• Instant messenging usage by teens in Mediapost: “…72% of teen respondents send IMs more than e-mails. In addition, 20% of teens who use instant messaging say they can’t imagine doing without the service. What do teens use IM for? More than half (56%) of teen respondents use IM services to share photos, while 33% share music and video
  via IM”

What it means: IM is still a key element of teenager’s lives, even with the rise of social networks. Interesting what they use it for: share photos, music and videos. I’m surprised it’s not better leveraged at this point as a tool to reach teenagers and young adults.

• 2007 potential YouTube strategy in Fool.com: “I predict that within the year, YouTube will prominently sort videos geographically. It will help give the site more of the localized social-networking flair it currently (and surprisingly) lacks. It will also help inspire more local-minded e-commerce. Why aren’t folks generating leads on YouTube to sell their homes or cars? Yes,
  searches for “cars for sale” and “homes for sale” generate about 300 entries apiece but many of those videos are several months old. That’s chump change for a site that’s growing by 65,000 uploads a day. Paying for listings or going through Craigslist is so 2005.”

What it means: good speculation on how YouTube could play in local search space but I think it takes more than uploaded videos to become a good local search engine. I think YouTube would be better off partnering with players in the local space to get them to use YouTube as a video hosting service. I am a strong believer in local video content though.

• Google radio ads test in News.com: “AdWords customers selected to participate in the beta will see a new “audio ads” tag when they log into the AdWords system. Similar to the AdWords auction-based system for online ads, advertisers can bid on air spots and target their ads by geography, station type, listener demographics and time of day. The test is limited to just
  over 20 Google AdWords customers and more than 730 stations, including XM Satellite radio. Google is also testing a program that will link up inexperienced radio marketers with professionals who can help them create a radio ad.”

What it means: I think the key element is the program to help inexperienced radio marketers advertise on radio. Some people are speculating that this might actually increase radio stations’ revenues as the medium starts benefiting from Google’s pull effect. Google would become an enabler and a platform for radio advertising where everyone would win.