MEDIAdeluge

Transparent Journalism

Wed, 14 May 2008 23:49:00 -0700

Inventor of the Web, Timothy Berners-Lee won $350,000 to reform new media journalism. According to The Wall Street Journal: “The Knight Foundation just announced the winners of its second annual Knight News Challenge, a contest that funds ideas to transform community news through digital technology. A total of $5.5 million is being awarded to 16 different projects. The summary of Berners-Lee’s winning submission is interesting (from newschallenge.org):

With the copious amounts of information – and misinformation – on the Internet, the public needs more help finding fair, accurate and contextual news. This project will create a system to do just that. The plan: to design a way for content creators to add information on their sources to their reports, as a form of “source tagging.” For instance, a reporter could note that an article was based on personal observations, interviews with eyewitnesses or specific, original documents. Filters would then use this data - the “story behind the story” - to help find high-quality articles. A reader searching the phrase “Pakistan riots” for example, might find 9,000 articles. But filtering by “eyewitness accounts” would yield a more selective list. Berners-Lee, Moore and the Web Science Research Initiative are working with the BBC and Reuters on how to best integrate the tagging into journalists’ normal workflow.

It will be interesting to follow Berners-Lee and see what he comes up with. I referenced the recent Washington Post-TechCrunch deal in a post earlier this week. I think there could be an interesting connection between Berners-Lee’s work and the way old and new media relationships are developing. With all the information on the web and more specifically, all of the “news” on the web, it’s surprising to me that our news consumption and contextualization technology hasn’t improved beyond where it is today.

I think we are on the verge of taking a fairly large leap forward in this area in the near future. Its something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately.

Best of luck to Berners-Lee in his quest.

(via Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins Tweet)

Wired vs TechCrunch

Tue, 13 May 2008 23:32:12 -0700

Recently, TechCrunch and the Washington Post announced a deal in which TechCrunch would provide content for washingtonpost.com. It’s an interesting model for traditional and new media partnerships and something that will be watched very closely. Wired weighted in on the partnership, twice, taking aim at Michael Arrington’s practice of covering companies he also is invested in — a no-no at the Post. Arrington fires back in a post today.

The key takeaway is how influential media, “old” and “new,” are looking at TechCrunch. In just a few short years, founder Michael Arrington and team have created a media powerhouse that continues to grow in a time when traditional media are losing relevance.

There are precious few traditional media — like the Washington Post — who get it. Kudos to them for taking this step. The deal is win-win. There are other traditional media that will be watching this deal very closely. If all goes well and there is no reason to expect it won’t, we’ll likely see deals like this increase. Seems to me, Wired might be well positioned to be one of those potential partners to the traditional media.

This makes Wired’s response to TechCrunch’s deal with the Post all the more confounding. It also makes it difficult for other traditional media to wade into these uncharted waters. Wired’s time might be better spent on a story that looks at new models through which old and new media might partner.

New Media Influencers (part 2)

Mon, 12 May 2008 00:26:00 -0700

In my post, New Media Influence (part 1), among other things, I talked about how influence is shifting away from a traditional, linear model (like the following) and toward a more consumer-centric multi-nodal news landscape.

Today, new media and bloggers are speeding the shift away from the linear influence model by communicating news virtually as fast as it happens. In the case of the earthquake in China, I heard about it and saw pictures of the aftermath before any of the big news organizations could report the story.

So who are these key new media influentials? TechCrunch / CrunchBase compiled a list based on the total number of headlines each blogger has had on TechMeme in Q1 2008. See all 100 of The Top Tech Bloggers here.

While tracking headlines can certainly be a useful gauge of influence, tracking the number blogs linked to a given blogger/blog can be another. Technorati tracks this information on its top 100 blogs page.

The top 10 follow:

Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post

TechCrunch
- By Michael Arrington ·
- http://techcrunch.com
- Authority: 22,941

Engadget
- By WeblogsInc ·
- http://engadget.com
- Authority: 22,033

Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide
- http://gizmodo.com
- Authority: 21,986

Boing Boing

Lifehacker, tips and downloads for getting things done
- http://lifehacker.com
- Authority: 15,601

Ars Technica
- By Ars Technica, LLC ·
- http://arstechnica.com
- Authority: 14,788

icanhascheezburger.com

Mashable! The Social Networking Blog
- By Pete Cashmore ·
- http://mashable.com
- Authority: 11,358

Daily Kos: State of the Nation
- http://www.dailykos.com
- Authority: 10,158

Are these the best way to gauge influence? Maybe. Seems to me the best gauge would be to track audience+links+top stories+trackbacks. As far as I know, that is yet to be done.

Note to Microsoft: Buy Twitter... quickly

Fri, 09 May 2008 06:31:00 -0700

Microsoft may be looking for other investment opportunities post Yahoo! Take a look at Twitter. Sure, it’s not $45 billion. This is more of a get-in-early play.

Twitter = your pithy take on what’s news to you shared with the people following you — in 140 characters or less.

The tech early adopters have all fled Facebook and are now residing on Twitter. It is beginning to grow rapidly — expanding beyond the ubergeeks — and could well be the next big thing. Its dead simple and the most powerful networking tool i’ve come across lately. Best of all, there are no vampires biting you, no superpoking, no spam.

Have a close look, Microsoft. Could make spaces.live.com relevant in a hurry.

New Media Influence (part 1)

Thu, 08 May 2008 23:00:00 -0700

Much has been written and said about the influence of new media and the rise of “citizen journalism.” The old media model is being flipped on it’s head. It’s clearly a time of rapid change in mass communications. Legitimate questions are being asked about what will become of the old stalwart industries like journalism, advertising, marketing, PR and others caught up in the changing tides of media.

The big local, regional and national newspapers are seeing circulation shrink and revenues disappear as classifieds and other advertising go online. Also going online are the readers that used to read the morning paper. The problem for the traditional or “mainstream media” is that the people who used to read the newspaper are not reading the online version. Instead, they are discovering new ways to consume, share and comment on the news of the day.

Editor and Publisher reports: “According to new data released by the Newspaper Association of America, total print advertising revenue in 2007 plunged 9.4% to $42 billion compared to 2006 — the most severe percent decline since the association started measuring advertising expenditures in 1950. Total advertising revenue in 2007 — including online revenue — decreased 7.9% to $45.3 billion compared to the prior year.”

Some news organizations are beginning to embrace blogging and other new media technology as a way to stem the flow of their readership away from traditional media and toward online sources. Today, TechCrunch. Com and the Washington Post announced that TechCrunch stories will appear on WasingtonPost.com. Michael Arrington wrote of the partnership on TechCrunch today, “adding new types of content to the site to retain reader interest, over and above their existing stories. And this is certainly a great partnership for us, allowing us to get our content in front of a larger, more mainstream audience.”

Other newspapers still mistakenly see the printed publication as their primary offering and newspaper affiliated blogs as a place to post about topics that don’t make the paper. A more realistic stance for editors is to break news — and follow it as it develops — on their blogs and then build out the story more fully and with reader perspectives in the print edition. If more traditional media companies don’t come to this realization soon – and then better monetize their online eyeballs — they can expect to continue to get scooped on stories and can further expect the people who used to subscribe to the paper to instead go elsewhere.

Newspapers aren’t the only ones struggling with a changing news model. PR is struggling to figure out how to remain relevant as the landscape changes. For example, do the firms whose bread and butter was the press release have any place in the new media environment? Does PR take on trying to influence new media? What about other forms of digital media? Where is the line between what an ad firm might do and what PR takes on?

In PR for example, there was a model of influence that was very linear and consistent. Making planning media for national announcements pretty straightforward. (See the chart below.)

But, with the rise of new media and our ever-expanding connectedness, that model no longer works. Instead something like the following is probably closer to reality.
This has significantly changed up the way PR must think about news and storytelling. Good PR people and entrepreneurs alike should already know who the influential bloggers are in their space and should be treating those bloggers like traditional media — pitching stories, respecting deadlines and tracking influence.

While I’ll virtually always advise against writing a press release and more specifically advise against relying on a press release to drive coverage – unless you have a fiduciary responsibility to do so – there is still a place for PR and neither journalism nor public relations will go away. The medium or media a journalist uses to tell a story will continue to evolve and companies / organizations will continue to want to communicate their stories. How this is being done now and how it will be done in the future will be very different from how it was done in the past.

Contribute to Myanmar Relief

Thu, 08 May 2008 22:29:00 -0700

Social Median has a good list of ways you can contribute to Myanmar relief on the Social Median blog here.

The Myanmar government put its tally of deaths since Cyclone Nargis struck early Saturday at 22,500 and said 41,000 people were missing. Such early estimates often prove inaccurate, and the wide path of this cyclone, which destroyed homes across the fertile Irrawaddy Delta and into Yangon, the nation’s main city, left a large area of destruction, complicating rescue efforts and damage assessments for days or weeks to come. read more from the NYT here.

New Media Recruiting

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

You’re a startup. Funds are limited. How do you hire the best and the brightest? Think like Connected Ventures — the company behind Vimeo, CollegeHumor, Busted Tees, and Defunker. They filmed themselves at work. check out the results.

To Date, they’ve received 932 comments — many of which are by people wanting to work there. Watching the video, how could you not want to work with that group of people.

They had a great idea, took some time late in the day, filmed themselves and put it online. The song is fun and catchy, but the broader point here is to think creatively about how you communicate. There are so many ways to let your creative juices flow — with positive results for your company.

How to Get TechCrunched (part 1)

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 01:32:00 -0700

Scoring coverage in TechCrunch is seen by many an Internet venture as the key to making it big. In this post-bubble-1.0 world where the norm is smaller startups and less about securing massive funding or going IPO to generate big dollars for huge media buys, highly influential media are more important than ever to new ventures to help expose the venture to a large audience. To be clear, bloggers like Michael Arrington and his ilk are highly influential media. They should be treated as if they are Walt Mossberg, John Markoff or Ed Baig when pitching them.

That said, as influential as Arrington, Scoble, Cashmore, Malik and others are, they can’t possibly cover every company they come across and every company they come across isn’t a good fit for them. Here are ten tips to getting TechCrunched.

1. Read the blog you intend to pitch. Know what gets covered in TechCrunch and why. Chances are, if VCs are interested in you, TechCrunch will be too, but having a clear insight into what and how media write is invaluable when pitching them and will help whether you know the right VCs or not.
2. Get an introduction. If you know anyone who knows someone at TechCrunch, this is your best in. TechCrunch gets piles of pitches every day. Because startups can be hard to vet, a referral will help open doors for you.
3. Don’t write a press release, tell a (short) story. Crumple up that press release, you don’t need it. Instead, write a note to your mom about what you do. Make it dead simple. No offense mom. While moms are willing to listen all day long to how we are “disrupting,” “revolutionizing,” or “changing the world,” TechCrunch doesn’t have the time. The note to your mom will help you distil your pitch to its essence. You only have a few sentences to catch TechCrunch’s attention.
4. Know your value proposition and be able to express it in five words or less. This should be the lead of your pitch email. DO NOT say your product is unlike anything on the market today. Of course it’s not. That goes without saying. As a side benefit, you now have your elevator/party pitch. “Hi, I’m Christian. I work for a startup in Seattle. Think Facebook meets Monster.com.”
5. Give a frame of reference. The best way to do that is to say something like, “we’re the eBay for tickets” or “we’re MySpace for videogames.” It’s counterintuitive to use other companies to help define yours so think of it as defining your space – especially if you are trying to create a new space.
6. Know your space. Again, it is understood that you are different from your competition; you should still be able to list one or two competitors whose lunch you are going after. Tip: don’t list every possible competitor, stick to the top one or two. Those are who you are going after and who you should be focused on. Leave the other emerging players off the list.
7. Don’t reference other coverage. That will make TechCrunch less likely to cover you, not more likely. The best place to try to leverage coverage is with TV. For example, if you get good coverage in the Wall Street Journal, you should immediately to go the cable TV channels and pitch them (I’ll go into depth in another post).
8. Be specific, concise and to the point. The remainder of the pitch doesn’t need to be overly polished. Too many adjectives can actually hurt you. If you reference stats to show a trend for example, make sure to include the stats. Including the stats saves time for the writer.
9. Who’s on the team. Who is working with you? Do they have past startup success to point to? Are they executives from well-known tech companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, etc.?
10. Make sure the timing is right. Do you have a news hook like you’re launching? You’re announcing funding? Make sure there is a news angle if at all possible. This creates a sense of urgency to cover you as well as makes the coverage more interesting for the reader.

Guy Kawasaki interviewed Michael Arrington, founder and editor of TechCrunch in November of 2006. It’s a bit long but worth checking out, here.

Michael is a good guy and exceedingly smart. Give him the high level into to your offering and he’ll ask all the right questions. If and when you pitch TechCrunch, be prepared for the eyeballs that follow.

Twitter is for Microblogging

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 00:00:00 -0700

Microblogging site Twitter exploded onto the scene –- at least within the techgeek set — in late 2006 and early 2007. It looked like it might flame out as just another fad due to recurring outages and the white-hot love it got from the techgeek elite. Twitter has been able to transcend fad and become the primary driver for the still-emerging trend of microblogging. Twitter is growing in popularity as users figure out how to express their most compelling thoughts in 140 characters or less.

Facebook “status updates” are very similar to Twitter Tweets and provided early training for the early-adopter crowd on how to microblog. Facebook status update functionality is limited and can be frustrating for heavy users. This is driving those users to Twitter where there is more functionality, like embedding links and more importantly, responding to tweets by others. (Because Twitter can be synchronized with Facebook status updates in near real time –- tweets show up in a user’s Facebook status updates –- Tweets are exposed to the user’s Facebook network as well as all the people following that user on Twitter.) The ability to respond to other users’ tweets either publicly or directly (much like instant messaging) is facilitating a dynamic conversation taking place on Twitter. So much so that bloggers like Robert Scoble, Michael Arrington and others are wondering aloud how to reconcile the rich conversations they are now having on Twitter with what used to happen within the comments of their blogs.

Twitter is a free Web application so getting started is easy — go to Twitter.com, sign up and start “tweeting.” Tweets can be anything from “stupid alarm clock didn’t go off. Now I’m late” and go on to update the tweeter’s day. Other tweets share breaking news or notify followers of a new blog post. Twitter is gaining considerable influence as a news source. Increasingly, we are seeing news/blog coverage originate from a tweet by an influential tweeter. Astute tweeters use are using this high engagement rate among tweeters as a biz dev tool, for recruiting, story placement, alpha testing a new product and the list goes on.

The Twitter rules are still being written and like blogging, the best way to get a feel for it is to start following tweeters. Watch and learn. There isn’t a lot of room on Twitter for shameless self promotion or for product touting. Like blogging, however, Twitter provides an outlet for updating people interested in you on what you’re up to. Because Twitter is populated by the early adopter crowd, it’s a great place to get feedback on new products or invite users to test a new product. Just as with any other news, to maximize traction, it is best to announce news via a highly influential tweeter.

I’m on Twitter at http://twitter.com/christianderson.

Twitter vs. FriendFeed

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 02:23:00 -0700

There is a good conversaiton taking place on Twitter/FriendFeed and on TechCrunch about the monopolistic power of Twitter as a microblogging platform and how an aggregator like FriendFeed fits into the mix.

I agree with Michael Arrington (TechCrunch) that Twitter and FriendFeed are different. They serve different purposes. Since all conversations lead to Facebook lets put the discussion in that context. Twitter = Facebook status updates on steroids — leaning more toward group IM. FriendFeed = Facebook news feed. Robert Scoble is right. If you pay close enough attention to FriendFeed or your Facebook news feed, you can make out a conversation, IF you are following enough people.

Twitter + FriendFeed = Facebook

What could be more interesting is when there is a disqus-like comment client for twitter that links comments on sites like TC and others to Twitter and by extension, FriendFeed. This would capture the conversation Mike and Scoble had both in the comments of this post and tie them to the ‘offline’ conversation they had on the same topic on Twitter.

Marketing Truisms

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:09:00 -0700

I was just skimming my favorite marketing book, which also could be the shortest business book I’ve ever read (132 pages), T he 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. In rereading the book I first read it in the mid 1990s, I’m glad to see it really holds up. While the authors called their laws, “immutable,” I’ve taken some artistic license and shortened and combined some laws.

Perception: Marketing is not a battle of products, it’s a battle of perceptions. Most marketing mistakes stem from the assumption that you’re fighting a product battle rooted in reality. Perception is reality.

Leadership: It’s better to be first than it is to be better. The basic issue in marketing in creating a category you can be first in. It’s the law of leadership. It’s better to be first than it is to be better. It’s much easier to get into the mind first than it is to try to convince someone you have a better product than the one that did get there first. (Example: Who was the first person to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo? The second person?) If you can’t be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in. (Example: So, you couldn’t name the second person to solo the Atlantic? You will know the third. Hint: She was the first woman to fly the Atlantic Ocean solo.) Key takeaway: Being a me-too brand isn’t memorable. Pick a new category to be first in.

Focus: The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect’s mind. Not words like Fahrvergnugen, but real, simple words or concepts. Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect’s mind. Examples:

BMW = driving

Xerox = copier

FedEx = overnight

Volvo = safety

Nordstrom = service

Of course this maniacal focus must remain consistent and will likely impact product. For example, when Subaru decided it wanted to own 4WD, it had to stop making 2WD cars.

Line extension: There’s an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand.

Candor: When you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive. One of the most effective ways to get into a prospect’s mind is to first admit a negative and then twist it into a positive. Candor is disarming and negative statements about yourself are taken as truth. By leading with a negative, you already have the prospect believing what you say. (example: “With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good.”)

Acceleration: Successful programs are not built on fads, they’re built on trends. When fads appear, try to dampen them. One way to maintain long-term demand for your product is to never quite satisfy demand.

Nine Years Later...

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:41:00 -0700

My thoughts and prayers are with the familes and friends of the students and teacher we lost nine years ago in Colorado.

If you didn’t catch South Park tonight, you missed a good one....

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:28:00 -0700

If you didn’t catch South Park tonight, you missed a good one. The series of tubes running through South Park get clogged. The Interweb is down. Hilarity ensues. Too bad they didn’t quite make it to Silicon Valley. That would have been classic. This episode is up there with the recent “24” episode.

UPDATE:

Wikipedia page here

Mahalo page here

Lexicon: Like Google Trends for Facebook

Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:17:00 -0700

Lexicon: Like Google Trends for Facebook:

Facebook ~~is about to~~ launched “Lexicon,” a new Google Trends of sorts. Want to know what’s up among the socially networked set, Lexicon will show you in charts and graphs. Lexicon counts occurrences of words and phrases on Facebook Walls over time and then displays mentions graphically.

check it out: http://www.facebook.com/lexicon

UPDATE:

The allfacebook angle here.

Official word from the Facebook blog here.

Below is a chart the Facebook team created based on chatter around the movie, “Juno.”

This could be a potentially powerful tool for charting memes and the impact of Facebook.

Holiday Golightly Launches

Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:38:00 -0700

Kerry Rupp and the “Golightly Girls” are officially open for business at www.holidaygolightly.com. Holiday Golightly, positioned as “your ultimate Girlfriend Getaway resource” specializes in girl-only group getaways.

Holiday Golightly promises to book fantastically unique trip experiences that fit your group’s interests and match your style. The sit provides group travel planning coordination tools – including calendar coordination, private discussion boards, and payment allocation tools. Users can take advantage of all the tools on the site even if even if Holiday Golghtly doesn’t book the trip for you.

The site provides reviews and recommendations, publishes advice, ideas, trip stories, etiquette, shoppng tips and promises pop culture scoop.

There are already 10 getaway opportunities scheduled. As you would expect, Holiday Golightly will take you to the spa, the islands, skiing as well as other destinations.

Interested in becomming a “Golightly Girl”? Sign Up for the official Holiday Golightly website mailing list here.

Journalism.org - The State of the News Media 2008

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:28:00 -0700

Journalism.org - The State of the News Media 2008: “Story telling and agenda setting — still important — are now insufficient. Journalism also must help people find what they are looking for, react to it, sort it, shape news coverage, and — probably most important and least developed — give them tools to make sense of and use the information for themselves.”

MediaPost Publications - Study: 'Influencers' Possess Less Clout

Tue, 08 Apr 2008 23:17:11 -0700

MediaPost Publications - Study: 'Influencers' Possess Less Clout:

Understanding influence is a key component to successfully impacting the attention you can secure for your product or service.

MediaPost just covered a survey that discounts the clout of influencers. The survey found that nearly 80% of people would be more likely to consider buying products recommended by real-world friends and family, than by well-known bloggers (23%). Not surprising.

I don’t disagree with the findings, but the conclusion baffles me. the research firm suggests, “marketers might have to reconsider who the real influencers are out there.” Sure a person might be more likely to buy based on a friend’s suggestion than what Mike Arrington or Robert Scoble say, but last I checked, Mike and Robert have a LOT of “friends.” Discounting them as influencers because they may not hold quite as much sway as a direct relationship seems to me to be a bit shortsighted.