Branden Miller tweets the new look for MUTigers.com, the website of the Missouri Tigers. Mizzou is one of the universities with which Learfield Sports works, but I have nothing to do with the websites.
But I’ve always thought most of them were cramped, too busy and impossible to navigate. This new design is a huge improvement. I haven’t poked around on the new site yet but plan to later today.
I hope similar make-overs are planned for our other properties.
NYTimes’ Saul Hansell thinks Twitter might well be the birth of a media form that combines talk radio, Digg and late-night comedians.
“Like talk radio, you get an unvarnished and largely real-time window into what a wide swath of people are actually talking about. Like Digg, you see people point to the articles and videos that they want to share. And like late-night TV (or a politician’s sound bite for the evening news), there is a premium on pithy one-liners that try to get to the heart of the matter.”
“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]
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.
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.
Our company has three reporters in Denver (for three different networks) covering the state delegations for their respective networks. Where they were once strictly radio reporters, today they’re also posting stories to websites; blogging and Twittering.
I could be wrong, but I seem to recall one convention when we actually shipped a couple of cart machines so the reporter could produce his/her reports that where then phoned back to the network for broadcast to affiliate stations over the satellite network. We still distribute by satellite but a lot of our affiliates get a lot of our reports on the web.
I was reminded of these Dark Days by a photo O. Kay Henderson took of her equipment set-up (annotated) in her hotel room in Denver. Blackberry, wireless data cards, laptops, minidisks… it all fits in a couple of carry-on’s.
“A political spat erupted in Washington, D.C., earlier this month over rules governing how members of Congress may use the Internet. House Republicans argued that proposed changes to the rules amounted to “new government censorship of the Internet,” while Democrats said the charges were exaggerated. Whichever side is right or wrong, the fact remains that current rules governing official communications prohibit members of Congress from using video-sharing or social networking sites like YouTube, Flickr, or Facebook. As a result, many House members, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), are currently in violation of the rules.
Rep. John Culberson (R-TX), a pioneer in using new media to communicate with constituents, sounded the alarm over the new rules via Twitter. Culberson has made a name for himself twittering from the House floor, broadcasting live video from the White House using Qik, and hosting regular “town hall” meetings using live video-streaming and chat on Ustream.
In a later statement, Culberson argued that new media should not be treated any differently than old. “When I am interviewed for a newspaper article or a television story, or have a conversation on a radio show, my interview/conversation is going to appear in the same publication/broadcast as a campaign or commercial ad,” he said. — Ars Technica
I "follow" Barack Obama’s Twitter feed. If you don’t know what that means, it’s okay (unless you happen to be a journalist). A few minutes ago the campaign "tweeted" that the senator was getting ready to speak in Springfield, Missouri and I could watch it live by clicking the included link.
It took me to the "live" page on the Obama website where a USTREAM player was feeding live video. As I write this there are 830 viewers. Only a fraction of the number watching on the cable news channels that might be airing this speech.
I mention this only because no "traditional media" were necessary to make this happen. The Obama campaign has an email address for each of the millions (?) of people who have contributed to his campaign. We all got a ping that he was about to speak.
[901 viewers]
I think this is huge. Sure, a campaign still need MSM to get elected. Today. Will that be as true four years from now? Will it be true at all 8 years from now?
[1,045 viewers]
Of course it is not just the live stream. This speech –and all of the others– will be available from now until election day. And beyond?
[1,095 viewers]
“12seconds is the best place online for video status updates. It’s a super easy way to share what you’re doing with your friends and family using short video clips. You can use your web cam or mobile phone. Show your friends where you are, share your thoughts, or tell them how you’re doing. We are building a video status platform that will help you keep up to date with your friends 12 seconds at a time.”
Why only 12 seconds?
“Because anything longer is boring. The scientists here at the 12seconds dodecaplex have conducted countless hours of research to determine the precise amount of time it takes for boredom or apathy to set in during typical Internet video viewing. Our patent pending Electro-Tear-Duct Prongers have determined that exactly 12 seconds of video is the ideal amount of time to keep anything interesting.”
The thing that caught my attention was how 12seconds.tv. integrates with Twitter. You’re walking down the street and spot to dogs doing the wild thing. You whip out your camera phone and shoot 12 seconds of video and off it goes to your page on 12seconds.tv. With corresponding tweet.
This reminds me of Twitpic, a similar service for still images. And eyejolt, which makes it easy to email short videos to friends. Not sure why I couldn’t get it to work with Twitter but I’ll fiddle some more. This is the kind of app that might get my to buy a phone that can shoot/send video.
On a down note, I didn’t think quality of the resulting video was very good.
“Here’s the deal with Twitter as it applies to fast-breaking news: All it takes is one person with knowledge of a big-deal news event (in this case, anyone in the NBC building who learned about Russert’s death) to instantly blast it out via Twitter to blow apart any notion you may have of holding back the tide for a few minutes.”
— Steve Outing, E-Media Tidbits