Terry Heaton points out a great quote from a senior Google exec:
“(Google) accepts that some projects will never have an associated revenue stream.”
A Microsoft biz dev manager told me something similar a few months ago, much to my surprise. What a concept! Media companies these days are up against the gun to create new digital products that drive revenue, but as Heaton explains, “Revenue isn’t the problem; audience is the problem. And we need to fix the problem.” So how do you do that? Empower a few smart web people in your company to conceptualize, build and launch cool stuff that users will like. Do this independently of your existing product development team, which is scrambling to keep your core products competitive (and is reacting to short-term revenue opportunities). Give this new team the time, resources and technology they need, without the influence of television thinking. The revenue will follow. And at the heart of all this is finding the smart web people in the first place. If you need a refresher on the urgency for local TV to do this, read this and this.
Ok, both movies are a little moldy, but this mashup is very well done. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a mashup of 300’s audio with Anchorman’s video…
With decent syndicated shows on the decline and the networks increasingly offering their shows around the affiliates, local TV stations are ramping up their own local programming. Hearst Argyle, Fox, Meredith and NBCU are developing new shows for their stations and experimenting with web and mobile components. For example, we’ve told you about Meredith’s Better TV — a dual broadcast-broadband play that features talent and content from its lifestyle magazines. In just a few months, Better TV is pulling stronger ratings than most daytime syndicated shows that air in the Meredith markets.
GasBuddy.com expects to hit a record 4 million unique visitors in a single day. Beyond a list of the cheapest gas prices (updated every 48 hours or less by a user network), the site features map mashups of gas prices (below), as well as a popular feature that allows to you text a zip code from your mobile phone and it will respond with the cheapest nearby gas stations. GasPriceWatch.com has also seen a surge in traffic.
A screen grab from SeattleGasPrices, a GasBuddy site.
The New York Times embeds videos of some user-generated ads for a Heinz Ketchup contest in this piece, along with quotes from ad executives who, unsurprisingly, mock the quality of the content.
“These are just so bad,” said Linda Kaplan Thaler, chief executive of the Kaplan Thaler Group, and advertising agency in New York…
As opposed to the ads on television? Ms. Kaplan Thaler goes on to mock the regular people who appear in the ads, pointing out one man’s less-than-perfect teeth. Because everyone should be gorgeous in ads, of course.
Scott Goodson, chief executive of StrawberryFrog, an advertising agency in New York, said the shortcomings of contest entries… refuted predictions that user-generated content might siphon work away from agencies.
Like coming up with a better name for an agency than one that sounds like a psychedelic ’60s band? Ad execs - like news execs before them - miss the point of user-generated content. It’s not supposed to steal from the existing content. It’s supposed to add to it. Any time you can get your most passionate consumers to work for you and help spread the word, that’s good. Write our friends Ben and Jackie at the Church of the Customer: “Don’t be surprised if the pitch for this particular story came from the agency owner who’s quoted in this piece.”
Crack news dev Adrian Holovaty is leaving WashingtonPost.com to work on Everyblock, his new startup that’s described as a “hyperlocal website that aggregates an unprecedented depth and breadth of public records, mainstream news sources, photographs, blogs and user-contributed information.” To help him get started, Holovaty won a $1.1 million grant from the Knight Foundation. Lots of folks will be keeping an eye on this one. (Via Fimoculous).
Just before the 11 p.m. newscast last night, a light exploded in WABC’s news studio, setting a curtain on fire and flooding the building with smoke. “As soon as and we said we got a fire going, all of the sudden, it went boom and the whole thing,” said cameraman Lou Torellas. “I looked at the back of the set, there must have been 10 to 15-foot flames flying up to the ceiling.” The staff quickly evacuated, and WABC went off the air for two hours until it was able to patch into the West Coast feed. The staff was allowed back in the building at 2 a.m. to discover “extensive damage” to its new high-definition set and some equipment, yet they were able to scramble a newscast on the air beginning at 5 a.m. Lots of photos and video on WABC’s site here, and ThousandRobots.com has a screen shot of WABC’s air during the outage. (Thanks, ADM!)
After a horrible perfomance in the May book and a last-place finish, NBC is considering replacing Kevin O’Reilly, the network’s programming chief. One of his possible replacements is independent producer Ben Silverman who delivered The Office and The Biggest Loser to NBC.
Just before the 11 p.m. newscast last night, a light exploded in WABC’s news studio, setting a curtain on fire and flooding the building with smoke. “As soon as and we said we got a fire going, all of the sudden, it went boom and the whole thing,” said cameraman Lou Torellas. “I looked at the back of the set, there must have been 10 to 15-foot flames flying up to the ceiling.” The staff quickly evacuated, and WABC went off the air for two hours until it was able to patch into the West Coast feed. The staff was allowed back in the building at 2 a.m. to discover “extensive damage” to its new high-definition set and some equipment, yet they were able to scramble a newscast on the air beginning at 5 a.m. Lots of photos and video on 
