Twittering politics

Good piece at washingtonpost.com on how folks are using Twitter to cover politics. A couple of nuggets from Slate’s John Dickerson:

“If I have a thought that occurs to me, I’ll fire it off,” Dickerson says. “Sometimes it ends up being the lead of a piece, or the notion a piece gets framed around.” At the same time, he says, “there’s an element of narcissism and class clownery. A wisecrack comes into your head and you want to share it.”

Huffington Post’s Rachel Sklar:

“posting my real-time thoughts, impressions and wisecracks without having to worry about fleshing them out for a proper blog post. Working within that 140-character limit — and still managing to get out your observation, your comment, your setup and punch line or what have you — is great training for a writer.”

After a slow start, I’ve come to rely on –and enjoy– Twitter almost as much as blogging. You can follow my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/smaysdotcom. You’ll need to set up an account but it’s free and takes about 2 min.

Sports journo sees future on the web

Sinkingship250Big time sports journalist Jay Mariotti has resigned from the Chicago Sun-Times:

“It’s been a tremendous experience, but I’m going to be honest with you, the profession is dying,” Mariotti said, “I don’t think either paper [Sun-Times or Chicago Tribune] is going to survive. To showcase your work … you need a stellar Web site and if a newspaper doesn’t have that, you can’t be stuck in the 20th century with your old newspaper.”

His bosses have a different take on things and you can read what they have to say at CBS2Chicago.com.

Sprint in the NFL radio business

“Sprint Nextel subscribers will be able to listen to live radio broadcasts of National Football League games this season as part of new partnership between the wireless provider and sports league.

IphonefootballThe live, cell-phone-accessible radio broadcasts—the centerpiece of the new NFL Mobile Live platform–will be available to all Sprint wireless subscribers who purchase a basic data plan as part of their services. In addition, as part of the agreement a select group of premium subscribers will be able to view live broadcasts of the NFL Network’s eight Thursday Night Football games on their phones starting on Nov. 6.” — MEDIA WEEK

Hmmm. Here’s one of several “take away’s” from this story by Mark Ramsey:

“For some reason, many broadcasters confuse the term “content” with “the stuff that’s on our air.” When I use the term “content” I mean the material that’s of serious interest to listeners. Stuff they will seek out. Not filler. Not commodities. McDonalds and NOBU may both offer “food,” but that’s where the similarity ends, and don’t think for a moment the patrons don’t know the difference.

In this case, the content is owned in its entirety by a third party – not a radio company. When it comes to professional sports play-by-play, radio is a distribution channel, not a content owner. Thus we will lose out to the owners of content in deals like this.”

Our company does broadcasts for a whole bunch of big (and small) colleges. We’ve been streaming (via Yahoo!) for years and on satellite radio for the last few years. It seems inevitable that these broadcasts will go directly to phones, sooner or later. Stay tuned? Dialed in?

Baseball promos riff on blogging

Picture_1Baseball’s playoff advertising push gets under way today, when the first spots of a $65 million campaign — the league’s largest ever — are broadcast. The spots will showcase blogging and feature Fox and TBS personalities like Jeff Foxworthy and Frank Caliendo. Separately they appear at a desk, tapping away on an Apple laptop, blogging about baseball and October memories.

In one of the spots, the scene is a desk placed at home plate, where Caliendo — an accomplished impersonator whose riffs on President Bush are hits on YouTube — sits, blogging in the voice of the president. “There’s Only One October.” (Mr. Caliendo, in his President Bush voice, closes by saying, “I’m pretty sure there’s only one.”) [Story at NYT.com]

I can’t find these on YouTube yet. If you spot them somewhere, please ping me.