The internet leaves no business model untouched and unchanged, especially when it comes to media consumption. Whether music, movies, journalism, publishing, or TV, the impact of having high-speed, always-on connectivity has revolutionized how we interact and entertain ourselves. But in the wake of these changes, media companies are left struggling to monetize their efforts, all of sudden discovering that their old business model now looks like a square peg getting hammered into a very round hole.

TV viewing habits are just one example of this change. Not only are companies like Comcast and Time Warner experimenting with on-demand online viewing initiatives, the networks themselves now post their top shows to the web. The major TV networks have featured streaming video on their websites for years. Meanwhile, several networks and studios, including NBC Universal, FOX, and ABC, have banded together to offer Hulu, a popular destination for commercial-supported streaming video.

But putting shows online has its drawbacks, as networks are finding out. Without solid measurement tools, making the shows available on other platforms is, in the short term, hurting the bottom line. In a recent issue of TV Guide magazine, for example, it was noted that networks are specifically facing problems with re-runs. Where before a second airing of an episode from a popular show could make decent money, they're now finding less viewers tuning in thanks to on-demand offerings and online viewings. According to one unnamed network exec, this presents a huge challenge for the networks. "We're not like cable, which has a second revenue stream from subscribers," the exec said. "We need to amortize these very expensive shows."

Measuring the Web TV Audience: A Tricky Prospect

Through anecdotal evidence, we know that more people are watching TV online these days. It comes up in conversation among friends, especially when someone laments how they "forgot to record" a program. They now know they can go online and get caught up. Others find themselves relaxing in front of their laptop's screen nearly as often as they hang out in their living room to watch the big screen. In fact, thanks to the recession, more people than ever have decided to cancel their cable TV subscriptions to save money, realizing that many of their favorite programs are available through alternative methods, including online streams. Need proof? Just look at the Google Insights chart for the term "cancel cable."

Then there are the recent statistics from the nonprofit Conference Board that show how online viewing is on the rise. According to their findings, nearly a quarter of U.S. households now watch TV online, up 20% from last year. New shows are most popular, watched by 43% of viewers followed by 35% of viewers who watch sitcoms, dramas, and comedies. And 90% of the viewings take place at home.

Unfortunately, there hasn't been a good way to effectively monitor and measure the online TV viewing audience. When Nielsen previously reported on Hulu's viewing numbers for instance, Hulu lashed out at the company claiming the numbers were wildly inaccurate.

At the time, Nielsen was using a combination of web beacons to determine when streams started and stopped while also measuring the web use of a panel of 200,000 online users. Hulu themselves, however, preferred to quote numbers from measurement firm comScore, especially since that company reported a much higher reach even as Nielsen noticed a slight decline. The problem here, as we noted at the time, is that online measurements aren't standardized, making it difficult to accurately determine audience counts.

A brand, whether Hulu or any other online video provider, could look at the measurements from major firms like comScore, Compete, or Quantcast, and then pick the company whose estimates were the highest when crafting their "look at us grow!" type press releases. In all honesty, it's probably better that Nielsen gets involved to more objectively report the online traffic through their representative sample methodology. It may not be entirely accurate either, but at least you know that it's coming from an unbiased third party.

The "Internet Meter" Will Deliver Hard Data

At the moment, the Internet Meter software resides in a test group of 375 People Meter households, which has allowed the company to evaluate its capabilities before rolling it out to the remaining group. In addition, the software has been deployed to the company's online panel (as mentioned above) which now measures over 230,000 individuals. Installation of the software will be completed in 2010 but full implementation won't be seen until the following year. If that seems like too slow of a pace, it's only because the company is being very careful, fully knowledgeable of the major impact this technology will have on the TV industry. According to Sara Erichson, President, Media Client Services in North America, Nielsen will not take "any actions that would dilute the reliability of the core television ratings data."

Once the Nielsen data goes live, it will reveal a plethora of information regarding not just viewing numbers but also the demographics of who watches what and when. The information can then be used by advertisers and marketers who want to target niche audiences like the hip crowd who watches sci-fi shows but never stays home on Fridays to view them live on TV when they air. Or the group of people who are too embarrassed to set their DVRs to record "Ugly Betty," but sneak in the guilty pleasure online in their free time. Expect the online ads interspersed with the online content to soon become more precise and more targeted than they are now, thanks to these sorts of reveals. Perhaps the networks will even be able to charge more for ads, once they have numbers to back them up. That would be a good thing for the industry as a whole as well as consumers, since it could lead to more shows being put online. Who knows, maybe one day we'll even be able to purchase online-only cable TV subscriptions, too.

Holland-based CoffeeCompany is starting to market their menu items via their Wi-Fi networks. If you head to any of their coffee shops don't be surprised to see networks with names such as 'OrderAnotherCoffeeAlready' or 'TodaysSpecialExpresso1.60Euro'. With the help of THEY, CoffeeCompany is promoting their specials of the day and more, while humorously guilt tripping patrons accessing their Wi-Fi networks to grab another cup of coffee. Did anyone suggest this to Starbucks yet?

Will it Increase Business?

There haven't been any reports of an increase in business, but we think the idea is great! Would it tempt us to buy another cup of joe? Once we could control our laughter at the creative network names we'd be more than happy to. While it won't stop most from free-loading, we think CoffeeCompany might be on to something with this marketing technique. What creative network names would you use to market your products or services via a Wi-Fi network?

Image courtesy of Adrants

To the average user, Hulu.com, the free web site that offers high-quality streams of TV shows and movies in the U.S., looks like a runaway success: the selection of available content is more than decent, Hulu's Collections make browsing related videos easy, HD videos have been made available, embed codes are provided for re-posting the videos on the web, and the site gets a good amount of traffic, too. In fact, Hulu's CEO reported in March that 5 million visitors watched videos on the site during the past 30 days while the service was still in beta, and that number has been increasing ever since.

Despite the number of visitors and streams, Hulu's success doesn't translate into big business - at least not yet. A recent Silicon Alley Insider article is speculating that Hulu will earn between $45 - 90 million during their first 12 months - April 2008 through March 2009. However, after paying off their content partners, their net revenue will be between $12.5 million and $25 million. (For how they arrived at those numbers, click here).

While those numbers aren't bad for a startup, as the article points out, they're not great for transforming Hulu into a wildly successful business, especially when you compare it to the "pay-for-content" iTunes model, which apparently turned a $570 million profit last year. Of course, iTunes' library is much larger, but it still shows that there is big money to be made by charging for content.

The problem with Hulu really has nothing to do with its design - sleek and easy to use - the problem is the tight stranglehold networks still have over their content. Major networks CBS and Disney (ABC) are not even on board yet and the networks that have joined yank their content down after it's five weeks old.

Instead of offering an online site that competes, not just with television, but also with our trusty DVRs that can record and save every episode of a show, Hulu only offers a smattering of hit-or-miss content where you're not even guaranteed to find the one episode you came to the site in search of in the first place. Case in point: Family Guy's "Blue Harvest" episode, a Star Wars parody, became so popular that it's been released as a standalone DVD. Even though having that episode alone could drive scores of visitors to Hulu's site, it's nowhere to be found. But do you know where it can be found in a matter of minutes? BitTorrent.

So, Hulu loses to the pirates when it comes to content and it can't even compete when it comes to offering a legal alternative to watching TV online either, since other networks don't want to participate, happy to host their streaming content on their own web sites or - in the case of some smaller networks - not at all.

Well, maybe Hulu doesn't really want to be a huge money-making machine. After all, isn't the internet all about serving the long tail? And the advertisers seem happy enough for now as it is. For example, a P&G spokesperson reported that the company, a partner since the beta launch, has so far been "pleased with the results from Hulu" and "will continue to evaluate it as a way to reach our consumer." Perhaps Hulu just wants to stay in the black while hoping to make a small dent in the number of users rampantly pirating video.

As Hulu grows in popularity, their bandwidth, marketing costs, and overhead will increase as well, and it will remain a struggle for the company to earn revenue. But if they can't make a successful business out of providing legal online video, then who will?

The VisualComplexity web site was created by Manuel Lima, an interaction designer, based on research he began while attending the Parsons School of Design. Later on, when he was working as a Teaching Assistant as Parsons, he worked with Christopher Kirwan, to consolidate the research and launch the site.

By understanding the intricacy of networks and discerning patterns from the seeming chaos, we can achieve not only a structural understanding of the networks themselves, but we may also gain knowledge of how to implement major improvements in stability, robustness and security of these networks...knowledge that can help us move forward in not just a better understanding of the social graph, but of the very world around us and its inherent complexities.

The VisualComplexity Project

The VisualComplexity web site effectively functions as a catalog of visualizations of various types of networks, and currently hosts 557 different projects. Although it's pointed out that not all the networks shown are genuinely complex, those that aren't have been chosen for inclusion in the catalog because they demonstrate either an advancement in visual depiction techniques or they show conceptual uniqueness and originality of a subject.

For those interested in visualization techniques and maps, the site is a virtual treasure trove of beautifully created and engaging maps.

For example, there is the map the Processing.org flickr group, (a group interested in Processing - an open source programming language and environment for people who want to program images, animation, and interactions):

There is the Web Trend map, a visualization of all the major players on the web, ordered by category, proximity, popularity, and perspective:

And, for a look at a truly complex visualization, check out the map entitled "A Working Brian Model":

The types of networks on the site can be filtered by subject (Music, Internet, Art, etc.), Method (Arc Diagrams, Data Flow, Globes, Radial, etc.), Trend (Blogosphere, del,icio.us, Flickr, etc.), author, or year. You can also take a look at the site's stats to see the number and percentage of projects by subject, most searched keywords, most viewed projects, and other interesting metadata about the project.

Visualization enthusiasts, prepare to lose yourself for hours in this inspiring and enlightening web site.