Media

User-generated TV

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Businessweek (Nov 19 issue) has an interesting article on Current, the cable channel. They call it the “wiki cable channel.”

“Now Current is moving even closer to crowd-controlled TV. Since mid-October, visitors to its Web site have been able to watch everything that was on the channel in the previous two hours or what’s coming in the next two, leave comments on the shows, put up links to other sites, or add raw video to a story…”

This may be the model of what a lot of TV is growing up to be. They have an amazing stat: more than 70% of Current viewers have a laptop open while they watch the TV channel.

Larry King in Second Life?

/ Angelo Fernando / 2 Comments

Someday Brian Williams and Katie Couric may be the ones we get our news from —in Second Life. That’s not far fetched, considering how SL is attracting all media organizations.

But it’s also possible that Journalism schools could get into the act too, and (Professor) Larry King could be conducting journalism training in SL. I’m not making this up. There was a move last month by CNN where it said it was setting up a virtual bureau in SL, with its eyes on a citizen journalism. The bureau was supposed to begin operatiing last week.

In related news, Dan Gilmore, the authority on the topic of citizen journalism, is joining Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Gilmor has not commented much on this move, but I know it’s going to be a big leap for citizen journalism, and add a lot of exciting dimensions to the Cronkite School.

The above picture is from CNN’s iReport via one of its citizen journalists.

Will PR and the media call a truce?

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

The dust won’t settle for awhile since WIRED Editor Chris Anderson announced last week he was “banning” lazy PR people who pitched him with irrelevant stories. First strike and they’re history.

The discussion has got interesting. Here’s one, where Brian Solis asks if PR and media could sign a peace accord of sorts. He says:

I promise to fix this problem among those with whom I work with and can reach. I will also work with others whose voices are trusted among PR practitioners and their peers within the communities in which they seek guidance.

All he asks is that Anderson remove the list of names from his blog so as not to give the offenders a public shaming.

Anderson, however, is unapologetic:

Many people wrote to apologize, promising to reform their ways, and asked to be taken off the list. I’ve written to all of them to thank them for their commitment to change, but I’m not going to undo history.

Solis then brings up another uncomfortable topic –unethical cut-and-paste reporters. But outing them is not necessary, he says.

Terrific post, Brian.

Southwest Airlines retakes the story

/ Angelo Fernando / 3 Comments

“The publicity caught us with our pants down, quite frankly. The story has such great legs, but we have an even better sense of humor, so we’re going to jump out there and lower our fares to match the mini skirts we’ve all been hearing so much about.”

What other company could write a more innovative (and credible) ‘manufactured quote’ for a press release than this? This was Southwest Airlines that took back the story when it was widely criticized for poorly handling a situation on board.

Dan Wool at ValleyPRBlog last week wrote about the incident (involving a Hooters girl, and inappropriate clothing on a flight) and the need to apologize. That’s what the airline did.

But it leveraged the incident to issue not one but two press releases, and to lower its fares it promptly called Mini Skirt Fares. Even if someone hadn’t hear of the Hooters girl incident, this is guaranteed to make them talk about and around it.

The first press release was about the apology from President Colleen Barrett. If you’ve ever read her column in SPIRIT magazine, the in-flight pub, you’ll know that Barrett is quite the champion of new PR, and highly aware of the value of social media.

Nor was this a standard apology. Here’s her quote in that release:

From a Company who really loves PR, touche to you Kyla! … As we both know, this story has great legs, but the true issue here is that you are a valued Customer, and you did not get an adequate apology.

There are some valuable firsts here:

1. Communicating with a single customer directly through a press release.

2. Humor from the top of the totem pole in an organization, via a communication tool better known for bland communications

3. Using its positioning – FUN – to address, rather than cover up the incident

4. Damage control, fast –check the Google Juice it’s received

5. The President blogged about the incident right away, as did Brian Lusk whose post had comments critical of the airline.

It’s a classic example of taking charge of the conversation, before it takes off without you on board.

Is Bin Laden a brand?

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

“He’s a brand name, probably one of the most recognizable brand names in the world”

I found it strange that a professor of Georgetown University (quoted in an AP story yesterday) called Bin Laden a brand name, after the two videos emerged this week.

People attach the word “brand” to anything these days, in the same way that agency folk in the eighties used to drop the word “strategic” before a lot of words (like “management,” “response,” “investment”) just to sound profound.

One could assume he was simply expanding on the idea he had just described describing the man as a “marquee name wheeled out in dramatic fashion.” Bin Laden may have some odd PR tactics ( insert “strategies” for “tactics” if you want added effect) but releasing a VNR now and then does not bestow brand status.

Joost is more than TV on the Net

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

joost_screenshot.jpgI signed up for Joost some months back, and was glad to see they now have a beta worth checking out.

Watch a simple explanation of what it’s all about.

Basically it’s a way of watching TV on line, and chatting with a community using chat programs such as Jabber of Google Talk. because it’s TV delivered in real time, it has rich content on floating screens, giving you some background about the program, other channels etc.

Light Rail’s getting dinged. Why no response?

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Central Avenue stationDon’t know if you’ve noticed but there’s very little communication coming out of Metro Light Rail. Even the Arizona Passenger Rail Association, that has been a big backer, has not posted anything about it since July. It’s a political football in Mesa, as we saw last week.
I am looking forward to the service big time, and occasionally check the press releases on their web site, but don’t see a lot of positive media coverage.

Instead, I see a lot of Light Rail talk from the nay sayers. Take the letters to the Arizona Republic. It’s usually this variety:

“I think the light rail system will be the next on your list of flops….We are off on the right foot in ruining beautiful Central Avenue, and putting many small businesses out of business.”

The writer covers three issues in one sentence. (a) The Flops, in reference to the story on 08.21.07 about Arizona’s blunders that cost the taxpayer. (b) The holy mess down Central Ave, and (c) the business angle.

Very shrewd, or just very upset?

It begs a response not just from the folks at Light Rail, but from GPEC, and the promoters of small business. We’re just about a year away from the Light Rail launch, and I would like to see more education aimed at the different publics.

Technorati Tags: ,

Why Facebook is a media darling.

/ Angelo Fernando / Leave a comment

Hard to miss the reviews, the loving tributes and the non-stop attention to Facebook these days. Why all the fascination with a social network that has been around since 2004?

Apart from the fact that it was started by a student, and is run by a 22-year old, is what Facebook stands for. It “has Google sweating” (Advertising Age), is the Future of everything online (TIME), and is Advertising’s worst nightmare (Guardian).

As Lev Grossman in TIME says, Facebook is really about making the web grow up.

What this means is that it is not only stamping on the footprint of other business models, but pointing in the direction where they ought to be headed. And unlike in previous movements, where it was fashionable to follow and try to predict where the CEO of the company was taking the product (think Murdock, Ballmer, Bezos) everyone is trying to figure out what the Facebook members are doing to networks, and the Net itself.

And that’s a much more juicy story.

Wikipedians at work

/ Angelo Fernando / 1 Comment

wikipedia.jpgA chap called Virgil Griffith, a student, started something that will put the brakes on a lot of hype that sometimes creeps into Wikipedia entries.Unlike many who work late into the night contributing to this dynamic knowledge repository, Griffith has come up with a rudimentary but powerful tool to help us peer through the curtain and check out who’s been goosing the system.

The tool is called Wiki scanner looks like a search engine. There you could type in a company name –say Walmart, or Starbucks– and see details of the edits that took place over the years. Among those who’ve fixed things and been exposed (here, here, and here) are Diebold, Dell, the CIA, BBC… the list is too long. WIRED even has a challenge out there for readers to scan through Wiki scanner, and submit names of companies with their fingers in the wiki jar.

This is transparency at its best.