in the EU, with the exception of Spain, have ratified the agreement to allow the registration of software patents. For the critics of this type of patent, the directive is a concession to large companies like Nokia or Microsoft and prejudices small companies and consumers. The defenders of patenting software argue that this is a way to stimulate innovation and, what is more, it eliminates the comparative disadvantage against US inventors.
Indeed, it seems that Europe admires the way the United States carry out their science and technology research. The President of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, has spoken about the convenience of setting up a European Institute of Technology (EIT), on the same lines as the Massachusetts Institute Technology (MIT), so that it can contribute to the growth and creation of work in member states. Some possible sites have already been mentioned including Poland and Strasburg. Michael Kelly, executive director of the Cambridge-MIT Institute, has stated that there are certain issues to be taken into account, which could hamper the creation of a similar center in Europe: the entrepreneurial spirit of MIT and the fact that its research is focussed on solving problems and not on traditional disciplines.
Indeed, despite registering 14 patents, the MIT has just announced the closing of Media Lab Europe, its research laboratory into digital technology, which was set up in Ireland in 2000. Initially subsidised by the Irish government, the center has never been able to finance itself with its research activities, which was one of its initial objectives. This has led the MIT to close the Irish center down, something it has already done with its Asian center.

News in CNet Asia and CXO Today.com 
Press release from Medialab Europe

After years of being in the red and getting huge injections of cash, the four Spanish online banks (Patagon, Uno-e, Inversis and Bancopopular-e) have started to show some profits. According to the AEB (the Spanish Association of Bankers), profits emerged in March 2004 triggering a rising tendency that went on to the end off the year with a joint net profit of 7.64 million euros, as against the 18.64 million loss in 2003.
For the AEB, the turning point is a result of the strong increase in the operating margin and the fact that Uno-e, the filial of BBVA and Terra, made its first profit. In fact, Uno-e managed to beat half of traditional banks with a profit of 8.06 million euros (against losses of 5.06 million euros in 2003). The best result, however, was made by Bancopopular-e with a profit of 8.71 millions. The online bank, launched in 2002 by the Banco Popular, had a head’s start on the rest as the setting up costs were then assumed by the group. Patagon Bank, owned by the Santander Group, earned 2.01 million euros. The only e-bank unable to get out of the red was Inversis, which is owned by El Corte Inglés, Caja Madrid, the Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo (CAM), Terra, Indra and Cajamar.
In its defence, it must be said that it is the youngest of the pack and it did manage to reduce its losses from 15.79 millions in 2003 to 11.4 millions last year (29.41%). These figures do not include ActivoBank as individual results have not been available since it was integrated into Grupo Sabadell. However, in the first six months of 2004 it had a profit of 420,000 euros.
Everything points to the business taking off. But if customers are also to see it as a good business, there should be a service that centralises all the accounts of a customer, be he from whichever e-bank, into a single personalised portal. This is something that exists in the US under the name of eWise and which Bankinter unsuccessfully tried to implement in Spain but came up against the opposition of all the other banks who were reluctant to share information on their customers.

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Article in Baquía

According to the European Interactive Advertising Association (EIAA), the investment in publicity on the Internet will triple in Europe over the next four years, reaching 7% of all advertising publicity. This optimistic figure confirms the results of other studies, like the one recently published by IAB and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
According to that report, the Internet grew by 30.3% as a publicity media in 2004, which was above all other conventional media.
Undoubtedly, the pay-per-click emerging formula, which generates millions of dollars for Google and Overture-Yahoo, played a major role in those more-than-favourable calculations. But in the light of fraud, some advertisers are starting to question the pay per click ads (where the advertiser pays a fixed tariff for every click).
Some observers have commented that the conversion of clicks to sales has fallen significantly. Apparently, there are people who are not in the least interested in the content of the ad and simply click on it repeatedly. There are even programmes that do it automatically. Some people go beyond this and hire other people in countries where labour is cheap, like India and China, and employ those people to click on ads all day long. The aim is simple: destroy the advertiser through clicks he must pay for. If you read between the lines you may find resentful employees or disloyal competitors.
In the face of the worry of those who advertise, Google, Yahoo and other sites are taking measures to cut out the fraud. One immediate reaction is that Google and Yahoo have started to return some money to the advertisers who have borne a proven fraud case. It is practically impossible to know whether someone clicks on an ad with good or bad intentions but any sudden increase in traffic in a web-page should set off alarms.

News in The International Herald Tribune and The New York Times (Payment service)
Articles in Wired and News.com