Product Placement

With television still being very popular, commercial entertainment has transferred the concept of soap operas onto the Web. The first of this new species of "Cybersoaps" was "The Spot", a story about the ups and downs of an American commune. The Spot not only within short time attracted a large audience, but also pioneered in the field of online product placement. Besides Sony banners, the companies logo is also placed on nearly every electronic product appearing in the story. Appearing as a site for light entertainment, The Spots main goal is to make the name Sony and its product range well known within the target audience.

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Internet Content Providers Perspective

As within the traditional media landscape, Internet content providers have two primary means of generating revenue: Direct sales or subscriptions, and advertising. Especially as charging Internet users for access to content - with all the free material available - has proven problematic, advertising is seen as the best solution for creating revenues in the short term. Therefore intense competition has started among Internet content providers and access services to attract advertising money.

Table: Web-Sites Seeking Advertising


Period

Number of Web-Sites

June 1999

2111

July 1999

2174

August 1999

2311

September 1999

2560



Source: Adknowledge eAnalytics. Online Advertising Report

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The Role of the Media

To be able to participate in community life and make political choices citizens heavily rely on information. They need to know what is going on and the options that they should weigh, debate and act upon. An essential element for a functioning public sphere therefore is information.

Whereas formerly communication mostly happened on a face-to-face basis in large and complex societies (mass) media have evolved as the principal source of information. They act as a transport medium for the information necessary for a citizen's participation in the public sphere. Ideally there should be a wide range of media, that represent the diverse opinions and viewpoints on issues of public interest existent in a society and which are independent of the state and society's dominant economic forces.

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Transistor

A transistor is a solid-state device for amplifying, controlling, and generating electrical signals. Transistors are used in a wide array of electronic equipment, ranging from pocket calculators and radios to industrial robots and communications satellites.

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Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

EDI is an international standard relating to the exchange of trade goods and services. It enables trading partners to conduct routine business transactions, such as purchase orders, invoices and shipping notices independent of the computer platform used by the trading partners. Standardization by EDI translation software assures the correct interpretation of data.

EDI might become increasingly important to electronic commerce.

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Robot

Robot relates to any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort, though it may not resemble human beings in appearance or perform functions in a humanlike manner. The term is derived from the Czech word robota, meaning "forced labor." Modern use of the term stems from the play R.U.R., written in 1920 by the Czech author Karel Capek, which depicts society as having become dependent on mechanical workers called robots that are capable of doing any kind of mental or physical work. Modern robot devices descend through two distinct lines of development--the early automation, essentially mechanical toys, and the successive innovations and refinements introduced in the development of industrial machinery.

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