RemainComm

Know Now...Or Learn Very, Very Soon

I caught a great post from Ed Kohler on his blog Technology Evangelist. He took some time to outline  25 Not-Very-Technical Things Journalists Should Understand in 2008. I noted that he chose not to use 2009...implying, of course, that journalists need to know it now, not for the future.

Even if you have never picked up a reporter's notebook there are plenty of things on the list that, if you intend to communicate these days, you should know. Businesses need to connect to current and future customers, parents need to connect to their kids, employers need to connect with employees, etc. You will surely need to use the web to connect. If you don't know now, learn in the near future. So let's take a look at a modified list. You should know...

1. The what where and how of a blog.
2. How to embed photos and videos on a website or blog.
3. What is, and how to buy, a domain name.
4. What is, and how to use, an RSS reader.
5. How to do some advanced searches online.
6. How Wikipedia (or any wiki) works and changes over time.
7. How to join conversations on blogs.
8. How to upload photos and video to the web.
9. How to record audio.
10. How to shoot video.
11. If you are trying to reach specific audience, how to measure a your content's performance.
12. How to use Facebook and LinkedIn. (MySpace as well if you anything to do with music.)
13. How to use Twitter.
14. How to find experts on the web.
15. How to secure your laptop.
16. How secure your browser to limit access to what your kids can see.
17. How to keep your personal information safe online.
18. How to back everything up...in more than one place.
19. How to delete all the stuff you'll never use or knew existed on your computer.
20. How to be honest and real online. Not as easy at it may sound.

So I ended up with 20. What did I miss?

Ahead in the Cloud

Whenever I find myself getting caught up in the verbiage of an industry, I feel compelled to look at it from the "average Joe" point of view. Simply put, "Cool word, what does it mean to me?"

Much has been made about "Cloud" computing recently. The term refers to computing done via the internet. Think using software or a service that doesn't reside on your computer. (Perhaps you use Google Docs) But is this buzzword really the same s#@t in a different shovel?

This little bit of video featuring Frank Gillett from Forrester Research addresses it well.

I readily admit that I still get a bit of the heebie-jeebies whenever I think about creating a document, modifying an image, or even backing up my data on a platform that isn't sitting right next to me in a fan cooled box. But most of that is based purely on security and privacy issues. Afterall, it's not really a cloud, ya know. It's sitting on a server somewhere...yeah, I'm a bit paranoid.

But the fact is, "cloud" computing has been around for years and, because we Americans love to be mobile (now think cell phones, laptops, even portable radios and cars) it only stands to reason there is more interest in the "cloud". We also need to chalk it up to marketing. Cloud Computing...I feel hipper just saying it.

So, all of us will be spending more time working and playing in the "cloud". If you aren't, many of those younger than you are. So keep thinking beyond your desktop...at maybe get a faster internet connection.

Let the Games Begin...Please.

Serious(?) journalism comes to the Twin Cities!
(Billboard inbound from the MSP airport courtesy of Greg Swan)

As Minneapolis/St. Paul, where I live, gets set for the pending Republican National Convention it will be fun to see how "the media" will make it's presence felt.

As expected, all of our "traditional" news outlets (TV, newspaper, and radio) are posturing themselves as the place for the most complete coverage...as they should. The "new" media outlets (Citizen journalists, blogs, etc.) are also gearing up to make an impact.

So far though, there is very little tie-in to the "big event" beyond the news outlets. Okay, the "Minnesota get-together" or State Fair as it is better known, is a big deal each year. So that's where everybody is spending their time.  However if you want to get noticed on the world stage, this might be the year to downplay the corndogs and bacon on a stick and literally hop on the political bandwagon. Kudos to Comedy Central!   

Viral Video Where You're the Star

I came across this the other day and thought it was one of the better viral videos I've seen. It's timely, it allows you to become part of the video and it's fun. It also allows it's originator, Paltalk, to accopmplish many goals.

Not only does it brand PalTalk throughout the piece, it also enables users to forward it to a friend or many friends, embed it in a blog or website further spreading the name. Most importantly it harvests a multitude of names and e-mail addresses and offers users to opt in for info about Paltalk.

It's good to see a company adopting a relatively new marketing tactic and remembering it's about the user!

Now, if I can just find a way to be in a commercial with Britney and Paris...

Public Radio Goes to Camp

A unique collaboration to benefit public radio, MPR and maybe all of media for that matter took place at the studios of the Minnesota Public Radio on Saturday July 12th.

The PublicRadioCamp was organized by Dan Grigsby and those behind Minnebar and Minnedemo here in the Twin Cities along with MPR. The “camp” was positioned as “a new community event” and the purpose was to examine “the tons of really interesting content, data, audio, meta-data and feeds.” and to spend the time “collaboratively remixing and mashing up these goodies.”

The designers, bloggers, journalists, internet types, and plenty of MPR representatives (about one for every non-MPR attendee), assembled in the deluxe UBS Forum. The space had been lined with work areas complete with large whiteboards indicating there wouldn’t be much observing and plenty of brainstorming. Within minutes the group divided into what resulted in four groups; Data Access, User Generated Content, News Visualization, and Nuevo Radio. My time was spent in the Nuevo Radio group, a name I gave it as a spicier take on radio. Besides nouveau seems so snooty. The results of it and the other collaborations are briefly reviewed below.

Data Access API-One glance at this group and you knew the developers were hard at work with plenty of tech talk and activity. As described on the Public Radio Camp wiki this group felt it would be really useful for users, developers, media and MPR itself if there were one universally accessible source (API) for searching all MPR content by location, time, keyword and article. It appears they are already hard at work to bring this to fruition.

User-generated Content-This group addressed helping people build news stories and their content, possibly to be used by MPR through the use of a how-to guide that could be posted online. They looked carefully at the process of developing a story and where collaboration could occur. They indentified ways the public could address everything from interviewing to writing, editing and producing. The real potential for such an idea is following up those stories that have a shorter on-air shelf life.

Nuevo Radio-The group sought ways to keep relevant to its listeners. User-generation was a focal point as well. Where the group described above focused on an online play, this group built on the idea of a “civic journalism center” or even coffee shop concept. A location where people that are inclined to be more participatory could gather as well as have access to the necessary tools and resources to build content. The idea of merging this plan with public libraries was also discussed. Other ideas included shuffling the on-air programming schedule on a regular basis to showcase the offering available online to be heard at the listener’s convenience and using HD channels to provide raw interviews and video to accompany on-air content.

(Photo Courtesy of Bob Collins)

News Visualization-This group looked to give visual life to the content of news stories produced and heard. Similar to a category cloud familiar to many who read or produce blogs regularly, the result of running an RSS feed through Wordle was “art” that would highlight the topics and words that dominated within the stories. (Example at left.) Of course this would change throughout the day. As noted by MPR’s Bob Collins, someone commented that this is a new version of the “weather ball.”

Clearly the afternoon will bear fruit for MPR as they continue to enlist the talents of this, as MPR’s Julia Schrenkler noted, “enthusiastic” group. Hopefully it will lead to not only allowing those in this group to derive satisfaction and perhaps compensation for these ideas but that radio broadcasters beyond MPR will act on what is being learned and attempted.

MPR has discovered the power of enlisting “the crowd” to build it’s product. Merging old and new media, technology, and people is a noble effort and has every chance of elevating the quality of journalism as well as the expectations of radio consumers.

We Came, We Saw, We Geeked Out…All in Minneapolis

Every once in awhile you just have to smile and proudly flaunt the things that make the place you live in great. This past weekend showed off one of those things about Minnesota.

The site was the Coffman Memorial union on the campus of the University of Minnesota. The event was Minnebar, a tech “un-conference.” If you thought everything in tech and web was happening in cities and states with coastlines, you’d be missing what’s happening along the thousands of miles of shoreline here in Minnesota.

I was happy to not only attend but proud to present Localtone Radio, part of a start-up I’m involved with, and also to cover it for Minnov8, a blog dedicated to covering the world of tech and web innovation here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

You can read about and see all of the fun in various places around the web including here at Minnov8. I also encourage you to follow Minnov8 for more of what’s happening in the future as we continue to grow. Need a little nudge then be sure and follow along on Twitter at minnov8. (Not hip to Twitter? …more on that soon.)

Congratulations to Luke Francl and Ben Edwards or a stellar event. I'd also be remiss (and probably for buying a round of drinks) if I didn't thank my colleagues at Minnov8 who made the scene; Steve Borsch, Graeme Thickins, and Tim Elliot.

Today’s post…blah, blah, blah…

Any question in anyone’s mind that we are all stressed for time? If there is consider the “blah, blah, blah” or, as Seinfeld made famous, the “yada-yada”, or one I hear more and more, the “da-di-da-di-da”.

Blah-Blah is defined by Webster’s as “silly or pretentious chatter or nonsense” and yada-yada, it’s first use tracked to 1948, is defined by the Urban Dictionary as “Conversation glosser-over, similar to blah, blah, blah” These are a “stop me if you’ve heard this” for any discussion, story, or joke.

In the online world there are a ton of sites and applications reducing the blah, blah. Just look what Sony is doing with Minisodes. If you can reduce a 30 minute TV show to 5 minutes, there’s some blah, blah, blah, plenty of yada-yada and a smidgen of da-di-da-di-da.

Of course, you can’t forget about the likes of Twitter or Utterz. Their sole mission is to eliminate yada-yada. Even much of online advertising is getting shorter. Wha-hoo!

I’ve always been a big believer in editing. In fact, when editing I prescribe to the “cut it in half” mentality. Too often we get caught up in hearing ourselves talk or reading what we have written. If you hold true to being merciless, (something allot of Hollywood producers seem to lack these days) you’ll never need the blah, blah, or the yada-yada or worry about somebody doing it when they quote you…or playback your presentation.

The down side is that we could eliminate much of the art, the character development, the storytelling that makes any form of communication richer. Knowing not only what to edit but when to edit is crucial. 
Whether you’re strapped for time or catering to technology make sure you are cutting out the real yadda-yadda, the genuine blah-blah. Not the good stuff that makes the content compelling.

(Extra: While looking back at the Seinfeld Yada-Yada episode I came across this great exchange…

        Elaine: …Anyway, guess what? Beth Lookner called me.
        Jerry: Ooh. Beth Lookner, still waitin' out that marriage.
        Elaine: What are you talking about? That marriage ended six months ago. She's already  remarried.
        Jerry: I gotta get on that internet. I'm late on everything.

...I had to share. What great writing...and no blah, blah, blah.)

New Mediarati or New Yorkers?

I enjoyed a great article by New Yorker staff writer Joan Acocella in the latest issue of Smithsonian magazine. Her subject was her experience with New Yorkers and why they many believe they are smarter (and per chance more rude) than other Americans. Though I’m sure she didn’t realize it, I think she may very well have also been describing characteristics of those active in the on-line world.

Here are some of those things that Ms. Acocella points out differentiate New Yorkers from the rest of the population that also apply to New Mediarati (Nice made up word, huh?).

New Yorkers are people who left another place to come to New York, “looking for something, which suggests that the population is preselected for higher energy and ambition. Who on the web is not from somewhere else? Okay, maybe a few that have become far too involved in Second Life think they are from the web, but most who are really into this space are very ambitious and entrepreneurial. Just follow a few sites like Mashable and TechCrunch and you’ll see you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a startup. My experience with these folks in-person has proven to me that they are incredibly high energy.

The article points out that New Yorkers are willing to forgo basic comforts, instead willing to share the the amenities. Again, you can’t be more into sharing than the open source movement. Many New Mediarati will choose to live on Raman noodles as long as they have a smokin’ laptop…so they can share online.

According to Ms. Acocella, it’s possible that New Yorkers just appear smarter because they make less separation between private and public life.  Bingo! Is this true of those online geeks we all know or what? Face it, we’re willing to spill our guts out in blogs, a Facebook page, or the odd tweet on Twitter, something we would have never done as little as 5 years ago. All of this to share knowledge with anyone willing to listen or read. Just like New Yorkers, Mediarati like to be experts. And as, Aocella points out, “all people like to be experts.”

Why do these two groups, who share so much, behave this way? Why, as pointed out in this Smithsonian article, do they go against psychological principles, the ones that say being bombarded by so much stimuli causes most to recede into themselves and ignore others? Well, there are some of “those” people in both camps, most however share a sense of common cause. For New Yorkers it manifests it self on the street, for Mediarati it happens online.

To me, the similarities are striking and really emphasizes how the online world really is a community…a big ol’ mother of a community…but one that brings so many different types together in one world.

Attention Media Buyers: Brace Yourself for Verbiage

On April 16th the Association of Downloadable Media released two documents relating to Unit Standards and Download Measurement Guidelines. This is the main thrust of what the ADM was put together for…being able to bring some semblance of standardization to a medium that thrives on not having any.

My point to applying metrics to podcasting, etc has always been to provide a way of proving that the media is reaching users and it actually works for those who choose to advertise through that media. These new standards and guidelines move to do this, but still have a way to go.

The first document outlining unit standards is quite straight forward. Not much need to dwell on this one, though the phrase “Sponsored Interstitials” sounds more like invasive surgery than an advertising vehicle. Point of fact; interstitial, according to Webster, relates to interstices meaning a space that intervenes between things. Actually one of the definitions for interstitial itself is; situated within but not restricted to or characteristic of a particular organ or tissue. Ouch. I’d rethink this one.

The second document outlining measurement guidelines will scare the living crap out of any media buyer. This will take some serious education. Look, I pride myself on being able to translate new media speak to traditional media speak…and this one took me a few brain cells to get. (I also won’t swear to the fact I completely get all of it.) But I do get that the bottom line on these guidelines is to make sure your metrics are based on reality, not fantasy. Depending on their source, all downloads or IP requests are not created equal. What the ADM is trying to get to is what counts and what doesn’t as a download and the advertising therein. Buyers want to know they are spending money on reaching people not web robots, spiders, and crawlers (All together now, eeeeewwwww!).

Though this is a start, one that is necessary and one that you can freely comment on, it’s still all based on quantity not quality. Perhaps that’s something that can never really be standardized. Yes, we need to provide real numbers of real users but we, as online media providers, need to prove that we are impacting them as well. Moving them to act, giving the advertiser real return on investment.

Provide a consistent language and standard of measurement? Yes. Educate the buyer on those standards? Oh yeah!  But look to move past just this “quantity of audience”. Traditional media has based their livelihood on it and it is really starting to kick their butts. 

On-air to On-line

I caught the live meeting online from Arbitron and Edison Media Research. The title; The Infinite Dial 2008: Radio’s Digital Future.  The topic: AM/FM, Online, Satellite, HD Radio, Podcasting, and a splash of social media.

Tom Webster, the presenter, is someone I count as a friend and I always look forward to whatever he has to say. At the appointed hour, after the attendee count climbed past 1000, he did not disappoint…me anyway. Others in radio…not so much. You can see and hear the presentation for yourself here. A few of my takeaways…

1. Broadband access is proliferating. 8 in 10 Americans have access to the net with 76% of them having broadband service. So how about we ditch the mp3 and use a larger file (WAV) for audio. We have the bandwidth now.
2. As far as the age breakout of online listeners, it’s fairly well distributed and surprisingly, the 35-44 year olds make up 27% of the audience. Take that you whacky millennials.
3. Satellite Radio, which shows similar demographics as online radio, has leveled off in growth. Something you might expect in light of the XM-Sirius merger and the consumer uncertainty that goes with it. In addition, with no big talent “gets” or development of some other press worthy announcements, the word of mouth is not helping in the marketing efforts for either service. There are only so many Howard Sterns out there.