The explosive growth in IPads and the 100 competitive tablet products soon to be on the market have the potential to change not only how we read and receive newspapers and magazines, see movies, check on our airline flights, purchase products, locate restaurants, communicate with others and play games but also how television programs are viewed in real time as well as those stored on our DVRs.

Now that cable and satellite services such as Time Warner, Dish Network, Comcast are all scrambling to provide the television viewing experience on my IPad can I justify the price to purchase this expensive toy which I know will be replaced by more advanced models within 9 months?

In my house, watching television is the ultimate relaxation. Viewing is most often a co-viewing experience using the large HD set in a common area. Will I want to view shows as I move from room-to-room without missing a scene of the show or the ads sponsoring the program increase the time I spend with video?

If I objectively look at the Digital media which has been most successful and seems to garner the most industry press today it is all the talk about the expansion of video opportunities on the computer. The move from user generated short video clips to longer form professional shows seems to have caught the ear of the advertising community and moved many industry gurus to conclude that better measurement of these opportunities for ad placement are required.

We at TargetCast applaud and join in these efforts. We understand that to meet the gold standard of measurement will take time and collaboration by all in the industry. Our hope, is that the joint efforts will not take years and let this opportunity to explore the potential of this technology pass by as we wait for the ultimate answers.

Let’s all get our feet wet now by testing and adjusting our efforts as we learn more.

Tired of teaching your mother how to create an email list over the phone?  Well, Google has created a tech support care package that you can customize for your parents. You can teach your parents how to copy and paste, take a screen shot, spell check, etc.  by sending them a digital care package complete with pre-made videos created by Google. To send your mom or dad a tech support care package click here.

Google’s Social Search, which launched in 2009, is a feature that integrates blog posts, photos, and other content from your friends into your search results.  Google has recently made some changes to Social Search.  Your friends results, which originally appeared at the bottom of your search page, are now blended throughout your search page.  Google has also added content shared by your friends on Quora, Flickr, and Twitter which will be annotated in your search. For example, if a friend has tweeted a link to a travel article and your Google account is connected to Twitter, you’re likely to see an annotation saying that your friend “shared this on Twitter.”  The final update allows users to control what is displayed on searches.  Users have the ability to both publicly and privately connect their social profiles to their Google accounts.  However, one major social media element is missing in Google’s Social Search- Facebook.   Google does not have access to Facebook’s user data, and instead chose to partner with Quora, Flickr and Twitter.  Would you want to see your friends tweets in your Google search?  Let us know.

Lady Gaga is the biggest artist in the world. With over 8 million people following her Tweets and over 11,000,000 fans on Facebook, she has built herself an army of little monsters through the power of social media. So what’s left when you have built such an impressive army? The answer is simple: harness them. Today, Lady Gaga made an announcement via Facebook to all of her little monster all over the world to join a new facet of her social media onslaught – The Official Lady Gaga Street Team.

The goal of this newly formed Street Team with Fancrops, which promotes social media with a purpose, is a brilliant idea that enables the legions of voracious Lady Gaga fans to take her message and brand even further, faster into the social media stratosphere. After you sign up to be a member of the Street Team, using your existing social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, and Itunes, a new team member can choose to complete the tasks assigned.

Tasks include simple things like posting your favorite lyrics from her new single, Born This Way, on Facebook and tagging it via Gaga. Then you simply submit a screen capture of your completed task through the Lady Gaga Street Team website and earn points towards the purchase of Gaga merchandise. Each task is assigned a different value of points (i.e. posting her interview with Jay Leno on Facebook will earn you 50 points, and simply reviewing and rating “Born This Way” on Itunes will earn her little monsters 200 points). It’s really that simple, but this goes way beyond the promise of essentially free merchandise. The true power here, which is yet to be measured, is the ability to not only make your fan base feel more included in your world, but also to pick specific things you want promoted about your brand/message and unleash them into every major form of social media. Paws up everyone! For Lady Gaga, this is only the beginning of her total global domination via all forms of media.

We access our email, Facebook and Twitter to the point where they become an integral part of our daily lives, but what happens to our accounts after we pass away?

It may be a grim thought, but companies such as Legacy Locker have built their businesses on handling people’s digital assets when they die. In other words, they offer services to Internet users who might want to bequeath their social network identities, blogs, email accounts and other websites when they die.

Anyone who isn’t concerned about their “digital afterlife” should be; failure to implement an online post-death plan could mean things like valuable web addresses,  access to online bank accounts and even posted photos may be lost for good, experts say.

While the concept of “afterlife websites” have received quite a bit of buzz, business has been slow but steady. Entrustet is a website that allows customers to appoint a digital executor to handle the fate of the deceased’s web accounts, business is growing at a healthy but modest rate.

Both the founders of Entrustet and Legacy Locker agree that their potential customers need to overcome a mental barrier before they take the plunge and set up an account. The hesitation could come from people not wanting to face or make decisions about death.

According to Legacy Locker founder Jeremy Toeman, “I’m very happy with our progress, but if I’ve learned anything about human psychology, it’s people don’t actually want to face or make decisions about death in any way that they don’t have to.”

Check out the full article here.

Click here for some interesting statistics on Facebook provided by SocialHype and OnlineSchools.org.  Here is a sample:

• 71.2% of the US web audience is on Facebook
• 48% of 18 to 34 year olds check Facebook right when they wake up
• About 70% of the Facebook userbase resides outside the US

Are you obsessed with Facebook?  If so, do you see this obsession as a good or bad thing?

In today’s marketing landscape, creating a branded website is an essential part of the promotional mix.  What’s more, brands today are tasked with an added challenge — Not only is an engaging website necessary, but as Facebook Fan pages become increasingly popular, an equally interactive Facebook page takes priority.  See more here.

This is especially relevant in the entertainment category, for which new movies and TV shows premiere regularly.  Warner Bros. created both an impressive website and Facebook fan page for their recently released movie, Yogi Bear.

Nonetheless, the idea of creating an online destination for a brand/movie is not one born of the 21^st Century.  Movie studios have been leveraging the Internet as a marketing tool for years.

Click here to see the promotional site for the 1996 classic basketball-alien comedy, Space Jam, starring Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny.

The above chart, taken from a consumer survey put together by J.P Morgan’s Internet analyst Imran Khan, shows that Netflix Watch Instantly subscribers are more likely to consider switching away from Cable.  Only 33% of those who are not Netflix subscribers would consider dropping cable packages or don’t have “pay TV” while 47% of Netflix users who stream at least 1-2x a month would consider dropping their cable packages or don’t have “pay TV.”

Personally, I’ve tried streaming Netflix and am strongly considering slimming down my cable bill.  Would you consider dropping your cable package to stream online video?  Let us know!

….as a main news source for young adults.

A study from the Pew Research Center indicates that the internet is now the main news source for Adults 18-29. You can read the stats for yourself but of all the people surveyed 41% stated they get their news from the internet (up 17% from 2007) while 66% state that TV is their main source of news (down from 74%). With internet-TV connections and media streaming via the web consumers have more viewing options now than ever. What do you prefer? CNN.com or Fox5 at 10? Let us know!