Archive for August 3rd, 2006
Terry Heaton has posted another sobering series of graphs featuring weakening media stocks. TV folks who take a look should feel compelled to learn the web FAST. But unfortunately, most won’t. “Your local broadcast newsroom is really a rather staid place, a highly segmented landscape where job descriptions form borders and individual disciplines rarely mix,” writes Lenslinger, a TV photographer/blogger. “No longer married to one particular medium, the denizens of newsrooms everywhere will soon have to learn the skills of their co-workers if they want to stay in the game. Not everyone will survive.”
August 3rd, 2006
An interview with Dr. Michael Dimock, associate director at the Pew Research Center, yields some controversial points. “On a typical day, the percent who only get news on the web and nowhere else is very, very small,” he said. Dimock concludes that the internet, by extension, is still a secondary source of news. While that may be true in today’s stats, I think in five years time it will become the primary source of news. Also, Dimock basically dismisses local TV news and their websites in the local news race — also a myopic statement.
August 3rd, 2006
We linked to a story a few days ago that reported that Google has inked a licensing deal with the Associated Press, and now both companies are confirming it. It’s unclear how much money is involved, but Google says it’s for “new uses of original AP content for features and products we will introduce in the future.” That’s an important distinction because Google has always maintained that Google News merely aggregates news, and as a result, the company shouldn’t have to pay anyone for it. Now with the new deal, Google doesn’t give up any ground and the AP — which wasn’t happy with the aggregation prior to the announcement — lands a big new client.
August 3rd, 2006
This week’s edition of Television Week has a “SPECIAL REPORT” on the tenth anniversary of the Internet Broadcasting company (the former IBS). I agree that IB’s pioneering work is well worth discussing. My beef is not with IB here. TV Week chose to present the section in its magazine with big full color ads congratulating IB from clients, vendors, well-wishers, etc. So the section was long in the planning. Online, the section has nine articles, with softball headlines like “Leading Stations into the Web Era” and “Content (is the) Key to Web Sites.” The articles are fluff. There are no questions challenging IB’s business model. IB has competitors, but they are not mentioned by impartial comparison. Their market is changing, but the article only addresses that nebulously. Forget hard-hitting journalism - none of the reporters challenged any assumptions. Still, I could almost get by all of that and play the game. But labeling this a SPECIAL REPORT and not an advertorial? So, I’m opening this discussion to the floor: Did TV Week goof in how it presented the IB anniversary section?
August 3rd, 2006
Here at One LR Plaza, we demand nothing but complete dedication from our giant staff. We would never encourage anyone to waste time at work. (Unless there was a Sox game on or Kate was making a coffee run or LR Spouse wanted to go to the beach.) But we appreciate a good subversive app when we see one. This week’s top Digg takes a dig at corporate culture: it’s the wonderful and ironically-named Work Friendly. Its sole purpose is to make any web page you’re surfing look like a project you’re working on in Microsoft Office. Go ahead - put in our temporary nowbreaking.com URL and hit the “is this good for the company?” button. And there’s even a “Boss” key rollover, in case Cory tries to see what I’m doing. Fight the power.
August 3rd, 2006
Vanity Fair’s report on the NORAD recordings from 9/11 is a simple and elegant integration of audio and writing. The reporter, Michael Bronner, pored through 30 hours of the recordings when he was doing research for his work as associate producer on the movie “United 93.” He then wrote the report for Vanity Fair. The online version takes reporting one simple step further: it integrates the audio with the transcripts. The result is more immediate and far more compelling. Multimedia doesn’t have to be complex and Flash-intensive; it can be as simple as incorporating the material you already have into your work. (via Buzzmachine)
August 3rd, 2006
CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier is out of the hospital, more than two months after she was badly injured in an explosion in Baghdad. The May 29 attack killed Paul Douglas and James Brolan, who were working with Dozier. It also killed a U.S. soldier and an Iraqi translator. CBSNews.com has video of Dozier leaving a Maryland rehab hospital along with a text report. You can also read Dozier’s own words, in her statement.
August 3rd, 2006
Some very interesting (although not too surprising) info from ABC.com on its experiment streaming entire shows with a single advertiser each:
16 million video streams served over May and June
5.7 million episode requests over the same period
Average age of users is 29 years old
Majority of viewing within first 24 hours of TV broadcast
87% of users could recall the advertiser
ABC.com said it will resume streaming first-run shows in October — and add a few more to the mix. More stats follow in the press release…
Read the full post August 3rd, 2006
San Francisco
Read the full post August 3rd, 2006
AOL will cut about 5,000 employees — that’s about a quarter of its global work force. This comes just a day after Time Warner announced it’s going to make the AOL service free for broadband users. The dialup model is dead, and AOL is trying save itself with an advertising model.
August 3rd, 2006
Time Warner Cable has launched NFLGetReal.com as its broadside in the battle over the NFL Network’s status as a channel on TW Cable. The NFL Network wants about 90 cents per subscriber, a cut TW Cable considers too high. TWC dropped the NFL Network, but the FCC ruled it must reinstate the channel.
August 3rd, 2006
I’ve always said that you should never blog under the influence (BUI), but MSNBC “Scarborough Country” producer Mike Yarvitz downed some whiskey and did just that. It was part of an on-air and online experiment to try to (hmmm) replicate Mel Gibson’s experience at a .12 blood alcohol level. At .10 on the scale, Yarvitz blogs, “(I’m) not feeling any anti-Semitic urges coming on, but that may be because I’m Jewish.”
August 3rd, 2006
Oooh, this is cool. Meebo allows web publishers to integrate an instant messaging widget on their sites. “As people go onto that page, I can see them, so I know in real-time who’s on my page,” said Seth Sternberg, CEO and co-founder. “And I can talk to them in real-time. Literally, we’ve embedded instant messaging into web pages.”
August 3rd, 2006
Earlier this week, a company called Inform announced a deal with WashingtonPost.com and a few other newspaper sites to automatically serve up relevant links to content on other sites. Why would a newspaper site want to link off to someone else? Because people are visiting Google News and Digg — instead of newspaper sites — to find aggregated, relevant news stories. Plus, as Inform CEO Neal Goldman points out, “There is a lot of value in that back button. Each time someone clicks on it is another ad impression.”
August 3rd, 2006
Calling it the first live interactive game show in the U.S., TBS will debut “Midnight Money Madness” later this month. Viewers participate by texting their answers to questions — and if they’re selected — speaking live on the air. “It could be like ‘Dialing for Dollars’ for the next generation,” said Steve Koonin, EVP and COO of TBS and TNT
August 3rd, 2006
