WANDERING THE NEW MEDIA UNIVERSE
Well, I’m feeling the love this afternoon, since my little old AM segment is the most viewed video on NECN.com for the second time in my last seven segments.
So if you want to catch up with the excitement of Mikeyy the Twitter worm and the report that Facebook could lower your GPA – you can do that right here.
As for me, it’s been a busy day of little items – so I’ll try to reengage this evening.
With all due respect to the New York Times headlines about President Obama making history with a live internet chat, we quietly made history of our own with Gov. Deval Patrick last night at NECN – taking live questions for a sitting Governor via Twitter during his town hall meeting at the JFK Presidential Library last night in Boston.
Well, it was a little history. There were a number of good questions submitted to the hashtag #townmeeting during the hour-long event, but in the end, only one was used. The problem? With a live audience eagerly waiting to ask questions and dozens of quality email questions to choose from, there was a wealth of great possibilities. From the behind the scenes standpoint, we had a number of questions ready to go, but then the conversation would shift to a new topic, and rather than revisit the old ones, the producers and moderator R.D. Sahl went in the new direction.
The tweeted question, from Twitter user @jdvarlaro, is about 9 minutes into this clip.
The disappointment at only getting one question in there aside, if I do say so myself, I felt like we were on something here way more innovative, engaging and interactive than George Stephanopoulos’ “twinterview” of John McCain (which was a gimmick, let’s just say it) or even the President’s meeting. I saw a lot of potential for an engaging Q and A combining Twitter as an avenue for concise thoughtful questions and video for thoughtful, engaging answers. Governor Patrick seemed at ease with the technology (although I don’t think he has caught up with the rest of his office as far as using Twitter goes), and I for one would love to do this again – and let Twitter drive more of the discussion. Or Seesmic.
We will do this again – with whom remains to be seen. And next time, I hope not to have another bit of history repeat itself. I ran the livestream while flat on my back with back trouble in my bedroom, so I couldn’t be as big an advocate for the Twitter questions both before and during the event as I would have been in the control room. Of course, the fact that I could lie in bed in my house, taking a feed from Boston running through a control room in Newton and get it on the web using Mogulus is pretty amazing in its own right.
Ahhh, the power of pictures. The eruption of Mt. Redoubt will be all over the web today, but you can get a look for yourself online straight from the mountain, without leaving the climate-controlled, ash-free comfort of your living room. The Alaska Volcano Observatory has webcams set up to monitor the volcano outside Anchorage – and as the sun comes up, we should see more of the effects of the eruption Monday morning, which has led to a reported ashfall on a number of communities downwind of the volcano.
Right now, it’s ummm, wicked dark. But sunrise in Alaska is a bit after noon EDT. So it could make a good lunchtime diversion.
The U.S. Geological Survey also lets you track Mt. Redoubt and more than 160 other American volcanoes at their site, through the Volcano Hazards Program.
Meanwhile, there are some major rumblings and grumblings on YouTube, after the site began taking down videos produced by users that have incorporated music from the Warner Bros. Music group. The two sides are in a content battle, and that has some users caught in the middle, according to the New York Times. Gone are baby videos, audition tapes and other videos using Warner music, says the Times.
The battle is over “noncommercial” use, and it is an interesting one. When you mix your child’s baby pictures to a soundtrack and post it to YouTube, you probably aren’t trying to make a buck off of Junior. But YouTube is – the site runs ads connected to videos, and that is where Warner is feeling a bit waxed.
Of course, as the Times points out, whatever their arguments, the industry is in no position to win a PR war at this point. As one analyst points out in the article:
“I feel like the public’s perception of the record labels is so hostile that YouTube will be able to deflect any complaints,” said Phil Leigh, a new media analyst who runs Inside Digital Media, a consulting firm.”
While the rest of the social media world was in Austin, those of us left in Boston actually had a pretty good weekend. In my case, it was a chance to catch up on a number of things – not many of which were computer-related. I paid taxes, organized the office, did laundry, and more importantly, finally got the bike out for my first Pan-Mass Challenge training ride. It wasn’t a ton – just 15 miles – but it felt great just to be out and about, after a winter that was less than wonderfully productive for me athletically.
It was a relaxing weekend, one without my wife (which made it a little lonely), but a good recovery from a week that was a little chaotic at times. Thursday, since I haven’t posted it until now, I talked a little more about our Tweetgrid implementation on NECN.com, and gave a (too) quick explanation of Google Voice – watch the video for more on Tweetgrid. You can skip the Google Voice part – go search it on Google, instead.
Have some great photos? Dreams of being the next Ansel Adams? Annie Leibovitz? Herb Ritts? Getty Images could help you out. Getty and the photo-sharing site Flickr have combined forces to find some of the best photographers on Flickr and sell their work.
The partnership launches today – Getty editors have been combing the millions upon millions of images on the site, and somewhere between those photos grandma and the family trip to Disney, they have found 10,000 images to offer for sale as stock photos. The photo industry is booming as blogs and internet sites look for images they can use and afford, and Getty sees the partnership as a chance to build its business.
How do you sign up? Well, in the case of Getty, it’s “don’t call us, we’ll call you.” They are contacting photographers whose pictures they think might have value. And the collection they have put together is stunning.
But if you’re more entrepreneurial – there are plenty of options. Jefferson Graham writes in USA Today about Nick Monu, a medical student at Brown University who has been able to turn his passion for photos into a six-figure income, largely through the site istockphoto.com, which sells his work. Photos approved for the site go for about $18 for a single picture, and photographers get a check for each sale. The article notes Monu has made $5,000 from a single photo – which can be seen in the video segment here.
Other sites cater to a wider audience, with lower prices and lower royalties for photographers. Shutterstock.com charges anywhere from a few dollars to a less than $1 per photo, and photographers can make 25 cents per purchase.
But before you figure you can cash in, no problemo, read the tips in the USA Today story and elsewhere, and expect some paperwork – recognizable people and places usually need release forms to be able to be used as stock footage.
But hey – if you’re good, it could be a nice way to make a little cash to fund your photo bug. Oh, and if you’re wondering. The photo in the gallery here is mine – from Brussels in 2007. Haven’t made a penny off it.
I’m not much a code guy, but I do enjoy learning, and I am excited to watch NECN’s embrace of Twitter grow stronger over the past few weeks.
This weekend, I decided we had the critical mass to take our various streams to the NECN.com site. Using Tweetgrid and some tables work, I built a series of four grids, one for news, one for sports, one for weather and one for behind the scenes people across the station.
It’s the latest in a continuing series of efforts to make things more transparent at the station. I am also mentally promising to do more tweeting of the editorial process during the day, even as we sign up more and more people at the station to tweet on their own.
So, in the last week I have had three days of crippled computer, a big honking snowstorm and now jury duty. Is this any way for someone to actually be productive? Turns out, yes!
First things first. It snowed. In Boston. In March. Shocker. But it turns out it was a pretty good thing for NECN.com and our weather blog, Weather New England. First of all, it’s never bad to have bad weather when it comes to web traffic. But we also tried to pull out at least a couple of stops when it came to our coverage, and I think we found a map for the future. One, what can you say about Matt Noyes, who started basically a solo livestream at 4am while preparing for the morning show, let me join in to help in the AM, and took questions from viewers online in between weather hits for NECN television. It lasted 7 hours, and he didn’t take a break.
But the live stream is a great tool for someone like Matt and a topic like weather. We used Mogulus, and asked people to both ask questions they might have (as long as they were patient about getting answers), or to share their snow totals and observations as heavy snow moved up from southern Massachusetts and Rhode Island, through the Boston area and into New Hampshire. We got dozens of reports – as well as a handful of others which we begged for asked for on Twitter. it was engaging, entertaining, and something we should do again.
And for the second time – we got a surprise amount of enthusiasm for something that to us seemed really sort of obvious, as in “what do you mean this hasn’t been done much before?”
Video blogger and all-around good person Steve Garfield and I were able to set up a livestream from his cellphone of Steve going outside and measuring the snow depth in his Boston neighborhood. Using a decidedly low-tech ruler to check the depth, he took his measurement while the crowd watching the Mogulus stream saw him full-frame, and the crowd watching NECN saw it in an embedded window on a web browser on TV. (Next time, I will remember to take him fullscreen.) it was quick, it was kind of fun, and it seemed to make a splash, getting noted in a few places – thanks to Steve, not me, I should point out.
But the main thing I take away from the whole event was that w can be so locked into old ways of doing things that even the easiest ideas can seem much harder than they should. Cost of the chat – $0, except for the willingness of Matt to tackle the challenge of talking about the weather, which is what he does for a living. People have a lot greater tolerance for ‘dead air’ in a live chat, so Matt was able to get his TV work done, answer questions and work in a much more casual format.
And the technical breakthrough with Steve Garfield live? That took a little more technical know-how, but we weren’t reinventing the television station. In fact, our biggest limitation may have been the bandwidth needed to get the streams in and out of NECN and Mogulus. We barely scratched the surface, and I look forward to trying it again. In a day and age when television stations are beginning to use Skype for broadcast live shots, and $200 cameras can shoot HD-quality video, our biggest obstacles are often our own creative limitations.
Bring on more snow! We want to try this again! (Well, maybe we can find another worthwhile event in warmer weather.)
So, somehow, I have been buried deep enough my things like work that I haven’t even been able o get my on-air stuff posted for a week.
I had to limp along without my trusty Mac for much of the week, and that’s my major excuse. (Ever try to work with an embed code when you still can’t cut and paste on an iPhone? Yeah, me neither. I’m not that insane.)
OK… if I loved any of the items I had done, I might have found the time to get them posted here – but I wasn’t feeling the magic to that level. Of course, now I feel like I might regret that decision – so here you go. Sit back and enjoy a Triple Mac (hold the cheese).
Thursday: A quick discussion of Twitter and the Amsterdam plane crash, and the sad tale of a boy whose Mac has died. (It’s a software problem. No, a hardware problem. But hey, at least it was nice enough to break on the last day of my warranty.)
Wednesday I was off in the AM because I had been streaming Barack Obama the night before. But Tuesday, I took a gander at what was then a developing story with Kindle and its read aloud feature, as well as discussing the latest threats to Microsoft and Facebook users.
And on Monday – actually the most fun day of the week. U2 finds out its label is its worst enemy, and take the controls of the Hubble telescope.
So there you go – lots of me… and now, off to bed to brace for a busy streaming day of snow.
I have been watching a community of disparate people come together today on Facebook to share memories of a music teacher who touched all their lives.
The news element in this is that Dennis Wrenn died this past Friday, as he was wrapping up a trip to Greece with the Algonquin Regional High School band. Mr. Wrenn was a longtime music teacher, active in his school and in music programs throughout New England. Community members, students and alumni have been learning of the sad event since then, and they have been turning to Facebook to share their thoughts in remarkable numbers.
Four separate groups have been formed – the largest, called simply “Dennis Wrenn: A Tribute”, has 1232 members as I write this. 297 have signed up for “Dennis Wrenn – Students Giving Back”, 279 are members of “For those in favor of a Dennis F. Wrenn Music Scholarship”, and more than 50 have signed on to “For the naming of the Auditorium after Dennis F. Wrenn”. Mr. Wrenn’s family members are reading the messages and thanking people for their support, students, alumni and colleagues are sharing their memories, and in the process, they are building a lasting tribute that is much more than a scrapbook of his life. It is a lesson in the difference one man can make, and the power of social tools to share those memories.
There are 190 wall posts (and growing), 43 photos in the ever-expanding photo library – and a wonderful series of anecdotes about Mr. Wrenn and the difference he made. I won’t excerpt them here – but phrases like “wonderful educator”, “tremendous influence”, “amazing musician”, and “a special gift” are woven throughout the stories, which come from retired teachers, L.A. musicians, friends and students. They come from different eras and different states. But they have something bringing them together.
And I know this isn’t the first time a sad event has brought together people online. But it is another powerful example social media tools at work, and I hope that it is helping Mr. Wrenn’s family cope with their loss.
I never met Dennis Wrenn. Never knew of him until today. But now I feel a little like I got a taste of who he was – and wish I’d had a chance.
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