Over at alvear.com, I mentioned that that I’m conducting a research report on how Internet video can impact social change.

I’m inviting non-profits, independent filmmakers and other organizations interested in social change to discuss how people can widen their distribution (to DVDs, theaters, etc.) and how they can earn additional revenue.

If you’re involved in Internet video delivery or social change, I’d like to invite you to fill out this survey. Responses will be anonymous and I’ll be able to share top level results publicly.

As an incentive for participation, I am offering a $150 Kiva gift certificate to one random person. These certificates allow you to log in to Kiva.org and micro-lend money to entrepreneurs all around the world.

The survey will close on July 7th, 2008 and the winner will be contacted privately soon afterward.

Please contact me if you have any questions. Thanks!

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According to a survey from British Music Rights, 80% of kids are willing to pay for a legal P2P system. The group surveyed U.K. youths aged 14-22 about their music habits–from uploading their own original songs, illegal downloads, and how they feel about digital music.

Young people today are already using P2P to get their music, so it makes sense that they are comfortable with using a legal P2P system. About 63% of respondents said that they download music using P2P file-sharing networks.

Unfortunately, there is no legal, pay P2P system available now. So kids are doing what they know: downloading lots of music illegally with P2P. The survey found that respondents had an average of 1770 tracks, of which half were downloaded illegally. They also share music by trading CDs, or copying music from their friends’ hard drives. Seems pretty hard for the RIAA to stop this kind of piracy, isn’t it?

Music labels should take a long look at this study. It shows how kids’ habits about digital music are much different than adults, simply because they’ve grown up with things like P2P, social media and the decline of CD sales. If they don’t heed what kids are already doing today, how can they hope to stay relevant in the future? Labels need to start realizing that their old business models are changing rapidly and they need to adapt with different business models.

Interestingly, the study found that 60% of young people would still purchase CDs. even with a legal file-sharing service. Primarily, that’s because they want to own something physical.

Some highlights:

• 90% of respondents own an MP3 player
• 58% have copied music from a friend’s hard drive to their own
• 95% said that they copy music in some way
• 42% have allowed P2P users to upload music from their computer.
• Money spent on live music exceeds that spent on recorded music

Bonus: Press release from BMR here.

Bonus #2: Article from Ars Technica.

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The Nielsen Company released results on April’s Internet video consumption, and found that kids aged 2 to 11 view more videos than adults (51 streams per viewer vs. 44). Teens, however, were the most active Internet video consumers. They viewed 74 streams per viewer for an average of 132 minutes per viewer.

Younger kids consume big brands like Disney, Barbie and Nick Jr., while teens focus on music videos and movie sites like Buzznet, Bebo and Atlantic Records.

Since kids having been growing up with the Internet and online video, they are more accustomed to seek out content they want at home and are heavy users.

Overall, Nielsen’s monthly VideoCensus report for April 2008 found that YouTube was number one yet again with 73.5 million unique viewers and 4 billion total streams. All metrics that Nielsen is reporting have gone up.

• Unique viewers have gone up 3.7% from March 2008 to 120 million people.

• Total streams are up 9.3% at 7 billion.

• Streams per viewer are up 5.3% at 64 streams.

• Time per viewer is up 4.0% at 143 minutes.

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Looks like Internet ad revenue is still growing and even outpacing traditional media. According to the Internet Advertising Bureau, advertising revenues from 2007 were about $21.1 billion, which is up 25% over 2006’s $16.9 billion.

Technorati Tags: IAB, research, advertising, Internet advertising, Internet Advertising Bureau

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Isn’t it ironic? A company puts out a press release with the results of a survey showing that over half of respondents are not familiar with the term IPTV. Yet they themselves don’t know what the term IPTV means.

The survey said that more than half of respondents didn’t know what IPTV meant, yet 92% have watched YouTube.

For the record: YouTube is not IPTV. IPTV means broadcast TV delivered over a managed network (or walled garden) using Internet protocols (IP). Thus the term IPTV. YouTube is Internet video. That’s because it’s delivered over the public Internet. Internet video is just a “best effort” delivery since it’s not managed.

But really, it’s not the fault of the company. The term IPTV is often mis-understood by lots of people. I would have thought, however, that a company doing a survey on Internet video would understand the difference.

Another way to distinguish IPTV from Internet video: IPTV is about delivering linear broadcast TV. The survey talked about Internet user-generated content and YouTube. It’s just not the same, and one way to keep the two sides different is not to mix up the terms.

The company that did the survey, WebsEdge, is a content creator that’s in the business of putting videos on the Internet. However, since they barely understand the difference between IPTV and Internet video, how can their customers? Or a regular consumer?

I had a call with Stephen Horn, the CEO of WebsEdge where he admitted that they may have mixed up the terms. But he held fast to the results of the survey and didn’t think he got anything wrong.

I think the press release and the survey are invalid and don’t make any sense.

It just makes me wonder how companies can put out press releases like this that claim any kind of validity.

I even am beginning to wonder about how the survey was conducted. Did they use scientific methods? The press release simply says:

“The survey, conducted in late 2007 in New York City, asked 225 residents about their attitudes and knowledge of IPTV.”

At the end of the press release it states:

“The survey was conducted in midtown Manhattan, New York.”

What kind of questions did they ask? When I asked Stephen about how the survey was conducted I got a vague answer that they’d get back to me. It’s been a few days, and I still haven’t heard anything about how it was conducted. Did they simply walk up to people in the streets? Who knows.

It doesn’t really matter, really. Yet another reason not to take this “survey” seriously.

Bonus: If you feel like reading it, you can see the PDF of the full press release here.

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