Comedy Central serious about Colbert run
Well, at least serious enough to have the lawyers look into it. Meanwhile today, Colbert has surpassed the 1 million friends mark on his “1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T. Colbert” Facebook group. So who’s behind this strategic effort to engage potential voters? A 16-year-old high school student named Raj. Now there’s even a poll suggesting [...]
AP approves pricing changes
You’ll remember Cory’s post from last month in which he asked if it’s time to rethink the AP model. Well today the board changed the pricing structure to reduce the fees for print customers, and in some instances sell stories individually. According to an AP article (go figure), Tom Brettingen, the AP’s senior vice president [...]
FCC commissioner wants News Corp. inquiry
In a move that could complicate News Corp’s purchase of the Wall Street Journal, Democratic FCC commissioner Michael Copps wrote a letter to FCC chairman Kevin Martin asking him to investigate the deal. According to Broadcasting & Cable, Copps said he is concerned that the $5.6 billion combination would result in control of a network [...]
MICROSOFT BUYS STAKE IN FACEBOOK
Microsoft beat out Google to buy a small stake ($240 million, which works out to 1.6 percent) in Facebook. Note that this is a much smaller stake than the previously rumored conversations which put the number in the 5-10 percent range. Microsoft’s ad deal with Facebook will expand to an exclusive arrangement for third-party ads, [...]
RTNDA creates fire message board
Broadcasters covering the fires in Southern California can connect up on a new RTNDA message board dedicated to the story. “If you are a news manager or reporter who needs something … or a freelancer who has services to offer … or a news manager with advice to share … or you need to reach [...]
California fire maps on Google
This Google map is incredible, and even Google is highlighting it on their blogs. Radio station KPBS built this map using Google as part of their tools for telling the story. There are other maps out there, but this is the most complete map I’ve seen. Nice work.
Create a YouTube channel for fire footage
It’s simple enough to put together a channel on YouTube of user-generated videos. We did it in about five minutes. You’ll need a YouTube account. Go to Youtube.com/my_account and you’ll see a section on the lower right for custom players. Put together a playlist first, and then you will be able to skin your playlist [...]
Suggestion: Create custom RSS feeds for wildfires
Local media sites in Southern California would be doing a tremendous service if they went one step further with their RSS feeds and created a few custom feeds just for stories about the wildfires in their areas. I know there are feeds for different county news stories, but a fire-specific feed would be an invaluable [...]
Users sending in photos, video in fire story
It goes without saying that a massive story like the California fires generates plenty of user content. CNN I-Report and MSNBC First Person are seeing the most submissions (at least with my unofficial count), and ABCNews.com’s i-Caught and FoxNews.com uReport are asking for user photos and video, too. And not just TV — NYTimes.com is [...]
Network, local TV crews pull out all the stops in SoCal
Brian Williams, Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, Matt Lauer, Anderson Cooper and Chris Cuomo are among the network news heavyweights in Southern California for the fire, reports Broadcasting & Cable. More details on the network news front on TVNewser here. And local TV stations are blowing out regular programming to the tune of hundreds of thousands [...]
The importance of a breaking news design
I’ve been watching how the newspaper and TV sites cover the fires in Southern California, and it’s become very clear that some TV sites are having difficulty showcasing their content. For example, look at 10News.com and KNBC.com, to name a couple. Their standard templates, in my humble opinion, are restricting their coverage on the home [...]
SignonSanDiego.com crashes, recovers
San Diego Union-Tribune’s site is down right now, although it’s fire blog (hosted elsewhere) is working just fine for the time being (it crashed yesterday.) Update: 15 minutes later, it’s back online
Twittering the California fire
We mentioned yesterday that LAFD was Twittering the fires, and now there’s the LATimes, San Diego’s PBS station KPBS and a blogger named Nate Ritter, among others. Since many of these are tagged, Twitter users can enter “track sandiegofire” in SMS or IM and receive notifications whenever a tweet goes out with that tag in [...]
California fires: reporter watches house burn down
I’m not sure I’ve seen a more heart-wrenching video as this reporter from KFMB CBS 8 in San Diego reported as his house was burning down in front of him.
Rockies online World Series ticket sales system crashes
Count me among those probably responsible for bringing the sale of World Series tickets for the games at Colorado to a crashing halt. The club put the seats on sale at 10 am MT Monday, and under the weight of 8.5 million requests, the system stopped faster than a Yankees rally. According to a statement [...]
California fires: Live streams, links and online coverage
Updating: With over a quarter-million people asked to evacuate as flames approach, San Diego’s CBS8.com has blown out its home page with critical resources and a blog. 10News.com and NBCSanDiego are streaming live coverage. SignonSanDiego.com, powered by the Union-Tribune, is webcasting wall-to-wall on its new online radio station (although it’s a little light on information [...]
Briefs: Colbert, smaller prime, Moonves, Napster
- Colbert’s pres. might raise FEC issues – TV networks quietly shrinking primetime schedules – Moonves’ new deal tied to CBS’ performance – AT&T to offer mobile Napster downloads
Minisode Network to grow
In June, we told you about the Minisode Network – which cuts down classic sit-coms from their original 22-minute or so length to less than five minutes. Now, Sony is getting ready to expand the network beyond its original MySpace home, to AOL, Joost and Crackle, according to Reuters.
Want a reality TV crew in your newsroom?
TV Guide Network has narrowed down six stations for the next season of Making News. So who would do such a thing? Well, KOSA in Midland, TX was featured last season (pictured), and GM Barry Marks said it was a good experience. “I think the emotional connection between the newsroom and the buyer brought in [...]
How much traffic? Depends who you ask
NYTimes.com has a good story on the continuing conundrum behind accurately measuring online traffic. For example, Style.com says 1.8 million unique users visited the site last month. Comscore said it was 421,000. And Nielsen-Netratings say it was 497,000. “It’s interesting that people keep talking about (the internet) as much more accountable than other media, but [...]
