Archive for September 19th, 2007
NBC announces that they will start beta testing free program downloads in October that will allow users to watch shows for free on their computer for up to one week after it is broadcast for free. The free shows at launch will include “Heroes,” “The Office,” “Life,” “Bionic Woman,” “30 Rock,” “Friday Night Lights,” “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” and “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” Did I mention they are free? The NBC Direct service will even let users subscribe to shows and have the episodes downloaded as soon as they are available, for free. Mac support and portable player support will be included in future phases. Wow, I want in the beta. Press release after the jump.
Read the full post September 19th, 2007
The term blog is used a lot in our industry by people who want you to think they’re blogging, but they only post once a day or less. Well, FoxNews.com is blowing away other networks’ blogs with their new GretaWire.com blog. It’s a great look at the behind the scenes of the O.J. Simpson trial. Greta is posting frequently with photos, videos and information that isn’t going to make air. She’s even blogged from inside the courtroom. Excellent work by her and her producers in the field.
September 19th, 2007
Business 2.0 magazine is shutting down, and Mark Glaser at MediaShift points out that the reason is because parent company Time Inc. took a decidely 1.0 approach to things. By combining the sales forces for Fortune, Money, Business 2.0, Fortune Small Business and CNNMoney.com, Time Inc. ironically sank the revenue for all.
September 19th, 2007
Rather says the network violated his contract by not giving him enough face-time on 60 Minutes after forcing him to step down from the Evening News anchor desk. In the 32-page filing, he also says CBS “seriously damanged his reputation” and made him “a scapegoat” in an attempt “to pacify the White House.”
September 19th, 2007
I’ve noticed here in Seattle (according to Comscore data) that KIROTV.com — which is one of the many Internet Broadcasting affiliates participating in the new linking partnership with CNN.com — has experienced a big boost in unique users. Of course, most of these incoming uniques are originating from outside the local market. I’ve also heard from a few other IB sites that have experienced the same CNN boost. Of course, this raises all sorts of interesting questions about the value of a local unique user compared to a national unique user. But in the end, impressions are impressions, right? Or are they? I’ll leave others in comments to discuss… (Big disclosure: I work for KING5.com, a competitor of KIROTV.com.)
September 19th, 2007
RPM Communications out of Maynard, MA launched Utterz this week. It’s a new mobile voice blogging service. You call a number, record your message, and then it gets posted to the web! You can also send texts and pics from your phone too. They also provide an embed code, so you can feature your audio clips on your website or blog. Radio stations should be all over this. It’s free, easy to implement, and gives you a social networking strategy that makes sense for radio.
September 19th, 2007
I love Google News. Let me start with that. Love it. I love that it sends traffic to my site, and I love that it makes it easy to find news stories. But it frustrates me. The new AP deal makes it even more frustrating.
We have a trio of peacocks living at my apartment complex. So I wrote a feature and took some pictures. It did great traffic online yesterday. We try to do these online-only enterprised stories several times each week. The peacock story was picked up by the wire. That doesn’t bug me. The story appeared on the other news sites in the market. That doesn’t bug me. But when I did my morning search for Boise - the much shorter, Google AP version of our peacock story comes up first. THAT bugs me. I get that the Google algorithm puts more weight on “The Associated Press” than it does on KTVB. But the fact that it puts SO much weight on AP over a story that has about three times the depth… and includes photos bugs me. TV sites like ours benefit greatly from the AP - but NONE of that benefit comes from Google. They can’t “associate” because they don’t create content. So like I said: AP great, Google great. The combination? Frustrating.
September 19th, 2007
CBS Radio will again be streaming a live video webcast from a red carpet. This time it’s a season premiere party in Hollywood. Back in June CBS Radio did a “Live from the Web Carpet” at the premiere of Transformers and Bourne Ultimatum. The new part this time is the boost the show is getting from cbs.com, which will be linking to the stream. I would expect CBS’ Showbuzz to link to it as well. Catch the program tonight (Sept 19) on webcarpetlive.com starting at 8 PM, PT /11PM, ET.
September 19th, 2007
