Fwix inks deal with New York Times Company
The local and hyperlocal news aggregator Fwix has signed its first big media deal: an agreement with the New York Times Company to distribute headlines across local newspaper sites. “We are extremely proud to be working with The New York Times Company, one of the world’s leading news companies,” Fwix CEO and founder Darian Shirazi [...]
Modern day storytellers and journalists are everywhere
With the launch of iPad pre-orders, the new media stories coming out of SXSW, and the surge of announcements around the hyperlocal sector (ex: NY Times is working w/ FWIX), it’s nearly impossible for me to go a day without thinking about the future of news. It could be in the form of citizen journalists, [...]
Is Facebook about to go QR code crazy?
Imagine that you’re walking around a bar. Everywhere you turn you see people wearing shirts emblazoned with checkered barcodes. No one is talking to each other. Instead of dancing and conversing, the majority of the establishment’s patrons are taking camera phone pictures of those around them. Pictures aren’t being taken of people’s faces, but rather [...]
A look at Seattle’s news entrepreneurs
As SeattlePI.com approaches its one-year anniversary of online-only operation later this week (stay tuned for an update on how it’s doing), it has published an overview of Seattle’s thriving independent news scene. On the list, which includes my own company, Next Door Media, there’s the West Seattle Blog, Neighborlogs, Publicola, TechFlash, InvestigateWest and Crosscut. The [...]
Marijuana legalization ad to hit Times Square Digital Billboard
The smoke has cleared, yet a suspicious odor still lingers in the air. Representatives from the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Foundation (NORML) are inhaling a sigh of relief. In the end, the marijuana legalization flag is set to fly high above Times Square. First it was on, then it was off, [...]
Local TV news audience in sharp decline
The one piece of data that jumped out to me in the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s annual media report (that Steve posted below) is this one: local TV newscast ratings are in steady decline across all timeslots. Early evening newscasts dropped 1.7%, late news is down 6.4% and morning news has declined 5.5% during [...]
SXSW: The iPad is better than print
Do you still run into people who tell you they like reading a newspaper or magazine or book in print vs. digital? The iPad is about to change that. Scott Dadich, creative director at Wired magazine, says Wired measures reader engagement in hours, not minutes like online. And that allows for higher ad rates. It [...]
Annual report: local media audience in rapid decline
The annual Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism’s “State of the News Media” report is out, and it is a compendium of discouragement for anyone tied to the media. Here are just some of the top lines: Local TV news audiences fell by an average of 5-6% in the past year, depending upon the hour [...]
California Watch rewards civility – with iPods
The genius of this… California Watch is having a contest and all you have to do is comment on the site. The site is giving away a free iPod Touch each month for the next six months. (Seems they got the Touches free when they bought computers and wanted to put them to good use.) [...]
SXSW: Obligatory celebrity party photos
SXSW Interactive is all about the parties, so I feel obligated to post a few bad party pics from my iPhone. Here is Foursquare founder Dennis Crowley, who did not offer any details about who owns his code, and Anna Robertson from Yahoo hanging out at the Mashable party Sunday night. And here’s Gist founder [...]
SXSW: Highlights from online news of tomorrow
The power of the human link, all that traffic that comes from Twitter and Facebook for example, will drive the new economy for news more than pay walls set up by Rupert Murdoch and the Associated Press. That was one of the key observations by Jeff Jarvis from panel called Online News of Tomorrow http://my.sxsw.com/events/event/688 [...]
SXSW: Mirror worlds are the next web, may redefine local
Mok Oh, Founder and CTO of Everyscape, says mirror worlds are the next web and his company is positioning itself to be a part of this coming goldrush. What are mirror worlds, you ask? It’s a direct representation of our actual world replicated in the digital world. He pointed to Google Earth as the best [...]
SXSW: Work smarter, and more social media strategy
Jason Fried and Erik Qualman anchored a packed morning at the Day Stage for book readings at the South by Southwest Conference in Austin this morning. Fried, CEO and co-founder of 37 Signals, likes to dish out straight talk on business. So much so, he wrote a book about it, called ReWork. He highlighted some [...]
Notes: All SXSW “Spring Break for…” edition
Noted, while wondering how you’d pronounce “SXSW.” SXSW is “Spring Break for nerds,” writes CNN. Don’t be ridiculous. Nerds wouldn’t go on a road trip. SXSW is “Spring Break for music lovers,” counters The Atlantic. SXSW is Spring Break for conference badge lovers. All you’d ever want to know about the event’s attendee badge, including [...]
Forget SXSW – Come to NXNE!
Yeah, all the hipsters are at SXSW. But forget Austin and come to Boston! LR Friend and Social Media Goddess Rachel Happe (@rhappe, whom you should follow) is putting on NXNE, a Tweetup in nearby Cambridge. If you’re in the area and want to hang with the real cool nerds, sign up. From the invite: [...]
SXSW: Social media marketing for business
Chris Winfield (@chriswinfield) kicked off a packed breakout session at the South By Southwest Interactive Conference in Austin by promising to not mention Facebook and Twitter. Easier said than done. The “T word” and the “F word” (no, not that one) were mentioned numerous times but Winfield and fellow presenter Tony Adam (@tonyadam) did offer [...]
Avoid cliches like the plague: WGN’s banned words
The list has already gained infamy. A writer for NPR’s Wait Wait Don’t Blog Me used them all in one sentence. Now we’ve got it – the list of 119 words and phrases that Tribune CEO (that’s right – CEO) Randy Michaels has banned from the airwaves of WGN-AM. It’s a little troubling that a [...]
Msnbc.com slideshow gets 78 million page views
We believe strongly in the power of slide shows, both as narrative devices and page view drivers. Msnbc.com investigative reporter Bill Dedman recently produced a slide show called “The Clarks: an American story of wealth, scandal and mystery,” and in addition to being an excellent work of journalism, it has garnered 78 million page views. [...]
