Archive for March 7th, 2007
My business partner Terry Heaton broke the story in our AR&D newsletter that MySpace is getting into the news business, and in a very social way. Terry’s sources tell him MySpace News will launch in the early Q2. From MySpace’s own sales materials:
- MySpace News takes news to a whole new level by dynamically aggregating real-time news and blogs from top sites around the Web
- (It) creates focused, topical news pages that users can interact and engage with throughout their day
- MySpace is making the news social, allowing users to rate and comment on every news item that comes through the system, and submit stories they think are cool and even author pieces from their MySpace blog.
- MySpace users previously had to leave the site to find comprehensive news, gossip, sporting news, etc. With MySpace News, we bring the news to them!
Writes Terry: “Now it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is not good news for those of us in the news business, unless we view it as another way to get our content onto yet another platform. MySpace is currently cutting deals with content providers to do just that, and I think it’s likely the process will show us what types of ‘news’ will be of interest to young people, circa 2007. And that is something we might be able to use downstream.”
March 7th, 2007
Not just web traffic, but roadway traffic. Both Google Maps and MSN Live Maps have recently launched traffic conditions, and I just heard an ad on a Seattle radio station promoting Maps.Live.com for traffic reports. Local TV sites out there, remember what happened with weather? Traffic is next.
Traditional 2D view of Seattle traffic on MSN Live Maps. You can click to add construction zones and incident reports on the map, as well.
Cool but less useful 3D view on MSN Live’s Virtual Earth.
Adds discreet_chaos in comments: “Yahoo! has been doing traffic conditions for about a year. They only have it available in some cities, as I’m sure would be the case with the others, but you can overlay it on their maps, click for a report, put it on your my. page or it’s available for your preset area under their “local” button on their homepage.”
March 7th, 2007
An opinion piece posted on the university newspaper site The Daily Northwestern criticizes recent changes at the Medill School of Journalism to incorporate technology, business and marketing curriculum into the program. “I wonder why signs that used to say ‘Medill School of Journalism’ have been replaced with ‘Medill Media Management Center,’” writes Loka Ashwood, a student in the program. “I can’t wrap my mind around professors’ instructions in a senior-level course that I need to write a product and not the news. Instead of being encouraged to inform the public, I am told to target a consumer.” Now, we don’t know all the facts from the editorial, and I’m sure Medill continues to teach quality journalism and its importance as a public service. Journalism professors will call it news, and marketing professors will call it a product. But many journalists, like Ashwood, find it appalling that journalism today can’t exist without marketing. As margins shrink, the old models are falling apart, and we need new approaches to attract eyeballs, generate revenue and preserve newsroom jobs. Understanding the opportunities of marketing and technology doesn’t diminish the value of journalism, in fact, it helps protect it. As we move to an on-demand world, if an important story doesn’t get any clicks, does it have value? I believe technology allows us to improve our storytelling without diluting our journalism or failing our public service, but at the same time, we better have a good idea how to get people to read and watch us. And that’s every journalist’s responsibility.
(Full disclosure: My undergraduate degree is in marketing, and I have an MBA. I also have 16 years experience as a journalist working in some of the nation’s most respected news operations, from NBC News to KCRA to KING.)
Adds Adam in comments: “Cory you wrote, ‘…we better have a good idea how to get people to read and watch us.’ I think you’re covering two distinctly seperate ideas with one line. There’s the micro and macro. On the micro level, there’s storytelling, grabbing the audiences attention and holding it. On the macro level there’s defining, finding and drawing the audience in so they you can bring them to the story and the sponsors thereof. I think they’re very different. I think every field journalists job is to tell the best, accurate and compelling story they’re assigned. The managing editors, ND’s etc. are responsible to find the relevant assignments and worry about getting the audience to watch. When a reporter starts to worry about how many clicks he’s going to generate, their eye is off the ball.”
March 7th, 2007
You may remember last year the excitement surrounding March Madness On Demand, which offered live streams of 56 basketball games in the first three rounds of NCAA’s annual tourney. MMOD, as it’s called, served up 19 million streams and five million visits over a few days time. Thousands of people waited in long lines to join the streams due to the overwhelming response. This year, CBSSportsline has doubled the bandwidth, and it’s still handing out those “VIP passes” that will allow you to jump to the front of the line when you log on (they’re available now, so go grab one). The new MMOD will also feature a 50 percent larger video screen and streaming live radio broadcasts. Press release…
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Two decades after leaving Microsoft, Paul Allen is taking the wraps off Flipstart, a computer that’s bigger than a Blackberry but smaller than a laptop. It runs Windows, has a 30-gig hard drive, built-in Wifi and costs… $2,000.
Michael adds in comments: “Devices like this will never be practical for anybody outside a few niche audiences. It’s too expensive for the casual user, to big to take with you everywhere you go, and too small to do any real work on. Most users are better served by a smart phone and/or a laptop.”
March 7th, 2007
Atlanta
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Atlanta
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While Joost is getting all the attention (as well as a big deal with Viacom), there are a couple other new sites that are also working to bring a TV-like experience to the web. Babelgum “looks and feels remarkably like Joost” but has very little content. And Swiss startup Zattoo streams broadcast and cable TV content live. Read their reviews here.
An episode of Rocketboom playing on Babelgum.
March 7th, 2007
TiVo subscribers can now buy and download TV shows and movies from Amazon’s relatively new Unbox service, right from their TV sets (you have to go online first and sync your Amazon and TiVo accounts.) The TiVo-Unbox service will likely face its stiffest competition from Apple TV (and perhaps Xbox 360’s upcoming IPTV). Over the next few years, it will be interesting to watch the growth of viewing IP-delivered video on TV compared to cable, satellite or over-the-air.
March 7th, 2007
