Archive for December 19th, 2006
Congratulations to longtime LR pal and commenter Michael Gay on his new job, found right here in our jobs section. Michael, who was a huge success in Chicago as WBBM’s web guru, will become Hearst-Argyle’s first executive producer of digital media. He’ll be working with H-A’s Director of Digital Media, Jacques Natz, to shape the content of the company’s 29 TV station websites. Like many of us, Michael started in TV news production before making the jump to the web. He goes back to the dark days of the late ’90s in internet news, the web equivalent of remembering when they shot TV news on film. (Disclosure: My client, NECN, is half-owned by Hearst.) UPDATES: Michael writes in the comments below: “Thanks Steve for the nice congrats! I’m very excited to get up to Minneapolis and get started…. of course I saw the job here on lostremote. Is there a better place to learn about new media jobs?” And Rex adds a very good point: “…this job is based out of IBS HQ in Minneapolis, which is the first arrangement they’ve had like that.”
December 19th, 2006
MSNBC.com has signed with Third Screen Media to power its mobile ad campaigns. Press release with more details below…
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Just months after launching a new look, Digg has debuted another new design that displays “all news” instead of technology as the default on the home page. I imagine this is because miscategorized stories of all shapes where ending up in the technology category because everyone wanted to get their stories on the home page. Digg is also working hard to counter the relatively new phenomenon of top Digg submitters being paid by marketers to post and Digg promotional stories on the site. “I receive two or three offers (from marketers) a week to promote some product or service,” said one 19-year-old Digger. He said he normally turns them down, but he agreed to plug JetNumbers, a site that provides virtual phone numbers. Digg yanked his profile until he apologized and promised never to do it again (yeah, right.)
December 19th, 2006
New York, NY
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Jean-Briac (J.B.) Perrette has been promoted to President, Digital Distribution for NBCU.
December 19th, 2006
This one drove us to the edge. Startup PayPerPost has a pay-for-bloggers business. That’s fine. You can make money blogging for companies. Only problem was, PPP argued the bloggers didn’t have to disclose they were getting paid by those companies to write all those nice things. PayPerPost even started the unintentionally hilarious Disclosure Policy generator. There has been a ton of pressure from bloggers, and PayPerPost has blinked. CEO Ted Murphy today announced that bloggers will be transparent in who is footing their bill. He even gave ClickZ a not-quite-contrite statement: “We have tried to be hands off in terms of what types of arrangements and what deals are cut between the advertisers and bloggers. What we’ve come to recognize is maybe that’s not such a great decision.” Full press release, after the jump.
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New York, NY
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Dallas-Ft. Worth
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All that speculation over an Apple iPhone has run into one huge problem: the new Linksys iPhone. Linksys has beaten Apple to the i-punch with its new WiFi/Skype-enabled phone. Cisco (which owns Linksys) says it has owned the iPhone trademark since 2000. An Apple miscue? A Linksys attempt at capitalizing on someone else’s brand? Says a marketing prof from the University of Toronto: “It looks as if they’re basically trying to sew a little bit of confusion and defend their own franchise… In hindsight, not locking in the trademark on iPhone seems like quite the misstep on Apple’s part.'’
December 19th, 2006
Wow. Talk about a tough year to pick the costliest public relations fiasco. Certainly, ‘macacca’ cost Sen. George Allen his job and possibly cost the Republicans control of the Senate. So many wonderful options. But PR Week has chosen Hewlett-Packard former Chairwoman Patricia Dunn’s “let’s spy on journalists to get some dirt on them” initiative as the costliest PR blunder of the year. They’re being literal on this one: HP had to pay $14.5 million to settle civil suits. That’s a lot of $200 printers.(Third item down.)
December 19th, 2006
Hoteliers: want to become an instant hit among business travelers? Offer free WiFi. Or, at least, make sure your in-room web connections work consistently well and can handle the modern broadband demands of video, voice, and big downloads. Before you know it, you’re going to lose out to mobile web access anyway. Might as well make this a perk.
December 19th, 2006
The scribes at The Daily Show must be thanking the comedy gods today. This morning’s press conference announcing that Miss USA Tara Conner will remain on as Miss USA was comedy gold. The news channels all went with it, and it was absolutely a jackpot. The only hard part will be choosing which bites to run with. I suggest Jon & the gang blow out their programming and devote the full half-hour to a Special Report. Donald Trump knows how to drum up PR. An early Christmas present/timely Hanukkah present for all.
December 19th, 2006
VH1’s “Web Junk 20″ (Which I would happily link to if it were Mac-compatible) is one of the most enjoyable, easiest to produce shows on the network. VH1 partners with iFilm and features 20 viral vids from online. Current host Rachel Perry links them together and like that - you’ve got a show. Now VH1 is launching “Mobile Junk 20,” which is pretty much what it sounds like. They could have simply featured the same videos on a mobile app, but they have gone further. People can upload their vids and pics to Mobile Junk 20 and vote on their favorites. And there’s more social stuff still to come. The app is only available on Sprint at the moment, but you can expect it on other carriers in ‘07.
ALSO: Two reports on how social networking is going mobile
December 19th, 2006
I love getting opposing views. I’ve invited them in the past. I always run them. So here is AgencyNext’s response to my criticism that the blog they launched as “Marketing Messaging Firm of Record for Winter” was a bad choice and is less-than transparent. **Note that a small hoo-hah ensued when they thought I wasn’t posting their reply. This is because they were blocked in the comments section by our spam filter when they put in a URL. Good reminder for everyone - and it says so at the top - that we have to filter out URL comments because so much spam comes in that way. You can always write something like “www (dot) blogname dotcom” or something.
December 19th, 2006
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing arguments in broadcasters’ challenge to the FCC’s profanity crackdown. And you’ll be able to hear them, too - live. C-SPAN, to its unending credit, has decided to carry the arguments live. (And to its credit, the court agreed to the deal.) The arguments are supposed to happen on Friday, some time around 10 a.m. C-SPAN will stream the live coverage on its site, too. I’d love to see a network carry the thing live, too. We could wind up with the marvelous possibility of the FCC lawyer having to mention one of the swears and then fining the network that carried him saying it.
December 19th, 2006
