Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Posted on by
Reply

Last week Google CEO Eric Schmidt was interviewed by CNBC’s Jim Cramer (Mad Money). Terry Heaton provides an insightful summary of special interest to local media companies:

“He said the company gives up billions in revenue by keeping ads off the home page. Why? Because it would upset users. “We prioritize the end user over the advertiser,” he told Cramer. This simple statement — if truly adopted by media companies — would revolutionize all of online media. We’d have a race to see who could better serve the wants and needs of the people formerly known as the audience, and that would be a refreshing change from words like capture, drive, and my favorite, monetize.

Google doesn’t provide any guidance whatsoever to stock analysts, and Schmidt’s answer, again, is profoundly simple when he says it would “get in the way” of running the business, adding, “If we started giving quarterly guidance, all of a sudden the whole company would start focusing on the quarter rather than trying to change the world.”

On the company’s heretofore unsuccessful attempts to make money from YouTube, Schmidt said it didn’t matter, at least not right now. He said they make plenty of money already, because YouTube places users in the stream of Google’s other businesses, and that cannot be overlooked. “I’d be worried if people weren’t using to YouTube,” he told Cramer. “Since it’s an enormous success globally, we know we will eventually benefit from it.”

Biography

Posted on by

Mom was a farm girl. Dad was a city boy. The war was over and they met in St. Louis. I was born in 1948 in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and grew up in Kennett (about an hour to the south). Dad was a “radio announcer” and mom worked for the “welfare department.” Job titles that –like my youth–vanished years ago.

A little piece of shrapnel from the Baby Boom, I watched a lot of TV. In the early 50’s I sat two feet from the Motorola, staring at the Indian-head test pattern until the afternoon programming got underway. The spirit of Norman Rockwell hovered over me through a near-perfect childhood.

The Beatles released I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND in the US just after Christmas in 1963 and it a very big deal by February of ’64. Hard to imagine a better time to be a high school sophomore. We weren’t paying much attention to Viet Nam, yet.

By the time I started college in the fall of 1966, getting and keeping a draft deferment was top of mind. I quickly switched my major from Business to Theater. Guys were coming back from Viet Nam and bringing good drugs and great music and protesting was catching on, even in the Midwest.

I was part of the first draft lottery and drew number 210, just low enough to be dangerous. Following graduation in 1970, I goofed off all summer before –at my father’s suggestion– entering law school at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. I attended classes and kept my deferment until Nixon froze the draft (in December of 1970) at lottery number 195. I quit law school the following week, just before finals.

In the spring of 1971, I went to work for the U.S. Postal Service as a Postal Inspector. After three months of training in D.C. I was sent to Pendleton, Oregon, where I audited small post offices in Oregon and Washington. I counted stamps and money orders for almost a year and investigated exploded rural mail boxes (a federal crime). Like law school, not what I had in mind.

In early ’72 I returned to the Midwest and hung around Memphis for a few months before returning to Kennett in early summer. In July, I started working at KBOA on the overnight shift and found my true calling. For the next dozen years I spun records and MC’d the Little Miss Christmas Belle Pageant.

In March, 1973, I met Barb at Tommy’s North-End Cafe and fell in love. We dated for six years and married in 1978.

In June, 1984, we moved to Jefferson City, Missouri, to work for Learfield Communications. For the next 15 years or so, I handled affiliate relations for the company’s various radio networks. When the Internet came along, I got the bug and slowly started migrating in that  direction. I now spend most of my waking hours online –with periodic breaks for Barb and the dogs–and look forward to every day.

March 8, 2003

Sheryl Crow’s pants

Posted on by

Picture_1

You too can look as good as Shery Crow. All you have to do is stuff your big bottom in a pair of her new Bootheel Tradiing Co. jeans, which went on sale nationwide August 15 (at Dillard’s among other retailers).

Ms. Crow celebrates the official retail launch with the first of several in-store appearances. She will be stopping by Las Vegas’s Fashion Show Mall on Aug. 26 from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. [Thanks to official SC stalker, Lewis]

Jon Stewart most trusted man in America?

Posted on by

This New York Times story wonders if Jon Stewart is the most trusted man in America?

“When Americans were asked in a 2007 poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press to name the journalist they most admired, Mr. Stewart, the fake news anchor, came in at No. 4, tied with the real news anchors Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Dan Rather of CBS and Anderson Cooper of CNN.

Offices for “The Daily Show” occupy a sprawling loftlike space that combines the energy of a newsroom with the laid-back vibe of an Internet start-up: many staff members wear jeans and flip-flops, and two amiable dogs wander the hallways. The day begins with a morning meeting where material harvested from 15 TiVos and even more newspapers, magazines and Web sites is reviewed. That meeting, Mr. Stewart said, “would be very unpleasant for most people to watch: it’s really a gathering of curmudgeons expressing frustration and upset, and the rest of the day is spent trying to mask or repress that through whatever creative devices we can find.”

After reading the full story I took a moment to try to come up with some public figure I trust more… and coud not.

“Candidates for Sale”

Posted on by

I’ve said on more than one occasion that Matt Taibbi is my favorite political reporter. I tend to believe the things he writes. And his latest piece in Rolling Stone makes my stomach hurt. Here’s the short version:

“For all the excitement that Barack Obama has garnered, and all the talk about a new day in Washington, it would be tragic if the real legacy of his election victory was to finally expose the essentially unchanging, oligarchic nature of our political system. It’s the same old story: Money talks, and bullshit walks. And don’t be surprised if we’re the ones still walking after November.”

I’m not ready to flush my hope for Obama yet, but I promised I’d own my support for the guy. And do it here.

Jarvis: “Covering conventions a waste”

Posted on by
Reply

“Forbes.com reports that the number of journalists covering the conventions this fall will remain at the same level as 2004 and 2000: 15,000 of them. What a waste. The outcome of the conventions is known. There will be no news. Why are these news organizations sending so many staffers there?

Ego. That’s it, pure ad simple: Our man in Denver. Instead of your woman. It’s for bylines, bylines the public couldn’t care less about. The coverage will be no different outlet to outlet. We can watch it all ourselves on C-SPAN.

The conventions aren’t news. Anymore they are only staged events to get media coverage. And it works. But it’s not for the public good that they’re covered.

Don’t try to feed me that line about how they’ll be covering their local delegations. Their local delegations never make news — not since 1968 anyway — and their actions couldn’t be more predictable, less newsworthy. If you want to cover the locals, cover them at home — before the event. But you still won’t get any news from them.” — BuzzMachine

Ouch. That’s a little close to home. Each of our networks send reporters to the Big Show. I’ll leave it to the real journalists to argue Jarvis’ point.

I will offer one other rational for sending a reporter to the convention. It’s kind of cool. I know, I know… it’s a hell of a lot of work… certainly no vacation. But for reporters below the national level, getting to go to a Big Event like this is something of a spiff. There I said it. Now where did I put my Shit Storm helmet?

Go mobile or go home

Posted on by

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.”

 

NY-based crews calling Olympics

Posted on by

“The announcers are at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, nearly 7,000 miles from Beijing, sitting inside 14-foot-wide booths that are equipped with 24-inch HD monitors and headsets that pipe in the ambient sounds from the game sites in China. Every bit of 13 sports, and some of basketball, is called in this fashion on MSNBC, USA and CNBC.

The announcers never see anything more than what the viewers see. There is no deception afoot here. The announcers make it clear that they are in New York, as do the studio hosts.” — NYTimes.com

Makes me wonder if –in a pinch– one of our guys could “call” a game by watching it on TV? Yes, I know we’d lose all the good ambience from the booth. And much more. I’m just wondering.

What are people saying about your product?

Posted on by
Reply

ImagesThe folks Kraft Foods wanted to know what people thought of Vegemite (something they put on toast in Australia). So they hired IBM who has a little program called CoBRA (Corporate and Brand Reputation Analysis) to listen to on-line consumer conversations in blogs, boards and news feeds.

CoBRA scanned 1.5 billion posts in 38 different languages, and came up with 479,206 mentions of Vegemite. Outranking other giants like Coca Cola, Nike, Toyota, Sony and Starbucks when it came to people searching and commenting on their favourite product online.

There’s more on the story here. I only mention this because all those big brands mentioned above spend a butt-load of money marketing and advertising. I’m guessing Kraft doesn’t do so much for Vegemite.

This means something but I’m not sure what.