Tripp Fenderson

Interesting report from TubeMogul.com regarding the time sensitivity of video online. Definitely worth reading, especially if you’re...oh I don’t know...working on an enterprise level video asset management system and the question of “how long should we store videos?” keeps coming up.

It looks like Microsoft is finally giving up on its Live Expo classified ad service. They close the doors on July 31st of this year. I wrote about the launch back in March ‘06 and had this to say:

It’s a run of the mill classified site with a pinch of social networking thrown in for good measure - because you know...social apps are cool.

Microsoft has the same problem every other classified newcomer has ... gaining momentum. I just ran a search on “Events” within a 50 mile radius of Washington DC. Surely I’d expect to find something listed - but no. Nothing going on in the sleepy little area around the beltway.

This is where newspapers and companies like Oodle really leverage their strengths. They can launch a classified listing service right out of the gate complete with ads and therefore provide a good experience for the first time user of the service.

Companies like Craigslist, Oodle, Yahoo!, eBay continue to dominate the classifieds market. Microsoft (once again) came in too late with too little.

[linklove for videoisnow.com. Thanks for pointing me to that site Liz!]

Writing headlines is an art but those skills don’t always translate to the web. I found the following on Google News tonight.

Be honest, which one are you going to click on?

Me? I’m clicking on the one that mentions Twitter.

Related articles:
Newspapers search for Web headline magic
The Sexy Art of Writing Headlines that Kill
CNN Shirt

It’s community night in my feed reader. I’m reading an article from 2006 whose message is only just now making it to its intended audience—big media.

I won’t summarize here because you need to go read it in full:
The People Formerly Known as the Audience

In there, I found a great quote from Tom Glocer, head of your Reuters, from his 2006 keynote speech at OPA:

“If you want to attract a community around you, you must offer them something original and of a quality that they can react to and incorporate in their creative work.”

Am I missing something here? Does the newly announced Mobile News Network from the AP actually add any value to my mobile experience?

The AP is going mobile. The nonprofit news cooperative, which recently beefed up its entertainment news staff, announced the formation of the Mobile News Network, which will deliver news to smart phones including Apple’s iPhone.

The AP’s CEO, Tom Curley, went on to state in Monday’s announcement that “the Mobile News Network will provide a national platform for smart-phone users to access local content from brands they trust.”

Note to Tom and the rest of the AP staff: I already get international, national, and local news from you on my iPhone (http://news.google.com/m). What’s more, I’m able to customize the results, meaning I don’t have to read the trash churned out by your “recently beefed up its entertainment news staff”.

If companies are going to come out with new product announcements, they darned well ought to be able to explain what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, and what value it provides to the customer. Perhaps the AP needs to hire someone with some PR skills.

Yesterday, I noticed that Twitter added a link for me to “share my story”. The team at obvious.com wanted to know who I was and why I use it.

I responded telling them that I was an Incognito Anthropologist interested in Twitter for four reasons:

1. Richmond has an incredibly smart, savvy, and downright friendly group of people when it comes to all things Internet. From our projects in citizen journalism to wi-fi initiatives to the general chatter on the blogs, we’re creating meaningful connections. Twitter serves to extend and enrich those connections.

2. Many local media outlets aren’t connecting with their audience in the way they used to - or rather, the local audience wants a different kind of connection. Adopting Twitter and using it to meet the needs of their audience (a crucial point that will be missed by many media companies) adds capital to the social connection that needs to exist between local media and the informed citizen. I’m interested in following media companies using Twitter to learn more about how they use the service.

3. My Twitter feed is much more entertaining than scanning the 5000+ new posts I get in Google Reader every day.

4. Twitter lets me directly connect, in 140 characters or less, with brilliant minds around the world and that’s a beautiful thing.

Stowe Boyd, eloquent as always, has his take on the survey here:

http://www.stoweboyd.com/message/2008/04/my-twitter-stor.html

A joint study from Ball State University and the University of Nevada, Reno says that newsrooms aren’t making commitments to their blogs and their efforts may be a waste of time.

The study found that “most newspaper staff-produced blogs contained a small number of postings, failed to create much interaction between the blogger and the audience and attracted few audience comments.”

Ball State journalism professor Lori Demo goes on to suggest that a reporter’s time may be better spent elsewhere. In light of the lack of audience participation, “Newspapers might consider spending staff time monitoring blogs as sources of news rather than trying to re-create the blogosphere on their Web sites.”

I don’t fully agree with the study’s findings, although it did focus primarily on political blogs.

I just talked to a co-worker, Ryan Squire, the Managing Editor at NBC-4 WCMH-TV, our NBC station in Columbus, OH. Ryan and his crew recently fired up a Twitter account for the station.

Ryan understands the value of Twitter as a communications tool for the station but he and the staff are taking it one step further by maintaining personal accounts which let you look in on the inner working of the newsroom.

Recent staff tweets include:

LaurenDiedrich: Is working on a super secret sweeps piece!
NBCSquire: Working with the desk to cover several afternoon shoots, including a cat stuck in a tree for 5 days!
Jason_WCMH: Getting details regarding a Washington County deputy that has been shot in the face with a .22 caliber rifle. Suspect is on the loose.

They’ve also received some praise on the270, a central Ohio resource site.

Channel 4 twitters! Much like the Dispatch does.

But what’s so much cooler, is that so does some of WCMH’s employees. I follow them, and it seems like I’m ease dropping a bit as to what’s on tap for the evening news. But that’s a good thing. Because they’re *building a relationship* with me (whether they know it or not). When they say they’re sending the feed of some report for editing, I want to watch it. Thus, I’m going to watch Channel 4’s newscast over the others.

Cheers to Channel 4! Now I’m off to see if the other stations are a cool as them.

Nice work Ryan!

I wonder if we’ll see any other outlets adopt Twitter soon.

Would you follow them?

Terry Heaton’s post “Informing each other of Heston’s death” rings so true for me.

After a brief separation from Twitter, (it was me, not you, Twitter) I recently reactivated my account. Now that there is a groundswell of local users, the service is more viable and more fun.

Heaton notes that within hours of Heston’s death, word of mouth was the means of informing many people of his death - myself included.

I found out about his passing from jkennett via Twitter.

Heaton says, “Like it or not, mainstream media, this is the way it is.”