MySpace News launches in beta
Here it is, and here’s a write-up on the launch. Tell us what you think below…
3 comments April 19th, 2007
Archive for April, 2007
Chicago Tribune rolls out Triblocal.com
Tribune in Chicago just launched a new hyperlocal site today called Triblocal.com that encourages users to submit stories from nine communities, with more to come. Explains the Tribune, “The site, which will be largely unedited and self-policing, is designed to let citizens and organizations publish their own stories and post everything from high school team photos to favorite restaurant menus.” Triblocal.com also employs four of its own staff reporters to cover stories in those regions, and many of the stories from the site will be reverse-published to print. (Thanks, Marcus!)
21 comments April 19th, 2007
‘The Simpsons’ turn 20
Will Homer will forget his anniversary? “The Simpsons” made their debut as a short on the Tracy Ullman Show twenty years ago this week. As a series, the show was the first real hit for the fledgling Fox network and now is officially the longest-running sitcom in television history.
5 comments April 19th, 2007
MSNBC’s newsbreaker game
I spied the link over at fimoculous and had to scope it out. Part of the “fuller spectrum of news,” newsbreaker is a ye olde paddle controller brickbreaker game harkening the days of Atari 2600 yore. Resplendent with the new “spectrum” color swatch branding, the twist is that as you pop swatches by bouncing the ball around, headlines fall out and as they are caught, they get decked in a rail on the right so you can read them. Ok, yes, I’ve been talking about media companies getting serious about games for a while, but I’ve been talking about serious games. I’m certainly not slighting casual games or even novelty interfaces that gank old skool arcade style such as newsbreaker, but the idea is applying solid factual information and journalistic principles to the power of interactive, virtual space for telling stories in a whole new way. That being said, newsbreaker is something brave, something new, and something worth commenting on after you’ve toyed with it. There’s also a screensaver thing there, but I admit, I’m not ready to commit: Active Desktop Channels and Pointcast burned me so badly I am still not ready for such a relationship, even after all these years.
2 comments April 18th, 2007
Gunman sent package to NBC
In a surprising development, Virginia Tech gunman Cho Seung-Hui mailed NBC News a large package with photos, 27 Quicktime video files and a 1800-word manifesto. MSNBC.com is posting some of the videos and photos. NBC News President Steve Capus said the network received the package Tuesday but didn’t open it until today. And it appears that Cho may have sent it after the first shooting.
The cover on MSNBC.com as of now — the most compelling cover I’ve ever seen on the site. (Thanks, Corey for the tip! I’m blogging from the airport.)
Update: NBC is sharing the video and photos with other news organizations, but with the “NBC News” logo burned in. As of this writing, CBSNews.com, ABCNews.com and CNN.com are all showing the photo — with the NBC News logo — prominently in the top story position. More coverage on TVNewser.
Adds Max in comments: “I’d be curious to see a discussion of what people thought about NBC airing this. To me, giving these rantings air time lends an air of legitimacy to them, something we don’t want to be doing. I also suspect that it may encourage other deranged people who would want their manifestos to reach a global audience.”
46 comments April 18th, 2007
Web 2.0 Expo underway in SF
While traditional broadcasters have been in Vegas, the distruptors and next-genners have been confabbing in San Francisco at the Web 2.0 Expo with the likes of John Battelle, Jeff Bezos and Tim O’Reilly. Of course it’s being liveblogged, and CNET is covering it here.
Add comment April 18th, 2007
Joost is just around the corner
We’ve been blogging about Joost for a while here at lostremote. A site and service that promises to do nothing short of changing the way people watch television is something our readers should definitely be tracking. Here’s a nice big article to dive into that gives a good look at the background and the future plans for Joost’s impending launch later this year.
6 comments April 18th, 2007
Nielsen/NetRatings drops pageviews as ranking metric
You’ve heard it here at LR for a long time: pageviews are a lousy metric. Web readership is distributed via RSS, and with the way pages are designed and updated now with AJAX and other technologies, websites are no longer about the pageviews. We mentioned this as recently as yesterday at the LR panel at RTNDA@NAB. In the Wall Street Journal today (paid sub. req.) we learn that Nielsen/NetRatings is dropping pageviews as a metric for ranking sites and will go with time spent on a site instead. Still, this isn’t the right metric, as my partner Terry Heaton points out in the AR&D newsletter:
Nielsen’s assertion that time spent is a better metric is also going to be a problem, and I think what we’ll eventually wind up with will some sort of regular visitor count, and that advertisers will buy visitors in the same way they now buy ratings. Time spent is unreliable, because it assumes people open and close sites as they browse along the web. This is not necessarily the case anymore, because people can move content to their own browser via RSS. Also, not everybody closes out a session when they’re done, and that means it will appear people are “on site” when actually they’re not.
Just when we think we understand the dynamics of the web, everything changes. The metrics of sales have changed, and that’s a difficult concept to wrap your head around. It’s even more difficult for advertisers to understand because we’ve trained them in “the large number.” We need to understand the specific visitors to our niche sites to maximize our revenue instead.
9 comments April 18th, 2007
Our rebellious presentation: ‘Tear up your website’
Broadcasting & Cable has a short write-up on our Lost Remote panel session yesterday with the headline, “Tear up your website.” Well, it didn’t seem like we were so rebellious at the time, but we didn’t pull any punches. Our major points:
1. The web is not TV, so stopping treating it like TV. Put smart web people in charge of your websites and online strategies.
2. Expand beyond news, weather and traffic to local information niches with new sites and new brands. Do it fast before the pure plays beat you to it.
3. Start producing original video that’s tailored to the web. Repurposing video from TV is only the first of many steps.
4. Aggregate, don’t just produce content. Reach out to bloggers in your market, aggregate them and empower them.
5. Launch small. Expand it if it’s successful, and pull it down if it’s not working. Don’t fear failure. Foster experimentation.
We’ll be posting some examples from the presentation over the next several days.
7 comments April 18th, 2007
MTV unveils new strategy to attract teens
In a new direction, MTV says it’s aiming to become a multitasking hub for teens with an emphasis on user-created content. “We can either stay in the mass business,” said MTV group president Brian Graden, “or we can be in the hyper-specialty business where the shows may not have broad appeal but in the Digital Age would better engage our viewers.” TRL will get a complete overhaul this summer with user participation, and “a good number of the videos in rotation” will have the viewers’ thumbprints on them (but he doesn’t reveal how). “It’s all kind of radical,” he says.
2 comments April 18th, 2007
Virginia Tech student newspaper’s multimedia coverage
The Collegiate Times, the student newspaper at Virginia Tech, has been covering the shootings using the very model of online reporting. It has blog-style reports as confusion still reigns amid false alarms, video of the scene on campus, a Flash picture gallery, opinion and many other features. These are students - in the middle of the story, who could be forgiven for putting all student projects on hold. Yet there they are - creating professional-quality journalism.
3 comments April 18th, 2007
Blackberry service crashes, now back
I was wondering why the time stamp on all my Blackberry emails were funky this morning, and it turns out that Blackberry service crashed overnight.
Add comment April 18th, 2007
Study: Media execs worry about user content
Media executives who participated in an Accenture study revealed that user-created content is “one of the biggest threats to their business.” More than half of the respondents (57 percent) call it one of the top three challenges they face today, but 68 percent say they believe they’ll be making money off user content within three years. (I would suggest, of course, that media executives look to user content as an opportunity, not a threat.) Press release with a few more stats…
Read the full post 3 comments April 18th, 2007
NAB has big year, attendance up
According to a press release from the NAB, the initial headcount shows attendance at the 2007 convention was up over 2006, and there were a record number of international attendees. There was, however, a decline in the number of news media attendees. By the numbers: Overall attendees - 2007: 108,232 (2006: 105,046); International attendees - 2007: 26,824 (2006 - 25,537); News media attendees - 2007: 1,214 (2006: 1,294). These are preliminary numbers based upon pre-show and on-site registration numbers, and the NAB will release the final tally after the show.
2 comments April 17th, 2007
Advice from Google-YouTube
David Eun, who heads up content partnerships for Google, took the stage at NAB to show off some of YouTube’s successes. The room was packed — standing room only — as he ran through YouTube’s feature set. Sure, he’s talking about broadcasting’s nemesis, but Eun gave some great advice. “It’s not about holding people hostage on your website,” he said. Web 2.0 is about sharing, openness and ubiquity. “YouTube is more than a destination.” He showed a long tail graph. “It’s not a question of whether I find particular content appealing, the question is will someone else?” And he adds, “Just as there’s a long tail of content, there’s a long tail of advertisers.” (A great point that many broadcasters still don’t understand.) He said that YouTube is focused on two customer touch points — video search and upload — and user experience is key to their success. As for traffic, “YouTube is well over, WELL OVER, 100 million clips a day,” he said. “This is the first time that media has become truly democratic.” All through Eun’s presentation, as you might expect, he reached out to content providers. “We want content providers to have control,” he said. “We see the glass half full.” As Eun’s boss, Eric Schmidt, said yesterday, YouTube’s “Claim Your Content” technology is slated to launch “very soon” that would automatically block unapproved copyrighted content from appearing.
2 comments April 17th, 2007
AP Online Video Network adds local content uploads
AP rolled out a new release of its Online Video Network (OVN) here at NAB that now allows local affiliates to upload their own video. “Affiliates can now add their own content, maintaining full editorial control and more than twice the current advertising revenue share” said Robert Aitken, Product Manager, AP Broadcast. “We’re also very excited because the potential of having 1,600 affiliates contributing local news content positions us very well for syndication, another new feature which is part of our product expansion plan for this summer.” OVN averages 200 million views a month. Full release follows below…
Read the full post 10 comments April 17th, 2007
AOL launching new programming as transition continues
AOL jumped the TV upfront gun to announce a number of high profile convergence/crossover content deals with the likes of Dreamworks, Survivor producer Mark Burnett, and Ellen Degeneres as it continues moving the focus from the ISP business to free broadband content destination. “This is really AOL’s coming out party as an advertising-supported broadband online service,” said AOL Chief Executive Randy Falco. Time Warners shares have been improving since AOL’s strategy shift. Fourth-quarter ad sales rose 49 percent to nearly $2 billion. AOL claims it reaches about 89 percent of web users.
Add comment April 17th, 2007
Time Warner to explore reducing cable stake
This story in the WSJ is the fodder of many conversations here at NAB. Some senior execs inside Time Warner “wonder whether the company wouldn’t be better off if it were to get out of cable and double down on the web — where it already owns AOL — by buying another major internet company.” While getting completely out of cable is a long shot, the idea of beefing up on the web is certainly a good idea, if you ask me. (Paid sub. req.)
Add comment April 17th, 2007
LR panel at RTNDA@NAB draws record turnout
Thank you all who came to the Lost Remote panel at RTNDA@NAB. I counted about 115 people in the audience. Back a few years ago when we started this deal, we had about 25 people attend. It grows every year, and so does the passion for convergence in media. We had terrific questions and people who challenged us. And, Cory was relieved to notice, I didn’t start any fights. On behalf of Cory and Stephen - Thanks, LR Faithful.
Update from Cory: And thanks to everyone who attended our meetup tonight. It was great to see all of you. Remember, keep the faith!
Add comment April 17th, 2007
MSNBC.com sets traffic record, launches blog
On Monday with the Virginia Tech shooting, MSNBC.com says it set a new all-time record with 15.3 million unique users in a single day, a 37-percent increase over its previous record high with Katrina. The site also logged 10 million video streams — another site record. MSNBC.com says it surpassed CNN.com in streams served for the day.
Also, MSNBC.com launched a blog dedicated to covering the shooting, On The Scene. Four MSNBC.com staffers are on the ground in Blacksburg covering the story.
12 comments April 17th, 2007
Attacking and defending the VJ model
The moment you start talking about VJs, you’re bound to hear some people in the audience attack. It’s expected. There’s a threat to an old model here, and those who have made their career from that model now have a bag of questions and statements to put down the new tech. That’s what happened at the panel called “The New VJs: One-Man Bands or The Future of Newsgathering?” As soon as the floor was opened for questions, the attack of the reporters came: “VJ stories suck! The lighting sucks! They’re a joke! They can’t report!” Someone jumped up and yelled “Show us examples! Why won’t you show us examples.” So they did. And the audience liked the examples.
Read the full post 42 comments April 17th, 2007
WKRN GM: Blogs account for 40 percent of traffic
Mike Sechrist, GM of WKRN in Nashville, revealed some interesting stats here at NAB-RTNDA on his station’s success with launching 23 blogs on their own domains. “Our traffic has grown phenomenally. 60 percent of our traffic is WKRN and 40 percent is the blogs,” he said. NashvilleisTalking — which aggregates content from 435 local blogs — averages 5,000 unique visitors a day (yesterday the number hit 9,000 due to the Virginia shooting). And what about revenue? “We’re making more money this year than we’ve ever made,” Sechrist said. “And it’s from the pre-rolls on the videos.” He said WKRN is averaging 600,000 videos played a month, and much of that success is due to video’s exposure on the blogs (although he admits a reluctance to push too many ads to the blogs themselves.) But beyond money, Sechrist says “a lot of (our users) are never going to watch us on TV, but they’ll come to us on the web when something big happens. We have a relationship now.”
8 comments April 17th, 2007
