Yesterday’s Apple event was music to the ears of statistics fans. In his usual fashion, Steve Jobs reeled off a long list of millions and billions related to the consumption of Apple products and services. For example, in the time it will take to read this sentence, more than 200 apps will have been downloaded from Apple’s App Store.

Of course, there was a slew of new product announcements as well. Traditionally, Apple’s September events have focused on the iPod (275 million sold to date), and yesterday was no exception. Apple introduced a complete refresh of its line of popular music players. In the “one more thing” department, Apple also unveiled a revamped Apple TV focused on streaming video, including the long-awaited addition of Netflix (nicely complementing the recent addition of the Netflix iPhone app).

But as exciting as these product updates are for music and video lovers, the key announcements revolved around the introduction of the Game Center social gaming platform, and Ping, a social network for iTunes users. These new platforms lay the groundwork for Apple to leverage the growing nexus of mobile, social, content and commerce.

In my just-released report, “Mobile Content: Games, Music and Video Take to the Cloud,” I cite a series of studies by Edison Research and Arbitron that suggest social networking is emerging as a bellwether for mobile content consumption, with frequent social network access leading to higher-than-average indices of gaming, listening to music and watching video on mobile devices.

In many ways, it makes perfect sense: music consumption has always been about sharing (favorite artists, songs, etc.). And while one may bemoan the demise of the mix tape, incorporating sharing mechanisms into the commerce platform and making them available on mobile is a logical move that strengthens the platform and makes it stickier. Social commerce is fast emerging as a key driver of sales, and content marketers benefit by enabling their audience to do some of their marketing for them. In the case of Ping, the platform could also emerge as an effective way for artists to market themselves as well.

Similarly, as gaming becomes a more social experience (e.g. more users playing interactive multiplayer games and using social features to share both games and results), social networks are likewise becoming more game-like, with users competing for status through check-ins.

Yes, social network fatigue is a danger (as is Ping’s current lack of Facebook and Twitter integration), and no, iTunes fans didn’t get the streaming version some had been hoping for, but the combination of mobile, social, content, commerce and cloud points the way to the future.

Speaker: Paul Verna, eMarketer Senior Analyst
What: The Evolving Online Video Landscape
When: Thursday, July 29, 2010, 1 PM ET

To listen and watch playback of the Webinar, click here. You can view the PowerPoint deck below.

Join us to find out:

• How the video content mix is changing, and why it is transitioning from user-generated clips to full-length, professional TV shows and movies
• Who watches online video today and who will watch tomorrow
• How and where video content is syndicated and monetized
• What role social networks play in video distribution
• How companies are succeeding with online video—both ad-supported and fee-based—with specific examples and case studies
• impact and influence of YouTube and how it is evolving

About Paul Verna
Paul Verna covers digital media and entertainment, including online video, music, movies, video games, user-generated content and blogging. Before joining eMarketer in 2007, Paul held leadership positions as a journalist, author and communications professional
in the entertainment industry.

Paul has moderated panels for the IAB, Digital Hollywood and The Recording Academy. He is frequently quoted in publications such as The New York Times, USA TODAY and Bloomberg Businessweek and has appeared on "CBS Evening News," CNN, ABC, CNBC and FOX, among other media outlets.

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It’s a good question, and one that I debated yesterday with Gregg Hano, the VP of publishing for Bonnier Corporation (publisher of Popular Science, among many other titles), and David Steinberger, the CEO of Comixology, a Web and mobile technology platform for comic book publishers. The event was the first in a three-part series entitled “The Magazine Mobile Imperative” presented by the Magazine Publishers of America in conjunction with eMedia Vitals, an online publication that serves print media executives transitioning their business to digital.

In terms of the question at hand, the available survey data present a decidedly mixed outlook. A recent CMO Council study, “Leveraging Loyalty to Transform Publishing,” found that the vast majority (92%) of US magazine subscribers still get their favorite publications in print format and prefer print in nearly equal proportions. However, as awareness of e-readers increases, a growing portion of consumers are starting to consider switching their subscriptions to mobile devices.

Consumer attitudes toward paid content are likewise in transition. As my colleague Paul Verna noted in his March 2010 “Paid E-Publishing Content: Books, Newspapers and Magazines” report (available on eMarketer Total Access):

More than 90% of online newspaper readers and publishers in North America consider news content “somewhat” or “very” valuable, according to the American Press Institute.

However, when it comes to paying out of pocket for that content, most US consumers would take a pass.

A February 2010 Nielsen study, “Changing Models: A Global Perspective on Paying for Content Online,” found that only 36% of respondents had paid for—or would consider paying for—an Internet-only news source.

In an even more discouraging finding for content owners, an Adweek Media/Harris Poll study noted that only 23% of US Internet users were willing to pay for online news.

Other survey data presented in the report reinforced this rather gloomy outlook. And yet, we have word that Wired sold 24,000 copies of its iPad app in its first 24 hours of availability (in other words, since yesterday). Granted, the Wired app benefited from a great deal of pre-release buzz, including a video that was widely distributed in the wake of its presentation at the TED conference in February, but it does suggest that consumer attitudes toward paid content, and specifically mobile paid content, are slowly shifting.

As might be expected, the magazine publishers who attended the MPA/eMedia Vitals event were both very interested in and concerned by the growing level of media consumption on mobile devices, from smartphones to tablets. The excitement in the room was palpable when Gregg Hano took the audience through Bonnier’s development of the Popular Science iPad app, which will serve as the basis for a platform Bonnier will use for its other titles. Popular Science has also been the beneficiary of some significant buzz: during his April presentation of iPhone OS 4, Steve Jobs referred to the PopSci iPad app as the “king of the hill” of iPad magazine apps (Hano did not detail the impact of Job’s endorsement but it’s hard to imagine that it didn’t result in a spike in interest).

Similarly, the audience listened with rapt attention as David Steinberger described that by mobilizing comic books and putting a vast catalog of titles in front of a large mobile audience, many of whom lack access to print comic outlets, his company’s platform has actually boosted, not cannibalized, print comic sales.

Overall, the consensus in the room was that while many magazines had failed to effectively utilize the Web to build readership and drive incremental revenues, tablets, and the iPad in particular, represent a huge opportunity to get right what they had previously gotten wrong.

Apps have overrun the desktops of our PCs and mobile devices. Now they look likely to become a fixture on our television sets as well. The Financial Times reported yesterday that Google is working with Intel and Sony on an Android OS-based “Smart TV” platform that will bring Web services to set-top boxes and Internet-enabled TVs.

Apps for the TV are not new. In fact, manufacturers have been bundling widgets with their new flat-screens ever since Internet-enabled TVs emerged as the big theme at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show. Intel, which worked with Yahoo! on the Internet@TV platform (today known as Yahoo! Connected TV), helped to pioneer TV apps.

The problem was (and still is, to a certain extent) that each TV manufacturer either struck its own content deals or built proprietary widget platforms. As a result, consumer access to streaming music and video services, not to mention other content such as Twitter, is not uniform from one brand of TV to another. This makes it tough to get both Netflix and Amazon video on demand on the same set, for example.

The opportunities to resolve this fragmentation are significant, although many, including Apple and Microsoft, have tried – and largely failed – to unite TV and the Web. But the growing trend toward Internet-enabled TVs may prove to be the difference. A new report released by GigaOm Pro predicts that by 2015, six in 10 TVs shipped worldwide will have some kind of network connection and 70% will have an embedded app platform and app store. As such, Google’s anticipated push in TV comes at a propitious moment.

The implications for marketers are likewise significant. A partnership with a leading TV manufacturer (Sony) would give the Smart TV platform notable distribution. And if, as expected, Google calls on its vast developer community to create apps for the platform, and consumer adoption conforms to expectations, the Android OS, could, as Mashable put it, gain “a whole new dimension and a certain advantage over its main rival,” Apple’s iPhone OS. It could also help to change what consumers “watch” on TV. It’s easy to envision gaming, for example, becoming a big category in TV apps stores. It’s likewise possible to see the app stores themselves emerging as new networks in their own right. This won’t necessarily resolve the fragmentation issue, but it will alter how marketers reach consumers and who benefits from advertising revenues.

Two clearly related stories emerged within hours of each other this week.

One: Hulu, the online video powerhouse (it served 912.5 million videos in the US in February 2010, according to comScore Video Metrix) will not be launching in the UK. This brings to an end months of speculation about whether Hulu’s North American success could be duplicated in the world’s second main English-speaking market.

According to The Telegraph, Hulu’s UK expansion ground to a halt because local broadcasters were not prepared to make their content available. Some (including the BBC and ITV) are concentrating on their own catch-up services; others (including Channel 4 and Five) have already signed up to contribute programming to aggregators SeeSaw and YouTube. But Hulu has not closed the door entirely to the notion of UK activity— “when the broadcasters realize they need to be more flexible with their business models,” according to one source.

Two: Judging by new figures from comScore, online video viewing in the UK grew by 37%  in the year to February 2010, and over 5.5 billion streams were watched in that month alone. YouTube served almost one-half of these, reported MediaPost blogger Steve Smith, while the number viewed via the BBC iPlayer rose 143%, to just under 140 million in February 2010.

Viewing via Facebook was up a phenomenal 205% during the year, however, making it “clearly the one to watch” in Smith’s opinion.

Conclusions to draw? The UK’s online video market really is unlike any other, thanks to the power of the BBC and the quality of its output, still considered by many to be the world’s best overall. Hulu hasn’t spotted a viable gap in the marketplace, and will likely be kept at arm’s length by UK broadcasters for years to come. Meanwhile, though, those broadcasters need to keep a firm grip on their business models. Hulu won’t be a threat, but Facebook could be another matter.