Is Facebook about to go QR code crazy?

Imagine that you’re walking around a bar. Everywhere you turn you see people wearing shirts emblazoned with checkered barcodes. No one is talking to each other. Instead of dancing and conversing, the majority of the establishment’s patrons are taking camera phone pictures of those around them. Pictures aren’t being taken of people’s faces, but rather of the QR codes on their shirts.

Though it may seem far-fetched to you, this scenario could be right around the corner. It could all be thanks to Facebook. Techcrunch reported this morning that Facebook is experimenting with QR codes. Per the Techcrunch article, some Facebook users have found QR code links on their profiles and Fan Pages. While the links are not yet functional, they point to users gaining the ability to generate custom two-dimensional QR codes.

QR codes act as gateways to digital content. The 2D tags can hold much more information (links, images, videos, etc.) than traditional barcodes. There are countless ways in which the technology can be used. Quick response codes can connect people with geo-based reviews and tours, green ticketing initiatives, brand promotions, product-specific wikis, exclusive media content, and social networking profiles. The 2D barcodes allow consumers to access dynamic content, anywhere at anytime.

When questioned about the new feature, Facebook stayed mum on its use of QR codes. This, of course, leaves people like myself to speculate about Facebook’s QR future.

I think that unique QR code generation is likely to become a mass feature across the Facebook community. In giving users the ability to share their Facebook profiles via QR codes, we will see increased pollination of people’s digital profiles int the real world. The feature would promote sharing of Facebook profiles and Fan pages in the physical realm. Users could take greater “ownership” of their online identities.

I can already see it now: QR code bumper stickers tied to users’ FB profiles, QR code t-shirts, stickers, and other physical embodiments of their digital selves. Transporting one’s Facebook profile into the real world via 2D barcodes, could trigger social connections beyond the confines of the digital space. QR codes could succeed in letting people’s Facebook identities live in the real world. Even though there are a number of QR code generators out there, Facebook’s adoption of the technology would give it mainstream exposure. If Facebook were to feature a QR code generator on its site, the technology would get a massive push forward.

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A look at Seattle’s news entrepreneurs

As SeattlePI.com approaches its one-year anniversary of online-only operation later this week (stay tuned for an update on how it’s doing), it has published an overview of Seattle’s thriving independent news scene. On the list, which includes my own company, Next Door Media, there’s the West Seattle Blog, Neighborlogs, Publicola, TechFlash, InvestigateWest and Crosscut. The story doesn’t mention the big newcomer to the hyperlocal scene, Seattle-based Datasphere, which powers neighborhood news networks for a quickly-growing list of local TV stations across the country.

Marijuana legalization ad to hit Times Square Digital Billboard

The smoke has cleared, yet a suspicious odor still lingers in the air. Representatives from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation (NORML) are inhaling a sigh of relief. In the end, the marijuana legalization flag is set to fly high above Times Square.

First it was on, then it was off, and now it is back on again. A 15-second digital ad promoting the financial benefits of marijuana legalization is scheduled to debut in New York City’s Times Square next week. Produced and paid for by NORML’s educational arm, the ad evokes the organization’s message that “money can grow on trees.”

“Regulating the adult use of marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol could raise over $30 billion annually in new tax revenue, while saving an additional $15 billion per year in law enforcement costs,” NORML Foundation Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said. “This tax season, why not ask your elected politicians why the federal government continues to spends billions of tax dollars enforcing this failed and archaic public policy.”

In January, CBS and the NORML Foundation entered into an agreement to air the ‘Money Tree’ ad on the media company’s digital billboard on 42^nd Street. That agreement, however, was short lived.  Prior to the campaign’s launch on February 1, 2010, CBS abruptly pulled the ad from its schedule. CBS stated that the ad’s content did not comply with the network’s outdoor advertising standards. At that time, it appeared that the NORML Foundation’s ad would never shine brightly in Times Square.

If not for an online petition organized by political advocacy organization Change.org, demanding that CBS reverse its decision, NORML would likely have been smoked out of Times Square. Thanks to the nearly 10,000 people that signed the petition, CBS changed its stance on the advertisement.

To view the 15-second ad that will run in Times Square, follow the jump. (more…)

Local TV news audience in sharp decline

The one piece of data that jumped out to me in the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual media report (that Steve posted below) is this one: local TV newscast ratings are in steady decline across all timeslots. Early evening newscasts dropped 1.7%, late news is down 6.4% and morning news has declined 5.5% during 2009.

Now, many in the local news business always have a reason for a particular year’s decline, citing some temporary or cyclical reason (Leno!). But with the exception of morning news — which has been flat until this year — newscast ratings have consistently dropped year after year after year. The chart above, pulled from last year’s PEJ report, shows steady declines from 2005 to 2008 among early evening newscasts.

This is not a cyclical decline, but a permanent one, and it may come as a surprise for many who work in local TV newsrooms. Sure, there’s still a very large audience who watches, but these declines are significant, and can’t be ignored.

As I’ve written before on Lost Remote, I believe the downward trend is not just a function of fragmentation and a shift to the web, but also because local TV news has become a commodity. It looks the same, sounds the same, is produced the same… sooner or later, as with any product in just about any business, a lack of innovation and differentiation will result in a decline in consumption. Now, more than ever, is the time to invest in innovation and re-engineer how content is created and distributed on a local level.

And it’s also time for people who work in the trenches in local TV news — where I worked for 15+ years — to push for change. Produce news that your friends and family want to watch, tailored to different screens and different lifestyles, not what your bosses, competitors or consultants say you should make.

SXSW: The iPad is better than print

Do you still run into people who tell you they like reading a newspaper or magazine or book in print vs. digital? The iPad is about to change that.

Scott Dadich, creative director at Wired magazine, says Wired measures reader engagement in hours, not minutes like online. And that allows for higher ad rates. It was one of several interesting data points from a session at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin. And it’s another reason publishers should be moving a lot faster of developing for tablet devices.

How different is the production of content for the print vs. online? He said Wired spends months, sometimes years, working on custom fonts to make reading of their content easier. thier custom typeface has 10,000 kerning pairs vs. 500 for a regular font. Conde Nast, Wired’s parent company, has 400 designers and 1,100 editors and its magazines reach 62 million Americans (about 1 in 3).It takes 24 days for each piece of magazine content to go from birth to publish at Wired.

The iPad and similar devices will allow all that design intelligence to become interactive and digital. “It’s revolution through evolution” says Jeremy Clark from Adobe. “The ads are as important as editorial content to the magazine.” Dadich says the technology is ahead of the business development at this point and declined to offer specific information about pricing models.

Wired and Adobe are working together to develop new products for the iPad and the demo was pretty impressive. The navigation goes both left-to-right and up-and-down with lots of zoom and interactivity. It makes a Kindle look like black-and-white TV in the age of HD (with 3D on the way.) Clark then showed an Android-powered tablet device that looks just like an iPad. He says there will be 40-50 of these devices coming out this year.

I plan to write more about this, and the implications for local media companies, once I have a moment to think (translation = after sxsw ends). How do you think tablet devices will change the game for local media? Add your thoughts in the comments or drop me a line.

Annual report: local media audience in rapid decline

The annual Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism’s “State of the News Media” report is out, and it is a compendium of discouragement for anyone tied to the media. Here are just some of the top lines:

As always, this is a rich, dense report we encourage you to read in full.

California Watch rewards civility – with iPods

The genius of this… California Watch is having a contest and all you have to do is comment on the site. The site is giving away a free iPod Touch each month for the next six months. (Seems they got the Touches free when they bought computers and wanted to put them to good use.) So they’re trying to encourage a little civility and cleverness by way of a comments contest:

“You don’t have to agree with our content to be eligible. You just have to be thoughtful, focused and articulate in making your argument. Comments will be judged also on clarity of thinking and persuasiveness. And we could be swayed by clever humor. The judging is totally subjective. But we all know a good comment when we see one.”

Brilliant. They’ll get all sorts of new commenters, build a civil community and (as is evidenced) get some good PR along the way. California Watch is a not-for-profit investigative journalism initiative. (via Nieman)

SXSW: Obligatory celebrity party photos

SXSW Interactive is all about the parties, so I feel obligated to post a few bad party pics from my iPhone.

Here is Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley, who did not offer any details about who owns his code, and Anna Robertson from Yahoo hanging out at the Mashable party Sunday night.

And here’s Gist founder and CEO TA McCann and Comcast social media star Shauna Causey hanging out at the Icanhascheezeburger party Sunday night.

Sorry I don’t have more. I’d never make it at TMZ unfortunately.

SXSW: Highlights from online news of tomorrow

The power of the human link, all that traffic that comes from Twitter and Facebook for example, will drive the new economy for news more than pay walls set up by Rupert Murdoch and the Associated Press.

That was one of the key observations by Jeff Jarvis from panel called Online News of Tomorrow http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/688 panel at the South by Southwest Interactive conference in Austin today. Jarvis was joined by Adrian Holovaty (Everyblock), Brad Flora (Windy Citizen), Jeremy Zillar (NYTimes) and Andrew Huff (Gapers Block).

Brad Flora runs a site called  Windy Citizen in Chicago which is crowdsourcing the relevancy for local news. It’s a combination of an algorithm and crowd power (people voting on stuff) and Flora said it’s “profitable” and “sustainable.” It’s a very cool site that will certainly be replicated in most major cities – possibly by local media comapnies. (Hint, hint)

“The conversation is splintering,” Flora said. “We’re not a news organization, we’re just a front page that can point people to the good stuff. For local bloggers, we are their distribution. Getting a link at Windy Citizen will brighten their day. Our goal is to give them a fighting chance.”

Zilar said email is often overlooked and that the majority of Brooklyn’s news ecosystem runs on email distribution. That’s interesting since Brooklyn is often thought of as one of the local blogging hotspots and home to hyperlocal aggregator Outside.in.

SXSW: Mirror worlds are the next web, may redefine local

Mok Oh, Founder and CTO of Everyscape, says mirror worlds are the next web and his company is positioning itself to be a part of this coming goldrush.

What are mirror worlds, you ask? It’s a direct representation of our actual world replicated in the digital world. He pointed to Google Earth as the best example, but noted how poorly it does on the street level. That’s why so many companies are driving around with cameras attached to cars taking lots of pictures.

Everyscape is one of those companies. It is constructing a replication of cities to create an immersive, 3-dimensional local search experience. In his demo, Oh navigated down a street like he was driving a car, then came upon an image of a coupon in the road. Clicking on it enlarged the coupon and pointed to the store on the right that was offering the deal. (more…)

SXSW: Work smarter, and more social media strategy

Jason Fried and Erik Qualman anchored a packed morning at the Day Stage for book readings at the South by Southwest Conference in Austin this morning.

Fried, CEO and co-founder of 37 Signals, likes to dish out straight talk on business. So much so, he wrote a book about it, called ReWork. He highlighted some his favorite lessons from the book, including:

- Planning is just guessing: So just call it strategic guessing, financial guessing, etc.
- Interruption is different than collaboration: Don’t let your workday become work chunks by cluttering the schedule with too many meetings and conference calls and idle chit chat. Creative people need dedicated time to be productive. (more…)

Notes: All SXSW “Spring Break for…” edition

Noted, while wondering how you’d pronounce “SXSW.”

Forget SXSW – Come to NXNE!

Yeah, all the hipsters are at SXSW. But forget Austin and come to Boston! LR Friend and Social Media Goddess Rachel Happe (@rhappe, whom you should follow) is putting on NXNE, a Tweetup in nearby Cambridge. If you’re in the area and want to hang with the real cool nerds, sign up. From the invite:

Come enjoy a drink with the cool kids… you know, the ones hanging out in Boston while the social lemmings flee in droves to #SXSW (OK, so we love them and are jealous but really have things to do!)

And no, we don’t eat a lot of BBQ here in New England, so come join us for fried clams, lobster, chowdah, and a few beverages at The Summer Shack.

For extra credit – bring your “Top Ten Reasons I’m not at SXSW” (thanks to @pprlisa for the idea!)

BTW, Rachel used Tweetvite to organize the event. I like it. I’ve made a cheap and bad logo, using some stolen clipart:

SXSW: Social media marketing for business

Chris Winfield (@chriswinfield) kicked off a packed breakout session at the South By Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin by promising to not mention Facebook and Twitter. Easier said than done.

The “T word” and the “F word” (no, not that one) were mentioned numerous times but Winfield and fellow presenter Tony Adam (@tonyadam) did offer some good strategies for businesses looking to enhance their marketing efforts through social media. Local media companies should be doing most, if not all of them.

The key lessons:

- Find out where your customers are: Use traffic reporting tools like Google Analytics to find out where your current visitors are coming from. Set up news alerts on your brand and your competitors to find who’s talking/writing about them.
- Frequently update your blog(s): Winfield said it is “so important to reach out to your customers” this way. He also recommended becoming part of the community on blogs and news sites that frequently write about your topic area.
- Seek new sources: Check Technorati and Alltop to discover new blogs and news sites that are focusing on your topic area, too. instead of technorati to figure out what’s hot in your topic area.

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Avoid cliches like the plague: WGN’s banned words

The list has already gained infamy. A writer for NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Blog Me used them all in one sentence. Now we’ve got it – the list of 119 words and phrases that Tribune CEO (that’s right – CEO) Randy Michaels has banned from the airwaves of WGN-AM. It’s a little troubling that a directive like this would come from the top, but at the same time you have to admire the guy (a forbidden word) for taking a stand against cliches, news-speak and unnecessary adjectives. Blogolo’s Robert Feder has the full list. We’ll just pinch a few here, adding our own parenthetical notes along the way:

AGREE:
“Good” or “bad” news (“There is good news tonight regarding…” Nobody talks this way.)
5 a.m. in the morning (We see it all the time… ditto “5 p.m. in the evening” and “12 pm noon.”)
At this point in time (Why not “Now?”)
Definitely possible (As is everything)
In other news (A very lazy segue)
Lucky to be alive/Untimely death (Who are we to say?)

DISAGREE:
Guys (There is a difference between “men” and “guys.” Just ask any woman.)
Diva (How else to report on Maria, Cher and Tyra?)
Informed sources say… or Sources say… (We don’t love these, but sourcing is tough)
Manhunt (This is what the police call it, and it’s not a cliche. It tells you how serious the search is.)
Torrential rain (It is descriptive in a way that “heavy rain” doesn’t capture.)
Those of you (What about for those of you for whom this is an issue?)

MEH:
Hunnert when you mean hundred (This is a big problem?)
Really (Really?)
Icon (A movie icon is a step above being a movie star. Why is this an issue?)
Dubbaya when you mean double you (Did they hire the former president?)
Bare naked (This comes up a lot, does it?)

HE LEFT OUT:
In a few moments (How many seconds in a moment?)
Cut the mustard (Not hard to do. What is hard is to cut the muster.)
The proof is in the pudding (No, it’s not. The proof of the pudding is in the tasting.)
Every parent’s worst nightmare (My personal #1 peeve. I’m a parent, and my worst nightmare involves being naked in a college classroom taking a test I didn’t study for…)

What else do you agree with/disagree with/think he left out?

Msnbc.com slideshow gets 78 million page views

William Clark

“I like to talk stories through before I write them. As I was collecting photos of the Clarks, I kept showing them in a little slide show to my family, to my mother (81) and my daughters (7 and 10). It really helped tell the story.

“I put the photos online to show our projects team at msnbc.com, and photographer Jim Seida said, why don’t we just publish it as a slide show? I was skeptical at first — would that crimp the writing? — but in the end I was advocating doing it this way when the photo team was skeptical. I thought far more people would read through it this way, and it would be worth an experiment.”

I really like that Dedman was given the opportunity to tell the story the way it wanted to be told. “The Clarks” runs 48 slides long. Many stations are stuck to the linear video format, regardless of whether it’s the best way to tell a story. Would your station consider telling a story solely in slide show format if the story called for it? Clearly, there is great success to be had in this format.

Location-awareness takes SXSW by storm

SXSW is getting underway in Austin, and location-aware apps Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt and Whrrl are engaged in a Texas-sized check-in showdown, launching new app versions, features and partnerships. Not to be forgotten, the original SXSW superstar Twitter has rolled out its geolocation feature on Twitter.com. But that’s just the beginning.

“We’re under embargo on almost all of them, but we can tell you there are at least 25 companies making location-related announcements at SXSW this week. Probably more,” explains ReadWriteWeb. “You’ve got to wonder if and when Location will Jump the Shark.”

Here’s a quick summary of the larger announcements so far:

• Foursquare inks marketing deal with Starbucks, debuts barista badge
• SXSW attendees can earn up to 16 new Foursquare badges, win swag
• Gowalla hides virtual swag at SXSW, will award users with real swag
• Whrll’s new app lets users join “societies” to earn exclusive deals
• Check in at events on Loopt’s new version of its app
• New app Causeworld ties check-ins to karma and charitable donations

Lost Remote blogger Mark Briggs is at SXSW and will be posting reports here on the blog as well as on our Twitter account, @lostremote.

Digital installation sheds light on NYC homelessness

It’s a sad truth that for many of us it’s easier to ignore a homeless person than a digital visualization of one. Such is the construct behind a unique digital installation in New York City that brings attention to the ongoing plight of the homeless.

The interactive display leverages mobile and video projection technology to connect passersby with the homeless, a segment of our population we often choose not to see. Through a text message based call-to-action, people are given the opportunity to witness the impact their outreach could have on a homeless person’s life.

Pathways to Housing, a New York-based nonprofit organization that provides housing and mental health services for the homeless, worked with agency creatives to bring the video installation to life. It is a dynamic example of how digital media can be used to bring us closer to the world around us.

Is it in stock nearby? Check Google on your phone

If you search for a product on Google on your iPhone, Android or Palm — with your location enabled — you’ll start seeing a link to determine if the product is in stock at a nearby store.

Pretty cool concept, assuming Google can attract enough retailers to participate. So far, Google has Best Buy, Sears, Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn and West Elm, and it’s actively recruiting more. More details here on Google’s mobile blog.

CNN’s Klein says he fears social networks

At a press event in NY today, CNN chief Jonathan Klein says he fears social networks more than his TV competition. “The competition I’m really afraid of are social networking sites,” he said. “That threatens to pull people away from us. The people you’re friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information. Well, we want to be the most trusted name in news.”

A reasonable fear in a new world of social distribution?