Can brands own colours?

According to marketing lore, it was once possible for a single brand to 'own' a colour; Coca Cola owned red, IBM owned blue, UPS owned brown (or so the legend goes). Regardless of whether this was ever really the case, it certainly ain't true now. Our globalised, digital world has more brands, shouting more loudly, across more media, than ever before.

Not that all companies have given up on the dream of owning a colour globally. Vodafone still seems pretty set on wresting red from Coke's clutches (with some success according to Martin Lindstrom’s 2005 book Brand Sense, in which he claims 30% of UK consumers now associate red with Vodafone, compared with 22% for Coke). The fight for red has been further complicated by the entry of (PRODUCT)^RED last year, which is hoping to own red across multiple sectors. That said, most companies have moved away from a goal of universal colour ownership and relocated the battle for colour supremacy to their own market sector.

Exhibit A is the 2005 legal dispute between Orange and easyGroup over the use of Pantone 151. Both companies had been using the distinctive shade of orange since the mid-90s, but it wasn't until Stelios announced the launch of the now-defunct easyMobile in 2004 that the mobile operator called in the lawyers; unsurprising when you consider that colour is the tacitly agreed brand differentiator amongst the mobile operators, where blue is synonymous with O2, magenta with T-Mobile, orange with, er, Orange and red with Vodafone (sorry Virgin). 3 opted out of the colour war by creating a chameleon logo, which employs different colours in different contexts.

Exhibit B is an Australian court action brought by Darrell Lea Chocolate Shops against confectionary giant Cadbury Schweppes last year. The judge found in favour of Darrell Lea concluding that "Cadbury does not own the colour purple and does not have an exclusive reputation in purple in connection with chocolate in Australia". Whilst Cadbury may have lost in court and been forced to amend the trademark claims on its packaging, it remains indelibly associated with purple in the minds of chocolate-loving consumers.

All of which is a precursor to asking whether it is possible to own a colour in the online space. My instinct is no - there are just too many competing brands. Strong colour/brand association is possible amongst UK mobile operators because there are only half a dozen of them. Likewise, cigarette companies successfully carved up the colours amongst them because there was a limited number of brands, enabling them to take out billboard ads or sponsor Formula One cars primarily on the strength of colour association (purple meant Silk Cut, gold meant Benson & Hedges, red meant Marlboro, black meant John Player Special).

However, the barriers to entry (and by extension, brand creation) on the web are so low that even in the same market sector, companies seem to have accepted the futility of attempting to own a single colour. The practicalities of web design may also feed into this; it's fine for Vodafone's full-page print ads and billboards to be almost entirely red, but that wouldn't work on its website (unless it was aiming to make its visitors' eyes bleed).

If ownership of a single colour is unattainable on the web, how about a particular combination of colours? Graham Beale got the ball rolling on this with a colour scheme montage posted on his blog, Hold and Modify. However, of the 15 represented, I could identify just 2 (Flickr and Blogger). Whilst Graham assures me that his fellow web designers were able to name many more, I think it's fair to infer that Joe Public wouldn't.

Interestingly, the one site which comes closest to achieving colour ownership on the web for me is lastminute.com which has had almost 10 years to stake its claim on a particularly aggressive shade of pink. Shown a swatch in isolation (or in a pink line-up with Smile and T-Mobile) I reckon I would be able to identify it, although that may just be the subliminal impact of their weekly newsletter in my inbox.

Whilst colour will undoubtedly remain a critical element of brand identity, both on and offline, I wonder if it's moving lower down in the mix as the marketplace becomes increasingly crowded and colour ownership is redefined as a pipe dream from a bygone era (the mythology is that Coke began its ownership of red in the 1950s by changing the colour of Santa's suit from green). The democratisation of branding, facilitated by the Internet, has blown the lid off the notion of colour exclusivity and marketing will need to become more sophisticated in response.

The favicon - your 256 pixel brand identity

Despite often being deprioritised (or forgotten about altogether) by web developers, the lowly favicon (a contraction of favourite icon) is becoming an increasingly important aspect of brand identity on the web.

Usually measuring just 16 by 16 pixels, favicons are the small logos that appear next to the website names in your browser's list of favourites/bookmarks. Chances are they are also displayed in your browser's address bar, before the URL of the site.

Another place you will see them is on the tabs of tabbed web browsers such as Opera. Mozilla Firefox, and Internet Explorer 7 which, collectively, now account for over a third of the browser market (according TheCounter.com).

The rise of Web 2.0 has also contributed to the favicon's higher profile as a growing number of social bookmarking sites, syndication tools and API-enabled mashups make use of favicons when linking to other sites. In particular, the increasing use of favicon-based buttons on blogs encouraging visitors to summit to del.icio.us, Digg, Furl, Reddit, Stumble, Technorati etc. (see AddThis).

So, how are web developers responding to the increased attention on the favicon? Representing your brand effectively in just 256 pixels is undoubtedly an enormous design challenge and four main approaches seem to have emerged:

1.) Attempting to replicate the site's logo in it's entirety

This approach stands or falls on the complexity of your site's logo, which clearly favours those companies who designed their logo with favicons in mind (e.g. Blogger , del.ico.us , Digg ). Long-established brands which pre-date the web have more of a conundrum - should they attempt to shrink their existing brand down to 16 x 16 pixels (e.g. BBC , NPR ) or should they design a new logo with this new branding space in mind? Companies who have already successfully distilled their brands down to a simple image (e.g. Apple , Nike , Smile ) have a clear advantage in this area.

2.) Abstracting the initial letter(s) from your site brand

Championed by Amazon (), Google () and Yahoo! () this approach has become increasingly commonplace. The challenge here is to ensure your design treatment is distinct enough from all the other sites using the same letter, or in some cases, a different letter - compare Blogger () and easyJet (). Amazon and Yahoo!'s favicons are particularly successful as they incorporate another brand element besides the font (an arrow and an exclamation mark, respectively).

3.) Creating a custom graphic which attempts to convey the site's USP

More in line with the design conventions of desktop icons, this approach sidesteps the challenges of representing your site brand, but introduces the equally daunting task of effectively conveying the site's purpose in just 256 pixels. More successful examples include Lego () and Threadless ().

4.) Creating an abstract image

The least common approach, its main advantage is that in a world dominated by reduced logos and initial letters, abstract images stand out by virtue of being different. The downside is that is that it swims against the tide of received wisdom regarding branding and the resulting images are often indistinct or unmemorable (see this site's favicon, which I really must do something about). Interestingly, Flickr recently abandoned the initial letter approach () in favour of something more abstract ().

Whichever approach you adopt, it's worth remembering that your favicon is your (potentially permanent) brand presence on the limited and valuable real estate of people's browsers and across the wider web. The cardinal sin of favicons is not having one at all, which just looks lazy. Not having a favicon is like not having a sign promoting your store ahead of the turn off from the main road, when all your competitors have one. Yes, visitors will still find your site via search engines and weblinks and some may bookmark it. But they won't have the visual reminder of your brand when they scan their bookmarks/tabs, deciding where to visit.

In spite of this, a surprising number of high-profile sites are currently without favicons. I was so disappointed by the absence of a favicon for Empire that I created one () and emailed it to the developers who I'm pleased to see have since put it live.

So, what lies ahead for the humble favicon? Well, larger sizes (32 x 32 pixels is increasingly common) and alternative image formats both seem inevitable as does a growing prominence on the mobile platform. I'm hoping use of animated favicons don't become more widespread as gratuitous animation usually pisses people off.

To finish off, below is an A-Z montage of initial letter favicons. First person to name all 26 gets a Cadbury's Cream Egg (click through to Flickr to annotate).

Lost the plot: Why US dramas can't help jumping the shark

Whilst the debate rumbles on over if and when Lost 'jumped the shark' (my personal vote would be Mr. Eko's death by CGI smoke), few seem to be discussing the more significant issue of why.

My contention is that fundamental characteristics of the US broadcasting ecosystem are to blame. More specifically, the economic drivers of commercial television in the States dictate that a show cannot be cancelled if it is still attracting a significant revenue-generating audience, regardless of the quality of the output. The horse must be flogged until it is well and truly dead.

This first hit home for me a while back whilst reading an interview with Lost's creator, J.J. Abrams, in London freesheet The Metro (unfortunately not replicated on their website) in which he explained that he had the overall narrative arc of the series clear in his mind. The creative challenge stemmed from not knowing how many seasons he would need to string that narrative arc out for. As long as enough people kept watching he would need to keep writing.

This disarmingly honest assessment of the realities of making commercially viable television drama in the States brought me up short and got me thinking about why this isn't so true in the UK, where there is a long-established history of quitting while you're ahead (think Fawlty Towers, Monty Python, Blackadder, This Life, Our Friends in the North, The Office, Life on Mars).

Compare this list with some landmark US drama series of the last few years, almost all of which outstayed their welcome (e.g. Friends, The X-Files, Ally McBeal, ER, Sex and the City, 24, The Sopranos, Desperate Housewives, The O.C.) and/or spawned gratuitous big or small screen spin offs (e.g. Friends, The X-Files, CSI).

The most notable exceptions to this rule are Six Feet Under and The West Wing which called it a day after five and seven series respectively, without any discernible drop in quality. The West Wing even survived the death of one of its stars (John Spencer) and a significant change in emphasis in its final series - normally both classic precursors to a bout of shark jumping. The Simpsons looks likely to one day join this list although until the final episode airs (and with a big-screen outing on the way) it could still blow it. I also have high hopes for House which has already clocked up three seasons without dropping the ball.

So, why are there more examples of British series which have called it a day before jumping the shark? The most obvious explanation is the strong role of public service broadcasting in the UK. Unlike its commercial competitors on both sides of the pond, the BBC can afford to prioritise quality when deciding whether to commission additional seasons as it doesn't need to worry about ad revenue. The shorter seasons may also be a factor (UK seasons are typically 10 or 12 episodes versus 22 in the US) as may the absence of a syndication model.

However, I also wonder if there's something embedded in the British psyche (which extends to programme-makers) about not over-egging the pudding, in play here. I suspect that the BBC would have happily commissioned additional series of Extras or The Office if Gervais and Merchant had been willing to write them. Similarly, there feels something inherently British about the Blackadder team calling it a day after four series when the temptation to carry on must have been almost irresistible.

Of course there have been popular British TV series that refused to take the hint and carried on well past their sell-by dates (Only Fools and Horses leaps instantly to mind) although they seem fewer and farther between than their transatlantic equivalents. Here's hoping that my latest US drama of choice, Heroes, knows when to call it a day. I have to confess I'm not optimistic...

MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit 2007

Somewhat belatedly (thanks to avalanche of day-job work) below is a distillation of my notes from last Thursday's MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit. Rather than summarise the whole conference (which would no doubt duplicate much of the Guardian's own blog coverage) I've picked out some of the key themes and stats. So, with a nod to John Crace, here is the MediaGuardian Changing Media Summit 2007 digested:

The 10 key themes

• We continue to overestimate the short-term impact of technologies whilst underestimating their long-term impact
• Underlying audience needs remain unchanged (information, entertainment and communication)
• Media companies need to focus on the impact of technologies on user behaviours rather than getting hung up on the potential of technologies
• 'Old media' has lost its stranglehold on distribution. In response, media companies need to work out what they do best/uniquely and focus on that, then form partnerships (with both amateurs and professionals) to do the other stuff
  
• Communities are not the same as audiences and require engagement not just eyeballs
• Editorship is important in the changing media space. Journalists will always be needed but the ones who will survive/thrive are those who actively listen to/engage with communities
• Young people don't care about brands/only care about brands (no consensus on this one)
• The industry's current approach to user-generated content and rights is to take down content if someone asks you to
• On-demand consumption of broadcast content won't overtake live consumption anytime soon, although on-demand listening/viewing will increase and live audiences will continue to decline
• Revenue models are still uncertain in the changing media space. What mix of ad-funded, subscription and free content will work best?

The 10 key stats

People invariably bandy stats around at conferences. Below are ten which caught my attention (with attribution).

• The Guardian's podcasts are generating 1 million downloads a month (Emily Bell)
• Reuters employs 2,400 journalists and has an estimated audience of 1 billion people each day (Geert Linnebank)
• Second Life has almost 5 million 'residents' (Justin Bovington)
• 25,000 businesses are trading within Second Life (Justin Bovington)
• The average age of Second Lifers is 33 (Justin Bovington)
• Habbo Hotel has 74 million player characters and 7 million unique users a month (Timo Soininen)
• 1 in 5 people surfing the Internet are listening to radio at the same time (James Cridland)
• 47% of mobiles sold in the UK in the last year have had an FM chip in them (Natalie Schwarz)
• Feedburner serves 21 million feeds to 14 million unique users each day (Steve Olechowski)
• Last.fm has 15 million unique users a month (Felix Miller)

The 10 key buzzwords

• engagement
• distribution
• content
  
• brand
• on-demand
  
• community
  
• blogging
• syndication
• "dead tree version" (i.e. printed)
• multi-platform
  

The 10 key namechecks

• Second Life
• The Guardian
  
• Twitter
• Google
• YouTube
• BBC
• Channel 4
• Sky
• Reuters
• BT
  

The long tail of social networking

In case you hadn't noticed, social networking's gone got niche. Whereas the first wave of social networking sites (e.g. Classmates, SixDegrees, MySpace, Friendster, Linkedin) were relatively broad churches, with demographic emphasis the main differentiator, some of the latest kids on the social networking block are more niche than a Wim Wenders movie.

The unspoken rule of the first generation of social networking sites was to keep the focus general enough to facilitate a rapid growth in membership. However, the inclusive social networking model has become increasingly less viable for start-ups as the marketplace has become more crowded and dominated by a handful of big hitters (e.g. MySpace, orkut, Xanga, Facebook, Bebo).

This has paved the way for a new wave of social networking sites focused on niche areas of interest or identity. Don't believe me? Check out the hastily cobbled together A-Z list below which runs the gamut from Activism to Wine via Training shoes (strictly speaking it's an A-W, as I haven't yet found a social network dedicated to xylophones, the Yakuza or Zoroastrianism).

The narrow focus of a site like SneakerPlay may put a comparatively low ceiling on its potential membership, but it also increases its attractiveness both to users with that particular interest and to advertisers who are keen to hit their target demographic with greater precision (Nike currently has a banner ad for its AF1 Playoffs running on every page on SneakerPlay).

The recently relaunched Ning is the logical next step in the specialisation of social networking, as it enables you to create your own social network. With over 30,000 Ning networks already created, this opens up the possibility of a significant long tail of social networking although many of the networks are either still being set up or only have one member (the founder).

Whilst I suspect the current long tail of social networks doesn't begin the stack up against MySpace's 150 million odd user accounts, I doubt that will still be true in a year or two as niche social networking matures and more generic social networks start to see a decline in traffic.

A-Z of niche social networks

Activism: Care2, TakingITGlobal
Art & Design: Amateur Illustrator, Stuart, Teapotters
Auctions: biddingBuddies
Books: LibraryThing, Shelfari, Tagabook
Cars: CarDomain, CarSpace, Carster, Motortopia
Clubbing: AfterTheClub, DontStayIn
Comics: ComicSpace, Hypercomics
Cooking: BakeSpace, Group Recipes, Open Source Food
Cycling: BikeSpace.net, velospace
DIY: Curbly
Ethnicity: BlackPlanet, Koolanoo, Quespasa, WorldLounge
Fashion: ShareYourLook, Shoutfit, Trendmill
Fitness: ontri, PlayLocal, Traineo, We Endure
Film: Flixster, Yamji
Football: Joga
Gambling: Gaambol, Gottabet
Health: DailyStrength, OrganizedWisdom, RealMentalHealth
Hunting: TheHuntZone.com
Intelligence: intellectConnect
Motherhood: ConnectingMoms, MommyBuzz, MothersClick
Music: Hip-Hop.net, Linked Musicians, MakeOutClub, MusicHawk
Neighbourhood: ((echo))MyPlace, My Neighbourhoods
Outdoor activities: MyOutdoors.net, Outdoorzy.com, thoos
Parenting: GotKidsNetwork, Minti
Pets: Animal Buds, Catster, Dogster, Fuzzster, HAMSTERster, Petster
Photography: The Black Stripe
Politics: essembly, HOTSOUP.com, My.BarackObama.com
Religion: MuslimSpace, MyChurch, OakTreeIdea, ShoutLife, Xianz
Rugby: RuggerSpace.com
Smoking: Smoking Passions
Sports: FanPage, FanNation, FanSpot, Takkle, SportsMates, Ultrafan
Trainers: CriticalSole, Sneakerplay
Travel: TravBuddy, Travellerspoint, TripConnect, TripUp, WAYN
Video games: Gamervision, The Great Games Experiment
Wine: Bottletalk, Cork'd, Vinorati

How many posts is too many?

You can't have too much of a good thing, right? Not so, suggests a recent poll on why readers unsubscribe from blogs. The (admittedly unscientific) survey on ProBlogger found that "too many posts" was the most common reason for readers unsubscribing from a blog's RSS feed, way ahead of "infrequent posting" and "uninteresting content".

Whilst the methodology and sample size (109) can hardly be described as robust, the sentiment struck a chord with me. It also bought to mind a recent Read/WriteWeb post on The Attention Economy, which argues that the information explosion precipitated by the Internet is causing a scarcity of attention. We no longer read, we skim. And we vote with our feet.

This chimes with my recent experience of trying to keep on top of 40 odd feeds via Bloglines, some of which are populated with new posts upwards of 40 times a day. Catching up with all my blog reading only to return a few hours later to find dozens of unread posts elicits a bailing-out-a-sinking-ship feeling in me, which is why I too have started voting with my feet. Is Ubergizmo a half-decent gadget blog? Yes. Are the posts generally interesting? Yes. Do I have the time/inclination to read 40 Ubergizmo posts a day? No. Have I unsubscribed as a result? Yes.

"But you don't have to read them all!" I hear you cry. Well, that's true but I don't want to have to scroll through all those posts to see if there are any that really float my boat. Not when I can subscribe to Gizmodo UK which publishes a far more manageable number of posts per day.

Of course, one man's over-posting is another man's under-posting and there's clearly no optimal posting frequency (there are no doubt some readers eagerly refreshing their browsers every other minute in anticipation of the next Ubergizmo missive).

Maybe the problem isn't that there are too many posts, but that I need a more effective filter. Perhaps it's outmoded of me to attempt to source my reading solely by author/publisher. Which is presumably where Spotplex is hoping to come in. The recently launched Digg-alike differs from the daddy of all popularity sites by tracking user click-throughs (rather than votes) to determine which posts should make the front page.

Whilst it's nice to have an alternative barometer of the blogosphere, Spotplex doesn't (yet) take account of my personal tastes or those of my friends (which Bloglines kind of does do, albeit in a dumb way). I'm thinking maybe I need some sort of mash-up of the two which indexes my favourite blogs, but prioritises the most popular posts, as well as filtering the wider blogosphere against my profile for posts which may be of interest to me.

On the basis that pretty much anything I think of in Web 2.0 space of late seems to have already been realised somewhere, I'll wait for someone to point me in the direction of a Spotplex/Bloglines hybrid. Until then, I'm off to cull some prolific posters from my blogroll...

Directory of online profile aggregators

Following on from my previous post on Ziki and Frank Gruber's (presumably tongue-in-cheek) suggestion of an 'aggregator of aggregators' in his excellent round-up of web profile aggregators, below is a quick A to Z list of sites which enable you to aggregate your digital life. Feel free to point out any I've missed and I'll try and keep the list up-to-date.

claimID
Explode
FindMeOn
Iceflake
Lijit
Metathings
Mugshot
Naymz
onXiam
Opinity
Ozmozr
Profilactic
ProfileFly
ProfileLinker
Snag
SocialNetwork.in
SocialURL
Spokeo
Suprglu
The Internet Address Book
TheyMatter
ufeed
Wink
Ziki

I say roll on OpenID...

Ziki: social networking lite

Interesting promotional model from new(ish) social networking site Ziki, which is offering the first 10,000 people who sign up (they've had 7,960 so far) $10 of free sponsorship on Google, Yahoo and MSN so when someone searches for your name, a link to your Ziki profile is displayed in the paid-for results. In addition to basic personal info (age, location etc.) and a photo, you can also state your reasons for having a Ziki profile from a set list (e.g. networking, job opportunities, friendship, dating) and input tags/keywords which describe your areas of knowledge/interest (which then operate as a navigational tool to find like-minded people). Once you've verified your registration you can also start adding links and feeds to reflect your wider web presence.

It's an interesting example of 'lite' social networking, where your profile is more of an aggregation page (à la claimID , Profilactic and Suprglu) than a MySpace-style content repository. As a result it's more likely to appeal to older, more web-savvy users than your average social networking site.

The free search engines links (presumably a precursor to a paid-for service) provide a nice incentive to sign up and will particularly appeal to those with common names (Google returns 180,000 matches for "Dan Taylor"), although may be of less value to high profile bloggers and the geek elite whose names already appear top of most web searches.

My media consumption diet

With nods to Jeremiah Owyang for kick starting this meme and James Cridland for alerting me to it via his blog, below is a rough approximation of my media consumption diet.



(chart created using Zoho Sheet)

Web

The web is undoubtedly my main media channel (maybe because it encompasses all of the below in one?). Excluding work access, I reckon I stack up around 18 hours of web access a week, which probably breaks down something like this: reading blogs/news feeds (5 hours), trying out new sites (4 hours), writing this blog (4 hours), emailing (2 hours), searching for information (1 hour), Flickring (30 mins), buying stuff (30 mins), selling stuff (30 mins), website design/maintenance (30 mins).

Estimated time spent per week: 18 hours

Music

Having parted company with the bulk of my CD collection last year, the vast majority of my music listening (excluding radio) is now done either via iTunes or on my iPod. According to last.fm I've listened to 11,355 tracks since registering at the end of February 2005, which works out just over 100 tracks a week. Assuming a average track duration of 3 minutes, I'm averaging around five and a half hours of music listening a week. Factoring in the listening which last.fm fails to capture I reckon the actual figure is nearer 7 hours a week.

Estimated time spent per week: 7 hours

TV

As previously posted, I don't watch a great deal of live TV, with DVD boxsets and downloads accounting for the vast majority of my TV viewing. It also fair to say that I have something of a penchant for US drama. In the past 12 months I've plowed through assorted seasons of Lost, House, Desperate Housewives, 24, The O.C., The Sopranos, The West Wing, Six Feet Under and Entourage. For my money, the standout UK series of last year was Planet Earth which just blew me away.

Estimated time spent per week: 7 hours

Radio

It's a dilemma whether to count ambient radio listening as, like Mr. Cridland, I work in an office where the radio is always on. In terms of active radio listening then its Jonathan Ross on Radio 2 on a Saturday morning, Stephen Merchant on 6 Music (via the BBC Radio Player as I'm not normally near a radio on a Sunday afternoon) and snatches of the Today programme as I get ready for work. Excluding ambient listening I reckon it's around 5 hours a week; including, it's probably more like 35.

Estimated time spent per week: 5 hours

Books

I have something of a famine or feast mentality when it comes to books, depending on whether I'm on holiday or not. I read 18 books last year but almost none of them whilst in this country. Last year's reading list was predominantly a mix of contemporary fiction (Rupert Thomson, David Mitchell, Jonathan Safran Foer, Patrick Neate) and media geek must-reads (The Long Tail, The Tipping Point, Freakonomics, Everything Bad is Good for You). Assuming an average reading time of 6 hours per book, I spent 108 hours reading last year which works out at just over 2 hours per week.

Estimated time spent per week: 2 hours

Newspapers

I buy The Guardian on Mondays (for the Media supplement), Thursdays (for the Technology supplement) and Saturdays (for the magazine and The Guide). I occasionally get caught without something to read on the tube and pick up one of the London freesheets but invariably feel dirty afterwards.

Estimated time spent per week: 2 hours

Films

Films are an enduring passion of mine although I try to only see films I think will be worth the investment (which I guess is why 30 of the 40 films I saw last year appeared in my films of 2006 list). Of that 40, I watched 23 at the cinema and 17 on DVD. Assuming an average running time of 2 hours (the days of the 90 minute movie are all but gone), I spent 80 hours watching films last year which works out at one and a half hours per week.

Estimated time spent per week: 1 hour 30 mins

Magazines

My long-standing subscriptions to Q, Sight & Sound and PC Format all fell by the wayside some time ago and the only magazines I still subscribe to at home are Empire (still the bible for movie lovers) and Web User (can't be wrong for £1.99). I also tend to leaf through the office copies of Stuff, T3, .net and Wired, although less so now that Engadget is taking care of my gadget obsession in a more timely fashion.

Estimated time spent per week: 45 mins

Podcasts

Despite the dozens of podcast subscriptions currently eating up my hard disk/bandwidth, there's actually only one podcast which I listen to religiously and that's Mark Kermode's Film Reviews. Clipped from Friday's edition of the Simon Mayo show on BBC Radio Five Live, it's half an hour of pure radio gold. More occasional listens include the Best of Moyles enhanced and Media Talk from Guardian Unlimited.

Estimated time spent per week: 30 mins

Video games

Until the arrival of my Wii on Tuesday I would've put a big fat zero down for video games, but having had a quick go on the game-changing Wii Sports (and with WarioWare Smooth Moves and Zelda: Twilight Princess waiting to be unwrapped) I think I may have to revise that figure. Let's start with a conservative estimate of 20 minutes.

Estimated time spent per week: 20 mins

Conclusions

- I spend 44 hours a week (39% of my waking hours) consuming some sort of media (although some of those hours are concurrent)
- My media consumption habits aren't very typical