Archive for March 15th, 2007
While many news sites sort of look the same, Wired.com has launched a trendy new design that breaks the template with a fresh look. I love the simple, content-forward approach and the short home page. Notice the straightforward navigation beneath the main stories (and check out all those blogs). The masthead splits a single ad into two parts — one of just two ads on the home page.
What do you think? (Imagine a local TV site designed like this. Oh, wait, just two ads and no promos? Sorry, I must be smoking something.)
Adds anonymous in comments: “I’m still trying to find out why, in a demanding, potentially exciting medium like web, TV stations think it’s the bee’s knees to barf their TV graphics upon the computer screen and call it a website…. There’s design that sucks, but the bigger question is do most TV stations understand how to strategize, how to think in the new paradigm and move their businesses to the 21st century? I think not.”
March 15th, 2007
As of 4 p.m. on the first day of the NCAA tournament, CBS Sportsline said it had logged 1.5 million visits and 800,000 registrations to March Madness on Demand, the site’s free live video service. Just before the tip off of the Maryland-Davidson game, 189,000 users were waiting in line to watch the game live. Impressive. Meanwhile, CBS cut another deal with YouTube, this time to stream March Madness highlights on the site. The section is sponsored by Pontiac, which is also sponsoring coverage on the air.
March 15th, 2007
Conway, SC
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Various
Read the full post March 15th, 2007
When I talk to people about the importance of search, I use Lost Remote as an example — about 30 percent of our traffic comes from story-based search. A classic example is a post from January 22nd about the new Fox show, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, which appeared shortly thereafter in the first few search results on Google. Since then, it has received tens of thousands of page views and has turned into its own mini-community with 419 comments and counting. “I’m a fifth grader,” reads one. “How do I get on the show?” Others then respond with instructions, and one person even posted her experience watching a taping of the show. It’s difficult to predict when these spontaneous communities will appear, but it’s certainly fascinating to watch.
March 15th, 2007
NBC Universal Digital Studios will produce a broadband show on Break.com called Breakers, which will feature “beautiful women finding creative ways to break different objects.” Hmmm. A couple more details in the short press release below…
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And productivity will drop like a rock across the country. March Madness on Demand will stream 56 games live for free over the next several days.
If you watch, tell us how it goes…
Adds Jason in comments: “When I logged on at noon eastern, I was VIP 56,872 or so in line. Once the games began it took less than 5 minutes to get in…. I went for a walk across the building and was booted for inactivity. Took about 30 seconds to get back in.”
March 15th, 2007
Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen are among the speakers at the 14th Politics Online Conference, put on by The Institute for Politics Democracy and the Internet. Live blog is here. Slightly shameless promo: I’m on an unrelated-but-highly-coincidental roundtable at the National Press Club today to discuss how new media are affecting political campaigns and coverage. Our discussion will be aired on XM Radio and podcast from the NPC site.
March 15th, 2007
Divvio, which searches several multimedia sites (YouTube, Grouper, iFilm, Google Video, etc.) and brings them into its own player, is now in beta. Writes the AP in USA TODAY, “Hoping to become ‘the Google of audio and video’ (Divvio) introduced software this week that trolls the Internet for podcasts, music and videos, then sorts the clips into categories such as fashionista, hip hop and gossip snoop.” Cute, but a bunch of searches I conducted led to an overly-hip error message: “Oh Snap - Video is Missing.” (The first step for the search should be to filter out the missing results, shouldn’t it?) Still - beta.
March 15th, 2007
Advertisers like Pontiac and Wachovia have bought space on official college athletic sites during March Madness. “You have a great scale if you have a television spot on CBS, but maybe people aren’t tuned in, says Chris Hornberger, ad manager for Pontiac. “People are coming to their website and looking for information directly related to their school.” Pontiac bought ads on 50 college sites that are part of CSTV, the CBS-owned cable channel that also operates 250 official college sites. Wachovia bought direct with University of North Carolina and University of Virginia. This is just yet another example of the increasing fragmentation of local online advertising dollars. (WSJ sub. req.)
March 15th, 2007
