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Here we go, the Writers Guild of America’s contract has expired, but at this writing it’s unclear if the union writers will walk off the job. Here’s Variety’s coverage.
The Wall Street Journal breaks down how the value of TV content on DVDs and the internet has been a big issue in negotiations (WSJ sub. req.)
1 comment October 31st, 2007
We’re passing around the candy here at One LR and, mercifully, none of these are in the bowl. Wired is taking reader votes and suggestions for the most horrible, gross, disgusting candy found online. Some leading contenders: Lick Your Wounds (”Pick it, lick it, eat it!”), Box of Boogers, and Cockroach Cluster. (What - no Crunchy Frog?)
2 comments October 31st, 2007
As teased earlier, Google has just announced a way for developers to build social applications that span more than one social network. It’s called OpenSocial, but it doesn’t work on Facebook or MySpace… yet. So what’s left? Orkut, LinkedIn, hi5, iLike, Slide, Ning, Friendster, and Plaxo.
Oh yeah, and Google’s stock hit $700 today, up 52 percent for the year so far.
5 comments October 31st, 2007
Every NBA game broadcast on ESPN and ESPN2 will be streamed live on ESPN360.com, which is available for free for people who subscribe to a participating broadband service (Verizon). Of course, this raises questions for cable operators who are paying big fees to ESPN for content that now in part is simulcast on the internet. But ESPN is ESPN, and the sports network carries a ton of leverage in cable negotiations.
7 comments October 31st, 2007
A couple pulled into KRIV-TV’s parking lot after getting stuck in traffic on the way to the hospital, and mom gave birth to baby boy. “All of us were busy working on the morning news when the call came back to the newsroom and we all scattered,” reads the blog on MyFoxHouston. “Everyone started gathering newspapers, plastic and towels to help but the paramedics were already there and had things well in hand.” Of course, the station is now asking for ideas to name the baby (which already has a name, by the way.)
5 comments October 31st, 2007
Reuters did this a long time ago, and now CNN is opening a bureau and a bunch of kiosks in Second Life in an effort to solicit more user content for iReport. Just about everyone I know who created an avatar on Second Life have moved on, but I think virtual spaces have tremendous merit as the technology improves — especially if merged with Facebook or an Xbox Live environment.
7 comments October 31st, 2007
The real estate blog network Curbed.com — which is already in SF, NY and LA — just took in $1.5 million in financing to add staff and expand to other cities. Among the investors? Nick Denton and Gawker Media. “We’re not just about real estate,” said Curbed Publisher Lockhart Steele. “People come to the site to talk about their neighborhoods and about life in the city.” Of course, this is a perfect platform for local real estate advertisers, especially condos — which is a lucrative market space right now.
Also, Zillow announced today a very innovative way to match advertisers at a granular level with home buyers and sellers. Keep an eye on this, folks.
1 comment October 30th, 2007
MySpace announced its first significant design change in four years, and social networking blog Mashable isn’t very polite about it: “In short, most of these changes are way too little, way too late, and reek of too many chefs in the kitchen. While there are plenty of new features for the homepage, they are poorly arranged and will take users plenty of getting used to, especially when there have been zero updates in four years.”
Compare MySpace’s limited progress with Facebook’s amazing transformation. Since News Corp. bought MySpace, we’ve seen very few new features developed for users, but plenty for advertisers and promoters. Facebook is smart to remain independent and retain its singular spirit of user-focused innovation. In the end, guess who will come out ahead?
5 comments October 30th, 2007
The NBC-News Corp. video joint venture Hulu.com launched in private beta, and just I toured the new site. Out of the gate, the first thing you’ll notice is the clean, theater-like design. Very sharp.
I clicked to play a Heroes episode, and it loaded and played quickly. (I received an “application error” on a couple other clips I attempted to play, but I’ll chalk that up to the beta experience.)
Mouse over the player (shown above) and you get the usual controls, but also some cool additions. The “embed” function allows you to set in and out points, so you can embed just a selected chunk of a video clip on your blog. “Lower lights” dims the whitespace around the player to dark gray. “Feedback” lets you alert Hulu to an inappropriate clip or technical problems. And “Pop out” turns the video player into a pop-up. On the full-screen mode, the video quality was sharp without stuttering (480kbps or 700kbps depending on your bandwidth.) You can leave comments under the player.
No ads served on the clips that I watched, but Hulu will display a variety of ad formats, from video to banners to text to overlays. The idea is to adjust the amount of advertising to the length of the clip. But in the end, of course, the ads will be much less intrusive and not as lengthy as TV.
Hulu divided the video pages into popular episodes, popular clips and browse titles. Each have the ability to sort in a variety of fashions. Again, very clean presentation, and there are a surprising number of TV shows available at launch (Hulu just added Sony Pictures Television and MGM to its list of content partners). In the browse titles mode, Hulu will tell you if a particular show is “on air” — not actually on the air right now, but in season. Also, you can click to add clips to your playlist.
On the profile page, you can upload a photo, track your reviews (comments) and see your most recent clips you’ve viewed, which are also available in a custom RSS feed. There’s also a spot for your own video uploads, but it looks like that feature is not live as of yet.
All in all, Hulu is a very slick video presentation site with a good variety of TV shows to start. I’d rather watch a NBC or Fox show on Hulu than the respective networks’ sites — Hulu’s user experience is better, and everything loads and plays very quickly. Beyond that, Hulu is lacking user uploads, downloads and social networking — which I imagine is on the development board — so in the meantime it’s a great place to watch TV shows, but that’s about that. Any other reviews from beta testers out there?
19 comments October 29th, 2007
When Apple wouldn’t go for NBC’s proposed $2.99 a download for its shows on iTunes, NBC CEO Jeff Zucker suggested they give up a cut of iPod sales. “Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money,” Zucker said. “They did not want to share in what they were making off the hardware or allow us to adjust pricing.” Hmmm, no wonder the negotiations blew up. “NBC’s Jeff Zucker has got serious stones,” blogs CNET’s Tom Krazit.
5 comments October 29th, 2007
Code-named MakaMaka, Google’s plan is to build a social layer across all of its applications. And in a unique twist, TechCrunch reports that Google would create two-way APIs that would allow websites to embed Google’s own social networking functionality. That would be very interesting, so keep an eye on this one.
1 comment October 29th, 2007
Gannett and Tribune are forming a joint venture around Metromix.com, the city guide destination launched by Tribune years ago. The goal is to expand the guides (in seven Tribune markets right now) to 30 markets in the coming months and 40 markets by the end of 2008. Metromix will explore media partnerships to fill out the gaps. “With this partnership we can grow Metromix into a true national brand, adding value for advertisers who want to reach a highly desirable demographic,” said Tim Landon, Tribune Interactive president. Press release below…
Read the full post 3 comments October 29th, 2007
Few links from Lost Remote readers (pitch ‘em here) to share today:
- Sure it’s cool, but is Current TV attracting an audience? (Thanks, Joe!)
- PrompterMonkey.com shares bad writing and “outlandish scripts” (Thanks, Barbara!)
- WTVD now has a SUV that can pipe back live video on the web (Thanks, Chris!)
4 comments October 29th, 2007
MSNBC.com and NBCSports.com today announced they would team up to provide sports content on a single, unified platform - and will also pool ad sales efforts. “The multiyear agreement makes NBCSports.com the official sports channel of MSNBC.com and NBC Sports,” according to the release. Before the launch of NBCSports last year, that URL pointed to MSNBC.com’s sports section. NBCSports.com is already doing some linking to MSNBC.com and vice versa - but MediaWeek says a relaunch of the combined sites will come before the Super Bowl in January. NBC Sports is a unit of NBC Universal, while MSNBC.com is a joint venture of NBCU and Microsoft.
2 comments October 29th, 2007
The NBC Universal/News Corp. joint venture “Hulu” is up and running for users who got the private beta invite (nothing in the mail yet over here at the LR Boise bureau). Since we’re still waiting for our ticket to the party, we’ll lean on the TechCrunch blog, which has a great write-up and dozens of screen shots. Also, here’s a list of the shows available on the service from 24 to WKRP.
UPDATE:TechCrunch also points out you can embed videos, even without an invite to the beta show - though the default width is 520px, too wide for the LR content well - making the adjusted results a bit funky:
17 comments October 28th, 2007
I’m not making this up. Radar Magazine has posted a quiz that pokes fun at the cable news industry and the sudden abundance of hot anchors. You may have heard about Radar when they fabricated presidential candidates in sexually suggestive poses. Go ahead and test your knowledge. (Via TVNewser)
5 comments October 26th, 2007
This is stunning. On Tuesday, FEMA gave reporters a 15-minute notice that it was throwing a press conference about its response to the California fires. How it improved since Katrina. Because of the late notice, reporters called in to a conference pool, but there were also people in the audience who asked questions to the man at the podium, Deputy Administrator Harvey Johnson. Questions like, “Are you happy with FEMA’s response so far?” Turns out, the people in the audience were FEMA’s own public affairs personnel!
After getting ripped online for the stunt — even the White House had some choice words — FEMA apologized today, asking reporters not to focus on this massive breach of trust but on all the good work it’s doing in Southern California. So I have a question. Why should we believe anything you say now? (Thanks, Tim!)
10 comments October 26th, 2007
Anyone who’s worked in local TV news knows that tracking a fire’s progress on a map is a very difficult proposition. First, fires are fickle. Second, the information is usually not readily available. Now multiply this by a bunch of fires with massive evacuations and 24/7 live coverage, and maintaining accurate fire maps is extremely difficult.
But San Diego is a great case study: how maps can be more important than live aerials, and how the web can help. Here’s what one person had to say about the TV coverage there: “My home may be on fire. I cannot get through on 211 (fire information line). After trying several websites, not one of them would load…. I resorted to calling the newsroom of EACH TV outlet. I pleaded with them to put up a map. I saw a freeway map depicting little flames at several points…. I explained that while talking heads in front of ferocious flames made for great television, what the public needed was INFORMATION…. Where were the maps? Please tell me that you didn’t unload $750,000 for a graphics system that can’t do maps!… Finally, after two or three days, we saw newsreaders holding up Thomas Brothers guides, and pointing with their fingers to affected areas.”
In this story, maps are more important than live chopper aerials. The scale of the fires was simply too extreme for chopper aerials to provide meaningful information. But all the stations went out of their way to pool chopper resources. One San Diego resident suggests that TV stations pool their map resources. “Create a ‘war room’ with MAPS. Keep the maps up-to-date as you can: active fire lines, firefighting unit deployment, evacuation areas, wind directions and speeds. SHOW THE MAPS.”
What a great idea. The LA Times and KPBS did just that online by creating Google Maps that could be distributed anywhere. (Google even highlighted both of them on its main Maps page.) Pooling this is easy since you could have multiple contributors coordinating updates on a single Google map. Then you display the map live, on the air, zooming from fire to fire, street to street. (Google has TV licensing agreements, but I’m sure in this case Google wouldn’t have minded if San Diego stations put them on the air without an agreement.) Here at KING, we have a deal to use Microsoft’s Live Maps on our air.
In short, maps and the visual depiction of data on TV is a critical component of breaking news coverage, and it’s best organized if the same mapping can be ported to the web and updated automatically. Many times, it’s even more important than good video.
7 comments October 26th, 2007
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