“The nation’s commercial radio stations have seen the future, and it is in, of all things, video. Across the country, radio stations are putting up video fare on their Web sites, ranging from a simple camera in the broadcast booth to exclusive coverage of events like the Super Bowl to music videos, news clips and Web-only musical performances.” – NYTimes.com
Tag Archives: Early Net Culture
Three “flavors” of web journalism
At the Columbia University School of Journalism, they’ve been thinking about how to better reflect the Internet in their journalism curriculum and have come up with three “flavors” of Internet-related jobs that students or alumni are or will be doing.
“Continuous News” – Entails providing multiple stories of varied lengths at deadlines across the day. The all-too-familiar wire service style of reporting upon which many journalists have cut their teeth for decades.
“Editor-host” – The journalist works inside the newsroom most of time. This job is about synthesizing, analyzing and displaying (in timely fashion for online audiences) content from myriad information sources: newswires, the Internet, video, audio. This is very much an editing role; some have likened it to a typical newsroom copy desk role.“Webified Reporter” – A kind of one-man band, the Webified reporter is able to apply multiple Web tools — from reporting to videography to Flash — to create original content that takes full advantage of the medium’s interactive multimedia capacities. Not only does the Webified reporter knows how to use these tools, but also when to use which tool for a particular Web story.
What your iPod reveals about you
Podcasting News: Psychologists Jason Rentfrow of the University of Cambridge in England and Sam Gosling at the University of Texas at Austin, have found that strangers can accurately assess another person’s level of creativity, open-mindedness and extroversion after listening to his or her top 10 favorite songs.
While I had no data to support it, I theorized about this a year ago. Anyway, two of the conclusions in the new study caught my eye:
“Whether you can study or work efficiently while listening to music may depend on how outgoing you are. Background music can help extroverts focus but tends to torment introverts.”
I’ve always thought of myself as an extrovert but I can NOT listen to music while I’m trying to concentrate.
“Fans of energetic music like dance and soul are more likely to impulsively blurt our their thoughts, compared with fans of other styles.”
Guilty. I have a hard time keeping my mouth shut.
“Radio” listening up UK
According to figures released yesterday, the number of radio listeners in Britain is at a record high of more than 45 million every week. The increase is attributed to growing numbers of people tuning in on the internet, digital television and mobile phones.
Almost 8 per cent of people aged 15 and above listen to the radio on their mobile phones, a 24 per cent increase over the same period of 2005. A quarter of 15- to 24-year-olds said they tuned in this way. Listening over the internet rose by 10 per cent and by 9 per cent on digital television.
Podcasts are also more popular. More than two million people, the equivalent of 17 per cent of all owners of MP3 players, listen to the audio downloads – a rise of 15 per cent on the previous three months. [Thanks, Bob]
Pew: 14 Million Online Political Activists in U.S. Today
The Pew Internet & American Life Project is releasing another of its ongoing reports tracking Americans’ use of the internet today. Among the findings:
More than 60 million people (31% of all Americans online) say they were online during the 2006 campaign to get information about candidates and/or exchange views via email. They call this growing group “campaign internet users.” This group trends young; wealthy; well-educated; and somewhat more white than of color (33% of white Americans vs 23% of blacks and Hispanics). More at Personal Democracy Forum.
Internet access in your car
It’s early days but it is here. And Mark Ramsey looks (not so very far) ahead at what it means for radio stations:
“In the world of mobile radio, our distribution is currently both universal and exclusive. But when “the box” belongs to a third party, we are assured of neither easy distribution nor universal access. The “box owners” will do what Apple does with iTunes: Yes, anyone can post a podcast. But a very few are “featured” while most are not. The “filters” control the value. And in this scenario you and I are no longer the filters.”
I think it’s just very hard for most radio folks to believe that their listeners would listen to another station if they could. If a market has three radio stations, one might be pop…another country…and one doing news/talk. The listening pie is nicely divided, everybody gets a pretty good slice.
When all cars have high-speed net access (and they will), your station won’t be one of a hand full of listening options, it will be one of hundreds.
Weblogs vs. the New York Times
Which will be more authoritative in 2007, weblogs or the New York Times? The question (“The Long Bet”) was posed back in 2002 as part of something called The Long Now Foundation. Dave Winer’s explains:
“My bet with Martin Nisenholtz at the Times says that the tide has turned, and in five years, the publishing world will have changed so thoroughly that informed people will look to amateurs they trust for the information they want.”
Not sure who will win the wager but there’s little question the publishing world has changed and blog are having some impact.
Blog Wars
I stumbled across this a couple of nights ago while mindlessly surfing the cable channels. A fascinating documentary on the Sundance Channel. In Blog Wars, filmmakers James Rogan and Phil Craig examine how online democratic activism is shaping important elections by focusing on the decisive Connecticut senate race and Ned Lamont’s challenge to incumbent Joe Lieberman.
Favorite blogs and podcasts
Henry wants to know my ten favorite podcasts and blogs. I read a lot more than 10 blogs a day, but if I had to pick 10, they would be:
Scripting News, Boing Boing, Dilbert Blog, Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis, Mark Ramsey, Micro Persuasion, Podcasting News, Seth Godin, and GrowLearfield.com + all of the Learfield blogs. Links to the right.
As for podcasts, I don’t think I listen to 10 on a regular basis, only because I don’t have time. I sample others from time to time bu the ones I listen to regularly are:
MacCast, Keith and the Girl, Podcast 411, This Week in Tech, Diggnation, NPR Technology, This American Life, Cutting Edge (Business Week).
All are weekly except Keith and the Girl which is daily. Usually an hour.
But will they have a radio?
iPods are helping to drive increased demand for premium audio options in new cars. According to Telematics Research, 80% of 2007 models for sale in the U.S. will offer branded premium audio options from the likes of Bose and Harman/Kardon as optional or standard equipment up from 67% during the ’06 model year.
The most sought after feature in cars is support for Apple’s iPod. Last year, only 12% of vehicles for sale supported true iPod integration, while nearly 50% of the ’07 models support iPods. Meanwhile, auxiliary input is supported by nearly 60% of ’07 models. [Podcasting News]