New Media Prof Blog » New Media

Grass Roots Senate Race

admin — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:10:14 +0000

An interesting thing happened on the way to filling Senator Ted Kennedy’s seat here in Massachusetts – the Republican candidate, Scott Brown pushed ahead of Democrat Martha Coakley with only a few days to do before the votes are cast. We are witnessing a grass roots initiative in Scott Brown’s camp that’s taken hold. New media and social media are playing a big role, keeping in mind that Scott Brown didn’t have nearly the name recognition that Martha Coakley had when this all started. Presidents Clinton and Obama visited Boston this weekend to try to bolster support for Coakley. Senator McCain has endorsed Brown, as did Ted Kennedy’s hometown newpaper, the Cape Cod Times. The Tea Party Express has endorsed Brown in a YouTube video (also a TV spot), even though the candidate was unfamiliar with the organization. Pollsters and pundits are scratching their heads. But haven’t we seen this grass roots effort demand change before?

Marketing Budgets Shift

admin — Tue, 12 May 2009 20:50:23 +0000

A recent survey by Forrester shows a major shift from spending on traditional means of marketing to online and interactive. No surprise there. But the numbers are interesting. Direct mail..done. Newspaper ads…done. Magazine ads…almost done. Research has been showing this shift for a few years, but the recession has been the tipping point. Marketers have been forced to stretch their budgets and so new media advertising and marketing have gotten their attention finally. At Legal Talk Network, one of my company’s new media projects, we’ve been promoting this idea with success since 2005. And I can reaffirm the research results that marketers are seeing the light. In full disclosure, we produce original podcast content and sell commercials embedded in the program OR advertisers can sponsor the whole program. The content is available to download on demand and targets a specific audience. Sound like a familiar biz model for those of us who used to watch TV and listen to the radio? THIS is what traditional broadcast and print ignored like the predictions of a storm- we saw it as an opportunity. And every marketer or PR manager should too.

What Newspapers Do

admin — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:52:58 +0000

Pulitzer celebration at Las Vegas Sun

I have been saying for 10 years that traditional media (generally speaking) put their collective heads in the sand and didn’t embrace new media which, if they had, it might have saved many of them from the current economic demise we are witnessing. BUT, I am also cognizant of a great value that traditional media, especially newspapers, continue to champion as the investigative arm of journalism. And this week, there’s more proof. Pulitzer Prizes were awarded and the New York Times won 5 top medals, The Las Vegas Sun won for Public Service for a story described as courageous reporting by Alexandra Berzon, a young reporter who exposed construction deaths along the ’strip’ that led to tighter safety laws. And some of the other winners, included some smaller newspapers, the East Valley Tribune in Mesa, AZ and The Post-Star, in Glens Falls, NY. If you have a minute, read what that little Glens Falls, NY community paper wrote about winning the Pulitzer! Television News reporters, producers and photographers still do their share in this category despite what you may see on a majority of news programs daily today. For those who know the work and yes, courage, that goes into these efforts – congratulations! And for those who don’t necessarily know, you should hope that we can preserve these strong initiatives and investigative journalism in some way. My hope is that this will survive the newspaper downturn and with help in the monetization of digtial media, become the leading force in the ‘new’ new media. Otherwise, who will tell these stories?

Good News for Journalists

admin — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:10:43 +0000

As a follow up to my recent post about why corporate employers should hire a journalist, I’m encouraged to read in the news today that at least one company is seizing the opportunity to hire seasoned journalists from the print industry that we all know is in financial decay now. The article in OnlineMedia Daily by Mark Walsh says AOL is picking up ‘old media’ talent – reporters and columnists from the New York Times, Chicago Sun Times, L-A Times and others – to AOL’s online news properties like AOL News and AOL Money & Finance. Old media…new media…it is all the same at the heart of the matter for journalists – credible content! So kudos to AOL for having the insight to see the value. I am sure these additions to their staff will add depth and continue the move, already underway, to produce even better online content in news, corporate and other information being consumed at a break-neck pace each day! And we know those journalists will continue to do the jobs all of us count on them to do – their stories will just go to a different printing press! And in that vein comes the announcement of the Huffington Post Investigative Fund today, which is billed as a way to keep that all important investigative journalism role alive.

The Online President

admin — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:21:08 +0000

The website says ‘The White House is Open for Questions.’ And today, President Obama had his first presidential virtual town meeting. Anyone can ask the President questions online. I am encouraged that this President clearly understands the power of new media beyond the campaign initiatives used to help get him elected. I applaude it for many reasons, not the least of which is that it gets people involved in our government with interactivity or at even to the point of submitting a link of you asking a video question. They tell us 100K questions were submitted with no pre-screening. The production looks pretty good – I counted about 4-5 cameras switched into the live feed. No hiccups in the live stream, so clearly they’ve got the technology part of scaling to volume viewers and bandwidth covered. However, at more than 10-minutes in, we are still listening to Obama’s sales pitch (did he forget he was already elected?) Now finally getting to the first question, which came from Boston (that’s where I am) was about education. Second question - re-financing home mortgages. Third question – jobs. And hallelujah – a question about tax breaks for small business owners who depend on bank loans to run the operation. We’re told that the questions chosen for a Presidential answer were chosen by the numbers of votes cast (3.5million votes) that bring that question to the top, courtesy Google analytics. And in a moment that spawned laughter in the live audience, the President explained that the question about legalizing marijuana got a lot of votes but his answer was ‘no’ in terms of that being part of the administration’s economic strategy. BTW, Google powers today’s town hall and all of the techno that led up to it including online question submission, etc). Yesterday, a writer from WebProNews called it A Google Spangled White House Town Hall, which is a valid point. And the PR machine is working overtime with videos on the White House website. But back to today’s point, I think the Online Town Hall is a good start. As a former TV producer, I would have a few comments about shortening the answers to get more questions in during the 30-minutes I’ve been watching. I actually have a business to run, so my time available to watch anything, is short, as a small business person. I’d like to see the format be more rapid-fire Q&A, preserving, of course, the answer content. The live nature of the town meeting is good and kudos for all involved for making it technically seemless. And it is obvious that the audience target is those Millennials who were tapped in mass during the Obama campaign. I think all of this is long overdue. Gone are the days when only traditional media has access to the President of the U.S. and gone are the days that our connection as the public only comes through soundbites. I think it is important for our President to stay connected to us all…because we ARE watching very carefully!

Mobile Impact for New Media

admin — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:34:05 +0000

Walk down a street in any major city in the world, and you ‘ll see everyone looking at their mobile. Even two people walking together – each will be looking at his/her own mobile device. It is truly a love/hate thing. According to comScore, the number of people using a mobile device to access news and information has doubled in the last year! And they say, 35% of us do this daily now. No surprise, really. Our cell phones are now the hub of our professional AND personal communications. I wanted to find out if anybody had landlines at home anymore…so I checked. According the the CDC (not sure why they’re studying this), three in ten adults have only a cellphone (no landline) and over 40% of 18-29 yr olds don’t have landlines at all. No doubt, we’re all becoming accustomed to being connected all the time with clients and global news as it happens. So the bottom line here is that new media is evolving and becoming more popular as quickly as technology will allow. More mobile usage…more new media…and more adoption by all. There is just more information available at our fingertips. I, personally see this as a good thing. We’ll have to suffer through some tough transitions, such as the newspapers morphing themselves into online-only newspapers and some won’t survive - that’s something we don’t like to see. Someone said to me the other day – ‘It is because no one reads the paper anymore’ – almost like our parents and grandparents used to say about walking to school…you remember the story. I read the NY Times everyday on my mobile, along with 5 other online versions of major metro newspapers. And it isn’t as though the 18-29 yr olds don’t want to read the paper, it is just that they don’t want to read the paper version with news that is often 8 hrs old! And so we shouldn’t lament the advantages technology allows us. We should embrace it…learn to manage it…and learn to put it down if we need to in order to have that balance. So go have a Guinness on this St. Patrick’s Day and check your email after you get home.

New FCC chief…a progressive step?

admin — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:24:33 +0000

President Obama has picked his pal from Harvard, Julius Genachowski to head up the FCC. He guided the Obama campaign in a grass roots online strategy that paid off and he’s been a part of the transition team on innovation and technology. He’s co-founded two companies, Launchbox Digital and Rock Creek Ventures and has an impressive legal and new media background, clerking for Justice David Souter at the SUPCO and chief counsel to the former FCC chair. So he gets Washington and he gets new media. There are already critics of Genachowski from Silicon Valley, but they should pipe down for now. A lot of us think it is time this country got going in the direction the rest of the world is headed, at least with regard to technology and communicating globally with new media. Certainly one of Genachowski’s first challenges could be the resistence to make broadband available to rural America. I recently saw an ABC News documentary, called Children of the Mountains, produced with Diane Sawyer about Berea, KY. In full disclosure, that’s my home state (both Diane Sawyer and I grew up in Louisville, KY). If you haven’t seen the doc, it is a must watch, which of course you can…online! Now ,anyone who knows me knows I am not a bleeding heart liberal. But one thing is for sure in my mind. I think giving young people access to the Internet where they don’t have it, would go a long way to help with the rest of the economic issues challenging places like Berea and help to educate the children who live there, so they can help themselves. Kudos to ABC News, Diane Sawyer…and hopefully soon to Mr. Genachowski.

Traditional Media

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 05:10:38 +0000

It had been a bad week for newspapers. It didn’t happen just this week and it didn’t happen overnight, but the headlines in some of the major papers about themselves tell the story. Denver’s Rocky Mountain News is publishing the final edition. The San Francisco Chronicle in a last gasp. The Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe, Philadelphia Enquirer and even the New York Times are in trouble. This is my worry: where will we get a credible reporting of the news in these corners of America? Now I never worked in the newpaper business, but I did work in the TV News industry for almost 20 years and as a former journalist, I worry that we are losing something very valuable – something at the core of our 1st Amendment. In business school, we called this a ‘paradigm.’ Why the newspapers and TV News organizations didn’t see it coming, I do not know. Some of us did raise flags, and tried to integrate new media with traditional media, but no one was listening. New Media was coming. (It actually was there for early adopters in the late ’90’s) Now it is here in critical mass. Even top TV Network execs are calling out for change now as survivalists. TV News Must Embrace New Media…read more in the Miami Herald. Hopefully it is not too late for the transformation and integration of the traditional media values to a new media delivery. And hopefully, we can preserve the core of what made news organizations in the country great – the basics like fact-checking, two-source rule, attribution, accurate quotes, investigation and reporting both sides of the story. That’s the real story.

F2F Still Happening!

admin — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 18:32:57 +0000

New Media is great – it is convenient – it broadens all of our communications in a global way for business, friendships and developing new contacts. It gives us a way to communicate, to inform, to educate and often to touch the heart in a compelling way. My business is New Media and I teach New Media as one form of communication. BUT it is comforting to remember that F2F communication is still the best! I was reminded of this last week in a wonderful way during my trip to Ireland. This is a country of contrasts. Ireland is well known for high tech business development AND village life. It is a country that cherishes the F2F relationships found in the local pubs, the soccer field (they call it football), the church and at the corner store. It is a country that has, in many ways, preserved the art of F2F relationships – the ones that really count in life – the ones that make us smile – the ones that make us cry with joy – and the ones that are most memorable. It doesn’t take a computer, or a blog entry, or a video or a podcast to appreciate a conversation with an old friend, or a complete stranger in the small villages I visited such as Carna, IRE – a remote, Irish-only speaking village north of Galway City. A quick story about an Irishwoman named Winnie at the corner store in Carna amidst the Irish countryside. While Winnie and I didn’t speak the same language and although we lead very different lives, we were able to communicate, struggling a bit with a few common words, but in the end, sharing a smile. This happened over and over across Ireland – in Connemara, County Cork (from which my ancesters emigrated), Limerick, Cobh, Kilarney, a tiny village called Inse on the Dingle Peninsula and the lovely Kinvara. Strangers became new friends instantly (with a few pints) and best of all, the experiences of Ireland created memories of a lifetime with F2F conversations I had with my two sons, Garrett & Ian during this adventure. Most days we text, email and talk on our mobiles to stay in touch. In this trip, they learned more about me and I learned more about them while we shared the experiences that each of us will cherish forever. We took the time to talk F2F with the old Irishman in the pub who welcomed the Yanks to his village as well as the musician on the sidewalk of Cork and the little Irish girls giggling on their way to school. And that’s what really counts in the end.

Podcast B2B Marketing

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 03:45:33 +0000

I’m sharing a new media success story today. I just returned from CA with Kate, Mike & Scott from our staff, after we produced and recorded 9 podcasts for one of our Legal Talk Network clients, where experts and associates gathered for their corporate annual meeting. It is the 3rd year that Ringler Associates has contracted with us to produce new media, specifically biweekly podcasts, called Ringler Radio in a B2B marketing strategy. It has been a success for them. You see, we produce timely content in talk show format (broadcast style) for a very targeted audience in the legal vertical. Not only do we publish the podcasts on Legal Talk Network and on the client’s website as well as in iTunes, but their associates also forward the podcasts to their clients – plaintiff and defense attorneys. They are not infomercials – they are informative programs about issues important to attorneys. And for those marketing ROI naysayers out there, I will tell you that this new media strategy has turned into real revenue for the client! This is just one example of a growing trend of new media marketing for companies, large and small, to reach their clients (audience). New media is targeted, economical, convenient to the end user, viral and professionally produced. No further proof necessary.