I checked my ASX watch list for the first time in a while and I was surprised that the four major listed digital media companies are all sharing a sliding share price for the last year (Jan07 to Dec07). Despite this being the best year for digital media and with another bumper year to come? Commquest can be excused as it's only been listed for less than a month.

STW Group, Blue Freeway, Commquest, Q limited and Hyro represent almost all the listed digital agencies in Australia. If you need to brush up on your web talk and buzz words browse the list ;)

I should have bought Apple shares.

Wired have reported on the top downloads on P2P networks for 2007. See the full article here.

Now I've never heard of Akon or half the rappers in the top 10 of music I do know a little bit more about the film side of things. And looking at the report it makes me wonder.

The top then movies downloaded in 2007 according to Wired are:

1. Resident Evil: Extinction
2. Pirates of The Caribbean: At World's End
3. I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry
4. Ratatouille
5. Superbad
6. Beowulf
7. Transformers
8. American Gangster
9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
10. Stardust

I'm not 100% sure the data is accurate though (these networks don't exactly provide logs) as "I now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" being the #3 movie. C'mon. The Simpson's movie was everywhere on the networks and had a greater global appeal than some B grade comedy. And Stardust? That's certainly not the film for the "P2P crowd, which is made up largely of younger males."

This also shows that while music seems to be suffering because of P2P, all the films in the top download list did pretty good in the box office. Yep even Chuck and Larry pulled in $120 million.

So film distributors needn't be worried about P2P downloads, Box Office earnings were the biggest yet $9.68 billion with ticket sales staying steady from 2006.

29 sequels in 2007 brought in 22% of the earnings, or $2 Billion dollars. Compared to the 346 original screen plats that brought in $3.3 Billion.

I look forward to "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry 2" coming to theaters soon.

Anyone else interested in Box Office earnings on films should check out The Number's 2007 Summery or read Open Wide.

An article here on Mashable reveals that Will Farrels web venture Funny or Die was funded with $15M VC.

I guess that goes to their bandwidth bill because they saved money on hiring a designer for the site.

It's like the DOT COM days all over again. I had this naive view that Will Farrel just did it off his won back. Silly me. I wonder what ROI the investors are expecting from the site.

Here's the top video on Funny or Die with 50 M views

Did Turner spend $15M developing SuperDeluxe? I doubt it but without the star power and media attention Will Farrel gains the site didn;t get anywhere near as much press.

Here's my fav video off Super Deluxe. It still makes me laugh.

And I doubt Vice had $15M to throw around with VBS.TV

**** Update : Thursday 6th December. As expected, the Federal Communications Minister has today ordered an investigation by ACMA into the sale of adult content ****

Australia's #1 Telcommunications carrier, Telstra is this morning embroiled in a scandal involving it's YouTube styled user generated content site WotNext, which was found to have a number of soft-porn clips.

WotNext is unique in that it has a revenue sharing model whereby contributors earn money each time a user of Telstra's NextG mobile service downloads a clip. Each clip is charged at $1 and Telstra takes 50%, with the other 50% being credited to the user.

The key issue is that no age verfication takes place either on the site, or the mobile handset, therefore minors can access adult content.

News.com.au and the Sydney Morning Herald are both reporting the story, with News.com.au having captured and censored one of the clips for publication.

It will be interesting to see whether Telstra will undertake an audit of its userbase to ascertain whether any minors have indeed accessed adult content and whether Telstra is prepared to refund any money it earned through minors having access. No doubt the incoming Communications Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy, will be asking Telstra to 'Please Explain'.

Furthermore, Telstra may have potentially committed a criminal act by selling porn to minors. The Australian Media and Communication Authority's (ACMA) "Internet Content Guidelines" and "Adult Verification Scheme" has specific guidelines relating to the access of adult content online.

Earlier this year, the site was lauded for its effort by the Australian Direct Marketing Association (ADMA) when it won Best of Show at the 2007 Mobile Marketing Awards. The agencies credited include, George Patterson Y&R and Tiger Spike.

Unlike YouTube, Telstra claim the site is moderated. However this Google cache snapshot, clearly shows at least one of the controversial videos was posted back in July 2007, casting doubt over Telstra's assertion that the site is moderated.

Beware the pitfalls of user generated content!

Itunes downloads of your fav shows was the catlyst behind the Writers Strike. Tom from Kerker emailed us with this insight on the issue. It's all over the news in the US and has already claimed some vistories. 24's premiere will be delayed, SNL will go into reruns and the finale of The Office may not be.

Tom Buchok from Kerker writes;

"Maybe you've seen the coverage and you're depressed that Lost will likely only have seven new episodes this winter.

I'm sad about not getting my full share of Jack, Kate, Sawyer and the rest of the island gang, too.

But I'm excited. The Writer's Guild of America strike is almost exclusively about the internet. You can read more about it here, but in short, the writers want to get paid fairly for their work that gets consumed online.

With both the major producers and the WGA calling the internet the future of their business, there's a lot to be encouraged about within our world of advertising.

In 2007, the primary role of the internet switched from Communications to Content. As the internet content business starts shifting into fifth gear (or sixth), they'll need to monetize the content. Forrester noted in May that ad-supported online video would begin to significantly eat into paid videos (like iTunes, Amazon Unbox, etc.).

More importantly, seven of 10 internet users prefer ad-supported online content to fee-based.

So as the WGA strike is bad for us TV viewers (and Lost superfans), it's great for us advertisers – the strike implicitly injects major relevance into online content. And that content needs to be monetized via ads."

Thanks for the info Tom.

All I can say to the big studios is let the writers have their money! They only get 4c for a $20 DVD dating back to a 1985 aggreement, so at least let them make some extra alcohol money from online.

Track the developments on Google news.