“The city with the highest percentage of viewers was St. Louis, where 52 percent of the TVs were tuned to the debate, reflecting either an inordinate civic-mindedness or a complete lack of actual lives, take your pick.” — McClatchy: 57 Million Watched Presidential Debate: Nielsen Estimate
Kevin O’Keefe on Twitter
“Just anecdotal evidence, but I find Twitter users a fairly affluent and upwardly mobile group. They tend toward being business people, as opposed to kids. I’ve not only met people I am now following, but I’ve been turned onto upcoming events of interest that I would have never known of but for Twitter. In one case I ‘direct tweeted’ a person who just moved to Seattle to head up a new group at Microsoft. On another occasion I connected with a leader in the Search Engine Optimization industry. And this doesn’t include the local Seattle lawyers I am making connections with via Twitter.”
It’s probably just frustration with trying to get some “hot new thing,” but I frequently encounter an almost angry tone on the subject of Twitter:“I don’t get it! This is bullshit! What a waste of time!”
I try to remember it took me more than a year for the Twitter to click [Twitterclick: noun. Small, sub-audible sound in the frontal lobe associated with Twittercognizance]
Where in the world is W?
In a few months George W. Bush and Dick Cheney will return to private life. They’ll be surrounded by Secret Service guys (does the VP get SS protection?) but they have to be somewhere.
I’d like to "crowd source" a volunteer army of citizen journalists to report the last known location of these guys. No trespassing or peaking through windows, just a short report:
"W entourage just left Crawford ranch, heading for airport."
"W group just checked into Paris Hilton."
Include phone pic if you have one. All of which goes to a map.
You can be damned sure the NSA knows where you are (if they want to), so why shouldn’t we know where these guys are? I know, the FBI will explain that to me in some detail.
Sheryl Crow’s momma is an artist
Our Man in Kennett, Charles Jolliff, shares pix from this year’s Delta Fair, including this landscape entry in the art competition. I know zip about painting but this looks pretty damned good to me. Like to see what got the blue ribbon.
The artist is Bernice Crow (Sheryl’s momma). Talent seems to run deep and wide in that family.
PS: I believe this is my favorite photo from Charles’ set.
MacBook product placement in top TV shows
In the season premier of The Office, Pam heads off to art school with what appears to be a new MacBook. Back in Scranton, Jim has a MacBook Pro so the two love birds can chat. Of course, Michael has to get in on the fun (“Put me down, Michael. Take me back to Jim.”)
Pretty good product placement. But no better than what we saw in the season premier of HBO’s Entourage (I would have sworn I posted on this but can’t find it), when Johnny Drama carried on an LA/Paris relationship via his MacBook Pro.
I’m sure PC users assume this is just Hollywood horse shit but it really is that easy to video chat on the Mac.
We’re not talking about a bottle of Budweiser on the kitchen table. In both instances, the Mac’s were written prominently into the story line. Would love to know how much Apple paid for these two placements? [via Cult of Mac]
election.twitter.com
People of a certain age might remember old TV shows that used an “applause meter” (it was just an audio level meter) to allow the studio audience to “vote” on something or someone. The kids at Twitter have come up with a 21st century twist for tomorrow night’s debate. From NYT’s The Caucus:
“If Senators John McCain and Barack Obama actually do debate Friday night, you will be able to watch what thousands of viewers think of their verbal sparring almost as they talk. Twitter, the service that lets techno-hipsters broadcast their thoughts in 140-character bursts, is setting up a special politics page to make it easy to tune into the chatter.
At midnight Thursday, the company is launching election.twitter.com, the first specialized section of its site. Like Twitter’s main service, it is dominated by a big white box. But instead of typing an answer to “What are you doing?” the election site asks, “What do you think?”
Below that box is a constantly scrolling display of the thoughts (called “tweets” in Twitterspeak) of other Twitter users. These include all the tweets entered on the election page as well as those entered in any other part of the service with obvious election-related phrases, such as “Palin.”
I think our company should do this very thing for each of the colleges we work with. Sure, you’d get a few fans tweeting that the coach made a bad call but I suspect the majority of posts would be supportive. And what a sense of “being part of the crowd” this would create for fans listening to the radio or watching TV. Might even be something a hip, web-savvy company would want to sponsor.
Webcasting high school football games
“Beginning this Friday, Gannett will have 12 live high school football games showing on widgets posted to USAToday.com and many of our local broadcast and newspaper sites. The games are being produced by our broadcast and newspaper sites as well as a high school AV department. Most of the games are single cam, laptop, aircard + Mogulus productions.” — Liz Foreman, Lost Remote:
Sarah Silverman: The Great Schlep
The Great Schlep from The Great Schlep on Vimeo.
“Virtual Immortality Made Easy”
Regular readers know smays.com is all about getting those photos and home movies out of the closet and up on flickr and YouTube. I’ve even posted a time or two about digital immortality.
Scott Maentz and his wife are actually doing something about it. From their website: “Our mission at RememberGranny.com is to help technology challenged Baby Boomers create a legacy for future generations using today’s rich digital media and the latest Internet applications.”
RG.com has packages starting at just $99 but my favorite is the Complete Virtual Immortality Package ($499). Need some f2f help? Then you’ll want to consider the Virtual Immortality Mini-Vacation.
PS: I just went looking for some of my earlier posts where I talk about putting your life on line; paying flickr to keep your pix up forever and a day… and I can’t find them. Poor tagging. If anyone remembers some of these posts and happened to bookmark or link, drop me a line.
I’m closing in on 4,000 posts and it’s getting damned hard to find stuff.
If the boat is leaking, learn how to swim
Had a chat with an acquaintance who now lives and works in another part of the country. He’s a long-time radio news guy and he called to get my advice on how his newsroom can better take advantage of “new media” (which ain’t that new anymore). As he talked about his newsroom and the company he works for (a good one), it became clear there was no clear direction for making the transition from Old Media to New Media. And unlikely to be one. So what can he do?
First, what he cannot do. He probably cannot change (or provide) the larger online strategy his company needs. But he can begin learning the skills he needs to survive. In no particular order:
- Start blogging (any topic) This includes reading other blogs
- Start using an RSS news reader
- Set up a twitter page (get a grasp of social networking)
- Get a smart phone and learn how to use it (see above)
- Keep a small digital (still/video) camera on his person at all times
- Get a YouTube and flickr account and start using them. (any subject)
- Begin the process of creating your brand
To an old radio dog, all of this sounds like a lot more work than it really is. But here’s the question I posed to my friend: If your current job went away overnight, what would you do? Try to get a job at another radio station? A newspaper? TV station?
What kind of skills to you think they’re looking for these days? Will it be enough to give them a cassette tape of your best work? Maybe a list of the RTNDA awards you’ve won?
The skills he learned in J-school are important. His many years of “radio” experience are valuable. But it’s a new game, that demands new skills. You got ’em or you don’t.