Following Mt. Redoubt, since you can’t watch as much on YouTube

March 23, 2009 By Leave a Comment

redoubt-027Ahhh, 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.”

Filed Under: Featured Posts, Weather, Web/Tech Tagged With: , , , , ,

@rdsahl + @massgovernor twitter Q + A ok!

February 12, 2009 By 4 Comments

Yesterday’s announcement that the Massachusetts Governor’s office was setting up a Web portal to let taxpayers see how any economic stimulus money that comes to Massachusetts is being spent is just the latest effort by the Patrick Administration to get ahead of the governmental curve on technology.

Things are far from perfect, but the Governor’s office has stepped up its efforts to reach out with personal and office pages for Governor Patrick on Facebook, frequent video updates of Governor’s events on YouTube, and most recently, a stronger social networking presence on Twitter, as @massgovernor.

NECN’s R.D. Sahl put that presence to the test on Twitter last week, and got some interesting results.

Gov. Patrick: WashPost blog floats your name for HHS. Are you in the mix? Would you take if offered. Thanks.

(He also DM’d the Governor’s office with this question.)

Typically, the routine for reporters would be this:
Pick up the phone.
Call the Governor’s office.
Tell the nice person on the other end of the phone that you need a comment. In this case, on this report that Gov. Patrick might be considered for HHS secretary. The nice person takes a message.
Wait.
Wait.
And then, a few hours later – usually after another phone call, or if you don’t call, about 5 minutes after your story airs – get the response in an email.
Total time: A long wait (at least it always seems long), and a little stress.

Instead, because he used Twitter and the Governor’s Office is social media-savvy (@massgovernor), something different happened. Fifty-eight minutes later this appeared in the public Twitter stream:

@rdsahl As the governor has said countless times, he is staying put and running for re-election. - Kyle Sullivan, Press Secretary

OK – I’ll admit now that I didn’t expect a response at all. I’m not sure R.D. did either. But after Adam Gaffin user oddjob60 posed the question on Universal Hub, I asked R.D. why he did it. He replied, “It was the most direct way to ask the question.”

It was also something anyone could have done – it didn’t have to be R.D., or any journalist. It could have been anyone out there.

It was also far more immediate – total time of the Q and A – 58 minutes, and the audience to the discussion had the answer at the same time as the journalist who asked the question. And anyone could have jumped in for a followup @ reply, if they wished. Adam and a commenter on Universal Hub said it takes the media ‘middleman’ out of the equation. But after thinking about it, I give it a little different spin.

What Twitter did in this situation was make the process wholly transparent. R.D.’s job is to be plugged in to what’s going on in the world, and that’s a valuable role. He’s already all over the web, pulling together the interesting tidbits from all over the globe as part of his job. But instead of being solely a media filter, the Twitter set up lets him be a unfiltered purveyor of thoughtful questions.

Now, it should be noted that you might not get as quick a response. If everyone in Massachusetts who is on Twitter submitted a question to the governor’s office (and odds are we could all come up with one), it would be an avalanche that could take months to deal with. But it can still be a great way to build a connection between the state’s people – and it’s chief executive.

You may want to check out the Governor’s office on Twitter. Whatever you think of his policies – it’s good to know there are a few ways to get a little attention.

Filed Under: Featured Posts, Journalism, MediaTed, Politics Tagged With: , , ,

A Congressional critique generates some heat

January 15, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I complained yesterday about Congress on the web, and took a little heat on global warming.

After my segment yesterday, in which I called out Congress and the Senate for their overall pathetic showing on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, I got a call from Jeff Sharp, a Senior Communications Adviser for Rep. Ed Markey. I had mentioned Markey specifically – saying that as a senior Democrat on the House Committee that oversees internet issues – he could be farther ahead of the curve on Congress 2.0.

His message (and I’m paraphrasing) – “What about the Congressman’s award-winning global warming site?”

And you know, he was kind of right. While the House Committee on Commerce and Energy’s site is weak, and inexplicably, the Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet is even worse, Markey’s Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming has a lot to offer. There are interactive graphics, lots of information, links to a calculator to measure your carbon footprint, and much more.

You know what? It’s a good site, slickly produced, and I tip my hat.

And Sharp also politely reminded me of Markey’s other efforts – taking video questions from constituents and using them, creating an Avatar in Second Life and even using it for an event in Bali. That puts him at the head of his Congressional class. But Congress as a whole is still way behind where they need to be to engage their constituents.

Sharp acknowledges that with the ban on outside web presences for members removed only four months ago, there’s not much change to be seen. But he says that Markey’s office is working on a system for comments from users on YouTube and his other sites, and says Rep. Markey WILL be on Twitter soon.

He even graciously accepted my offer of the Twitter name RepMarkey.

Congress still needs a social media strategy – or at least a way to manage comments? – and Markey is in a position to keep pushing that effort forward. But I have to give the man from Malden his due.

So having rattled on about the Democrats, a tip of the hat to some members of the GOP, too. Some web-savvy Republicans are building a grassroots effort on the social networking platform Ning. Rebuildtheparty.com is dedicated to recognizing that Republicans need to take a page from the Democrats playbook if they want to see a little more red in their future. It’s worth a look, too.

And they are living a little of what they preach – fiscal conservatism.

Ning is free.

Filed Under: Featured Posts, MediaTed, Politics Tagged With: , ,

Congress on Web 2.0 – FAIL (so far)

January 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Senator Kerry and Congressman Markey, I have gifts for you.

I know, it’s awkward for someone in the media to give members of Congress things – but it’s the least I could do, and your Twitter names are free, anyway.

This all started with a segment idea to talk about the new Senate and House channels on YouTube. The site this week launched its House and Senate channels, at youtube.com/househub and youtube.com/senatehub, where your Congressional delegation can post their own videos – and many, well actually not that many, of them have done that.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Featured Posts, MediaTed, Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

Want to watch? Election Day ways to report poll issues

October 23, 2008 By 2 Comments

So, we have 12 days left until Election Day. Truth is, I’m not sure if I’ll miss it. But with 12 days and counting until the election, and early voting already underway, a number of places on the web are working to use technology to keep an eye on the polling places.

One of my favorite sites (thanks to Steve Garfield for pointing me there a while back), techpresident.com, is working to organize a feed system on Twitter for voters and pollwatchers to tweet their concerns, so they can be followed up.

TechPresident is working with a number of non-partisan pollwatching organizations to set this up, and there is a programmer "jam session" Friday for anyone who wants to help crank out some code for the effort.

That Twitter plan will join a vast array of other information sharing available – one I’ll be curious about is the PBS/YouTube effort to get voters to videotape their poll efforts at Video Your Vote.

Of course, laws about videotaping at the polls vary widely by state – so if the concept of taping at the polls intrigues you, take a trip to the Citizen Media Law Project, based at Harvard. The project has compiled a list of suggestions and applicable state laws.

UPDATE: Steve Garfield has already gotten all the information you could need on other voter videos efforts on his blog, as well as getting the official word from Massachusetts on what you can and cannot do video-wise in your polling place. Kudos as always. Click here to check it out.

All in all, there’s a lot of ways to watch what’s happening. I’m hoping it won’t generate weeks of follow-up — but I have a feeling, we’ll be reviewing this election for some time to come.

Filed Under: MediaTed, Politics Tagged With: , , , ,