Go mobile or go home

Posted on August 14, 2008 by Steve Mays

I will, eventually, have to break down and get a smart phone. I don’t really want one but not having one is going to be a liability in my job. Articles, like this one from the American Journalism Review, make this increasingly clear.

“In January, ESPN reported it had more hits for NFL content on its mobile Web site (4.9 million) than it did on its PC site (4.5 million), according to RCR Wireless News. Those numbers suggest the mobile jock market has legs, since sports fans will access their cell phones to get scores and inside information even while they’re watching games on TV. Two mobile TV partnerships – AT&T’s Mobile TV and Verizon’s V Cast, both of which use Qualcomm’s MediaFlo TV-enabling technology for cell phones – have been launched with the sports market in mind. Both mobile TV services bill themselves as providing full coverage of sporting events, along with some regular network programming in English and Spanish. Content partners include CBS Mobile, NBC 2Go, Fox Mobile, Comedy Central, ESPN Mobile TV, Viacom’s MTV and Nickelodeon, among others.”

Future of newspapers, TV, radio, et al

Posted on August 11, 2008 by Steve Mays

“No communication technology has ever disappeared, but instead becomes increasingly less important as the technological horizon widens.” –Arthur C. Clarke

“The web is your future”

Posted on July 24, 2008 by Steve Mays

“A lot of experienced news people — whether broadcast or print — feel like they’ve been baited and switched, that they were trained and hired to do one thing but are now being required to do something else. That’s understandable, but it’s also completely irrelevant.”

— Terry Heaton

“Computer Jesus”

Posted on July 2, 2008 by Steve Mays

“Sure, it would be great if you could hire one single person who could do everything. We call that “computer jesus” — and you need to accept the fact that there really are not many people in the world who can walk on water. – Mindy McAdams on setting up a team for online journalism:

Competition still hot for domain names

Posted on June 11, 2008 by Steve Mays

Money

If you missed this story on NPR’s Morning Edition last week, it’s worth a listen (4 min). Seems the market for web site domain names is on the rise. Last month, the name Gasprices.com sold for $300,000.

Back when we registered Legislature.com, we could not believe it was still available. I mean, ALL one-word domains were gone by that time. But for some reason, not Legislature.com. We jumped on it. Would we sell it? In a New York minute. Dot com.

HP Elite webcam demo

Posted on June 7, 2008 by Steve Mays

Dave Morris shows off the HP Elite webcam. This little bugger ($60?) does face-tracking and auto-zoom/auto-focus. ~~The audio on this demo is with a pro mic, however. Not sure what you get on the webcam~~

Update: I misunderstood. Dave says the audio was recorded with the webcam’s on board mic.

Side note: I’m surprised the Blogger video didn’t offer option of embedding. Perhaps Dave simply didn’t have that enabled.

Flip Mino (if I’d only waited a week)

Posted on June 5, 2008 by Steve Mays

Mino2

I bought a Flip Ultra video camera last week, just to play with and show friends. Henry has it now and I can’t wait to see what he (an extremely talented professional digital artist) comes up with. Everybody that sees this little gadget seems to love it.

And now there’s a smaller/cuter/cooler version. The Flip Mino is 40% smaller than the Ultra and comes with 2GB of memory (records up to one hour of video). Pick one up at Amazon for $179. Shit. If I had waited a week…

Scott Adams: Israel Defeats the Entire Middle East

Posted on May 4, 2008 by Steve Mays

Scott Adams thinks Israel will eventually create the technology that will make oil irrelevant:

“The oh-my-God moment came when I realized that Israel can destroy all of its local enemies by inventing solar technology that makes oil uneconomical. Such an invention would do more harm than any military attack. And it’s all legal and moral. The politicians and business people in Israel have all the right incentives times a thousand. Their very survival is at risk. Israel is one patent away from crushing every oil producing country in the world.”

In his post, he links to the article that provided his ah-ha moment.

“We are in the post-integrity age of journalism.”

Posted on April 7, 2008 by Steve Mays

I was scanning AdRants when the quote above caught my eye. Here’s a couple of chunks from the post:

“Want to hear an interesting conversation about social media and it’s impact on marketing, advertising, public relations and journalism? Want to know how the role of public relations is changing in the world of public relations? Want to explore the differences in mentality between new media and old? Want to now whether or not it’s sinful to publish a story before every last detail of the story is known? Want to know why readers, who are now commenters, are so important to the whole of the story? Then give this podcast a listen.”

I caught about 15 minutes over lunch and look forward to hearing the rest. It sounds like a pretty good peek into the minds of some PR pros, with the focus on New Media (whatever that is). If you blog, send or receive news releases… I think you’ll find this worth the listen.

smays.com

“Addictions (start) out like magical pets, pocket monsters.” — zero history (William Gibson)

Category Archives: Science & Technology