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Chile Quake: Which media?

admin — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 04:33:43 +0000

Twitter and Facebook played a huge role in delivering information and pictures with immediacy during the historic 8.8 quake in Chile. As the article in PC World points out, Twitterers are helping to connect families in Chile with loved ones globally and helping to connect resources needed with people who can help. Besides individuals on Facebook, the New York Times even has a FB page devoted to information about the earthquake. But I do know that from personal experience, the traditional news media tends to show the worst and sometimes doesn’t balance the most tragic images with reality. My son, Garrett was in Santiago during the quake so it was important to get an accurate picture of the damage – where the worst was occurring and where it was not. I’m not sure traditional media did that job this time. Could it be that social media did?

Social Media Snake Oil

admin — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:15:48 +0000

I wish someone would explain to me why there seems to be a new so-called profession of social media experts. First of all, we haven’t had social networking long enough for any of us to be true ’experts.’ Yet, I see loads of people charging huge amounts of money to teach others the fundamentals of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc…when in fact, if you sit down and focus on each one of those for a few hours each day, you’ll learn it by doing just like most of us have. So, I ask you – are they selling snake oil? Now, let me be clear, I DO use social networking tools and I DO see good value in them for business and I DO understand people charging for their transfer of knowledge (expertise) about how best to use these new tools in Public Relations and Marketing for different industry sectors. On size does not fit all especially when you make the leap from personal social networking to your business. But that’s about sharing professional expertise in Marketing, for example, not ‘how to upload a photo.’ And if I could send a message across all my social media networks, it would be for everyone in various groups to which I belong, to STOP selling themselves in every post. And beware of the snake oil and the price of it.

Google Wave

admin — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 01:53:57 +0000

Google has been busy. The team that developed Google Maps has created a new platform called Google Wave, that promises to re-invent email. In a simple explanation – it allows multiple recipients to collaborate in an email platform (Gmail-based of course) and integrate video, pictures, etc. And the interesting marketing part of this is that Google unveiled it before it is released and is asking for developers to help them complete the project. The announcement came at Google I/O last week when Google invited developers to build on it and expand the platform. The technical engineering folks will collaborate in an open source. You can watch the long version on YouTube. But for the rest of us, picture this: bringing in a wave embedded in a website to allow conversations among visitors. This could outdo Twitter! Stay tuned.

Big Week in New Media

admin — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 17:19:28 +0000

Here are the headlines: Facebook Reaches 200 Million Users. What’s even more interesting is the demographic shift in Facebook members to the 35-44yr old crowd - read the eMarketer article. The WSJ offers content in a free iPhone app. You can read about it in Wired Magazine. And I actually got a CNN Breaking News alert via email: Ashton Kutcher is first to reach 1 million followers in Twitter contest with CNN. Why that is breaking news, and why anyone cares that he has a million followers, contest or no contest, I have no idea. And an article in the Boston Business Journal suggests that the land the Boston Globe sits, on may be worth more than the newspaper itself! My question is what happened to the monetization of the online version of the Globe? The article sites difficulty reducing production costs with a union labor force that is 70% of the paper’s work force. Is that true for the online Globe work force? (Sorry – but the MBA in me has to ask.) It appears to me that the audiences consuming any content is predominantly online now (I happen to think it has been that way for longer than the research shows) and while we’re seeing more and more acceptance of that paradigm, it has been slow for many. And now we’re seeing a variety of consequences of late-comers to the reality of the present state of new media’s reach. Hope they’re not too late for the future.