Tag Archives: Digital Life

A thousand people in the street (millions online)

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molotov-cocktailI’ve been thinking about the disruptive power of the Internet. How it can undermine institutions. The record industry, publishing, and media come to mind. I’m sure I could come up with others if pressed.

I’m hoping for even more chaos. Clearly, our two party system of government is broken and I’d really like to see some chaos there. Why not three or four or more political parties? Hard to make a case that our government could be less effective than it is.

The Obama campaign really showed the power of the Internet to raise money and coordinate millions of supporters. I hope we see more of that but with the power on our end of the pipes. I have no idea how this can or might come about but the first step has to be sand in the greased gears of our two party system.

Internet service restored

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After a few misstarts, my Internet service was restored yesterday. The problem was a tiny broken wire and as I watched the tech repair it, I marveled at just how much flowed through that gossamer thread (come on, when will I get another chance to write “gossamer thread”?).

Movies, photos, TV shows, audio, conversations from a world away. It makes a boy think about the “digital divide.” Every child should have high-speed access to the net. And I believe they will. Mobile access to the Internet will continue to change the world. And for the better.

Local bank phished. Again.

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I received this text message last night. It never occurred to me it was anything but a scam. You call the number and some social engineer asks you for all kinds of questions about your accounts. And, yes, some number of clueless folks apparently called the number. I’d kind of like to know how they got my mobile number. Probably not that difficult. This same bank got hit by an email phishing scam a year or so back.

A new website for under $60.00

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On Thursday of this past week one of our company websites “broke.” That’s my non-geek analysis. It wasn’t the first time and we knew it wouldn’t be the last, so –with the support and encouragement of our IT department– we decided to just flush it and start over.

At noon on Friday I installed a new WordPress theme ($59.95 from StudioPress) and started copying and pasting content. By four o’clock, I was pretty much done. Here’s a screen shot of the work-in-progress:

Learfield Communications is comprised of two operating divisions: Sports and News. We have a corporate website; a website for the sports division; one for the news division; and one for each of the networks that make up the news division.

The news division site was a challenge because we really didn’t have any dynamic content for the site and I hated putting up a “brochure” that never changed.

The WordPress site we tossed together in a few hours on Friday afternoon won’t win any awards but it will allow us to do things we couldn’t before. Like video. It’s becoming much easier to shoot, edit and host (yea YouTube and Vimeo!) video, so it makes sense to include it. WordPress has endless plug-ins for this task.

And WordPress is just a very good content management system, at least for our needs. I’ll be able to show folks in our marketing department how to create and update pages which makes it possible to keep the site fresh and current.

WordPress is very social-network friendly. Flickr, YouTube, Twitter… wherever you have content, you can quickly incorporate it.

The effectiveness of this –or any– website will be measured by the quantity and quality of the content and ease of interaction with the people who visit it. WordPress delivers.

It would have been easy to spend a couple of months a  few thousand dollars getting a simple site like this developed. I can now take that money and time and go improve some more of our sites. [END OF COMMERCIAL]

You’re in my Rolodex

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One of the reporters in one of our newsrooms has a Rolodex that goes back 30+ years. The cards are worn from handling and yellowed by the years. I have no idea if he also maintains some kind of computer file as well. Doubtful.

A well-maintained Rolodex was once the most valuable thing on a reporter’s (or salesman’s) desk and the one thing to take with you when the time came.

It’s from a time when the telephone was the sole means of instant communication but not yet smart enough to remember more than a half-dozen numbers (“I’ve got you on speed dial”).

I wonder how many fewer calls are made in our email world. Has Outlook become the new Rolodex? Or has our mobile phones absorbed that function? Losing your phone is only a big deal because it might mean losing all of the numbers of friends and contacts.

Which brings us to social networks.

Will being able to communicate with you –by calling or emailing– become less valuable than having you “friend” me on Facebook or “follow” me on Twitter. The difference is me seeking your attention versus you deciding to give me your attention.

Let’s say you’re a salesman for a paper products company. Let’s call you Stanley. You have the phone number and email addresses of your 20 largest customers. With a little time and patience, you can get them on the phone; get a reply to an email; and even get an appointment.

But suppose those customers elected to follow your Twitter feed because that’s where you posted links to information that they found valuable enough to give their attention. I submit it is a different –more valuable– kind of attention than you get when you punch through with a call or email.

One last example. I can call or email the senior management of our company. Most of them are in the same building, so I can walk down the hall and usually get some face time. But a couple of them read my blog and –in time– will follow my Twitter feed. And the only reason they would invest even a minute or two from incredibly busy days, is they perceive some value (information or entertainment).

Being in someone’s network is far more valuable than being on their call-back list. Or in their Roladex.