Augmented Reality is Over-hyped and Abused

Augmented reality has seen a huge rise in recent months , the problem however is that it is meant to be a technology that is based on utility and yet it is overrun with gimmicks. It is able to create innovative and sustained engagement between its brands and its consumer but it is becoming more difficult to achieve that, even though it should be becoming easier! A high percentage of people will still not download browser plug-ins or software online, no matter how cool the app is.
What we should take away from this is that it may seem cool and cutting edge at the time but unless it serves a real purpose it probably won’t do well. We must think about why the user would bother, why do they need this?

Disaster at the Speed of Light

In this age where speed is King and the internet our support system (look at what happens in the office when the internet goes down), we can see that ever-shortening time frame reputations can be tarnished. Corporations now live in glass houses. If something can be known by the public, it will be!

When Dominos Pizza experienced its crisis involving employee videos aired on YouTube, it reacted with a press release – the lesson to be learnt here is that you have to fight like with like, and the trouble continued until the company responded with its own video.

We need to be prepared in all areas for a crisis, although quite a negative outlook on life, it is realistic. Don’t wait until the damage has been done to develop a presence online, play ahead of the game. The great thing about the internet is that you can react instantly whether the comment is good or bad, and interact with the public like never before.

Coca-Cola Facial Recognition Profiler

Coca-cola has teamed up with Christian Porter and Bogusky to launch their facial recognition Facebook app. The idea is that Coke Zero is so similar to Coca-Cola Classic that you can’t tell the difference. It uses the same software that is used by law enforcement to find faces in crowds but only uses photos of people that have signed up to the app, not of the entire network.

The interesting thing about this is not only that it is using cutting edge software with a riskily invasive hook; but that it propels the participants to rate on their match. This allows for the software to be improved and refined by the users. It also allows you to contact your twin and so potentially opening up another side of the social media site, allowing you to be in contact with someone with whom you do not share friends, but looks!

It’s Not Easy Being Popular. 77 Percent Of Facebook Fan Pages Have Under 1,000 Fans

Sysomos (a social media monitoring and analytics firm) have reported that a full 77 percent of Facebook fan pages have less than 1,000 fans, only 4 percent have over 10,000 fans and 0.047 percent have over 1,000,000 fans. That’s 297 pages in total, which is very small when you think that Facebook reports approximately 632,000 fan pages at the moment. Bearing in mind that many fans are passive and become a fan as a form of support, rather than for active participation (like with Twitter), I have to wonder: How many of these fans even care?

So what can we learn from this?

If we are to set up a Facebook fan page, we should set realistic metrics of success, having fans may be relevant but it is what we do with those fans that matters. We need to give them a reason to become a fan and actively communicate with them to encourage feedback. We need to be as valuable to them as they are to us.

Esprit Combine In-Store Experience With Digital Presence

Experimental agency Cunning have created an interactive installation “Mirror Mirror” in Esprit’s flagship Regent Street store, which went live yesterday.

The installation (inspired by the Cinderella fairytale) superimposes a photograph of a willing shopper onto a mannequin, allowing them to digitally dress themselves in a number of outfits. These images are then sent to the Esprit Facebook site, are also published on a large screen in store and on a mobile campaign site which can be accessed by customers and shared via mobile. Bluetooth has also been incorporated and offers passers-by vouchers and chances to win prizes in store.

What is really great about this is that they are taking digital experiences and making them available for the consumer offline.

It will be interesting to see how well this does as this is the type of “outside the box” thinking we have been coming up with that has not yet made the final cut. This could be an opportunity to prove to sceptics that outdoor campaigns supported by digital and mobile can work and do so not only by attracting customers inside and outside the store, but by creating a buzz around the activity that raises awareness of the brand and heightens customer loyalty.

Which Media Type do People Trust the Most?

You'll find that the answer will vary according to whatever country it is you live in.

An interesting report from eMarketer here shows that online news scores highly, with recommendations from friends also playing a key role.


- Sam

Spotify arrives on the iPhone

Spotify has developed an iPhone application, allowing users to have the same experience on their mobile as when using Spotify on the web.

It was only a matter of time before Spotify tailored the service for mobile, however it is currently only available for premium subscribers, i.e. those who pay £9.99 per month.

The application, which will apparently be available from the App Store shortly, enables users to listen to tracks even when they are not connected to the network, so still functions on the underground or when in airplane mode.

It’s unclear whether the app will one day be ad-funded and therefore made available for free - something which would undoubtedly prove popular with music fans.

- Sam

Turn a Car into a Stylus?

Stuck for ideas in how to market an automobile? Two designers from Brussels threw out the rulebook and decided to find an innovative new way to promote the latest model from Toyota (Toyota iQ) by using the car itself to create a new font. By using the car as a stylus, the shapes and lines created by the car’s motions were a neat way of demonstrating the car’s agility, and make for a memorable, relevant campaign.

The various shapes and lines were tracked with four large coloured dots, a camera and custom motion tracking software called Open Frameworks.

The shapes created by the car were turned into a font called iQ font, downloadable from www.iqfont.com.

- Sam

The Role of Traditional Media Metrics in Online

Check out this interesting post on the Microsoft advertising blog which opens up the argument of traditional vs. digital media metrics in online advertising. Advocates tend to love digital advertising as it is so measurable, and this article takes a look at the role traditional media metrics can play in this area.

- Sam

Google to Launch Open Sourced Operating System

Google announced yesterday on its blog it will be launching an open-sourced operating system, Google Chrome OS. Hotting up the race for first place with Microsoft, it’s a direct challenge to the dominant Windows OS.

Google Chrome OS will be separate to Google’s existing mobile operating system, Android, and will be based off Google’s web browser, Chrome, which is regularly used by 30 million people after only nine months.
The system, which is launching later next year, will initially launch with netbooks, and after that the code will be open-sourced, with Google leveraging the knowledge and ideas of the developer community.

Google’s aim is to create a simple, fresh operating system tailored for the internet age, with most of the user experience being based on the web. Ambitious as ever, it states “we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don't have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.”

Being web based, information will be accessible to users wherever they are. Google claims the new OS will also do away with users having to worry about backing up their files or updating their software, making for an all-round improved computing experience, something which is certainly appealing to computer users of all levels of knowledge.

Watch this space.

- Sam

Google Wave - coming soon

Google is in the throws of developing what looks set to be a very useful tool for online collaboration and communication. Browser-based “Google Wave” allows people to communicate with each other while working together on documents, incorporating text, photos, videos, maps and more.

Wave is ‘live,’ meaning users will be able to see their conversation (in the style of messenger) while interacting and editing in real-time. As well as being embeddable in websites, allowing sites to become more collaborative, Wave will be open sourced, encouraging developers to contribute to the product’s evolving functionality.

Upon launch later this year, Wave promises to impact greatly on how, for example, we interact with colleagues across markets, or even in the next office. Imagine being able to do away with the endless to-ing and fro-ing of documents, updated using the untidy-looking ’tracked changes.’ This is something that will surely be useful for those working on documents which require a large number of edits and approvals.

However as it is browser-based, Google will perhaps have to work hard to convince users of the tool’s security.

- Sam

The Digital Britain Report

This week saw the launch of the Digital Britain report, the UK Government's strategic vision to ensure the UK is at the leading edge of the global digital economy.

Some of the highlights include a guaranteed 2MBps broadband for every household by 2012, a 50p tax on all broadband usage, and the possibility that profits from BBC Worldwide, the corporation's commercial arm, will be used to pay for public service programming on other channels.

Key highlights and full report.

- Sam

Wolfram Alpha on the iPhone

Following on from the recent launch of Wolfram Alpha, the search engine has now been optimised for use on the iPhone and iPod devices.

The 'computational knowledge engine' works by calculating answers to specific questions, and the move follows pressure from users who posted their idea on the Alpha Community page. The company is also listening to fans' recommendations via the Community Page on what features they would like to see on the iPhone application, which is in development.

You can get it here

Augmented Reality Campaigns Round-up

We love Augmented Reality.

Here's something useful for brainstorming brand campaigns - see here a neat round-up of some of the latest and greatest AR campaigns, developed either for commercial or more artistic purposes.

- Sam

iPhone-Controlled Ads

The world’s first iPhone-controlled LCD adverts have been developed by UK-based digital comms agency, Clusta, and are proving popular in train stations and shopping centres globally. iPhone users passing by can interact with the contents displayed on the screens from their handset.

Objects on the screen can be moved by making finger movements on the iPhone’s screen, and users can even change colours and other features of the contents on the LCD screen. Clusta has essentially developed an API which allows for any input via the phone, including movement from the accelerometer or audio from the microphone.

This is truly a way of being able to engage the target audience, integrating digital OOH with mobile, with each experience being unique to each user. However, limiting the service to just iPhone users will have a massive impact on reach, and Clusta must soon extend the technology to cover interaction with all smartphones in order to reach its full potential and effectiveness.

The agency also claims that the technology is not just limited for exploitation in OOH, but could one day be used by people to interact with any Flash based process including banners or websites, implying the potential for brand involvement is endless.

- Antonia

Social Media Rules of Engagement

We often refer to the rules of engagement within social media.

Mashable neatly rounds-up the top 10 here. Handy for any brand or marketer considering dipping their toe into the social media space.

- Sam

Project Natal is born

There are some very exciting goings-on over at Xbox which promise to have serious impacts on the gaming industry.

Announced during Microsoft’s annual E3 press conference, Project Natal is the new hands-free control system for the Xbox. The motion sensing camera allows users to direct action within games by moving their hands or body, without the need for a controller. In this way Natal becomes one step more advanced than the Nintendo Wii.

It has huge implications on the Xbox’s appeal to a key hard-to-reach market – notably those who don’t consider themselves ‘gamers.’ Nintendo first tapped into this market with the launch of the Nintendo Wii, and games such as WiiFit and RockBand, demonstrating that the traditional two-hand controller is itself perhaps the biggest barrier to preventing people from taking up gaming.

The innovation isn’t solely limited to gaming though – users will be able to make use of the technology in the films and anything else they have on their Xbox, without touching any hardware. The introduction of Project Natal, which will apparently be compatible with every Xbox 360, clearly frees up people’s perception of gaming and the opportunities available.

Have a read here and here.

- Sam

bada-Bing?

Microsoft’s latest offering is the new search engine, Bing, its Live Search replacement and rival to Yahoo!, not Google, it claims.

Coined the 'decision engine', Bing aims to make search easier and more user friendly by serving up results based on similar previous searches. So if a user searches for a holiday or flight for example, they are served price offers, travel guides and destination information, rather than a list of websites. Information is served in tabbed categories such as shopping, travel, news, maps, videos and images. Users will also be presented with a ‘best match' and ‘instant result' without needing to navigate away from the results page.

The service is going live imminently in the US and in Q4 ’09 in the UK, with a beta version in the meantime.

Microsoft claims users abandon 30% of searches due to unsatisfactory results, something they wish to improve on to increase benefits to advertisers and maximise revenue.

- Sam

Wolfram Alpha – major breakthrough in Search?

To take all of the world’s data and make it immediately computable: an incredibly bold and ambitious goal for a software program. But this is exactly what Wolfram Alpha plans on doing.

The system, invented by scientist Stephen Wolfram, aims to compute answers to specific questions. In doing so it wants to create a system which does for quantifiable information and data what search engines have done for qualitative, or ‘informal’ knowledge, such as texts and documents. All a user needs to do is ask the program a question in everyday language, such as “what’s the GDP of France?” or “how many internet users are there in Europe?” The data is then represented in precise visual formats.

Comparing it to an existing search engine such as Google, which retrieves documents based on keyword searches, Wolfram Alpha aims to act smarter by actually thinking for the user. It claims it can understand the question and will then compute the answer.

Just how the system works based on its in-built models of knowledge fields remains unclear, and whether it will actually launch to any success remains to be seen, but on the surface - and if possible - this would be a hugely significant breakthrough.

Watch a webcast of the system here

- Sam

Twitter Boosts Search Feature

Currently Twitter’s search functionality offers valuable insight into what users are saying in real-time. However that insight is soon to become even more valuable as Twitter announced this week it is adding additional features to its search tool.

Notably, Twitter will crawl and index the links people add in their posts, not just the text they write. Also it will sort search results by Twitterers’ reputations, not just by chronology. Just how they rank reputation remains to be seen. However these developments certainly increase Twitter’s worth and value to brands and marketers alike.

- Sam

Marketers Shift Spend to Digital in the Credit Crunch

Marketers are moving their budgets into more measurable categories in the global economic downturn, and that means digital.

Have a read of this interesting emarketer article.

- Sam

Thought-activated Twitter-ing

More interesting developments in the world of Twitter, as the platform takes on a serious tone.

A US biomedical engineering student has developed a way to post messages on Twitter using electrical impulses generated by thought. By donning an electrode-fitted hat which hooks up to a computer and monitors brain activity, the user can post words by simply focussing on a desired letter. The computer senses which letter has been picked and starts to flash in response.

The implications could be hugely significant for those suffering from paralysis and "locked-in syndrome" – whereby a brain functions normally but the person cannot speak or move.

Twitter’s simplistic format and usage method lends itself to the potential for exploitation in this area.

- Sam

Death no obstacle to micro-blogging

Historic Royal Palaces, the independent UK charity that looks after the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace, among other royal venues, has set up the Twitter identity IamHenryVIII.

Henry 8th will be tweeting from beyond the grave, giving followers updates from events, such as his coronation, which took place half a century ago.

Henry 8th was apparently a doyen of modernity himself, using the most modern means available to him to bring about change and reform. The campaign is an interesting way of imitating how modern day public figures such as Obama have used micro-blogging in communication to the masses.

- Sam

Cash incentives for micro-blogging

AQA 63336, the text question and answer business, has launched a micro-blogging service that allows users to set up their own free SMS feed and get paid each time updates, news, offers and alerts are sent to their subscribers' mobiles. AQA2U can be used by the casual user or businesses alike for whenever they wish to share information with friends and colleagues, or fans and customers.

Coined “micro-blogging with a business model”, publishers will be incentivised by AQA with the offer of 25p per text, up to a maximum of £3.50 per month. The financial incentive lies in maximising the amount of subscribers each publisher can commit to sign up. For example with 250 subscribers, someone could earn up to £3,000 per year.

Charities are especially incentivised to get on board with the service as they receive the full cut of 12p per text normally pocketed by AQA. The Samaritans, WellChild and Straight Talking are already signed up for the launch.

If users are passionate enough about a particular brand to sacrifice a few pounds per month to keep in touch, then this could well be an effective business model.

- Sam

Mood-based ads with your Metallica?

Spotify, the free music streaming service, is to launch mood-targeted advertising, according to reports.

Spotify already employs demographic targeting for its display and audio ads, and has now accounced it will be introducing the new mood-targeting within the year. It is also available as a premium service without ads.

“If you're a brand that needs to reach people in a relaxed mindset – perhaps they're listening to Ibiza chill-out or Mozart – we know that 15-24 is in that mindset and therefore you can serve the right brand to them,” explains UK Sales Director Jon Mitchell.

Not that all Mozart is relaxing of course, so hopefully Spotify will be narrowing down its categorisation for this mood-targeting not just by artist but also by tracks.

- Sam

Major music company teams with Google to launch ad-supported video online service

Universal Music has partnered with Google to launch Vevo.com, a new ad-supported online music and video service. Vevo will act as a premium online music video hub, hosting Universal Music’s official music promo videos.

Additionally, Google’s YouTube has renewed its partnership with the record company to give users access to User Generated Content videos containing music from Universal’s artists. On YouTube, this content will be available exclusively through a new Vevo channel and branded video player. Google and Universal will share advertising revenue from both platforms.

Content creators are clearly still getting involved in the ad-funded content arena. It will be interesting to see what the take-up is for this new service, and whether the ad-funded model is still alive and kicking.

- Sam

The Hottest Brands on the Web

Ever wondered what the most talked about brands on the web are?

Well here is your chance to find out as the Social Radar has measured the top 50 brands for the month of March 2009.

The list is determined by the number of individual websites with at least one post per brand. Place your bets... Twitter or Facebook?

- Sam

Twitter Developments

Recent buzz around developments in social media has included a possible buy-out of Twitter by Google, suggesting the microblogging service’s content is valuable to the search giant’s search engine index.

The posting of millions of real-time comments, musings and announcements is clearly an important development in search and social media as a whole, as companies such as Google look at ways of mining data for information otherwise sought in a search engine.

Twitter recently launched www.exectweets.com whereby users can find and follow the insights of top business executives, including Virgin’s Richard Branson. Exectweets.com was launched in partnership with Microsoft, demonstrating how major brands can get involved in sponsoring the service. Given that Twitter hasn’t yet worked out how to generate revenue, despite being hugely popular, this is an interesting venture into third party advertising.

- Sam

Freeconomics – Why and How the Future of Business is £0.

Check out this long but worthwhile article by Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and editor of http://www.wired.com/, on how and why the concept of “free” will fundamentally change the face of the business model, with a shift towards giving away products but making money off upgrades and additional services. The article is from February but we're flagging it again here in the light of Anderson's forthcoming publication of the book "Free" in July.

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free?currentPage=1

- Sam

Yahoo's Response to Latitude: Fire Eagle

Yahoo may take a beating in the press and on Wall Street at times, but I feel that they have been the most innovative of all the portals over the past 12-18 months. The most recent example of this is Fire Eagle.

They have developed both a Facebook application and a Firefox extension which allows users to broadcast their location. Not only are you able to find your friends that have also joined the service but you can tag locations as well.

These services are fertile ground for advertisers and, in my opinion, is the future of mobile advertising. Here is the post from TechCrunch providing more details:

This morning Yahoo has released a pair of new applications that tap into Fire Eagle, Yahoo’s ambitious geo-location system that allows a wide variety of web services to share your location data (after being granted permission to do so). The new applications include a rich Facebook application called Friends on Fire and a Fire Eagle extension for Firefox that allows users to update their location directly from their browser without having to leave the site they’re viewing.

Of the two, Friends on Fire for Facebook is the more consumer-friendly. The application allows you to pinpoint your current location on a map, as well as view the location of your friends (shared either through the Facebook app or any of the other 70+ supported Fire Eagle services). You can also append notes to any point on the map regardless of your current location (for example, I could tag my favorite restaurants in San Francisco, or point out a park where my friends should meet up later). The bottom of the app offers a listing of your friends’ recent locations and notes, and the app can also optionally syndicate your actions to Facebook’s news feeds.

The Firefox extension works as advertised, offering a handy button at the bottom right corner of your browser that can be used to update your location. Unfortunately, getting it installed is a bit of hassle. Because it is an ‘experimental’ extension, you’ll need to first register with Mozilla. Then you’ll have to enter your Yahoo ID. If you don’t have Mozilla’s Geode location-services extension installed, you’ll need to grab that too. Given all of these hoops, I think the only people who are going to install this extension for now are the people that really want it. But once you’re set up, it works like a charm.

On the development side of things, Fire Eagle has also rolled out a number of new features. The service now supports a new ActionScript library that makes the service more accessible to Flash developers. Fire Eagle has also implemented support for XMPP (used by many instant messaging systems) to offer real-time updating. Finally, the service will soon be able to associate location coordinates with nearby restaurants and locations.

Fire Eagle continues to innovate, but it still faces some challenges, the largest of which is that most people probably don’t have too many friends who are using it quite yet. Geo-location is quickly gaining ground, but until it reaches critical mass the odds of randomly running into a friend for an impromptu get together are so low I doubt many people will take the time to manually update their location. And the fact that some these services are also segmenting their audiences (Google’s new Latitude service doesn’t play nice with Fire Eagle) isn’t helping.

SocialMedia Launches “Word of Mouth” Ads

The concept of OpenID and using a user's social graph to distribute content is starting to gain steam. While I am confused as to why the major portals aren't using this more, companies like SocialMedia are offering advertisers a way of syndicating content and using other people to promote engagement with the brand. See the post below from TechCrunch for more information:

SocialMedia, a company that specializes in advertising across social networks, has released a new form of advertising dubbed the “WOMI”, or Word of Mouth Impression. WOMI campaigns present visitors with ads asking them for some kind of input either though a multiple choice question or using a text field. SocialMedia then uses this input to customize ads which are shown to the user’s friends on the same social network.

For example, if an ad for Star Wars had a call-to-action asking if I was on the Light Side or Dark Side of the Force, it could take my response and then present my friends with an ad that said “Jason is on the Light Side, how about you?”. In turn, their responses are passed on to all of their friends, making this among the first kind of advertising with a viral element. This interaction makes the ads mini-social applications in and of themselves, and have proven to be very successful in trial campaigns.

Research firm Dynamic Logic found that over three months WOMI resulted in increased awareness, favorability, and purchases for the Fortune 500 company running the campaign. In fact, the campaign did so well that it placed among the top 20% of all social media campaigns ever analyzed by the firm, which has been in the business for nine years.

WOMIs are compliant with industry-standard IAB ad sizes, so they can be shown on most sites and social network applications without any customization needed. SocialMedia says that publishers outside of the social networks can also deploy the ads by tapping in vistors’ social graphs using services like Facebook Connect.

Dapper: Using live updates in banner ads for re-targeting

I have previously written about this company and their ability to deliver targeted messages. For some time, I have discussed how clients can save production costs by starting to leverage RSS Feeds within banner ads. The ability to update content on the fly combined with knowledge of what the user has done in the past is very compelling.

Here is today's article from MediaPost about the announcement. Check out the YouTube video for a demo.

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=102630

Dapper is expected to announce today the launch of Behavioral Remessaging, which retargets audiences on other sites with live offers from marketers whose Web site they have recently visited or whose ads they have recently seen.

This will enable advertisers to reach out to prior visitors to their sites with offers updated to reflect current market conditions such as changing prices or new product features or entirely new offers, said Dapper Marketing Head Paul Knegten.

"It not only reminds visitors that they had seen an earlier ad or offer of interest, but that the offer still stands or perhaps has gotten even more attractive," Knegten said. "Since we can create a limitless number of ads from one creative, audiences could see the exact same ad on another site or a different offer from the same marketer -- down to the exact product the visitor was looking at on the marketer's Web site."

The "remesagged" ad is served based on cookies stored in the user's computer from the previous viewing, and since Dapper doesn't control the media directly, cannot offer an opt-out. "But users can most certainly delete their cookies to prevent being remessaged," Knegten said.
Dapper differs from other retargeting by enabling marketers to have greater flexibility with follow-up offers, he said. Ads are created dynamically without any client IT involvement by drawing on creative elements pulled from a marketer's own Web site, from product inventory data, or any kind of informational database.

For example, an airline could show you the actual flight you were looking at with updated pricing and availability, or an automaker could show you a feature you hadn't explored on your visit to his site, Knegten said. The company has created a video to explain the process, which it is sharing with clients. It is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXr18h6tqUQ

Dapper has tested the technology with "a major retail shopping comparison site" that Knegten declined to name. "The results were that when we showed the product the consumer was looking at, the ad performed (CTR-wise) 800% better than when we showed a generic (top 10) product," Knegten said. "We have several clients in the pipe that will likely be launching in April or May."

Dapper was founded by Eran Shir and Jon Aizen in late 2005, and has received $6 million in funding from Accel Partners. The company has offices in San Francisco and New York.

Google’s StreetView has arrived

After a year in the making, Google has just launched its new mapping application, Street View service.

StreetView, which was launched in the UK yesterday, allows users to access 360-degree real-life views of 25 UK cities through their computers and mobile phones. Users click on the small yellow man icon when they visit Google Maps to activate the Street View service. Street View UK was the reason behind the odd sighting over the past year on UK streets of even odder Google branded cars complete with recording equipment on their roofs.

In terms of privacy issues, Google insists it will be removing photos it deems breach privacy issues or that display inappropriate content. Human faces and car number plates are blurred, while people who object to themselves or their homes being featured can raise their issue by submitting an online form.

Street View first launched in Sydney, Australia, with San Francisco and Paris quickly following suit.

It will be interesting to see how this new offering of real-life images has an impact on brands' advertising activities; will we see more emerging media trials, such as Augmented Reality and will there be an impact on search, for example.

- Sam

YouTube Pulls Music Videos in Royalty Fees Dispute

Google-owned YouTube yesterday began to block UK users’ access to some of the world’s most popular music videos on its site after failing to reach a settlement with the PRS for Music, the umbrella company representing UK composers and publishers.

The video sharing site and the music industry body have been in negotiations for several months to renew their contract allowing the PRS for Music to collect royalities on behalf of musicians. They collect fees each time a song is played or performed.

In a bold move, YouTube began a music video blackout on its site after blaming the PRS’ unrealistic increase in fees. Both sides have laid the blame in each others’ court, with the PRS hitting back by claiming the unexpected move by YouTube comes in the midst of ongoing renegotiations, with the main sufferers being the consumers and musicians themselves.

Whatever the genuine reasons, it’s a radical step by the US video sharing site, who are removing the videos by their own decision, not due to demands made by the PRS or the music publishers or songwriters they represent. Far more typically content removal is demanded by the content creators or owners, not the publishers.
- Sam