US Open Livestream an Ace

September 4th, 2009

Check out USOpen.org for another fascinating experiment in online multicasting. The site is streaming all its tennis matches live, and it even allows picture-in-picture so you can monitor a second match. There’s chat along with the games, too, making this a social experience.

The picture quality is excellent – you’d be fine if you hooked this up to a large monitor or even your TV. It’s wide-screen and HD. Is it as good as broadcast? No. But for tennis addicts, it’s amazing. It also allows people to watch during Web’s prime-time – 9am – 5pm. (Sorry, employers.) This is an excellent execution for another reason — there is advertising along the top and bottom. It’s unobtrusive yet unmistakable. Advertisers get the branding the whole time. Imagine that for a three-hour game.

It’s not a stretch to go from here to other sports. In fact, the MLB does this already with its MLB Live product. For that, you have to pay. But tennis is hurting a bit in the U.S. right now, so the multicast is one way to capture more audience. The NCAA Final Four tournament offers something similar to this as well.

We have to recognize that these systems allow sports and networks to do an end run around us. Professional sports continues to cut back its access to local media, and here’s an example of why. The more the sports can control their own product, the less they need us. You can call “fault” on them if you like, but for sports, it’s an easy ace.

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Sawyer to Replace Gibson on WNT

September 2nd, 2009

Big news from ABC – Charles Gibson is stepping down from the anchor slot at “World News Tonight,” and Diane Sawyer will take his place. The choice is interesting for whom they didn’t choose – Elizabeth Vargas, who briefly co-hosted “WNT” with Bob Woodruff.

Gibson will leave at the end of the year, with Sawyer taking over in January 2010. Why the move? Tough to say. ABC is second to NBC, not CBS, so this isn’t a “let’s take on Katie Couric” move. Then there’s the next question – who will replace Sawyer on “Good Morning America?”

What are the competitors saying? In typically dry fashion, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams told TV Newser “I would love to say that ABC’s loss is NBC’s gain, but then they went and appointed Diane Sawyer to replace Charlie Gibson. That doesn’t lessen the competition one bit.”

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Bing: Get Ready for a Totally Different SEO

August 31st, 2009

Holy cow. Just when we started to get comfortable with search engine optimization (SEO), we’re going to have to reconsider everything. Ad Age’s Michael Learmonth reports about the major changes we’re in for, thanks to Bing, Microsoft’s search. Bing’s ranking formula for search results is significantly different from Google’s. And Bing is catching on. Microsoft is going to be busy in the upcoming months integrating Bing with Yahoo, and the result will be a search monster that will be an important part of how we get traffic.

Writes Learmonth:

… Bing is quite a bit different from Google and Yahoo, both in the way it ranks pages and the way it presents results on the page. And if search becomes more of a two-player market, it could mean a return to the late ’90s, when it was common for marketers to create separate pages optimized for Yahoo, Google, Lycos and AltaVista, and as they do now for the iPhone or other mobile devices.

Can you imagine? Two versions of each page — one for Google, one for Bing? Absurd, right? Think again. We’re going to have to stay on top of this one and see how our search results vary.

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Embed This Post!

August 27th, 2009

Check this out: The Business Insider’s Silicon Alley Insider now makes it easy to embed posts on your sites and blogs. It’s like “YouTube” for text.

Picture of Embedded Text from Business Insider

When you click on the “Embed This Post” button on the lower right, up pops code similar to what you’d get from YouTube or any other embedded videos. This also moves the link to the current page, thereby improving authenticity. This is an excellent idea, because it encourages sharing. Ads will be included with this downstream.

Silicon Alley’s attitude here is great:

“We have the privilege of having thousands of you link to and excerpt our content on a regular basis.  We’re thrilled that you find our site worth reading and sharing, so we’ve decided to make this even easier.”

Note that the site is not saying “knock it off sharing our stuff the way you want to!” The site isn’t turning off your ability to copy text and it’s not going on a witch hunt for those who do so. The message is simple: “Here’s another way to share. Use it if you want.”  It’s another example of how letting go of a piece of your control can pay off.

Terry Heaton contributed to this entry

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Stop artificially breaking up those story pages

August 24th, 2009

Lots of sites have a feature that turns a crowded, hard-to read web page into an easy, text-only, print page. You’ll often see this when you hit the “print” button on the site. Stories, often broken up into three or four pages are suddenly just a page long. And I have to ask — why not make all pages as easy to use as the “print pages?”

The answer, of course, is “page views.” Sites will break up stories into several pages (clicks, really) to inflate their page views. This is a cheat. If it’s designed so you can make the audience work harder, all you’re doing is inflating the cost of interaction. You’re not building a page the way the audience wants to use it; you’re building a story that will get more page views (should the reader choose to continue, of course).

There are several problems with cutting up stories like this. The first is that people don’t read the Web this way. They skim. You’re missing out on potential engagement time by having possibly interesting, skimmable material two or three clicks away. Next: According to web usability guru Jakob Nielsen, people only read about a quarter of the text on a page. You’re not helping yourself – you’re hurting yourself. And you’re sending a terrible message to the audience: “We make you work for this.”

This is never more maddening than when used in lists. You’ll often see the “Top Ten” or “Top 20″ whatevers. (Businesses, sports teams, etc.) Some sites will simply list them — a best practice. But others make you work — and work hard. You’ll get one item from the list per page. 20 clicks to get 20 items from a list? I’m just not going to do it.

The only exception is in slideshows. Pictures (good ones, anyway) should be seen nice a big. I’m fine if you take up the majority of my screen with a beautiful picture. And I will click to the next picture to see more. I understand that the cost of interaction here is different. In order to get something I truly want – a large picture – I will click ahead. Some sites have the feature that puts a moused-over arrow on the far right and left of each picture, meaning I don’t have to scroll down to the “next” link. Good choice.

Here’s another problem: by chopping up the pages, you’re making the story more difficult to pass along. Why? Because we like to copy and paste. Sorry – but we’re going to keep doing that. My standard method is to include the link, and then copy and paste the text. You’re thinking “big deal – I get no money for that.” But I say you should love that we do this. We’re promoting your site, and we’re telling our friends. That’s marketing, and we’re doing it for you.

Stop carving up those stories artificially. Make them easy to share and make them as easy to skim as a “print this” page. You’ll see results.

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Declaring comment bankruptcy

August 23rd, 2009

200,000 spam comments later, I’m declaring bankruptcy on the comments. We’re going to start all over here, and I’m putting in a captcha. This is something I didn’t want to do. I don’t like captchas – especially those that are damn near impossible to read. But I can’t take the spam anymore. I have good blocking software in place, but the crap keeps coming. So my apologies to those who have posted and not gotten through. (The Mizzou professors especially deserve an apology – I missed your comments during RTNDA@NAB, and they were excellent. If you have the time, go back and see them in the posting “The Kids Are Alright – Just Hire Them.” I get taken down a peg by a couple of the profs, and always like it when my notions are challenged.

If you’re still willing to comment after all this, I’d love to hear from you. Sorry about the problems.

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When the big storm comes, change your site

August 19th, 2009

With the onset of hurricane season, and the first significant storm threat we’ve faced this year, it’s important that you’re ready for the emergency. I don’t mean having plenty of supplies on hand or having lots of meetings. I mean for your web presence — especially that front page of yours. In a big, breaking news emergency, you have to change it.

During the California wildfires in October 2007, KFMB did an outstanding job altering its website to give exclusive coverage to the fires.

This is substantially different from how the other San Diego stations reacted, using their existing templates to provide the usual variety of news. Yes, we still want other stories on our site. But when your city is in flames, that’s really all you care about. cbs8.com did a clever job of building a landing page that appeared “before” its regular site. If you look in the upper right, you will see the link that says “For additional news, go to cbs8.com main site.” That’s all you need.

As you can see, this special page was done up in blog format. This is the way to go for a big story. You can simply add items to the stream of information. People want whatever is latest, and they don’t need us to have a “lead.” The site also had prominent placement for a relief line. People from out of the region could still lend a hand through their donations.

The blog format is absolutely the best choice during weather events. Your team can update constantly, without having to go through the “finished news” process. In a quickly-changing situation like a hurricane, we need minute-by-minute items.

If, for some reason, your site won’t support a new front page — demand your developers provide the service. This is one of the key reasons why you need local control of your site. You want to be able to change, on the fly, the look and presentation of your site.

This is also the perfect time for Twitter. You want to be sending out tweets regularly. We usually suggest offering only one – two tweets per day, but this is an exception. Your other choice (and it’s a perfectly good one) is to set up a special Twitter page just for the storm. In fact, having the name twitter.com/stormname is a great idea, as it will draw attention from around the country. As soon as that tropical depression develops, get that Twitter name just in case.

Keep your updates brief. Let your viewers know, via your on-air broadcast, where to find the updates. Invite them to send their Tweets to you for updates. The best way to spread the word about your pages is via broadcast and “ReTweets.”

Local news has always geared up for storm coverage. The aggressive approach has to be no different online. Social media will improve the coverage as a whole, as you will empower your audience to work with you during the emergency. That’s when Being Social shines.

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I, Computer

August 12th, 2009

I am more than my brain now. That is – my operating system requires more than my grey matter will provide. I need help. I need my operating system. I’ve occasionally come across this idea from various bloggers, most recently Sam Harrelson(via Steve Rubel). And I think it’s a great exercise to see just how much I’ve come to depend on computing.

I don’t think this is scary, mind you. Steve 2.0 can do a lot more than the previous iteration. The biggest upgrades are to my memory (now backed up in more than one place) and to my communications abilities. Still there are flaws in the system. This past week, we saw outages at Facebook and Twitter. Both of these are tied to my OS. The outages didn’t crash my system, but they sure slowed it down.

Here’s the exercise: imagine yourself as a computer. At the source is your brain – it’s the processor and (hopefully) the memory. Others do this as a “My OS” outline, but I think the computer analogy is more apt. Your brain has part of your OS. Leaving it out is like saying “my OS doesn’t need a kernel.”

Now, draw. Here is Steve 2.0:

At the center is my brain. It’s the processor and the traffic cop for the rest of the information. There was a time when the map would end there. (OK, maybe there would be a straight line to my TV.) Now, I’ve outsourced much of the brain’s responsibility.

I have my head in the clouds; MobileMe, Google, Facebook and Twitter are all part of “cloud computing.” (I argue that Facebook and Twitter are 1/2 cloud, hence the circle and cloud in the schematic.) They are my memory, my search and recall and my communications cores. They also have the nice benefit of backing up my grey matter memory. If I forget a phone number, MobileMe has it and feeds it to me. Mac Mail and GMail (A cloud) contribute to the communications schematic, but they are less important in this iteration than they were before.

Part of my visual memory, pictures, is also in the clouds as well as stored locally. For visual recall, iPhoto keeps track of the images – not just the pictures themselves, but also data about the pictures, including who is in them and where and when they were taken.

My eyes are critical to see the world and take in data. Online, browsers provide windows for the eyes. (Although not always – Tweetdeck, for example, is its own program and requires no browser.) As for presenting information to others, talking won’t always do. That’s why I have MS Office.

I’m pretty Open Source (MS Office aside). People can change me with their input and, hopefully, do so for the better. I can’t get a full rewrite (nor, sadly, upgrade the hardware) but I can learn better now.

I rely on lots of other programs, but none are at my core. Photoshop is great, but its primary task is to manipulate images. That’s a secondary function. I can run plenty of fun, secondary programs and routines; they’re just not mission-critical.

Try this out for yourself. No rules. I’m sure I’ve left out stuff you could argue should be there. Embrace your inner android.

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Future of News: Interview with CEO of E Ink

August 6th, 2009

Russell Wilcox is President and CEO of E Ink, the company that invented the electronic ink best known for making the Amazon Kindle possible. When I met Russell, I was intruiged. I asked if he would do a Q&A for us to describe what E Ink is and in what future applications we may see it. I was especially interested in his take on how local media could use E Ink in the near future.

Russell won Ernst & Young’s New England Entrepreneur of the Year in 2009.

Give us the simplest explanation of E Ink.

Electronic ink is made of tiny clear microcapsules. Inside the capsules there are white and black particles. It looks a bit like a very tiny snow globe with both white and black snow inside! But there are millions of these tiny capsules and they are so small your eye cannot see them individually.

Now, to make an electronic display, we start with a glass sheet that has an array of pixels in rows and columns, and we coat that with a layer of microcapsules. When the computer gives the pixel a positive charge, all the black particles near that pixel are pushed to the top and the capsule looks black. When the computer gives the pixel a negative charge, all the white particles rise and the capsule looks white.

The secret of electronic ink is the raw materials. Our black pigments are the same carbon black that is issued in printer’s ink to make it black. Our white pigments are the same titanium dioxide that is used to brighten paper, and to make a lot of other things look white, including white wall paint, golf balls, and even non-dairy creamer!

How E Ink Works:

How did the idea develop? What was your role?

The idea came from Joe Jacobson at the MIT Media Lab. He wanted to invent a book that could be flexible and have all the pages change at the push of a button.

I was the business guy who helped start the company. My job was to get the funding, find some interested customers, and then cheer like mad while the scientists invented better and better versions of the technology so we could sell a great product.

What commercial applications is it used in now?

Our technology is found in many electronic book devices, including the SONY Reader and the Amazon Kindle. We are also used in other flexible and paper-thin display applications. The recent Alias2 cellphone from Samsung has a changeable keypad covered with an E Ink display – open it like a flip phone and the keys show numbers for quick dialing; open it like a laptop, and the keys switch to show letters for texting. We are also in displays for electronic shelf price labels, memory stick indicators, watches and signage.

Right now, we see E Ink in monochrome (and shades of grey) in products like Kindle and the Phosphor watch. You have colors — will we see them in the mainstream?

We have color at the demo stage now. You may see first products in late 2010 or early 2011.

The E Ink applications aren’t like TV – they don’t move so much as “draw.” Is there the possibility for enough screen refreshing for E  Ink that we could see motion? At some point, could local media use an E Ink product to show video or photo slideshows?

We can do some simple animation now, like menu bars and pointers. This will keep improving over time. The coolest “fast” feature we can support now is pen input for handwriting – so you can have the experience of an electronic pen to go with your electronic paper. Products with this are out now in China and may come to the USA in another year or so.

Although we are not targeting the TV market, in the lab we have versions that are fast enough to watch some video and this could be useful for mobile video applications like video phone or watching YouTube.

Put on your futurist cap: how could news use E Ink products in the  near future?
News organizations can publish to electronic book devices like the Kindle right now, and that does take advantage of vast cost savings on distribution.

Most Newspaper companies make their money with advertising though, and so the big change in the near future that will benefit media companies is larger display sizes and color, which will allow them to sell effective advertising space.

Here is a flight of fancy… imagine that you can call up the Boston Globe and instead of a quarter ton of newspapers on your doorstep for $300 per year, they just mail you a “Boston Globe in a Box”. Inside is a large newspaper reader device with a wireless radio. You open the box, turn it on and it automatically downloads the latest Boston Globe and remains up to date at all times. The Globe does not need to charge you anything, because the advertising sales cover all their costs of collecting news, (and) meanwhile they can cut out all their newsprint and trucking costs. For an added fee you can get more newspapers, buy books, or surf the web.

What’s the wildest application, prototype or proposal you’ve seen for E Ink?
Wow, there have been a few!

- Animated makeup: A couple of cosmetic companies have had interest, and one medical company wanted to animate the face of a large doll, so that student doctors could practice on it. They wanted the doll to make lifelike expressions as the students did what doctors do. Others have asked about digital tattoos.

- An animated cup that would use the acid in soda pop to help activate a power source – imagine Harry Potter riding his broomstick on a Big Gulp cup.

- A protective coating for a building roof that would turn white in the sun and dark in the shade to manage heat

- A roll-up electronic book that looks like an ancient scroll

- A cover for a magazine that blinks the title to attract attention at the newsstand – we actually did this one with Esquire and Ford last year!

- Signage on subway cars that would change so you always have something to read

- A counter on a sneaker that would show you how many steps you had taken

And of course the original idea that started it all:

- A book with hundreds of pages, that could rewrite itself as a new book at the push of a button

That one’s still a ways off because it would be so expensive, but even with just one page, eBook devices today offer a satisfying reading experience, which will only get better over time.

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Facebook: The Nation’s Reunion

July 12th, 2009

I had another gathering of high school friends last night, and it was fantastic. We now have a group of regulars who meet frequently and enjoy each other. We’ve gone past the early stage of “Hey! What have you been up to?” and are now simply regular ol’ friends. We have rebuilt a long-dormant community and added spouses and friends along the way. Herein lies one of the many wonderful values of social media. If eBay is “The Nation’s Garage Sale,” then Facebook is “The Nation’s Reunion.”

I should probably call it “The International Reunion,” as I hear from friends in England and Belgium, but for the purposes of this brief entry and the desire to coin a phrase, I’ll leave it.

We have reunited through Facebook in a way that’s just not likely (if not impossible) via email. We set up a page for our high school class (and anyone who graduated within a fair amount of years in either direction). A couple of us told friends. They told their friends. Now we update each other regularly and hold spontaneous meetups.

Beer is occasionally involved…

What happens at a regular reunion? You go reluctantly (or avoid it), see who looks fatter, and strike up a few brief conversations. (”Really? I have a Nissan too!”) You show a picture of your kids or pets or both, and that’s pretty much it. You say “let’s get together soon” and then you don’t. Why would you? These are people with whom you stop sharing experiences 5, 10, 15, 20, 25+ years ago.

Our little coterie doesn’t have reunions that are divisible by five. We have a Thursday gathering, a Saturday meetup, a “we can’t do this until August, but everyone send in your dates and I’ll pick one” barbeque. It turns out there’s a reason you were friends in the first place.

You meet and you clarify. Karen says “I thought you hated me in high school.” I tell her I didn’t recall hating her at all, and it’s entirely possible I liked her and couldn’t bring myself to say so. Paul talks about being a teacher now, and what it’s like to be on that side of the desk. Dave, Tony and I share thoughts on the Sox and remember a friend who was killed on 9/11. Kristi tells us of this magical land called “Nantucket.” We compare notes on adulthood: matters serious and funny. It goes on.

There are plenty of strange “friendships” on Facebook. You will be friended by people and think “Do I know this person? Do I want to?” You will hear from old girlfriends and boyfriends and think “You know, there’s a reason we broke up.” You will, at some point, be friended by your parents and rethink your choices in status updates.

But if you’re lucky like me, you’ll also rediscover a community; a Pompeii of friendship waiting to be unearthed and brought back into this world. You’ll stop obsessing over whether Facebook (and Twitter and MySpace etc.) is “news” or “silly” or “for people with too much time on their hands” (my pet peeve insult).

Instead, you’ll reinvent those friendships. You’ll rediscover how funny P.J. is and how Kristin’s remarkable perseverance inspires you. Hopefully, you’ll get Chris to buy you a beer, too.

Where newsrooms fall down in understanding the power of social media comes in the details. We think of Facebook as a way to get “fans” who will then watch us on TV or come to our Website. But it doesn’t work that way. We need to use it to build small communities, one interest at a time; a niche approach to those ideals our towns cherish. You can’t monetize that any more than I can monetize my friends. But you can connect and reconnect in a way that is more meaningful and long-term. You can remind people why they loved local news before things started to go haywire.

My friends and I are long past the “I knew someone who went to Vassar too!” stage. We’re back, like a band that reunites and discovers how much fun it is to jam together.

The music’s damn good, too.

UPDATE: July 13. After reading this, the “Kristi” mentioned above writes:

My only addition would be that there are people you didn’t know in high school and are just meeting now as old friends of old friends. You have a lot in common, can share a lot of the same old stories, but didn’t know each other 20+ years ago. It’s like a new old friendship (or an old new friendship?).

The other thing that’s great about Facebook is … that it’s nice that you have support whenever you need it. All you have to do is mention having a bad day (one of my friends posted “–is fascinated by the mean things people do”) to get a barage of support and anecdotes agreeing with your sentiment and offering help, if needed. Another of my friends was venting about a leak in her bathroom that made things unliveable for a while. Within 10 minutes she had over a dozen offers of plumbing help and places to stay. It really does feel like there’s always someone looking out for you.

“Looking Out for You” is often a news tagline. With Facebook, it’s a reality. Thanks for the extra words. The Web and its works are always in beta. Just as we are.

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