Author Archives: Steve Mays

Broadband up; Blackberry chains; ESPN welcomes comments

Posted on by

Report: Broadband Users Now the Majority in U.S. – Yahoo! News
“According to a new report released Thursday, U.S. home broadband penetration will top 50 percent this year, the first time it has ever done so.”

Survey: Blackberry owners chained to work
Survey results showed that those who owned a Blackberry were, in fact, more likely to work long hours than those who didn’t.”

ESPN.com allows comments on every article
ESPN.com has enabled comments on every single story they post, even ones from the wires. The feature is called ESPN Conversation. You can dig into this yourself on this controversial story about some remarks made by former NBA player Tim Hardaway. This particular story has attracted nearly 1000 comments in just 24 hours. ESPN is one of several big media properties that allows readers to comment on stories. The Washington Post has also embraced reader feedback.

Majority of Americans feel bloggers play a valuable role
According to a new poll by iFOCOS and Zogby, a majority of Americans (55%) feel bloggers are important to the future of American journalism. Further, 74% said citizen journalism will play a vital role. I am not quite sure of how they distinguished the two in the poll, but the results are certainly positive. The survey of 5,384 adults nationwide was conducted Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2007, and carries a margin of error of +/- 1.4 percentage points.

— Steve Rubel’s Micro Persuasion

Roger Gardner’s first MacBook

Posted on by

My alternate headline was, “Gomer Does the Big Apple,” but the Jim Nabors reference would be either too dated or unflattering to Learfield President and Chief Operating Officer Roger Gardner, the latest Learfielder to break down and “Get A Mac.”

Like Phil and me, Roger has been flirting with the idea of buying a Mac for sometime. He’s been teetering at the precipice for weeks and finally went over the edge this week and purchased a 17″ MacBook Pro (with all the fixin’s)

In all fairness, Roger has two teenagers at home and they needed another computer and –like a lot of folks these days– couldn’t come up with a good reason not to try a Mac.

“Is radio still radio if there’s video?”

Posted on by

“The nation’s commercial radio stations have seen the future, and it is in, of all things, video. Across the country, radio stations are putting up video fare on their Web sites, ranging from a simple camera in the broadcast booth to exclusive coverage of events like the Super Bowl to music videos, news clips and Web-only musical performances.” – NYTimes.com

Home delivery

Posted on by

NewspaperOn the drive home this evening, I got behind the guy that delivers newspapers. He was weaving a bit as he frantically stuffed The Daily Bugle into those pink newspaper condoms before throwing them into the bushes. As I watched, I had to wonder about the future of this job, not to mention the economics. I can’t believe the job pays much and by the time you buy gas, how can the math work out?

I also wondered if the guy is a web-head like me. Does he keep up with the challenges facing newspapers (or maybe they’re doing better than we think). Is he thinking –with every paper he flings: “Man, I gotta find another gig. This ain’t gonna last.”

He probably has more important things to worry about and is happy to have the job. And this Internet thing could just be a fad.

Okay, how about some bonus spots?

Posted on by

Betsy Lazar –Executive Director of Advertising and Media Operations at GM– gave a keynote at the rcent Radio Advertising Bureau conference in Dallas. According to INSIDE RADIO, she was pretty specific in her advice to broadcasters;

“…doing business the old way won’t cut it. Pitching schedules of :30s won’t do it. What GM wants is ideas that show involvement by the station. Things that come from mining the listener database and exploiting the station website in fresh ways.”

Ad Age reports that GM “slashed ad spending by more than $600 million last year, a drop so stunning it should convince even the staunchest doubters that the age of mass-media marketing is going the way of the horse and buggy.”

In that same issue of INSIDE RADIO: Bank of America analyst Jonathan Jacoby admits his survey of 34 industry pros last week in Dallas is not statistically significant. But he says 43% of them (14-15 people) said they’ve “used or plan to use Google/dMarcto sell airtime.”

Three “flavors” of web journalism

Posted on by

At the Columbia University School of Journalism, they’ve been thinking about how to better reflect the Internet in their journalism curriculum and have come up with three “flavors” of Internet-related jobs that students or alumni are or will be doing.

“Continuous News” – Entails providing multiple stories of varied lengths at deadlines across the day. The all-too-familiar wire service style of reporting upon which many journalists have cut their teeth for decades.

“Editor-host” – The journalist works inside the newsroom most of time. This job is about synthesizing, analyzing and displaying (in timely fashion for online audiences) content from myriad information sources: newswires, the Internet, video, audio. This is very much an editing role; some have likened it to a typical newsroom copy desk role.

“Webified Reporter” – A kind of one-man band, the Webified reporter is able to apply multiple Web tools — from reporting to videography to Flash — to create original content that takes full advantage of the medium’s interactive multimedia capacities. Not only does the Webified reporter knows how to use these tools, but also when to use which tool for a particular Web story.

Sheryl Crow Birthday Drive raises $14K+

Posted on by

Our Sheryl Crow Correspondent, Ann, reports the annual Sheryl Crow Birthday Drive raised more than $14,000 to benefit the Delta Childrens Home in Kennnett (SC’s hometown). Ms. Crow posted the following thank-you on her website forum:

“I can’t tell you how much your generosity has once again touched me and my community. The birthday gift of contributions made in the name of the Delta Children’s Home is the most precious gift I could receive and I am deeply grateful.

I am working on a new record as we speak and am really enjoying the process. I hope you will enjoy the outcome. Much, much love and gratitude.”

Our thanks to Ann for letting us know this was taking place.

Time, Inc. developing video for web

Posted on by

Time Inc. is announcing today that it’s launching an in-house studio to help its 130 magazines develop videos for the Web. Along with that plan, it will unveil a deal to work with Brightcove, a leading provider of Internet video production, distribution and ad sales services.

We have some damned fine radio reporters working for our company. And most of them are just getting the hang of moving photos from their digital cameras to their computers.

Sounds like Time is making a significant investment. And a smart one. Not just handing out Canon Sure-Shots to their reporters as they head out the door.

90 second news cycle

Posted on by

Stop WatchDavid points to this chilling post at Media Guerrilla, where Mike Manuel outlines the 90 second news cycle:

+1 second to hit publish
+2 seconds for a blog to refresh
+3 seconds for feed readers to update
+4 seconds to email, link, tag, rank, or rate a blog post
+5 seconds for readers to form an opinion and/or leave a comment
+1 minute for Technorati to register a server ping, crawl and index a blog post
+8 seconds for alerts, watchlists and saved searches to propagate
+4 seconds for a blog post to plateau, amplify or disappear
+2 seconds for this cycle to repeat from the beginning
+1 second to realize the world’s changing…

If any of the terms above are unfamiliar to you… don’t worry about them.