Archive for April 21st, 2008
TeachStreet.com is a free online directory of 25,000 teachers, coaches and other educators in the Seattle area. Want to find a yoga class? There are 984 of ‘em. “We look at it as a little bit of a Yelp, a little bit of a Meetup and a little bit of a Craigslist, essentialy trying to address the needs of individual teachers and trainers and schools,” said founder Dave Schappell (he’s a former Amazon.com and JibJab employee who got the idea when he had trouble finding a motorcycle class.) And with $2.5 million in funding, it plans to expand to other cities soon. Smart idea, and yet another example of a web-forward local content site that’s not owned by a media company.
April 21st, 2008
While ABC News has linked up with Facebook for election coverage, NBC News and MSNBC.com have teamed with News Corp’s MySpace on a Decision ‘08 section. Check election data state-by-state, watch video and become a friend. You can also browse MySpace profiles for Brian Williams, Tim Russert, Chris Matthews and more. So why isn’t Fox News — owned by News Corp — powering the section? “We work with companies that are in family and out of family all the time,” said Lee Brenner, executive producer of political programming at MySpace.
April 21st, 2008
Did you see this one? Woo hoo! Drinks are on me…
(While you can tweak the headlines, it won’t let you buy the shirt.)
April 21st, 2008
We posted about this show about a year ago when it launched, but KARE OnLIVE is dead. The show promised to be interactive and live on-air and online, at 4PM. I never really understood how a TV show aimed at stay-at-home moms would attract an online audience at 4PM. I often saw segments that were clearly produced for home viewers, with the only interactive part being e-mail comments read by a secondary-talent (not even the main show talent).
The show started off with a good mission statement, it’s just too bad it wasn’t able to evolve into a new voice in a crowded market of also-run newscasts.
On a side note, today KSTP launched Twin Cities Live, a new daytime talk show. They have produced a nice website, but there isn’t a forced interactivity on-air. The show is a show, and the site is a site.
What do you all think? Is there a way to produce a live simulcast that can appeal to both audiences? In my experiences the viewers on both mediums are rarely the same, with the exception of sports. But if you’re trying to do daytime TV and daytime web, is there overlap?
April 21st, 2008
Poynter’s Al Tompkins shot a bunch of video at NAB-RTNDA, and now he posts a clip explaining how he did it all. Al shot on a Flip cam, edited on his Mac Book and posted on YouTube. But he reveals the secret of his smooth standups: he shot ‘em with his laptop’s webcam using a program that also rolls a prompter for him at the same time. Watch here.
April 21st, 2008
People either love or hate CNN.com headlines. They’re short, witty and funny. Some say they’re sensational. In fact, there’s even a website dedicated to “a hilarious collection of CNN’s often ridiculous headlines.” Well, now CNN.com is letting you take some of your favorites and put ‘em on your own T-shirt. Yup, just go to CNN.com’s home page and take a look at the list of headlines:
See the little T-shirt logos next to a few of them? I’m clickin’ the DUI one.
And viola! There’s your headline shirt for $15 bucks, with $5 shipping. Sooo… is this a brilliant marketing strategy? Will it sell lots of T-shirts? Will it “soften” CNN.com’s image because most people will buy and wear the craziest CNN.com headlines? Do tell in comments…
April 21st, 2008
Many news organizations, like Hearst, Gannett and Sports Illustrated, have refused to adhere to Major League Baseball’s new photo and video restrictions. “From our perspective, any arbitrary restrictions on how we use our intellectual property for news coverage is not acceptable,” said Phil Bronstein, editor at large for Hearst. The MLB has agreed to change one rule: the limit in photo slide shows has shifted from seven photos to a “reasonable” amount. Meawhile, sports teams are struggling with the definition of a sports “blogger,” and whether that person should be allowed into the locker room, for example.
April 21st, 2008
NBC News has teamed with the New York Film Academy to promote a digital journalism and broadcasting program. Students will shoot, write and edit short and longer-form stories, as well as maintain a video blog. Beyond promotion, NBC provides some of the speakers as well, and the network gets a cut of the $35,366/student tuition. I love that NBC is getting proactive on the education side of the personnel pipeline, yet some criticize that the program’s promotion infers that students will end up getting hired at NBC. Watch the video here.
April 21st, 2008
