Selected by peterhimler

• 
  NYT: Media and Advertising

• John Mashek, Veteran Political Reporter, Is Dead at 77

  By WILLIAM GRIMES

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:56 pm

  Mr. Mashek was a reporter and columnist for nearly half a century for U.S. News & World Report, The Boston Globe and other publications.

• Talk to The Times: The Choice Blog

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:25 am

  Jacques Steinberg is answering questions from readers.

• Fox Wins Election Night Ratings on Cable

  By BRIAN STELTER

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:45 am

  As Republicans won governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia, the Fox News Channel saw Nielsen ratings gains.

• Advertising: After a Brutal Year, Marketers Regroup to Share War Stories and Ideas

  By STUART ELLIOTT

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:40 pm

  Attendance at the Association of National Advertisers conference is about the same as in 2008, but the atmosphere has changed.

• Scripps Buys Major Stake in Travel Channel

  By BRIAN STELTER and ZACHERY KOUWE

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:34 pm

  The deal values the cable channel at nearly a billion dollars, a price that some analysts say they believe is too high.

• 
  Church of the Customer Blog

• Kicking out unwanted customers

  Jackie Huba

  30 Oct 2009 | 10:35 am

  "Don't talk during the movie or we will take your ass out." If you've been to an Alamo Drafthouse, the movie theater chain in Austin, Texas, then you've seen that semi-serious warning couched in a fun "public service announcement" before a movie showing. Theater founder Tim League knows that talkers mar the movie-watching experience for everyone else, and he does not tolerate them -- even if they punch the windshield of his car.See, Tim was a customer recently at one of his theaters. A nearby loud-talker was asked by a theater waiter to keep it down. The customer protested, loudly, demanding…

• Twitter: the killer app for customer service

  Jackie Huba

  22 Oct 2009 | 10:31 am

  "Hello, this is Sam Kaufman from the AT&T Internet Executive Office, and I am calling about your tweets."That's what I heard yesterday after posting a few tweets about my less-than-stellar customer service experience with an AT&T DSL technical support rep. The rep was trying to diagnose my DSL problems and after telling me to stay on the line for 10 minutes, he never returned after 30 minutes. I hung up. He never called back.With a few hours of my AT&T tweet, @ATTJohnathon, a customer care rep on Twitter contacted me, asking if he could help. I DM'ed him my account number as he…

• Fees are penalties. Always.

  Jackie Huba

  19 Oct 2009 | 1:24 pm

  It's a wonder why some businesses can't grasp this. Consider the U.S. airlines last month: Southwest reported an 8.8% increase in revenue passenger miles. Its load factor, the percentage of seats that were filled, increased 11% from a year ago, to 74.7% — a big increase for a month in which schools reopen and summer vacation travels stop. JetBlue saw a 9.8% jump in passenger miles. Its load factor rose about 1% from the prior year, to 77.6%. Compare those numbers to other airlines. Delta: Down 5% on its mainline operation. It also cut capacity by 5%. American: Down 2.6% domestically. It cut…

• 4 questions with author Jeanne Bliss

  Jackie Huba

  16 Oct 2009 | 1:30 pm

  What makes the difference between having customers who like you and customers who love you? Many businesses are admired, but only an elite few have passionate, loyal, vocal fans. The kind of customers who not only come back time and time again, but rave to friends, family, and even strangers. Jeanne Bliss has been the Chief Customer Officer for Lands End, Coldwell Banker, and Allstate, to name a few. Her new book, "I Love You More Than My Dog": Five Decisions That Drive Extreme Customer Loyalty in Good Times and Bad,is her take on how companies create beloved brands. Q: You describe…

• A social media truism

  Ben McConnell

  13 Oct 2009 | 8:01 am

  When times are good, participate.When times are tough, participate more.(Doesn't that read better than "advertise" in that old saying?)

• 
  AdPulp

• Thanks To Our New Advertiser, ProtoShare

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:27 pm

  "Web prototyping can be cumbersome and expensive. ProtoShare is a smart way for the team to collaborate with clients." - Steve Gray, Technology Director at Razorfish If you have an interest in improving your Web development process, I encourage you to support our new advertiser and learn more about ProtoShare.

• eBay -- Everything You Want At A Price You Can Afford

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:14 pm

  David Gianatasio of Adfreak is not a fan of Goodby's new work for eBay. eBay crested during Web 1.0, and this effort seems hell-bent on delivering old-hat, mostly unfunny schtick from a who's-who of cable-comedy refugees in set-ups that go nowhere. That's kind of harsh, although I can see his point.

• Funneling Towards A Sale

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:43 pm

  Kevin Lee, CEO of Didit, and Gian Fulgoni, Chairman and Founder of comScore discuss branding's importance in the marketing mix and how search alone won't close the sale. [via iMediaConnection]

• Talking Pre-Roll

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:23 am

  Speaking as a consumer of online video, I'm no fan of pre-roll, also known as force feeding. But some of these guys are. Let's listen... According to Beet.TV, the panel above is comprised of Michael Learmonth of Ad Age; Micheal Mathieu, CEO of video ad network YuMe; Rob Norman, CEO of WPP's GroupM; Robert Davis of Ogilvy; and John McCarus of Digitas. I like how Davis goes to bat here for Interactive and what he calls "experience driving." "If the promise of the Internet is just over-the-top programming, or another way to sit back, I think we miss the opportunity," Davis concludes.

• Are You Ready To Get Digital Right?

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:09 pm

  Jon Gibs, Vice President, Media Analytics at Nielsen is offering up a 16-page report on "Integrated Measurement in a Multi-Screen World." Gibs asks: If the Internet has truly "arrived" and is being taken seriously, why have we not yet seen significant brand advertising dollars follow? He then follows the question with this sage piece of thinking: "Perhaps it's because online creative units tend to replicate the print experience instead of redefining the consumer experience." Gibs also suggests that digital specialists acquire a more expansive view (although seeing the whole pie doesn't…

• 
  PR, Social Media, and Marketing Mentor ?

• 2009 SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards Submission Deadline Extended to Thursday, September 10th

  Each year, the Society for New Communications Research presents the prestigious SNCR Excellence in New Communications Awards. The deadline for application submissions for this year's awards has been extended from September 7th to Thursday, September 10, 2009, to allow applicants who are away for Labor Day Weekend to finish and ...

• Some Social Media Humor for Summer Vacation…

  Occasionally in social media training, some humor is called for, and The Onion Newsfeed video clip above takes on the big issue of search engine privacy rights—specifically, while using the ubiquitous Google—and gives us a tour of "Google's Opt-Out Privacy Village." And then, there's this HubSpot spoof on Twitter ...

• Web 1.0, 2.0, 3.0 — Where is the Web Going, and What is the Semantic Web?

  Sometimes, the best way to learn about something is without using words. Here's a creative example of a video explaining the difference between Web 1.0 and 2.0, by the clever Not in Words producers: Now, back to words and some basic drawings, as we move on to Web 3.0 and beyond. ...

• Join us at NewComm Forum and Inbound Marketing Summit in San Francisco!

  The 5th Annual New Communications Forum April 27th - 29th, 2009 The Marriott Hotel, San Francisco, California   I just wanted you to know that there are still a few seats available for next week's NewComm Forum 2009. Don't miss this special opportunity to participate in a highly-interactive, exclusive gathering of the most notable ...

• Flutter

  OK, I haven't posted here for a while, due to being SO busy, I've barely had time to eat, sleep or recuperate from one of those annoying seasonal colds that seems to drag on while you're doing everything else. So, even though social media is central to my work (the ...

• 
  Micro Persuasion

• Five Incredibly Useful Things You Can Do Without Ever Leaving Facebook

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:31 pm

  I have been spending a fair amount of time on Facebook since they updated the news feed feature, mostly because I can get a quick read on what's new. I like how they show you "trends from friends." In the process, I am discovering that it's becoming a one-stop shop for many of my day-to-day activities. Here are five things that I recently found you can do right from within Facebook without having to leave...1) Read, search and post tweets via Twitgether, a full-featured Twitter client2) Watch TV streams via Hulu 3) Catch up with the local weather, using WeatherBug4) Read…

• Moms More Influenced Offline, While Kids Are Online

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:53 pm

  Two new studies point to a growing divide in how moms and kids communicate and are influenced...First up, Nielsen/Pete Blackshaw's Pocket Guide to Social Media and Kids: "In the hands of children and tweens, today’s cell phones are primarily used as text messaging devices, cameras, gaming consoles, video viewers, MP3 players, and incidentally, as mobile phones via the speaker capability so their friends can chime in on the call." And, via AdAge, parents are relying more on offline conversations to make decisions: "A study due out next week from the Parenting Group found that while…

• PR Pros on Press Releases - Meh

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm

  MarketingCharts uncovers some fresh data on how PR people feel about press releases. It's ugly."(only) 49% of today’s professional communicators say they think press releases are 'as useful as ever,' according to recent poll of corporate communicators conducted by Ragan Communications and PollStream."And on why we can't kick the drug..."The poll also found that another 33% of the the 401 respondents see press releases as 'a necessary evil that won’t go away soon,' in large part because of disclosure rules for public companies set forth by the US Securities and Exchange Commission."And how…

• Three Ways to Thrive in the Age of Streams

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:12 am

  The images above should strike fear in any one who seeks attention - be it a brand, a politician or an individual. They come from Nielsen. The first (87) is the number of domains the average American visits in a month. The second (2600) is the number of web pages the average American visits in a month.  This funnel is small when you think about the infinite choices we have today - an era of information abundance. And given that human attention doesn't scale, I anticipate these stats will remain stable. So how do you break through? Here are three steps I am considering in my work as a…

• Defining Media, Cross-Mating Elephants and Zebras

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:34 am

  Five years ago there was media and social media and the two were distinct. You know what was what. It was like there elephants and zebras. You knew the difference. Today all media is social, all social is media. It's impossible to separate the two. The media all actively use social technologies to innovate, converse and collaborate with their audiences. Meanwhile, social content from friends - be it tweets or status updates or videos - all should be considered media. Yes, the elephants and the zebras have cross-mated. My colleague overheard me say this and he drew this little doodle for…

• 
  PR 2.0

• Rumors of the Death of Blogs are Greatly Exaggerated

  brian

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:02 am

  Source: feministingEach year at Blogworld Expo, Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra presents The State of the Blogosphere as one of the event’s prestigious keynotes. For those who are unfamiliar with Technorati, it serves as a directory and search engine for the blogosphere as well as a benchmark for the ranking of blogs worldwide.While there has been much discussion about the relevance and even demise of blogs as the statusphere and micro updates gained traction in addition to earning prominence in the mainstream spotlight, the reality is that blogs are a vital ingredient to the media…

• RT @Twitter: New Retweet Feature Goes Live

  brian

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:29 pm

  Source: TwitterThis is breaking news at the moment, therefore this post will update as new information trickles in.Twitter is making good on its recent promise to introduce new features to bring users back to Twitter.com.Similar to the way that it rolled out Lists, Twitter is incrementally releasing its new Retweet feature initially previewed in August 2009.As described by @Biz, co-founder of Twitter:Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy. In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will…

• Social Media Influencers are not Traditional Influencers

  brian

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:19 am

  SourceGuest post by Damien Basille, follow him on Twitter | Read his blogAs more and more brands are moving all of their ad spend online, defining how influence affects their return on investment is necessary and must be done as soon as possible. While some are making inroads to define these calculations many are overlooking the fact that influence affects everything. Without factoring in the real issue of different types of influence you run into a number of problems, for instance focusing on one group of influencers over another or getting broad sweeping numbers instead of knowing exactly…

• The Future of the Embargo

  brian

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:25 am

  CreditIn media and blogger relations, PR typically wields two powerful tools to help boost the effectiveness of pitching and potential placement of news: the embargo and the exclusive.In the case of an exclusive, a story is usually packaged prior to official release for one particular writer, fully understanding their style, nuances, and audience. If the story is accepted, it is not pitched to any other media outlets until after the story runs. The benefit for PR is that it can bank on the publishing of a guaranteed, high profile story. The advantage for the reporter is that they maintain a…

• Twitter Releases New Widget for Lists

  brian

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:14 pm

  Twitter recently expanded its new Lists service to users network-wide and in doing so, injected a sense of excitement, confusion, and also utility. Lists represent a significant milestone for Twitter as it transcends asynchronous conversations and and broadcast messages into a form of intelligence gathering, education, entertainment, and news.Twitter Lists are also stirring controversy as many believe that it sets the foundation for a new level of establishing a metric for influence. Whereas prominence was measured by the number of followers as well as the friends-to-follower ratio, now the…

• 
  The Marketing Minute

• How do you see your clients

  Drew McLellan

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:21 pm

  A client of ours, E-Myth Benchmark, who does excellent work with small business leaders (including yours truly) has this philosophy about their clients:"Our clients are much greater than they know.  It's our honor to help them discover that truth about themselves."Imagine if every time you answered the phone, shot off an e-mail or met with a client, you were filled with that attitude.   How might that change the dynamics of your relationship?  How would a bit of reverence change your company's culture?I've said it before....if you can't…

• Free chapter chock full of marketing "ah ha!"

  Drew McLellan

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:30 pm

  I love many things about blogging and social media.  But the #1 reason I love it is because it has afforded me the opportunity to meet some really wonderful, smart people. And sometimes it feels as though we've known each other forever.  That's certainly true for me of Gavin Heaton, CK, Lori Magno, Luc Debaisieux and many others.  But there's this agency guy named Jay Heyman who lives in New York City -- and he and I connect in a whole different way.  For some odd reason, we end up writing posts on the same subject or about the same subject on a regular basis! Which of…

• What I'm reading (11/01/09)

  Drew McLellan

  1 Nov 2009 | 6:57 am

  Sorry I've been lax with this feature in October.  It wasn't that I was not reading....but I've been on the road and at conferences just about all month and I just didn't have time to get this post built.None the less, here's what I've been reading these past few weeks and my take on each. Word of Mouth Marketing by Andy Sernovitz (buy it here) If you think you've already read this book -- you haven't.  Andy did a revised version in early 2009 and added lots of new case studies, worksheets and even some new chapters.  So don't be fooled.

• How to make time for social media: Twitter

  Drew McLellan

  31 Oct 2009 | 6:53 pm

  As I traverse across the country talking about social media, whether it's with clients one-on-one or with conference attendees from a stage -- the "I don't have time" mantra is a common response to the conversation.   I'm with you.  I get the time crunch thing.  I'm caught between that same rock and hard place.  But...I have figured out some ways to create time/time savers when it comes to social media.  So, I thought I would share what works for me, with the hopes that you can steal some of these ideas/tools. I'm not saying…

• If they'll play on your site, they'll pay on your site

  Drew McLellan

  29 Oct 2009 | 2:00 am

  Last year, I told you about Meijer, a 180 big box store in the Midwest and the very cool promotion they unleashed on Chicago and Cincinnati around Halloween.  Their headless horseman rode wild through the streets...having some fun scaring the downtown crowd. Well this year, they've upped the ante.  They've created a 3D experience where you can "put on a mask" and record a Halloween greeting.  Basically, it's a digital hologram called augmented reality.  (Kevin Dugan explains it better than I can.)Using this technology and your webcam, you can…

• 
  mediabistro.com: PRNewser

• Rubenstein Communicates (Yet Another) Yankee World Series

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:52 pm

  The New York Yankees celebrated their 27th World Series today with a parade through downtown Manhattan's "Canyon of Heroes." Rubenstein Associates, the team's PR agency of record, issued the following statement to media on behalf of team owner George Steinbrenner, sent by agency president Howard Rubenstein. continued... New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

• Ogilvy PR Picks Up $9M California Rail Contract

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:22 pm

  It seems Ogilvy PR should be thanking California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration for mismanagement. It helped Ogilvy pick up a $9 million contract with the California High-Speed Rail Authority. The bidding process for the contract was re-opened after Mercury Public Affairs - who was about to win the account - was deemed to have too many close ties to the Schwarzenegger administration. Government board members called the original bidding process, "insufficient." "Under a new bidding process, a staff selection panel that included three representatives from outside transit agencies…

• Survey: United States World's Top Country Brand

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:48 pm

  Does the U.S. have a perception problem? Not so, according to one survey. FutureBrand, in conjunction with Weber Shandwick's Global Travel & Lifestyle Practice, released their fifth annual Country Brand Index (CBI) today. The U.S. came in first, followed by Canada and Australia. New Zealand and France round out the top five. In terms of methodology, the survey, "incorporates global quantitative research, expert opinions, and relevant secondary sources for statistics that link brand equity to assets, growth and expansion." "It's logical to assume that the shift in the political climate and…

• Poll: PR People Say Exclusives More Popular Than Embargoes

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:29 am

  In a recent PRNewser poll, we asked, "Which Tactic Did You Employ the Last Time You Released Big News?" The results: "Posted on a wire and pitched the release," and "Exclusive with one publication" both came in dead even at 32% each. 21% said "News embargo" and 15% said "Posted on company blog/website and pitched the link." Judging from these results, we have to ask: Are embargoes on the decline? Just last week agency Waggener Edstrom assembled a panel to discuss the topic of emgargoes, and reporters in attendance were split down the middle between those who defended them and those who hate…

• Kelly McCarthy Joins Ruder Finn as Director of Business Development

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:55 am

  First on PRNewser: Bite PR Manager of Business Development & Account Planning Kelly McCarthy is leaving the agency to join Ruder Finn as Director of Business Development. "I love Bite, always have and continue to wish them well, but it's a new chapter for me and a new opportunity. [Ruder Finn] is an agency that is growing and has fantastic credentials," said McCarthy. Bite will "definitely" be hiring, said Vice President Sean Mills. "We're taking this as an opportunity to evaluate our new business structure across North America and make sure we have the right resources in the right places. As…

• 
  Digital Influence Mapping Project

• WOMMA to Present at FDA Hearings on Social Media

  John Bell

  1 Nov 2009 | 9:01 pm

  On Friday, November 12th, Melissa Davies, Research Director at Nielsen, and I will present on behalf of WOMMA during two sessions with the FDA. These are part of the long-awaited FDA foray into considering new guardrails for health products marketers in social media. Pharma, one of a few heavily regulated industries, has stepped cautiously into social media over the past few years. Still, pharam is not as paralyzed as some would suggest. Dose of Digital maintains a great list of pharma social media activities from Twitter to communities. WOMMA has just gone through a productive year…

• The Trends in Next Generation Listening Posts (and Looking Glass)

  John Bell

  28 Oct 2009 | 5:18 am

  We have reviewed and worked with many of the leading technology companies curently providing consumer generated media (cgm) monitoring solutions for brands. After having done two enterprise-level evaluations for global brands - each with different geographic focus - it is clear that the market is shifting. We just went through a deep-dive on Microsoft's Looking Glass which points to a further evolution of the market towards in-house and integrated solutions. Is that defiance of the SaS model or are they accurately anticipating where big brands need to go in the future?  …

• Wall-to-Wall Brand Cases, the FTC and Sugarland: WOMMA Summit 2009

  John Bell

  25 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm

  This year's Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) Summit is something else. It is the fruit of two years effort by a lot of smart marketers to bring the best of social media and word of mouth marketing together. We wanted to help experienced marcom experts share best practices in the best way possible - via our peers. As current Board President of WOMMA, I can proudly say that this event reflects the essential and exciting role WOMMA plays now. Here are 7 reasons why this year's WOMMA Summit is a must-attend event for any marketer who needs to apply social media in a…

• The Power of Owned and Earned Media

  John Bell

  20 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm

  The power of social media going forward is in integrated programs, not stand-alone, "earned" media programs. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that complimentary media - social (the new "earned" media), owned media (a brand's web presence) & paid media will produce a compound effect if they work together. And that is what Group M saw in their recent study. A sister company of Ogilvy inside WPP, Group M, released a bit of interesting research a week back. Essentially, their study pointed to the positive effect of social media on the performance of…

• The New (and Imperfect) FTC Guidelines Are a Good Start

  John Bell

  18 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm

  There has been a fair amount of discussion about the recent FTC Guidelines on Endorsements and Testimonials.I serve as the Board President of the Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and we have been supportive of the FTC's effort to try and protect consumers amidst some pretty fast-paced change in online media. We commented on the proposed Guidelines before they were adopted and pushed back pretty hard on some of the points that seemed to put undue burden on the blogger for product claims they make. New Responsibility The final Guidelines do hold bloggers and brands responsible…

• 
  Adrants

• The Girls (Booth Babes) of ad:tech Return

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:38 pm

  Whether its the so called return to a healthier economy or the simple fact most humans can't go too long without seeing another one half dress, the booth babe is back.

• 
  Being Peter Kim

• Binary thinking

  Peter Kim

  3 Nov 2009 | 6:03 am

  A couple months ago after Snow Leopard was released, I was speaking with a friend about base 2, base 10, and base n numbers in general. Over the past month, I've been thinking about the definition of Social Business Design and considering the range of reactions from supporters and detractors. All business discussions can be reduced to a single binary argument focusing on the bottom line. Does it improve profitability, yes or no? In practice, the range of decisions a manager must make consists of a multitude of choices better described by real options theory and system dynamics. To make a…

• A conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk

  Peter Kim

  27 Oct 2009 | 6:01 am

  A couple weeks ago, I had a public, online conversation with Gary Vaynerchuk aka @garyvee. He’s on a PR blitz to promote the release of his new book “Crush It.” If you’re not familiar with Vaynerchuk, he’s a self-trained wine expert who has used social media, online video in particular, to drive exponential growth in his family's wine business. At the same time, he's built a kingpin personal brand, signing a seven-figure, ten-book deal in Spring 2009.  Vaynerchuk stands as proof of how participating in one’s customer ecosystem leads to business success. To view the entire…

• Defining Social Business Design: Style vs. Substance

  Peter Kim

  26 Oct 2009 | 7:26 am

  Since communicating the definition of social business design earlier this month, I've noted a wide range of reactions to the concept. For the most part, people understand that we're talking about what's on the horizon for business. However, most detractors seem to take issue with the style of the idea's communication rather than its substance. Some say they don't understand. I'll take that at face value and suggest they try harder. Others ask why simpler words weren't used. Well, as a certain bald-headed guru told me, "words matter." Words do matter. When I began my stint as a Forrester…

• How open are you?

  Peter Kim

  19 Oct 2009 | 6:19 am

  A couple weeks ago, my company launched its online presence, The Collaboratory. Part of the site contains a feed of our communications activity - whether public tweets, private "yams", or messages emailed. Each channel carries a varying level of opacity, for good reason. After operating the live stream in public view for a couple weeks, each of us has reflected upon the experience and shared our thoughts. My take: The Collaboratory made me rethink my perspective on authenticity in social media. For the most part, people live by the old T.S. Eliot quote, "prepare a face to meet the faces you…

• Enterprise 2.0, Social Media Marketing, and Social Business Design

  Peter Kim

  14 Oct 2009 | 6:01 am

  How do you refer to "this space"? If you're from a marketing or communications background, you likely refer to "Social Media Marketing." If you're from an IT background, you likely refer to "Enterprise 2.0." Recently, thought leaders have been shifting focus to "social business." This evolution is natural - and fully anticipated. There's nothing wrong with these terms, but it's time for us to straighten out terminology, especially when it comes to Social Media Marketing, Enterprise 2.0, Social Business, and Social Business Design... Continue reading on the Dachis Group Collaboratory

• 
  AdFreak

• Are we laughing with eBay or at eBay here?

  Adweek Blogs

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:27 am

  Would you buy a snowmobile on eBay because Jim Gaffigan tells you to? The answer, of course, is no. Could you enjoy his attempts to persuade you in a TV commercial? Well, yes ... in theory. In practice, however, viewers might hit the fast-forward button. Sadly, the same is true of much of this new campaign from Goodby, Silverstein & Partners for the fading auction powerhouse. See a whole bunch of ads here. eBay crested during Web 1.0, and this effort seems hell-bent on delivering old-hat, mostly unfunny schtick from a who's-who of cable-comedy refugees in set-ups that go nowhere. Even the…

• The 'ridiculous charade' of recording an ad

  Adweek Blogs

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:51 am

  Few people suffer under the heavy egotistical load of the ad industry quite like the sound engineers who record audio for commercials. They're micromanaged by everyone from the client to the junior copywriter, so it's nice to see them get their revenge in this anonymously produced British video, created with the same Xtranormal text-to-movie software that gave us the bitter robot designer. Via American Copywriter. —Posted by David GrinerSee also:Robot designer gets screwed over yet again

• Kids would prefer you not destroy the Earth

  Adweek Blogs

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:22 am

  Zig's cinematic spot for Moms Against Climate Change pits child protesters (shouldn't they be in school?) against cops (don't they have parking tickets to write?) to illustrate that if kids knew what was at stake, they'd take action. There's no denying it packs a punch. That said, something feels off. I think I was expecting a boffo climax to really drive the point home. Why not have the sides embrace, each kid finding one of his or her parents among the riot squad, to symbolize that we're all in this together? Conversely, acid rain pouring from above and "frying" every last person? That…

• HBO still taking shots at George W. Bush

  Adweek Blogs

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:54 am

  The George W. Bush era is thankfully gone, but HBO and Venables, Bell & Partners channel the former president's less-than-lucid vibe and penchant for incoherent phrasing in this banner and billboard push touting the DVD release of the Will Ferrell special You're Welcome, America: A Final Night With George W. Bush. The election-poster-style ads include Bush-inspired slogans like "Never misunderestimate me," "Celebrate the era of strategery" and "Mission still not accomplished." The work's amusing, but the tongue-twisted ex-leader of the free world is such an easy target, attempts at parody…

• 1993 Taurus a great car for today, says Ford

  Adweek Blogs

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:51 am

  Great fake press conference here from The Onion, in which a Ford exec explains why the '93 Taurus is the best vehicle for today's cash-strapped consumers. If the $650 price tag doesn't grab you, surely the free cassette tape of Primus's Sailing the Seas of Cheese will. Via Consumerist. —Posted by Tim Nudd

• 
  Andy Beal's Marketing Pilgrim

• Consumers Sharing Brand Opinions on Social Networks

  Jordan McCollum

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:26 pm

  Performics reports that Twitter may be the place to get your brand mentioned if you want social networkers’ attention, according to MediaPost. Nearly half (48%) of those who saw a brand mentioned on Twitter turned to a search engine to research that brand. Other social networks lagged far behind, with 34% researching. However, the study of 3000 active social networkers showed that 70% were on Facebook, and 22% were on Twitter. So of those respondents, 32 researched a brand from Twitter, while Facebook sent 714 running to their search engine of choice. 30% of those surveyed admitted…

• Most Bloggers Discuss Products/Brands

  Jordan McCollum

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:06 pm

  According to Technorati’s 2009 State of the Blogosphere report, 70% of bloggers talk about products or brands on their blogs, eMarketer reports. And obviously some of these mentions would be prompted by free sample products, etc.—a practice popular enough to draw the notice of the FTC, which now requires disclosure on such review products. Interestingly, corporate bloggers were least likely to blog about brands and products (lawsuit anyone?), and hobbyist bloggers were second least likely. Technorati defined hobbyist bloggers as those that blog for fun. They don’t make money…

• Skype Founders Re-Found in Settlement

  Frank Reed

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:07 am

  The drama surrounding Skype as of late played out like a business soap opera. The accusations flew from both sides of the fence with founders and owners going at it tooth and nail. Check out Kara Swisher’s account over at All Things Digital for the blow by blow description. Now it looks like the ‘all clear’ can be sounded as an agreement has been reached. Here’s a synopsis for you from TechCrunch Earlier this morning, Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis settled their lawsuits with eBay and a syndicate of investors in return for a 14 percent stake in the company they founded. The…

• You’re Facing a Reputation Crisis, Now What?

  Andy Beal

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:09 am

  There’s a growing interest in online reputation management. Over at Wildfire Marketing, I answered some reputation management questions for their Thought Leader Thursday series. Here’s a taster… What are some of the biggest mistakes you’ve seen people make when it comes to responding to a reputation management crisis, and how someone salvage the situation if they’ve already made one of these mistakes? The biggest mistake is simply not having official channels in place to allow your customers to complain. Most disgruntled customers post to blogs and Twitter because…

• New Google AdSense Interface Will Tell You Precisely How Much You Suck

  Andy Beal

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:43 am

  You know that $3.40 you make in Google AdSense each month? Well, Google is about to make it a lot easier to see just how badly your blog sucks at using AdSense. A new AdSense interface design will start rolling to users over the coming weeks: For those of you making more than enough AdSense revenue to buy a Big Mac, you’ll enjoy these enhanced features: Detailed metrics including the amount you’ve earned from various ad, targeting and bid types More options to manage the ads that appear on your site Simplify common tasks, such as making a change to several ad units simultaneously…

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  Strategic Public Relations

• Fort Hood, Twitter and Real-Time News

  Kevin Dugan

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:22 pm

  Social media detailed a tragedy today.   While I learned of the Fort Hood shootings earlier this afternoon, it was a late afternoon scan of Twitter that connected me to the real-time news source set up by The Austin American-Statesman.   @fthoodshootings is an account quickly set up by the paper to create a dedicated line of real-time news around this sad and tragic story. In just a few hours the account already has more than 3,200 followers and is on more than 85 different lists as of publishing this post and climbing.   Unfortunately it’s not the first bittersweet…

• Storytelling’s Link to Social Marketing Success | SummitUp 2009

  Kevin Dugan

  20 Oct 2009 | 8:37 pm

  SummitUp brought together some of the best and brightest in Ohio's social media scene as well as industry luminaries like Chris Brogan and Bob Garfield. Fueled in no small part by the passion and determination of David E. Bowman, the event was a complete success and I was honored to kick it off with my keynote presentation. "What's Your Story?" details how the craft of storytelling can help us deal with the challenges social media creates. I consider these challenges a bit of a paradox as my slides and video will explain. But the very technology that is bringing us together with people from…

• Marketing Meets Augmented Reality

  Kevin Dugan

  14 Oct 2009 | 10:53 am

  Like most marketers, augmented reality popped up on my radar when GE used it to unveil its Smart Grid technology.The ability to create a digital hologram is intriguing, but it always seems to be applied to sci-fi technology or futuristic plans. I’ve wondered how someone might put it to more practical use.Meijer*, a client of Empower MediaMarketing, answers my curiosity with the “Be Transformed in 3-D” promotion.Having Fun with MasksThe microsite allows you to try on four different masks – using a web cam and augmented reality. You can record a :30 second video message using a voice to…

• AMP, #PepsiFail and staying on brand

  Kevin Dugan

  14 Oct 2009 | 6:03 am

  There's been lots of discussion around the iPhone App "AMP UP Before You Score" from Pepsi's AMP Energy Drink. Let me see if I can sum it up. The Issue: The AMP app profiles 24 types of women, from "Cougar" and "Athlete" to "Out of Your League" and "Married." Each profile provides unfortunate content including pickup lines and other information to help the user "score." It also has a brag function which allows users to promote and share their efforts via email, Facebook or Twitter. The app states: "Get lucky? Add her to your Brag List. You can include a name, date and whatever details you…

• Much Ado About Avatars

  Kevin Dugan

  11 Oct 2009 | 9:32 am

  From the minutia department, I’ve been talking a lot about Twitter avatars lately. I enjoy swapping out my avatar. It’s my version of a t-shirt --expressing my personality in a small way. And, as I have my pic on my Twitter background, people can put a face with the name the first time a person follows me. This goes against conventional Twitter wisdom. In Trust Agents, Brogan and Smith recommend using your picture across all social site profiles in an effort to be more human online. Even Twitter notes: “A real picture of yourself is encouraged. It adds personableness to your tweets.”…

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  Seth's Blog

• Everyone is clueless

  Seth Godin

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:29 am

  The problem with "everyone" is that in order to reach everyone or teach everyone or sell to everyone, you need to so water down what you've got you end up with almost nothing.Everyone doesn't go to the chiropractor, everyone doesn't give to charity, everyone has never been to Starbucks. Everyone, in fact, lives a decade behind the times and needs hundreds of impressions and lots of direct experience before they realize something is going on.You don't want everyone. You want the right someone.Someone who cares about what you do. Someone who will make a contribution that matters. Someone who…

• The unclicking 84%

  Seth Godin

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:36 am

  Mark points us to this great set of stats.Basically, all of the clicks for all the ads online come from only 16% of the surfers, and most of them come from just 4% of all internet users.So, if you optimize your ads for clicks, it means you're ignoring a huge population.If your business is built around the kind of person who clicks, you win. If it isn't, you either need to not buy ads online or buy ads optimized for attention and familiarity, not clicks.Imagine that only left-handed people clicked on ads (it's about the same percent). What are you going to do if you make a product for the…

• When data and decisions collide

  Seth Godin

  4 Nov 2009 | 2:54 am

  Until recently, most of the decisions we were called on to make were based on hunches, insight and a little bit of data. Occasionally, a field like direct marketing would develop into something quite data-driven ("I don't care if you like mailer one, Smythe, mailer #2 did three times, better! Number 2 it is.") but not often.It took Ignaz Semmelweis more than twenty years (he died before it happened, actually) to persuade doctors that washing their hands could save the lives of mothers giving birth. He had the data, he had the proof, but that wasn't enough to change minds.Data mining and the…

• Limited edition boxed set available today SOLD OUT!

  Seth Godin

  3 Nov 2009 | 7:41 am

  [We ended up selling more than three a minute. You guys are so cool. We had a few counter problems, but it didn't effect the number we sold...they're all gone, 800 in total, and I won't be able to sell any more. Thank you for the energy and support!]It seems as though the Apple tablet is unlikely to be ready in time for the holidays... what to get? How about a boxed (a wooden box) set of five of my books? Very limited (only 800 will be sold, ever). Sold at a discount from retail, with cool packaging, assembled by elves, delivered by Martians, blessed by enlightened goats. My goal was to make…

• Ms. In-between

  Seth Godin

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:50 am

  The either-or world continues to decay, confronted by a shifting economy and the tools of the net.It used to be easy to tell if someone was a journalist. Either you were or your weren't. So giving special privileges to journalists was easy. Parking permits, press badges, first amendment protections... no problem, you're a journalist. Everyone else? No way.It used to be easy to tell if someone was an entrepreneur. Either you had a full-time job or you ran a business. So we could treat employees the same (health insurance, no moonlighting) and assume that the few that didn't have jobs were…

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  PR-Squared

• 4 Ways to Build Relationships with Web Content

  Todd Defren

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:04 am

  This is a guest post by Shannon Paul (find her on Twitter, too).  A prolific online personality, in her “day job” Shannon is the communications manager for PEAK6 Online. On the PR/marketing side of the equation we know good products go unnoticed without proper promotion, but we’re often reluctant to make the same admission about content. If it makes you feel better, I’m not going to blame this problem on the proliferation of new channels of communication brought on by social media, etc. But, please know that great content does not market itself. Rather than going on…

• “Too Smart For Your Own Good?”

  Todd Defren

  4 Nov 2009 | 4:03 am

  I’ve written more than once in the past about the need for marketers to avoid Shiny Object Syndrome and, more recently, to Think Organically when it comes to Social Media. Guess what?  Not everybody reads my blog. As we have found ourselves increasingly competing not just against PR firms but against different types of marketing agencies, e.g., advertising, marcomm, branding, we have on occassion lost the bid because the Other Guys wowed the underinformed prospect with the snazziest aspects of Social Media. Will these happy-shiny approaches work?  Likely not.  But after you’ve spent a…

• Stop Building Microsites?

  Todd Defren

  2 Nov 2009 | 4:20 am

  Many brands will use a microsite – a single-purpose li’l website – to serve as a landing page for a new advertising/branding/marketing/social media campaign. This FEELS like it makes sense. Most brands are too “big” to allow a one-off campaign of any sort to dramatically affect their official corporate website … yet, corporations spend enough $$$ on such initiatives that they want to maximize the investment; and, for fans of the newly rolled-out campaign, a microsite is a handy, utilitarian place to show off more multimedia assets, aggregate conversations related to the campaign,…

• Is Social Media Too Boring for Advertising Industry?

  Todd Defren

  26 Oct 2009 | 12:14 pm

  I’ve met with several advertising executive honchos in recent weeks, from agencies large and small.  The topic?  No surprise.  Social Media.  These advertising execs are gung-ho about Social Media; it is generating cool, surprising and lucrative new opportunities for their agencies.  But as the “campaign” becomes the “commonplace,” challenges rear up…   Here’s the gist of our conversations with the Ad Agency executives: Advertising Exec: “Thanks for coming by.  We know you guys ‘get’ Social…

• Be Back Soon

  Todd Defren

  21 Oct 2009 | 7:08 am

  I am working on a number of responses to RFPs that easily rank in the “OMFG” category, in terms of both the caliber of the prospective clients as well as the level of work required by the responses themselves.  A good problem to have, and I am not complaining. But as you may already have noticed, posts to the blog and even Twitter have slowed considerably. Until I can get back to a more regular schedule, I leave you with this quick, fun video created for our clients at Movember, by the director of the recent hit ZOMBIELAND. Movember is dedicated to raising awareness of the perils…

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  Poynter Online

• Ex-Unity Pres.: NAHJ, NABJ, AAJA, NAJA Should Not Merge

  21 Oct 2009 | 4:18 am

  When the National Association of Hispanic Journalists announced earlier this month that it had a $300,000 budget shortfall, people began tweeting the news and expressing concern over the group's financial woes. One NAHJ member, Mo Krochmal, tweeted that the shortfall is an indication that "at some point, minority journalists orgs are going to have to merge to save funds."But Rafael Olmeda, former Unity president who stepped down from his leadership role last week, disagrees. He tweeted a response to Krochmal, who he knows from NAHJ: "The minority journalism orgs do not need to merge any more…

• Outburst at Obama Prompts Discussion about Covering Cultural Divides

  16 Oct 2009 | 10:21 am

  Remember before the Summer of 2009, when we were still living in post-racial America? Between the arrest of Harvard University's Henry Louis Gates Jr. in July, and Joe Wilson's "You Lie" comment during Obama's health care speech last month, it's tough to figure out how to have a productiveconversation about race, whether in the news media or in a classroom.Philip Rucker of The Washington Post illustrated this idea recently when traveling along the road that divides Wilson's (mostly white) district and Democratic Rep. James E. Clyburn's (mostly black) district. Rucker found that views on…

• Solo Operator of Native American Times Passes One-Year Mark

  9 Sep 2009 | 3:55 pm

  When Lisa Snell left her job as a graphic artist in 2007, she didn't expect that a year later she would become the managing editor and owner of a Native American paper. The job demands almost 100 hours of Snell's week and requires her to juggle the roles of designer, writer, editor, online publisher and more -- all without getting paid. But Snell, who just celebrated her one-year anniversary at the paper, says the experience has been both personally and professionally gratifying. Publishing the paper, she said, has been a meaningful way to give back to the greater Native American community.

• What Does the Future of Diversity Look Like?

  14 Aug 2009 | 8:51 am

  Whither goes diversity in the age of layoffs?Even in this season of conventions featuring journalists of color, the question seems overshadowed by the rising ranks of the unemployed. People who have spent decades advocating for justice, fairness and accuracy in U.S. newsrooms are preoccupied with cutting staffs, rethinking coverage, or knitting their own parachutes.And in the enterprising universe of dotcoms dotting the landscape of journalism's uncertain future, the spirit of diversity is taking a beating. So we're left to ponder a different question with new urgency: What does diversity…

• CNN's Klein on Breaking News: 'Being First is Overrated'

  7 Aug 2009 | 1:04 pm

  Michael Jackson's death rocked the world of journalism as much as it rocked his global fan base. A non-traditional media outlet, TMZ, broke the story while mainstream media held off announcing his death for well over an hour.At the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Tampa on Thursday, media stalwarts discussed the dust-up that left many journalists wondering about media credibility and competition. KNBC-TV anchor Beverly White of Los Angeles moderated the panel, which was titled "Beat It, Bad or Dangerous? What Michael Jackson's Death Tells Us about Media Competition and…

• 
  Columbia Journalism Review

• Friday Links: A Contrite Banker, Pay to Play, Gutting SOX

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:06 pm

  Bloomberg finds a contrite banker, John Reed the former CEO of Citigroup who merged it with Sandy Weill's Travelers in the late 1990s to create a financial supermarket, one that a decade later would have the distinction of being a third-owned by Uncle Sam. Reed calls for the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall division of banking and trading. — Couldn't...

• Unscientific America Meets Denialism

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:36 pm

  Michael Specter and Chris Mooney agree that the United States is full of people who just don’t get science, and that this is a dangerous situation. In fact, they agree about a lot of things. They are the respective authors of the similarly titled Denialism: How Irrational Thinking Hinders Scientific Progress, Harms the Planet, and Threatens Our Lives,...

• The Dangers of Disaster Reporting

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:57 pm

  By now, members of the national press have descended on Fort Hood, Texas to tell the story of the worst soldier-on-soldier massacre in U.S. military history. Their job will be fraught with professional and emotional pitfalls. One of the biggest, and the one that poses the greatest potential danger at this point, concerns the “why” of the rampage that left...

• Another Reason Not to Rush to Judgment

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  Here’s another reason to be wary about jumping to conclusions about the shooting at Fort Hood: Bill Sparkman. Sparkman is the part-time Census employee whose body was found near a cemetery in rural southeastern Kentucky on Sept. 12, a rope tied around his neck and the word “Fed” scrawled on his chest. Coming in the wake of...

• Jumping to Confusion

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:45 pm

  It’s been just over twenty-four hours since Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire on his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood—more than enough time, clearly, for our pundits to begin opining on what it all means. And though those interpretations are varied, there is one headline that could apply to nearly all of them: Tragic Massacre Vindicates My Pre-existing Political Convictions....

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  NYT: Open

• Behind the Code: Times APIs

  By Marci Windsheimer

  4 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pm

  NYTimes.com developer Nick Thuesen recently chatted with the Yahoo Developer Network about his work with Times APIs, TimesPeople and more.

• First 5,000 Tags Released to the Linked Data Cloud

  By Evan Sandhaus and Rob Larson

  29 Oct 2009 | 1:07 pm

  Today we are pleased to announce the launch of http://data.nytimes.com and the release of 5,000 person name subject headings as Linked Open Data published under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

• Yahoo Open Hack NYC

  By Nick Thuesen

  13 Oct 2009 | 1:02 pm

  Yahoo's Open Hack Day NYC has come and gone. I'm happy to say it was one of the best "hack" conferences I've ever attended.

• YQL + NYT = Easy Times APIs

  By Marci Windsheimer

  7 Oct 2009 | 10:56 am

  Now you can access Times APIs with Yahoo Query Language.

• Show Me the Code: NYT Trender

  By Chris Utz

  29 Sep 2009 | 11:25 am

  This is the first in a series of posts featuring demo applications that will help you learn how to use Times APIs. We'll look at NYT Trender, which showcases the Times Article Search API.

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  PBS: MediaShift

• Speculative Fiction Novelists Find Success with Online Donations

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

  Over the years, many authors have tried versions of the online donation model, with mixed results. But one specific genre of writers, speculative fiction, seems to be experiencing a moderate level of success. Back in 2000, Stephen King became one of the first major authors to offer a book online using an "honor system" to solicit donations. The book was called "The Plant," and was based on a series of chapbooks King had sent around to his friends in the '80s. He placed the first chapter in various downloadable formats on his website, and downloaders were expected to donate $1 by mail or…

• Hossein Derakhshan's Arrest: One Year Later

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:28 pm

  It's been over a year now since the arrest of Hossein Derakhshan, popularly known as Hoder. Ever since he wrote the first Persian-language blogging guide in November 2001, he has helped pioneer the Iranian blogging community while living in his adopted home of Toronto. (Derakhshan is a dual citizen of Iran and Canada.) However, beginning in 2006, Derakhshan's views started changing. He called for Iran to have nuclear weapons, and engaged in personal attacks against people that he disagreed with politically. He was even sued for libel by another Iranian in September 2007. A year later, he…

• FT's Long Room Uses Velvet Rope Approach to Online Community

  5 Nov 2009 | 11:43 am

  What determines a successful community? The number of unique visitors or page views? The number of comments? Those metrics can be important, but there are also qualitative aspects to consider. Are the discussions on your site respectful and insightful? Are members deriving value from the community? Or are you hosting flame wars that lack intelligence and decorum? In order to create a community of quality, perhaps it makes sense to cut down on quantity, and create an exclusive members-only structure. Few media companies have done a better job of building this kind of exclusive community than…

• @FakeAPStylebook Editors Explain Their Overnight Success on Twitter

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:23 pm

  For anyone who has suffered through reading the entire AP Stylebook for a journalism class, there's a cathartic release when reading the dry wit of the @FakeAPStylebook feed on Twitter. It combines parody of the journalism usage bible with funny repartee and the absurd. That mix has brought amazing success to the people behind the feed: more than 40,000 followers in 15 days, plus they've scored a literary agent for a book deal. Here are some of my favorite recent tweets from @FakeAPStylebook: > STAR WARS Episodes IV-VI are to be referred to as "The Original Trilogy." Episodes I-III are not…

• 10 Projects that Help Citizens Become Government Watchdogs

  3 Nov 2009 | 1:42 pm

  With the 2010 U.S. elections coming into view, many people are looking for more information about the people running for office -- and the individuals and organizations funding these candidates. Fortunately, there are dozens of initiatives that mine and share the data that influence policy and policy-makers. Many are funded by The Sunlight Foundation, which aims to use "the revolutionary power of the Internet to make information about Congress and the federal government more meaningfully accessible to citizens." Below are 10 innovative government transparency projects that employ powerful…

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  Editor and Publisher

• Visit 'E&P' Blogs Today for News, Video, Comments, and Analysis!

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Do it now.

• GateHouse Media Improves Margins in Q3; Revenue Declines Moderate

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  GateHouse Media reported total revenue on a same-store basis fell 14.9% to $144.9 million in Q3 year-over -- a sequential improvement over previous quarters. In Q2, the Fairport, N.Y. chain reported that total revenue was down 15.2% and in Q1 it fell 16.3%.

• Media Report for Hours That Fort Hood Suspect Dead -- Turns Out He's Alive!

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  Black eye for press? Authorities said immediately after the shootings that they had killed the suspected shooter, but later in the evening they recanted and said that he was alive and in stable condition at a hospital, watched by a guard.

• Multi-Platform 'Content Room' Puts Journos in New Roles

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  In Iowa, Gazette Communications is experimenting with a central "content room" of reporters and editors who provide content for print, TV and online. "There is a pull and push, and I think that is probably healthy," says Becky Lutgen Gardner, senior director of information content. "When it comes to breaking news, spot news, it's easy to translate across all of the mediums."

• Spanish-language Weekly Launches in Boston

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  A group of Latino journalists in Massachusetts has launched a new Spanish-language weekly newspaper.

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  Journerdism

• Giz Explains: Android, and How It Will Take Over the World

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:59 pm

  A great background on the revolutionary platform.

• 10 Ways You Can Use Twitter Lists

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:35 am

  "Twitter’s new Lists feature is all the rage right now. There are probably already millions of lists, and that number is growing by the minute (or second). So what are people using all these lists for? Are people creating lists just for the sake of creating lists? Savvy individuals are looking for ways to use lists to further their personal/professional agendas, and while we are all still learning how to harness the power of this new feature, here are a few ideas to get the creative juices flowing."

• MSN Relaunches With Focus On Social And Local

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:30 pm

  "Significantly, the Microsoft unit is also launching a new MSN Local Edition, which will exist as a stand-alone Web site, but also feature prominently on the relaunched MSN home page. The renewed focus on local content resulted from internal MSN research, which found that such content -- from local news and events to weather and sports -- was "the Number 1 unmet need online," according to Lisa Gurry, senior director at MSN. Likewise, consumers who were surveyed said they wanted less clutter and easier access to information and services they care about, which MSN took into consideration when…

• Is It Really A Problem That 'Only' 31 Newspapers Sent Reporters To The World Series?

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:11 pm

  "Earlier this year, we had a discussion on the changing nature of sports beat reporting in the internet era, and one of the points we made is that there really is an awful lot of overlap and duplication in effort in some cases (such as the NY media). And yet, as pointed out by Jay Rosen old school baseball reporter Murray Chass is complaining that about half of the newspapers that have baseball beat writers did not sent a reporter to the World Series this year, calling it a "sign of a dying industry." Apparently there are 60 newspapers in America that have beat reporters who travel with the…

• LEAKED: Microsoft Courier Tablet User Interface Details

  4 Nov 2009 | 5:48 pm

  "Two still mythical tablet devices, the Microsoft Courier and the Apple Tablet, are probably the hottest and most coveted devices that do not yet officially exist. To further fuel the anticipatory gadget lust, Gizmodo has scored an in-depth look at the former’s user interface and overall design. As we were clued into by earlier leaks, the Infinite Journal is the key metaphor for Courier. It’s like an enormous notebook for collecting pretty much any kind of content: clippings from the web, your own notes, diagrams and drawings, photos from the on-board camera, etc. Each item gets a…

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  MediaShift Idea Lab

• I Wouldn't Want to Belong to Any Twitter List That Would Have Me as a Member

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:26 am

  Networks are funny. As soon as they get big enough to have a lot of value, it gets harder to separate the signal from the noise. That's obvious enough -- just ask anyone using AT&T in an area densely populated with bandwidth-hogging iPhone users like me. Or ask any Twitter user. But with the launch of Twitter Lists in recent days, it's now theoretically easier for users, news organizations, bloggers, and companies to create little tributaries off the main river of news. Bu building these subsets out of the main stream, you can find tweets from a group of users, which means a news…

• Kicking Off the Grant Process With Monitoring and Evaluation

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:27 am

  We at the Jefferson Institute began our experience as a 2009 Knight News Challenge winner with one of the more exciting and misunderstood elements of the grant cycle: monitoring and evaluation (M&E). When done properly, M&E begins with the grantee setting out clearly the objectives of the grant, the activities necessary to achieve the objectives, and the resources applied to make these activities happen. So, for example, blogging for Idea Lab is an activity. An objective might be to create a thriving community, or to help guide the way for community news in transition. For our Knight…

• The New Era of Media Development, Part III

  31 Oct 2009 | 9:06 am

  Spend your money wisely: this is the mandate given to program officers of philanthropic, government, and multilateral donor organizations. Each year they are given a certain budget, and they are expected to use that money as effectively as possible to further the objectives of their program. But how do these individuals gauge the impact of their investments? How can they cooperate with other donors to seek holistic solutions to complex problems? And to what extent should they be preparing for the likely challenges of the future, or focusing on the urgent problems of today? In part one of this…

• Hyper-Local a Hot Topic at All Russia Media Forum

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:01 am

  The SochiReporter team recently presented our project at the 14th All Russia Media Forum, held in Dagomys, Sochi, in late September. This annual forum for Russian print and online media is organized by the Russian Union of Journalists. Among the participants this year were more than 1,000 journalists from local and regional Russian newspapers, as well as European and U.S. editors. The gathering discussed many global issues, such as the decline of trust in the press, measures of responsibility in journalism, and the social weight of the printed word. There were discussion groups, creativity…

• DocumentCloud Going Open Source Every Step of the Way

  29 Oct 2009 | 2:01 pm

  What does it mean to work on a project where open-source principles are written into the founding contract? A little over a month after receiving a 2009 Knight News Challenge grant, DocumentCloud released its first open-source component. The system, called CloudCrowd, performs the distributed computing that helps process the vast quantities of documents that will eventually be stored in DocumentCloud. It might seem premature to be releasing code so early -- in the past some Knight grantees have chosen to wait until the end of their grant -- but the larger part of open-source is community, not…

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  Romenesko

• Google Books launches a digitized magazine stand

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:41 pm

  New York Observer Google is scanning entire issues of magazines -- ads and all. Some titles are decades old, so "it's kind of like heading into your parents' attic and checking out all the yellowing LIFE issues, only online," writes Gillian Reagan.

• Will Jayson Blair be delivering his ethics lecture on Fox News this weekend?

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:18 pm

  NationalJournal.com It's a busy weekend for the disgraced former New York Times reporter: He's the featured speaker at this afternoon's Washington and Lee University journalism ethics forum, and he's Chris Wallace's guest on "Fox News Sunday." || Note to Ed Wasserman: How about sending (or posting) a transcript of Blair's W&L speech?

• WP brings back old weather map after readers complain

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:53 pm

  Washington Post Among the many reader complaints about the Post's design changes, none have been louder than those reacting to the new weather layout and the smaller map, says ombud Andrew Alexander. The original map returns next week.

• Latino journalists launch New England's seventh Spanish-language newspaper

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:18 pm

  Boston Globe El Tiempo de Boston began publishing last week as a free paper that focuses on communities with large Latino populations. It's edited by Maximo Torres, 60, former city editor of Boston's oldest Spanish-language paper, El Mundo.

• Obama has off-the-record lunch with journalists at WH

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:31 pm

  Politico The guest list for today's event: David Gergen, Chris Cillizza, Jon Meacham, Howard Fineman, Cynthia Tucker, Mike Allen, Mara Liasson, Josh Marshall, David Brooks, Andrew Rosenthal, and Gail Collins.

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  SteveOuting.com

• Why I think ‘block level’ news, data is important

  Steve Outing

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:22 pm

  Earlier today Howard Weaver tweeted the following, which I can’t answer in 140 characters (!) so I’ll respond here. … “Why do people (@steveouting et al) keep saying ‘block level’ info is best premium opportunity? Seems *most* likely to be citizen generated.” –@howardweaver I don’t recall saying it’s the “best” premium online content opportunity, though I think it’s important. Why? Because I don’t know what’s going on with my neighbors, other than the ones I know or who are friends. No business, media,…

• So what exactly is newspaper web ‘premium’ content? Please tell me

  Steve Outing

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:12 am

  So, it appears that we’ve passed the point within the newspaper industry of utter panic and all the publishers will not be colluding (ahem… I mean cooperating) to put most of their websites’ content behind pay walls. At least that CEO/publisher-group insanity is over — I hope. Instead, the meme within the industry is something I’ve long supported: Let’s keep most of our news content online free, so that we don’t lose advertisers and high reader numbers, and maintain our “googlejuice,” but let’s create more “premium”…

• My College Media convention slides

  Steve Outing

  30 Oct 2009 | 10:09 pm

  Some folks who attended my “Why now is the best time ever to go into journalism!” keynote talk at the National College Media Convention in Austin, Texas, on Friday asked how to get a copy of my presentation. A PDF version (big file!) is here.

• Instant speech feedback: Get used to it

  Steve Outing

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:58 pm

  I’m sure this will be mainstream across many professions before long, but for now it’s mostly limited to technology and media conferences. I’m talking about how speakers now get feedback from their audience as soon as they finish talking, via tweets from audience members posted immediately to Twitter. Overall, it’s a positive development that can benefit speakers — though something to get used to, and the speaker might take a few lumps. Friday morning I gave a keynote talk on the third day of the National College Media Convention in Austin, Texas. It’s been…

• The Nook: A smart bricks-&-mortar digital strategy

  Steve Outing

  27 Oct 2009 | 10:08 am

  A new, and very large, Barnes & Noble bookstore opened here in Boulder, Colorado, recently, replacing a smaller store half a block away. I’ve wondered since construction started how the giant bookstore chain could justify a larger store when more and more we’ll be seeing people buying and reading books on digital tablets like Amazon’s Kindle. Wouldn’t smaller bookstores be in our future, not bigger ones? With the announcement of B&N’s Nook e-reader device to compete with the Kindle, now I understand. The Nook digital strategy supports the…

• 
  Journalism.org:

• At 40, 'Sesame Street' is in a constant state of renewal

  kcaldwell

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:41 am

• Jayson Blair: Offering His Views On Making Up News

  kcaldwell

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:39 am

• Tucker's hiring for new site

  kcaldwell

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:37 am

• Onion, Comedy Central team on show

  kcaldwell

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:36 am

• Why Sesame Street still counts

  kcaldwell

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:32 am

• 
  Lost Remote

• "A blog that’s associated with a major, legitimate organization… would be, I think, treated..."

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:11 pm

  ““A blog that’s associated with a major, legitimate organization… would be, I think, treated differently than an individual blogger who’s using his or her right of free expression to say whatever he thinks. So the presence of an editor, as an example. You know, an editor that’s not your mom.”” - Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s derogatory over-generalization of independent bloggers compared to big media bloggers. I’m on the record criticizing Google for imposing “blog” labels on neighborhood news blogs while not adding the same labels to newspaper blogs. (Google has now asked…

• Which social sites drive traffic? Depends on who you ask: ...

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:39 pm

  Which social sites drive traffic? Depends on who you ask: ChicagoTribune.com says 10 percent of its traffic originates from social sharing sites — much of it from Digg, which says it plans to roll out new features to showcase local stories. Meanwhile, StarTribune.com says it’s seeing less than a percent of its traffic from social sites. Such is the social state of affairs these days.

• NBC Local sites report strong growth

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:07 pm

  NBC Local sites report strong growth: Unique visitors went from 6 million a year ago to 12 million in October.

• "(Local content) is the number one unmet need online."

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:10 am

  “(Local content) is the number one unmet need online.” - Lisa Gurry, senior director at MSN, commenting about the brand new MSN.com, which includes prominent integration of local news, weather, events and traffic.

• Redesigns launching at Belo, Meredith TV sites: Belo TV sites,...

  3 Nov 2009 | 2:10 pm

  Redesigns launching at Belo, Meredith TV sites: Belo TV sites, like AZFamily.com above, are rolling out a new design powered by Broadcast Interactive. Meredith sites, like KPHO.com above, have just debuted a new look via Internet Broadcasting.

• 
  Online Journalism Blog

• Clay Shirky on Twitter and the social media revolution

  karthikaswamy

  6 Nov 2009 | 7:47 pm

  Here’s a great interview with Clay Shirky by GRITtv’s Laura Flanders. Clay Shirky talks about the power of digital networking, and how social media  can do everything from cause revolutions to create whole new political parties when done right. The simplicity of Twitter, of course, is its genius. It has the power to do so much by doing so little. But that’s not the only thing that’s simple about Twitter. The service itself was only intended to share 140-character messages with the world. Its significance is its evolution. Everything from @replying and retweeting to using hashes and…

• Online journalism lesson #7: maps

  Paul Bradshaw

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:02 am

  Here’s the 7th lesson from my year 2 undergraduate module in Online Journalism, where I look at a range of examples of mapping in journalism, as well as the broader idea of image maps (the rest of the series can be found here): Interactive Maps and Image Maps View more presentations from Paul Bradshaw. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported.

• Local Blog impact on Local Democracy: Somerton Town Council

  Matt Wardman

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:12 am

  Local Bloggers are beginning to produce a few good examples of effective scrutiny of Local Councils. In this piece David Keen, who is a Vicar in Yeovil and writes regularly for my Wardman Wire political site, gives an account of a local controversy in the Somerset town of Somerton, which has lead to a number of resignations from the Town Council. Further, some national commentators are beginning to notice that local blogs have a place in building a better political culture in the UK. Over to David … Blogging, Volunteers, and Local Democracy Somerton is about 12 miles north of Yeovil,…

• Five factors that foster innovation in the online newsroom

  Steen Steensen

  5 Nov 2009 | 6:35 am

  I recently heard a newspaper chief editor say something quite shocking. I attended a meeting arranged by the Norwegian consortium New Media Network where the chief editor of the second biggest national tabloid in Norway, Dagbladet, was to give a speech. And believe it or not, chief editor of Dagbladet, Anne Aasheim, said: “I have been a media executive for 20 years now and I must say; it’s more fun today than ever before!” More fun today than ever before?  Everybody at the meeting knew that Dagbladet has suffered massive losses in recent years – much more than their…

• Guardian makes its comments accessible, SEO friendly and mobile friendly all in one go!

  malcolmcoles

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:45 am

  The Guardian has changed its user-generated comment system – moving from a client-side system to a server-side one. (This story was first published here, where you can read a bit more of the background.) With the old system, once you loaded a story, some javascript would go off and look up readers’ comments and display them. This wasn’t terribly accessible – if you couldn’t or didn’t run javascript, you couldn’t see the comments. It was also bad for SEO, as search engines couldn’t run the javascript (so couldn’t see the comments). And if…

• 
  CyberJournalist.net

• New site ‘Netted’ by the Webbys

  Netted is a new daily email produced by the folks behind the Webbys, “a free daily newsletter where they’ll share the latest, coolest, and most useful things they’ve discovered online”

• Interactive: How Barack Obama Won the White House

  This interactive map shows how Barack Obama Won the White House one year ago.

• How Do You Feel a Year After President Obama’s Election?

  Cool interactive features on nytimes.com asking, “What One Word Best Describes How You Feel a Year After President Obama’s Election?” This page updates with the most popular choices from NYTimes.com readers.

• Nonprofit news venture Texas Tribune to launch

  Evan Smith, the longtime editor of Texas Monthly, is launching the Texas Tribune, a non-profit news operation that has hired 11 journalists at competitive salaries. Howard Kurtz reports: The fledgling operation has raised an impressive $3.6 million, with $1 million coming from Smith’s pal, venture capitalist John Thornton. “It actually started, as much as my life does, out [...]

• St. Louis Globe-Democrat Returning As Free Online News Site

  PaidContent reports: “The St. Louis Globe-Democrat—dead for 23 years—is coming back to life as a free news site. www.globe-democrat.com is slated to launch Dec. 8, according to an announcement by Dan Rositano, who runs a St. Louis IT company for small businesses; he describes himself on Linked In as president and CEO of the Globe-Democrat [...]

• 
  blog maverick

• Adding Facebook and Twitter Followers – A Little One on One ?

  markcuban

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:39 am

  I was thinking of ideas on how to add twitter and/or facebook fan page followers. I dont have a real need to have to do so. I was just curious about ways to do so. Think of it as one of those things my minds wanders off to while Im working out. One thing that poppedup as what I thought was a decent idea was the idea of  rewarding those who refer and/or generate followers to my pages on twitter (@mcuban), or on FAcebook (/markcuban) a unique page where they were the only person approved to have access and for some period of time, they would have exclusive access for questions and answers. So…

• Keyboards, Phones and NetBooks

  markcuban

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:23 am

  Some people wondered why I stayed with my Sidekick despite still not getting my contacts back and all the troubles the network had. The answer is easy. They keyboard is so above any beyond any other phone, I can type a good 50 words per minute on it. (Its amazing how fast my thumbs are on this thing)  Which in turn allows me to answer emails quickly and accurately.  I dont lose any productivity when Im on my Sidekick compared to sitting  in front of my desktop or full sized laptop.  To me, thats money in the bank. Thats not to say I never stray and try new phones and alternatives. I do. …

• A Great Business Idea = The Email of the Day

  markcuban

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:01 am

  I got this email today.  Of course Im being marginally facetious about the following idea. Why only marginally ? Because all he has to do is find one sucker to say yes. Enjoy. I have an idea to solve all of Americas problems, just as all great ideas are really very simple so is this.  I am self made, retired, age 45 and financially independant.  I will sell this idea for $5,000,000.  When you learn of this plan, you will be shocked at how simple and effective it will be.  I want a cashiers check up front and I will give you the idea once it is cleared.  I have it written on an index…

• Sports Ratings Records and what it tells us about the internet

  markcuban

  29 Oct 2009 | 12:21 pm

  have you seen sports ratings lately ? Just this week: The NBA on TNT had its highest ratings in TWENTY SIX YEARS .  Versus had its highest rated regular season NHL game EVER.  The first game of the World Series was the highest rated in 5 years.  The NFL was setting records on cable and achieving viewing levels not seen in TWENTY YEARS !. College Football ratings are killing it as well. But wait there is more.  TV viewing is up considerably in each of the last several years. We can even look at the box office for movies and the fact that the industry is seeing a theatrical revival. The…

• Its Mavs Time !

  markcuban

  26 Oct 2009 | 3:12 pm

  I am so firedup for this season to start.  No predictions other than to say I think we are much better than last year and if we can stay healthy…. And of course off the court, we are always trying to do new fun things that create fun and value for our fans. From the new amazing VideoBoard (largest and highest resolution indoor board in the world !),  to the new soundsystem, because great sound matters ! And as always , we have lower ticket prices and great season ticket deals available. Some even include All  Star and Event tickets as well . Mavs.com has all the scoop. You will also…

• 
  Media: Greenslade | guardian.co.uk

• Roy Greenslade: Rothermere rejected freesheet deal with Norwegian publisher

  Roy Greenslade

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:58 am

  Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail & General Trust, once rejected launching a free newspaper in partnership with the Norwegian media conglomerate Schibsted because, supposedly, he had no faith in freesheets. Schibsted's then chief executive, Kjell Aamot, said he suggested the idea while the men were sharing a cab with a French media executive "a few years ago."Aamot, now retired, revealed this fascinating tidbit at a recent Norwegian media conference, reports the reliable Norwegian-based blogger Kristine Lowe.She quotes Aamot as saying (on the Kampanje website): "I asked him if he…

• Roy Greenslade: Guardian has not talked to Murdoch about paywalls

  Roy Greenslade

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:56 am

  When I posted yesterday on the remarkable candour of Rupert Murdoch in admitting that he was holding discussions with Telegraph Media Group about website paywalls, some commenters suggested that The Guardian might be involved too.Aware of the fact that the paper had already issued a statement saying it would not charge for news content, I was about to respond with a definite "no". However, it's always better to check. So I did.The unequivocal answer: Guardian Media Group has not been party to any discussions with Murdoch or any other publisher about erecting paywalls. This morning I replied…

• Roy Greenslade: PCC ruling clears Daily Mail of discrimination

  Roy Greenslade

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:37 am

  The Press Complaints Commission has today issued a significant adjudication that illustrates the fine line that must be drawn between a newspaper's freedom to be offensive and whether that offensiveness constitutes discrimination.The case involves the Daily Mail and the renowned blogger Iain Dale, who complained to the PCC about an item in the paper's Ephraim Hardcastle diary column, published on 30 September.Dale argued that its references to him as gay were discriminatory and therefore in breach of the editors' code of practice. But the commission did not agree, and did not uphold his…

• Roy Greenslade: Graph shows lengthy decline of US papers

  Roy Greenslade

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:28 am

  To understand the 20-year circulation decline of the leading US newspapers - and the rise of the Wall Street Journal - see this graph. The comments are interesting too because they show, rightly, that there is no simple correlation between most of the sales falls and the rise of the internet. Source: THE AWLUS press and publishingNewspapersMedia downturnRoy Greensladeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

• Roy Greenslade: Employees assume ownership of a Scottish weekly

  Roy Greenslade

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:44 am

  The West Highland Free Press is laying claim to being the first newspaper in Britain to be owned by its employees.From last week, 10 of its staff officially became shareholders in the trust that now owns the weekly, which is renowned for its forthright independent coverage of affairs in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.Managing director Paul Wood explained that it had taken 18 months to arrange the transfer of ownership, making the paper a very small-scale employee-owned organisation of the John Lewis Partnership variety.It is not really an example of worker control, but the move is…

• 
  Beat the Press

• Same Store Sales Mean Less When There are Fewer Stores

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:36 am

  Why do reporters and analysts always fail to take note of the fact that there are fewer stores this year than last year? This is important when we compare same store sales, because the stores that have survived over the year now have a larger share of retail business. In a normal year there is growth in the number of stores year to year, so flat same store sales would be consistent with rising total retail stores. With many chains having closed stores in the last year and many smaller stores having gone out of business, flat same store sales would imply a decline in total retail sales.

• Why Does the Government Spend So Much More on Peter Peterson Than It Does On Poor Children?

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:18 am

  It probably has something to do with the fact the billionaire investment banker owns lots of government bonds on which he collects interest. (Okay, I don't know this for sure, but I'm guessing that he does own bonds.) The interest that a billionaire like Peterson collects on government bonds would almost certainly exceed by a huge amount payments for poor children for items like health care or child care. Is this an injustice? Perhaps, but most people would consider the fact that Peterson paid for the bonds to be an important factor in the discussion. In the same vein, where does Steven…

• When Fannie Mae Sells Tax Credits to Goldman Sachs, Taxpayers Lose

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:16 am

  Fannie Mae is losing money, therefore it owes no taxes. However, it does have tax credits on its books. Enter the geniuses at Goldman Sachs. They want to buy the tax breaks from Fannie so that they can put them to good use. The Post mentions this proposal in the context of a report on Fannie's 3rd quarter losses. It notes a Treasury Department analysis showing that any gains to Fannie from the sale will be offset by a loss of tax revenue to the Treasury. Actually, this does not require much analysis and the government will be a guaranteed loser on this deal. Goldman does not pay $1.00 for…

• Why Does the Post Never Report on Job Loss from Defense Spending?

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:57 am

  The Post told readers this morning that critics of measures to limit global warming warn that legislation could be:"a job-killer in states dependent on manufacturing and natural resources." While the risk of job loss associated with measures to limit global warming have been frequently mentioned in the Post and elsewhere in the media, the same economic models that show job loss from these measures would show much larger job loss associated with the increases in defense spending that we have seen this decade. Nonetheless, there has been virtually no discussion of job loss associated with…

• Cash for Clunkers Pushes Up Used Car Prices

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:37 am

  I was waited to see if anyone would notice. USA Today gets the prize. It was pretty much inevitable that there would be a rise in used car prices following the C4C program. If you require that 900,000 trade-ins get destroyed rather than being resold, this has to create somewhat of a shortage in the used car market. It's remarkable that no one seemed to have noticed (there were big jumps in used car prices in the CPI for both August and September). --Dean Baker

• 
  Reportr.net

• Leonard Brody on thinking like an entrepreneur

  Alfred Hermida

  5 Nov 2009 | 2:03 pm

  Leonard Brody’s keynote address to Connect ‘09 is well worth a watch. In his talk at the even for tech start-ups and innovators, organised by the BC Innovation Council, he outlines how we are in an age where innovation, entrepreneurial and technology are creating new opportunities. There are some lessons for the media here. (Via Techvibes)

• UBC journalism students report on Vancouver

  Alfred Hermida

  31 Oct 2009 | 9:56 am

  Please join me in congratulating my journalism students on the first edition of this academic year of our online publication, TheThunderbird.ca. My colleagues and myself at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism have been working with our grad students on stories from their beats in Vancouver. It was their first major assignment of the semester. This week was crunch time, with Thursday being an intense day of final edits and online production. The student uncovered a range of issues, from plans to open an illegal crack cocaine smoking space to the beetle decimating Vancouver lawns. There are…

• Award-winning Spanish news site Soitu.es closes

  Alfred Hermida

  27 Oct 2009 | 6:35 pm

  Just a few weeks ago, the Spanish Soitu.es news site was praised for its “where core ideas come through as confident innovation and mesh with traditional journalism to create a fresh and distinctive package”. The words came from the judges at the Online News Association awards, where Soitu.es was, for a second year running, as an example of excellence in online journalism. But the pioneering news site is closing down. In a story titled, Hasta la vista y gracias, founder Gumersindo LaFuente talked about how Soitu.es had became a victim of the financial crisis. LaFuente explained…

• links for 2009-10-26

  Alfred Hermida

  26 Oct 2009 | 5:13 pm

  Media in Canada – keeping media and marketing execs up to speed on the Canadian media scene Circulation at Canadian dailies declines, with National Post down 20% and the Globe down 8.4%: (tags: Canada media newspapers circulation) CBC News – Canada – Biggest change in history of CBC News: What it means to you CBC News editor-in-chief Jennifer McGuire on the "biggest change in history of CBC News": (tags: TV Canada CBC News journalism) BBC NEWS | Technology | End of an era for early websites The end of GeoCities, "a fascinating experiment in the pre-industrial…

• The U2 webcast on YouTube and the creation of social capital

  Alfred Hermida

  26 Oct 2009 | 12:55 pm

  Like countless others, I watched at least some of the webcast on YouTube of the U2 concert at the Rose Bowl. It made me think of the only time I have seen U2 play live, more than 20 years ago at the Milton Keynes Bowl in Britain. Back then, to reach a global audience of millions would have required the collaboration of national TV networks.  Today, all you need is YouTube. But it was still a one-to-many broadcast.  The significance of the U2 webcast was less the webcast itself, but the integration of Twitter into the YouTube page. This added a real-time, social dimension to the concert,…

• 
  PRSA Tactics and The Strategist Online

• Cereal company’s sugar-coated health claims don’t fly with parents

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Crisis management

• Media exclusives and embargoes can help or harm PR

  4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Media relations

• Spokesman for California Attorney General resigns after secretly recording conversations with reporters

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Ethics, media relations

• Politweets: Embrace the Twitter side of government 2.0

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Twitter, social media, public sector

• Taking control of your job search: A tweet alternative to the classifieds

  2 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm

  Twitter, job search, social media

• 
  PUBLIC RELATIONS NEWS - Google News

• Coffee Break: PR News names First Horizon good workplace - Memphis Commercial Appeal

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:07 pm

  Coffee Break: PR News names First Horizon good workplaceMemphis Commercial AppealHats off to First Horizon National Corp., selected by PR News as one of the top places to work for public relations specialists. and more »

• Public Relations Society of America Convention Comes to San Diego - San Diego Metropolitan

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:43 pm

  San Diego MetropolitanPublic Relations Society of America Convention Comes to San DiegoSan Diego MetropolitanThat's a nice way of saying, that PR guys – and they were mostly guys 50 years back – were in the business of getting items into the papers.

• Los Angeles Children's Charity Receives National Recognition for Public Relations - PRLog.Org (press release)

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:45 am

  Los Angeles Children's Charity Receives National Recognition for Public RelationsPRLog.Org (press release)PRLog (Press Release) – Nov 06, 2009 – (PASADENA, CA)— Year over year, the finalists for PR News' Nonprofit PR Awards raise the bar for doing well by doing and more »

• California rail board picks PR firm after rebidding - Fresno Bee

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:04 am

  California rail board picks PR firm after rebiddingFresno BeeThe California High-Speed Rail Authority on Thursday awarded a $9 million contract to Ogilvy Public Relations to and more »

• When PR flacks take over moral messaging - WND.com

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:02 pm

  Globe and MailWhen PR flacks take over moral messagingWND.comPardon my cynicism, but my background includes two decades in the wonderful world of advertising and public relations, where truth is a sometimes-disposable Schools emerge as new tactic in gay marriage votesThe Associated Pressall 2,921 news articles »

• 
  Latest articles from PRWeek US News

• Playtex names GolinHarris US AOR

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am

  WESTPORT, CT: Playtex Products has selected GolinHarris as its AOR for North America, following a competitive review.

• PCRM hires Kucinich

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:32 am

  WASHINGTON: The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) named Elizabeth Kucinich the director of public affairs, a newly created position.

• Fleishman-Hillard hires 30 Point for support

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:30 am

  WASHINGTON: Fleishman-Hillard hired 30 Point Strategies to provide outreach to the Jewish community in the US on behalf of the Embassy of Turkey, according to a US Department of Justice filing.

• Allison & Partners adds Fly.com, Goby

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am

  SAN FRANCISCO: Allison & Partners has added two new clients to its consumer/hospitality practice: airfare meta-search engine Fly.com and "things to do" search engine Goby.

• California rail authority approves Ogilvy selection

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:30 am

  SACRAMENTO: The board of directors for the California High-Speed Rail Authority unanimously approved the selection of Ogilvy PR Worldwide for a $9 million PR contract, an official at the state agency confirmed.

• 
  Media Bullseye

• Augmented Reality: When Real Isn't Enough

  Wayne Kurtzman

  5 Nov 2009 | 12:36 pm

  Augmented Reality: When Real Isn't Enough by Wayne Kurtzman I wait for the gasp during my social media presentations when I talk about augmented reality, or "AR." You don't know about AR? Simply put, AR is literally a new layer of reality provided by your mobile phone. In the not too distant future, phones without AR abilities might as well have big 'ole rotary dials and copper wire hanging off them.Imagine taking your smart phone and looking at an object through the camera on the phone. Instead of snapping a photo, your camera returns detailed information about the object you are viewing.

• Twitter lists: Steal, Hoard, and Make People Feel Bad; Or, The Best Twitter Feature Ever

  Doug Haslam

  4 Nov 2009 | 11:39 am

  New Tools, Old Rules Twitter lists: Steal, Hoard, and Make People Feel Bad; Or, The Best Twitter Feature Ever by Doug Haslam I love how the unveiling of Twitter lists has put some people in a tizzy. From Chris Brogan worrying that lists make people feel left out to Robert Scoble overreacting to Brogan's post and Justin Kownacki being his very readably grumpy self in the middle, there has been no shortage of thumb-sucking over lists. I have a take on Twitter Lists. You didn't ask for it, but here it is--in list form: The Beta experience was weird and mysterious. I got into Lists early, but had…

• Marketers have to play by the new FTC rules, too

  Bryan Person

  30 Oct 2009 | 10:35 am

  Marketers have to play by the new FTC rules, too by Bryan Person Earlier this month, the Federal Trade Commission announced new guidelines around disclosure for online endorsements that hits squarely at social media content creators, including bloggers, Twitterers, and Facebookers. The thrust of the regulations, which go into effect on December 1, is clear: If you're paid or compensated in kind (such as being sent a free product to review) to talk about a product, service, or experience online, your content must be accompanied by a clear and easy-to-understand disclosure of your relationship…

• Reputation Vampires

  Jen Zingsheim

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:15 am

  Reputation Vampires by Jen Zingsheim Cross-posted from the CustomScoop blog.Sometimes, the need to monitor from a reputation management perspective hits really close to home. We recommend clients use our service to closely monitor their mentions online to alert them to any potential problems or negative posts, and of course we use the system ourselves.At CustomScoop, we're very proud of the work we do and are accustomed to coming across accolades more often than complaints. When we do see the occasional complaint, it's something we'll look at objectively, to see if there's a way we can…

• The Privacy Genie

  Jen Zingsheim

  28 Oct 2009 | 11:10 am

  The Privacy Genie by Jen Zingsheim Shel Holtz appears to have either struck a nerve or a chord with a recent post titled (cleverly) "Recruiters shouldn't care about that Facebook picture of your beer pong game in college." Most of the comments (and there are a lot--the reason I'm writing this is that I had more thoughts and didn't want to keep posting comments!) focus on the appropriateness of sharing "party pictures" and the perceived lack of judgment in doing so, and whether it's short-sighted of HR to take this into account when making hiring decisions. I'm not going to tackle that aspect…

• 
  Wired PR Works

• Personal Branding and DNA

  Barbara Rozgonyi

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:18 am

  Gary Vaynerchuk is coming to Chicago tonight! I’ll be there. Because it’s Gary V Day in Chicago, I’m sharing this post from October 9, 2008 with 20 tips and a video. Enjoy! And . .... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Community and Social Media | Social Media Club Chicago Panel Video

  Barbara Rozgonyi

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:42 am

  Thanks to Steve Stokes of Stoked Studios for covering Social Media Club Chicago’s first anniversary event on October 22, 2009. (...) [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Cool Blog Tool Video Marketing Channel Aggregator

  Barbara Rozgonyi

  3 Nov 2009 | 9:02 am

  “That was a great post. I can tell you spent lots of time on it.” – recent comment Well, not as much time as you think and I have Yubby to thank for that. (...) [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Peter Shankman in Chicago on PR, Social Media Rules

  Barbara Rozgonyi

  29 Oct 2009 | 7:57 am

  Peter Shankman visited Chicago this week and I was there! Now this is one guy I’ve always wanted to meet. (...) [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• Online PR for Do It Yourself Types

  Barbara Rozgonyi

  26 Oct 2009 | 7:16 pm

  Rather than print out pages of handouts, I’m posting my Digital PR workshop materials here for the world to enjoy. (...) [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

• 
  PerkettPRsuasion - The PerkettPR Blog

• Persuasive Picks for the week of 11/02/09

  Jeff Glasson

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:17 am

  4 steps to Get Rid of Twitter SpamIf you’re active on Twitter, then no doubt you’ve seen the recent increase of “Twitter spam” coming from hijacked Twitter accounts. Damian Davila Rojas let readers know that Twitter Spam happens when application developers abuse that access that you have granted them to your Twitter account. He also shares 4 simple steps to help protect yourself by auditing the connections to your Twitter account. What Social Media Monitoring Won’t Get YouMonitoring your brand online and the plethora of tools available to select from are all the rage of late, while…

• Persuasive Picks for the week of 10/26/09

  Jeff Glasson

  30 Oct 2009 | 8:20 am

  Top 13 Guidelines for Commenting on Blog Posts Commenting on blogs that are part of your vertical market can be a powerful way to share knowledge with community and build your reputation as an expert in your field. B.L Ochman shares 13 tips and best practices for commenting on blogs. Customer Data via Twitter Adam T. Sutton from the Sherpa blog recently interviewed Craig Greenfield, VP, Search and Performance Media, Performics, where they discussed how his team uses Twitter. The result was six takeaways that show how Twitter contributes to the Performics team’s success. Privacy is dead, and…

• Persuasive Picks for the week of 10/19/09

  Jeff Glasson

  23 Oct 2009 | 9:34 am

  No Kidding I’ll start the picks off with some humor via Scott Monty’s revisit to a post he did a year ago, askingHow many social media experts does it take to change a lightbulb?” I think you’ll enjoy the creative answers he received. Ways to Be Human at a Distance Chris Brogan reminds readers of the importance of showing the human side of your business when engaging your online communities. Lots of great tips here along with many additional bits in the comments. When social media attacks: learn from others’ mistakes Henry Elliss from the econsultancy.com blog shares five great…

• “Walk” With Us, Help Beat Cancer Today with 15 minutes and $15

  Christine Perkett

  20 Oct 2009 | 1:02 pm

  Today we’re using our blog space to ask you something that has absolutely nothing to do with us, our clients or PR. Thanks in advance for reading. National Breast Cancer Awareness month is nearing an end. We’re trying to help raise awareness for the thousands of women who have faced this challenge – and are fighting much bigger challenges than anything a day at work can throw our way. In particular, we’d like to call out two of our friends and their efforts to raise money to directly help women facing this relentless disease: Jeanne Fitzmaurice of Design Her Gals and…

• How Will You Crush It in 2010? Gary Vaynerchuk: “Cash in on Your Passion”

  Christine Perkett

  19 Oct 2009 | 12:34 pm

  Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV is an inspiration, even if you do think his story of “follow your passion” stems from receiving just a wee more help (”quite a bit more than nothing”) in doing so than most of us get – as Bobbie Carlton wrote in her blog recap of Friday’s events at The Estate in Boston. We joined up with NomX3 to celebrate Gary’s Boston leg of his tour for the new book, “Crush It! Why Now is the Time to Cash in on your Passion.” At the very least, while our economy continues to cause stress and anxiety – as reported…

• 
  PR 2.0

• Rumors of the Death of Blogs are Greatly Exaggerated

  brian

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:02 am

  Source: feministingEach year at Blogworld Expo, Technorati CEO Richard Jalichandra presents The State of the Blogosphere as one of the event’s prestigious keynotes. For those who are unfamiliar with Technorati, it serves as a directory and search engine for the blogosphere as well as a benchmark for the ranking of blogs worldwide.While there has been much discussion about the relevance and even demise of blogs as the statusphere and micro updates gained traction in addition to earning prominence in the mainstream spotlight, the reality is that blogs are a vital ingredient to the media…

• RT @Twitter: New Retweet Feature Goes Live

  brian

  5 Nov 2009 | 7:29 pm

  Source: TwitterThis is breaking news at the moment, therefore this post will update as new information trickles in.Twitter is making good on its recent promise to introduce new features to bring users back to Twitter.com.Similar to the way that it rolled out Lists, Twitter is incrementally releasing its new Retweet feature initially previewed in August 2009.As described by @Biz, co-founder of Twitter:Retweet is a button that makes forwarding a particularly interesting tweet to all your followers very easy. In turn, we hope interesting, newsworthy, or even just plain funny information will…

• Social Media Influencers are not Traditional Influencers

  brian

  5 Nov 2009 | 4:19 am

  SourceGuest post by Damien Basille, follow him on Twitter | Read his blogAs more and more brands are moving all of their ad spend online, defining how influence affects their return on investment is necessary and must be done as soon as possible. While some are making inroads to define these calculations many are overlooking the fact that influence affects everything. Without factoring in the real issue of different types of influence you run into a number of problems, for instance focusing on one group of influencers over another or getting broad sweeping numbers instead of knowing exactly…

• The Future of the Embargo

  brian

  3 Nov 2009 | 4:25 am

  CreditIn media and blogger relations, PR typically wields two powerful tools to help boost the effectiveness of pitching and potential placement of news: the embargo and the exclusive.In the case of an exclusive, a story is usually packaged prior to official release for one particular writer, fully understanding their style, nuances, and audience. If the story is accepted, it is not pitched to any other media outlets until after the story runs. The benefit for PR is that it can bank on the publishing of a guaranteed, high profile story. The advantage for the reporter is that they maintain a…

• Twitter Releases New Widget for Lists

  brian

  2 Nov 2009 | 7:14 pm

  Twitter recently expanded its new Lists service to users network-wide and in doing so, injected a sense of excitement, confusion, and also utility. Lists represent a significant milestone for Twitter as it transcends asynchronous conversations and and broadcast messages into a form of intelligence gathering, education, entertainment, and news.Twitter Lists are also stirring controversy as many believe that it sets the foundation for a new level of establishing a metric for influence. Whereas prominence was measured by the number of followers as well as the friends-to-follower ratio, now the…

• 
  Pogue's Posts

• Cleaning Up the Clutter Online

  By David Pogue

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:42 am

  A new Web tool strips away all the flashing and the blinking and leaves you with clean, readable prose.

• Medical Apps for the iPhone

  By David Pogue

  5 Nov 2009 | 10:39 am

  Last week, I spoke at the TED MED conference. My assignment was to speak for 18 minutes about medical apps for the iPhone. Sounds easy, right? Only one problem: there are about 7,000 medical apps.

• Return to Sender

  By David Pogue

  30 Oct 2009 | 3:59 pm

  Have an amazing idea? Here's why Steve Jobs, Steve Ballmer and Sergey Brin don't want to hear about it.

• Are You Nice or Am I Famous?

  By David Pogue

  27 Oct 2009 | 4:28 pm

  Do columnists or other prominent people get special white-glove treatment from customer-service reps? Hard to say, but anecdotally, the evidence is thin.

• Pogue Answers Reader Questions on Windows 7

  By David Pogue

  22 Oct 2009 | 10:36 am

  Whenever I review something that affects so many people, I can count on getting a lot of feedback - and I did, even though the review appeared only last night. Here's a sampling, with my responses.

• 
  ReadWriteWeb

• Straw Man Argument About Enterprise 2.0 Doesn't Fly

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:05 pm

  Dennis Howlett got the attention of the Enterprise 2.0 community today, with his continued skepticism about "social" technologies and their place in the business world. Here's a quote from his post entitled Enterprise 2.0 - the non-debate: "Why am I not surprised? I've argued for years that the notion of anything that has 'social' attached to its moniker is about as welcome as breaking wind in a spacesuit." Sponsor While Howlett makes a few good points in his post, we think that he's making a straw man argument - that the Enterprise 2.0 community is somehow involved in a big lie. The reality…

• Clicker: A One-Stop Shop For Online Video (1000 Invites)

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  Finding specific online videos from TV networks and independent producers can often be a daunting challenge. Some TV shows are on Hulu, some can only be found as paid downloads on iTunes or Amazon and some are only available for streaming on the network's and producer's own sites. Clicker wants to change this by making it easier to find shows from TV networks, music videos, and web videos from across the Internet. Clicker is currently in private beta and only available in the US. The company gave us 1000 invites for our readers. Read on to find out how you can get yours. Sponsor Clicker…

• Layar Tells CNN: Augmented Reality Will Be Second Only to Voice On Phones

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:17 pm

  When you've got a global audience, maybe it's good to make sweeping, ambitious statements. Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald, co-founder of Augmented Reality browser company Layar, was interviewed by CNN today and took the opportunity to claim that AR on phones is going to be so big in the future that only voice will be more popular. Maybe. Many people in the Augmented Reality world are rolling their eyes at Layar's incredible media exposure. They worry that relatively simple implementations of this technology paradigm will create such a bubble of hype that software developed over decades will suffer…

• Remixing Via iPhone: 5 Tools for the Pocket DJ

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:00 am

  In 1906 John Philip Sousa criticized the gramophone saying, "These talking machines will ruin the artistic development of music in this country." Nevertheless, because Sousa did not forsee user-generated culture proliferating alongside "mechanical music" he could not have been further from the truth. Not only have machine technologies aided in musical development, but there are a variety of mediums to choose from. While audio engineers may scoff at the idea of making music on the iPhone, there's no denying that a number of options exist for the pocket DJ. Below are a few tools to get you…

• Seesmic Web Gets Lists and Geolocation

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:49 am

  Seesmic just announced the launch of Twitter lists in its browser-based Seesmic Web Twitter client. Earlier this week, Seesmic released the first desktop Twitter client with support for lists. Despite Seesmic's best efforts, Brizzly managed to become the first company to release a web client with support for lists earlier today. Seesmic Web offers another first for web-based Twitter clients, however: support for Twitter's geolocation API. Sponsor Lists With Auto-Updates In Seesmic's web interface, users can now simply hover their cursor over profile pictures and a menu will appear. This menu,…

• 
  Techmeme

• Microsoft tops Google, Yahoo, Facebook in worldwide Web use (Nick Eaton/The Microsoft Blog)

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:10 pm

  Nick Eaton / The Microsoft Blog: Microsoft tops Google, Yahoo, Facebook in worldwide Web use  —  Windows Live Messenger led Microsoft's Web properties in capturing 14.5 percent of total time spent online in September worldwide, handily beating Google, Yahoo, Facebook and other sites, according to analysis firm comScore.

• Apple Retail Stores Roll Out 'Reserve and Pick Up' Purchasing for Holiday Season (Eric Slivka/MacRumors)

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:00 pm

  Eric Slivka / MacRumors: Apple Retail Stores Roll Out ‘Reserve and Pick Up’ Purchasing for Holiday Season  —  Apple has rolled out a new Reserve and Pick Up purchasing program for its retail stores, allowing customers to select and reserve products for later in-store purchase and pick up ahead of the holidays.

• October 2009 OS stats: Windows 7 passes Snow Leopard, Linux (Emil Protalinski/Ars Technica)

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:40 pm

  Emil Protalinski / Ars Technica: October 2009 OS stats: Windows 7 passes Snow Leopard, Linux  —  In less than two weeks of general availability, Windows 7 has already captured a market share that is greater than Snow Leopard and Linux.  Details inside.  —  Windows 7 arrived two weeks ago and so far it's selling quite well.

• Report: Apple to launch Verizon iPhone in Q3 2010 (Prince McLean/AppleInsider)

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:20 pm

  Prince McLean / AppleInsider: Report: Apple to launch Verizon iPhone in Q3 2010  —  A new report citing sources in the Taiwan handset supply chain says Apple has contracted to produce a UMTS/CDMA hybrid iPhone due in the third quarter of next year that will enable the company to sell a single global handset to all carriers …

• Lessons From the War Over Skype (Brad Stone/Bits)

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:05 pm

  Brad Stone / Bits: Lessons From the War Over Skype  —  The dust has settled, the ink on the deal has dried, and one of the biggest sideshows in Silicon Valley this year appears to be over.  The litigation between eBay, the buyers of Skype and its original founders has been dropped, and the deal …

• 
  TechCrunch

• YouTube Is Falling Apart Again

  Erick Schonfeld

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:37 pm

  The ads are destroying YouTube. At least this one is. It is a video ad for sustainable energy company from Spain called Acciona. Yeah, I had never heard of them either. The video starts with this Euro-dude in a suit starting to blow up and crack apart like he’s made from plaster. Halfway through, the actual video player crack in half, and all of the surrounding parts of the site shake and fall away, while an annoying voiceover is saying something about rebirth. I don’t know, maybe it makes more sense in Spanish. The visual effect is interesting, but feels like a gimmick since…

• Marissa Mayer Chosen As A Glamour Magazine Woman Of The Year

  Leena Rao

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:30 pm

  Google’s Vice President of Search Product and User Experience Marissa Mayer was recently profiled in a Vogue Magazine article that offered a in-depth glimpse into the exec’s lifestyle, loves, career and fashion preferences. Now, Mayer has been named as one of Glamour Magazine’s 2009 Women of the Year. Joining Mayer on the list are a variety of female powerhouses and icons including Maya Angelou, First Lady Michelle Obama, Susan Rice, Euna Lee and Laura Ling. Mayer has been frequently profiled in business and technology publications over the years, but it’s also nice to…

• The Just Because We Love You TwitterPeek Giveaway #Crunch

  Michael Arrington

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:53 pm

  If you’re a Twitter freak and think that a dedicated Twitter device is just the thing for you, read on. This week we saw the launch of the TwitterPeek, a cute little device built by Peek that will do just about anything you want it to do, as long as all you want it to do is access Twitter. It won’t surf the web. It won’t make phone calls. It won’t support third party apps. But it most certainly does run Twitter. You can get it in black. Or, if you want to show a little flair, you can get in in cyan. For some crazy reason I wanted one. A friend bought me one that I will…

• Gowalla Hops Onto Android Via The Mobile Web

  MG Siegler

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:09 pm

  Up until now, if you wanted to use the location-based service Gowalla on the go, you had to have an iPhone. Today, that expands to Android. But rather than building an app, Gowalla has extended support to Android using the mobile web. This works because Android’s browser is closely tied to the device and is able to access location information, which is vital for Gowalla. The goal is to extend this mobile web support to BlackBerry and a few other location-aware devices in the next week or so, co-founder Josh Williams tells us. As a small team, Gowalla, like its rival Foursquare,…

• textPlus 2.0 Hits The App Store For Free Texting

  Daniel Brusilovsky

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:26 pm

  textPlus, a text messaging app that’s powered by GOGII, has just hit the App Store. textPlus lets any iPhone or iPod Touch send free text messages to any cell number by using in-app advertising to cover its costs. There is no limit on how many text messages you can send per month, it’s just a matter of getting WiFi, 3G or an Edge connection. GOGII was one of the first companies that was funded by iFund, the partnership between venture capital firm KPCB and Apple, which was announced at the Apple SDK roadmap event. With version 2.0 of textPlus, GOGII is announcing the availability…

• 
  Truemors

• Facebook is Getting Old, Says Pew Internet

  Truemorist

  6 Nov 2009 | 11:12 am

  Facebook is getting old! The median age for Facebook users is 33. While so many high school and college students are poking each other, their parents are getting in on the act. That's not as creepy as it sounds....read more

• CNNChallenge: How Much Don't You Know About the News?

  Truemorist

  5 Nov 2009 | 3:04 pm

  CNN just launched CNNChallenge, which is a too-Flashy quiz site. I'd love CNNChallenge if it actually worked. But it doesn't, so I don't. I had enough trouble answering questions about real news as it was...read more

• Open a Bottle of Wine With Your Shoe (Video)

  Truemorist

  4 Nov 2009 | 10:13 am

  Leave it to boingboing to find the good stuff. In this case, a viral video of a French guy opening a bottle of wine with his shoe. I may try this at lunchtime. Mind you, it looks like the guy in the wine-shoe...read more

• Halloween Missed Connections: Broken Hearts & Walks of Shame

  Truemorist

  4 Nov 2009 | 8:52 am

  Oh, I love it. Halloween is just the gift that keeps on giving. Once the sun comes up and the tape holding your costume together starts to unstick, everyone takes stock of the night before (and the morning after)....read more

• TwitterPeek: A Pointless Twitter-Only Handheld

  Truemorist

  3 Nov 2009 | 10:52 am

  Peek has introduced TwitterPeek, a handheld internet device that only does Twitter. That's right, Twitter and nothing else. No email, no phone, no SMS, no MMS, nothing but Twitter. So what happens if one of the...read more

• 
  Mashable!

• POLL: TweetDeck Trounces Seesmic Desktop in Reader Vote

  Barb Dybwad

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:41 pm

  We’ve had a number of close calls here during our Web Faceoff series, but this wasn’t one of them. This week we pitted TweetDeck and Seesmic Desktop against each other in a bar room brawl for favorite Twitter client. Now, the results are in. Whereas last week’s Windows 7 versus OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard battle was a close one, with Windows 7 going the distance to outlast the current Mac OS, this week’s showdown had a big winner. …and TweetDeck was it, with a full 71% of the vote (3294 votes) as compared to Seesmic Desktop’s 23% (1055 votes). Six percent or 260…

• iPhone Coming to Verizon in 2010 [RUMOR]

  Adam Ostrow

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:21 pm

  Many signs point to the Apple and AT&T agreement that makes the latter the exclusive carrier of the iPhone within the US coming to an end within the next year. For starters, non-exclusivity has been profitable for Apple in other parts of the world. Moreover, even AT&T’s CEO acknowledges the deal won’t last forever. And while Verizon might be all about showing off what Droid does right now, a new report suggests it could become the first carrier other than AT&T to offer iPhone on American soil, starting in the second half of 2010. According to a report obtained by Apple…

• DocVerse Puts Google Docs-Like Collaboration Inside Microsoft Office

  Ben Parr

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:20 pm

  This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. Name: DocVerse Quick Pitch: DocVerse brings the collaboration functionality of products like Google Docs to the 600 million users of Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Genius Idea: Collaboration is a key to success in any business, especially when you have a scattered team that needs to work on documents constantly. There are already a lot of options,…

• FishVille Launches on Facebook; It’s Like Underwater FarmVille

  Barb Dybwad

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:56 pm

  We were sort of surprised to discover how many of you proclaim your love for FarmVille, the social farming sim game from Zynga. We reported that the company had trademarked the name FishVille last month, and speculated that an aquatic derivative of the wildly popular social game might be in the works. And indeed it was, with FishVille launching in beta today. It’s a bit of a late contender to the aquarium games space, with Happy Aquarium, Fish World and My Fishbowl all getting a head start. Nevertheless, Zynga has enough clout in the social games space to make FishVille a quick winner…

• 5 Must-Have iPhone Apps for Wine Lovers

  Megan Berry

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:23 pm

  Megan Berry is an evangelist for Mobclix, the industry’s largest mobile ad exchange, working on social media and marketing. She also blogs at The Huffington Post and the Mobclix blog. You can follow her on Twitter as @meganberry, or through the @Mobclix handle. Unsure about mixing your iPhone with wine? Well, if you’re a true vinophile, the iPhone is an amazing device to keep you more connected to your wine. The following list of top wine apps on the iPhone will convince you that mixing the two is worth the risk of spilling some pinot noir on your phone. Like wine itself, these…

• 
  NYT > Technology

• Chinese Agencies Struggle Over Video Game

  By MICHAEL WINES

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:43 pm

  Two Chinese government agencies are facing off over the right to regulate the popular online game World of Warcraft.

• Virtual Goods Start Bringing Real Paydays

  By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER and BRAD STONE

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:33 pm

  Consumers are spending to send computer images on social networks and to get an edge in online worlds.

• Activision Posts Profit and Reaffirms Outlook

  By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:26 pm

  Lower costs and a good response for games such as Guitar Hero 5 and World of Warcraft helped the company in the third quarter.

• Research in Motion Plans Big Share Buyback

  By IAN AUSTEN

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:26 pm

  Stock in the company, creator of the BlackBerry smartphone, has lost about a third of its value since September.

• Founders Win a Piece of Skype From eBay

  By BRAD STONE

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:08 pm

  The founders of Skype will drop their lawsuits against the company and a consortium of buyers who bid to purchase Skype. In exchange, the founders will get a 14 percent share in the new Skype.

• 
  GigaOM

• Free Conferencing CEO Asks FCC to Keep on Google Voice

  Stacey Higginbotham

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:05 pm

  Even though less than 1 percent of the population uses Google Voice, David Erickson, president of the Free Conferencing Corp., a conference call company whose numbers are blocked by the service, is pretty aggrieved. So he met with the FCC and filed a letter urging the regulatory agency to get Google to play fair. He also offered to help Google find lower rates for its rural call termination fees. “Google shouldn’t be able to tell consumers where they can call and where they can’t,”  he said in an interview with The Hill, a trade publication. Actually, I’m with him on…

• Thanks to Our GigaOM Sponsors!

  Edit Staff

  6 Nov 2009 | 5:00 pm

  We’d like to say thanks to this week’s GigaOM sponsors: PEER 1: Fully Scalable Hosting Solutions Concentric: Hosted IT Services Mozy: Simple, Automatic, Secure Online Backup SoftLayer: SoftLayer delivers on-demand virtual data center services and solutions. Salesforce: Force.com Cloud Platform PayPal: Innovate 09 – The Intersection of Ideas and Money

• 11 Top Open-source Resources for Cloud Computing

  Sebastian Rupley

  6 Nov 2009 | 1:00 pm

  Open-source software has been on the rise at many businesses during the extended economic downturn, and one of the areas where it is starting to offer companies a lot of flexibility and cost savings is in cloud computing. Cloud deployments can save money, free businesses from vendor lock-ins that could really sting over time, and offer flexible ways to combine public and private applications. The following are 11 top open-source cloud applications, services, educational resources, support options, general items of interest, and more. Eucalyptus. Ostatic broke the news about UC Santa…

• Rich Carriers Got Richer in Q3

  Colin Gibbs

  6 Nov 2009 | 12:30 pm

  The rich mobile carriers got a little richer in the third quarter, as the nation’s top two operators increased their leads over the rest of the field. Verizon Wireless added a million subscribers and posted revenue of $15.8 billion, up 24.4 percent year-over-year, while AT&T reported 2 million net adds — thanks largely to the iPhone — and $13.65 in revenue, up 8 percent over the year-ago period. Meanwhile, the increasingly heated prepaid space took its toll on Leap Wireless and MetroPCS, as both service providers saw customer growth slide in the third quarter.  Leap…

• Vint Cerf Plugs His Plucky Space Web Protocol Into Android

  Sebastian Rupley

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:13 am

  Google evangelist Vint Cerf, who many people think of as one of the fathers of the Internet, has his eyes on some interesting Earth-based applications that can work with his long-standing interplanetary extensions of the Net. He announced at the Open Mobile Summit this morning a software stack that sits on top of the open-source Android operating system that could strengthen wireless network communications through his DTN (Delay Tolerant Netorking) Interplanetary Net protocol. Cerf has been working with NASA since 1998 to develop DTN as a way to overcome limitations in the TCP/IP protocol…

• 
  Technology Review Feed - Tech Review Top Stories

• Blog - Spots 'n' pimples

  6 Nov 2009 | 9:10 pm

  The best of the rest from the physics arXiv this week

• Blog - Computer-Predicted Catalysis

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am

  Two computer programs accurately predict how molecules interact with metals

• Blog - U.S. Congress Considers Geoengineering

  6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 am

  Plans to purposefully re-engineer the world's climate got their first serious committee hearing yesterday.

• Blog - Absent-minded Robots Remember What Matters

  6 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am

  Robots could mimic human forgetfulness to filter out less useful information.

• Blog - Waiter, Is There a Fungicide in My Soup?

  6 Nov 2009 | 6:00 am

  Scientists in Canada have developed dipstick that measures levels of pesticides in food and beverages.

• 
  O'Reilly Digital Media

• Announcing O'Reilly Answers - Clever Hacks. Creative Ideas. Innovative Solutions.

  Allen Noren

  We're launching the beta of O'Reilly Answers, and I'm inviting you to be part of it. In brief, O'Reilly Answers is a community site for sharing knowledge, asking questions, and providing answers that brings together our customers, authors, editors, conference speakers, and Foo (Friends of O'Reilly). O'Reilly is at the center of an amazing exchange of knowledge sharing and idea generation, and we want you to join us in changing the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators.

• Games Top the Charts in the iPhone and Android App Markets

  Ben Lorica

  While it might be true that the number of Book apps is growing at a faster rate, Games continue to dominate the list of popular U.S. iTunes Apps. Games accounted for about a fifth of all iTunes apps over the past week†, but the category continued to have a disproportionate share of the Top 100 charts, accounting for 52% of the Top Grossing, 56% of the Top Paid, and 50% of the Top Free apps.

• Four short links: 29 October 2009 - Learning Programming, Functional Javascript, Controlling Firefox, Kicking Ass (with SSDs)

  Nat Torkington

  Anatomy of SSDs -- A teeth-rattlingly technical Linux Magazine article explaining the different types of SSDs (Solid State Disks--imagine a hard drive made of rapid-access Flash memory). Artur Bergman told me that installing an SSD drive in his MacBook Pro gave the greatest performance increase of any computer upgrade he'd performed since he went from no computer to one. This and more in today's Four Short Links.

• Google Shrinks Another Market With Free Turn-By-Turn Navigation

  Brady Forrest

  Google has announced a free turn-by-turn navigation system for Android 2.0 phones such as the Droid. Read more about the features of Google Maps Navigation.

• iPhone Killers, Blackberries and Chicken Parts

  Mark Sigal

  While a steady stream of so-called iPhone Killers are filtering into the market, Apple's momentum continues unabated. Inspired by his own experiences upgrading to the Blackberry Tour, the author ponders why so many solution providers confuse delivering a bunch of 'chicken parts' with producing an actual, living, breathing chicken. BlackBerry Storm, Palm Pre, the G2, and now Droid have all been touted as contenders to the mobile computing crown, yet the iPhone continues to kick butt.

• 
  MediaPost

• Online Media Daily: Arguing With An Idiot: Glenn Beck's Lawsuit Against Parody Site Rejected

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:24 pm

  An arbitrator has rejected controversial talk show host Glenn Beck's contention that the domain name glennbeckrapedandmurderedayounggirlin1990.com infringes his trademark. World Intellectual Property Organization arbitration panelist Frederick Abbott ruled Friday that the less-than-flattering domain name was protected by fair use principles because the URL, when combined with the site's content, constitutes protected speech.

• Online Media Daily: 'Bright'-Spot: Forrester Names Market-Leading Video Platforms

  6 Nov 2009 | 4:24 pm

  As the adoption of video platforms proliferates beyond the realm media and entertainment, Brightcove and Ooyala remain the vendors to beat, according to a new Forrester Research report. The two, "lead the pack with their end-to-end product offerings that target organizations of all sizes," according to Forrester senior analyst and report author Bobby Tulsiani.

• Online Media Daily: Facebook Goes After Scam Offers

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:19 pm

  Facebook is cracking down on companies that make scam offers in third-party applications as part of its broader effort to police deceptive advertising on the site. The move comes amid rising controversy surrounding networks that provide offers through social gaming apps on Facebook and other properties that entice people into paying for services or subscriptions with bogus come-ons.

• Daily Online Examiner: Judge To BlueBeat: You Can't Do That

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:16 pm

  Music fans often lament that Apple Corps. has so far refused to allow Beatles songs to be sold as digital downloads. So when BlueBeat.com started offering downloads of Beatles tracks last week, observers immediately wondered how the site could have secured the rights to the tracks. The answer soon emerged: BlueBeat didn't own the rights to the catalog. Instead, the company said it used "psycho-acoustic simulation" to rerecord the originals.

• Online Media Daily: Break-Up To Make-Up: AOL Announces Financial Leadership Team

  6 Nov 2009 | 3:03 pm

  Ahead of its expected year-end split from Time Warner, AOL on Friday announced the completion of its financial leadership team. As such, Mike Suffredini has joined AOL as vice president and treasurer, while Eoin Ryan is joining as vice president of investor relations.

• 
  MediaMemo by Peter Kafka

• Does Your Mom Edit Your Blog? Google Wants to Know.

  Peter Kafka

  5 Nov 2009 | 9:30 am

  Do a Google news search, for say, “Will Ferrell,” and you’ll see that the search giant has started labeling news items from blogs as…news items from blogs. Why? Turns out Google (GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt isn’t quite sure himself. But posed with that question during a Boston news conference yesterday, Schmidt did use the opportunity to expound on the difference between pro bloggers and amateur ones. Or at least, his vision of the difference. From Nieman Journalism Lab blogger Zachary Seward’s transcript of his exchange with Schmidt: Me: A very small question.

• Scripps Books Travel Channel in $975 Million Deal

  Peter Kafka

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:47 am

  It’s official: Scripps Networks Interactive has won the Travel Channel auction. In a deal that values the channel at $975 million, Scripps will acquire a majority interest in the property while current owner Cox retains a 35 percent stake. News Corp. (NWS), among others, had been bidding for the channel. The deal will be structured as a joint venture, and Scripps (SNI) will kick $181 million into the new partnership; it will then issue another $878 million in debt. Scripps itself frequently pops up as an acquisition candidate, and that chatter has only gotten louder as a new wave of…

• YouTube's Newest Partner: Will Ferrell

  Peter Kafka

  5 Nov 2009 | 5:19 am

  Slowly but surely, YouTube has been able to bump up the number of “premium” content creators willing to hand over some of their stuff to the world’s biggest video site. Here’s yet another one: Funny or Die, the comedy site backed by Will Ferrell, Sequoia and HBO, among others. You’ve been able to get Funny or Die clips on YouTube before, of course, but only with some effort–until now, the site has tried to keep views on its site or with its proprietary player. That only worked in limited doses, though, so it makes plenty of sense for the site to expose its…

• MySpace's "Work in Progress": Losing Money and Traffic, Blowing Google Guarantees

  Peter Kafka

  4 Nov 2009 | 3:03 pm

  Did Rupert Murdoch wait way too long to fix MySpace? It’s easy to get that impression from the News Corp. earnings call today. The takeaway: The site is losing traffic and money and no longer expects to get all of the $900 million it once counted on from a Google search deal. Also, the company really doesn’t know what to expect of the property going forward, except that it’s a work in progress. So: Either digital media boss Jon Miller, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta and the rest of the new team brought in this year to fix the site have an impossible task or expectations are now…

• News Corp. Saved by Movies and Cable, Hammered by Broadcast and Print

  Peter Kafka

  4 Nov 2009 | 1:30 pm

  The theme we’ve seen from big media players that aren’t Google (GOOG) so far this quarter: The worst may be over, but things aren’t exactly great quite yet. In many cases–see: Viacom (VIA), Time Warner (TWX) et al–improvement just means top-line decreases are slowing, while cost-cutting has improved the bottom line. And the first look at results from News Corp., which owns this Web site, seems similar. Revenue of $7.2 billion are in line with Wall Street’s expectations, and the company figured out how generate earnings of 22 cents a share, a nice bump from…

• 
  The Flack

• Healthcare Histrionics

  6 Nov 2009 | 2:24 pm

  Dumb Michelle Bachmann had all her PR theatrics on display this week in DC. Her goal: to rally the right wing lunatic fringe to propagate anti-healthcare reform headlines, and in so doing, keep the cash flowing so she can hold on to her job. Ms. Bachmann is now ranked 8th among insurance industry beneficiaries.She certainly pulled out all the props, including a copy of the healthcare bill wrapped in some kind of twine, a group Pledge of Allegiance (to which the Congressman who led it forgot the words), and a healthy heaping of political wack-a-dos who today pass for Republican leadership.

• The Reading Room

  5 Nov 2009 | 1:47 pm

  We were gathered at our bi-monthly Boys' Lunch at Michael's last month when one of "the boys," a very senior media-minded communications executive, looked at me incredulously when I said I actually read Bernoff's Groundswell, Jarvis's What Would Google Do, and Godin's Tribes, among others.He definitely thought I was either drunk on the Kool-Aid or in need of a new life.Just as the number of new media confabs have proliferated in recent years so have the number of published works heralding in the new world order. Many pros have forsaken these longer form media, replacing it with the Twitter…

• Follow the Leaders

  2 Nov 2009 | 6:45 pm

  What a weekend! No, I'm not referring to the Yankees two-out 9th inning rally that suddenly subdued those Hoagie-eating Philly fans. I'm talking about @ev, @biz and @jack's decision to open up Twitter Lists to more than the chosen few. It literally unleashed the curatorial curiosity in all of us.I can't recall another more buzzed-about (and time-consuming) software application release, but then again I happen to follow Tweeps who get all a-twitter over such things. Isn't the quick uptake of Twitter Lists driven by the same sensation one feels by sharing his or her music playlists, i.e., Check…

• Restoring Trust

  30 Oct 2009 | 9:07 am

  The Council of PR Firms executive director Kathy Cripps had a twinkle in her eye as she looked out across the expanse of The Yale Club’s Grand Ballroom in New York City yesterday morning. In spite of these recessionary times, the Council’s annual Critical Issues Forum drew a full house and a fair share of industry luminaries, many of whom are featured in this video.All the big and mid-sized agencies were there, except perhaps for one, to hear the all-star panel featuring General Electric CMO Beth Comstock, PBS “Nightly Business Report co-anchor Susie Gharib, Morgan Stanley’s Jim…

• The Media Bypass

  26 Oct 2009 | 2:28 pm

  Ad Age's Mike Bush today visits with a number of PR pros who wax poetic on how their clients bypass the media filter to reach customers directly.We've covered this for a few years now, but it hasn't gone so far as to dismiss the value of media relations for advancing a client's communications objective.Bush writes: "...as the body count of magazines and daily newspapers continues to rise and the once-robust news and feature holes of surviving publications shrink along with reporting staffs, some marketers have given up on the traditional path to media coverage: pitching journalists.some…