Online access to government data is not meeting the needs or expectations of the general public, a survey conducted by data aggregator Socrata found.
The study found that there is an overwhelming belief that open records should be available online, with 92.6% of government employees endorsing this idea. However, the survey found that only 23.8% of governments have launched a data site.
The study suggests that the general public do not want to simply download files. Sixty-three percent of respondents said they would prefer to be able to browse and interact with the information online. Only 16% preferred to download information.
Read more here
Saturday, January 8
The Ted Williams Story For Marketers
Ted Williams (now known everywhere as "The Man With The Golden Voice") demonstrates in vitro just how efficiently the Web can digest an event and amplify it.
We love this notion that you can be in dog shit one day and turn around and be a superstar in a week. YouTube is the hardware. The software is the idea that the individual counts -- that the individual matters. And that a person's idea belongs to that person.
Scott Monty, Ford's digital and multimedia communications manager, says that while there's a "flavor of the month" zeitgeist to the Ted Williams phenom, it's a minute-and-a-half event people identify with. "People love a good story. As marketers, we need to hone our own storytelling."
Monty says that given where Williams has been, there's a certain amount of risk, but "There's inherent risk in anything marketers do because we don't have the same control we had. Brands are in the hands of customers. But I think people want to see him succeed; people love a turnaround."
Read more at Media Post
We love this notion that you can be in dog shit one day and turn around and be a superstar in a week. YouTube is the hardware. The software is the idea that the individual counts -- that the individual matters. And that a person's idea belongs to that person.
Scott Monty, Ford's digital and multimedia communications manager, says that while there's a "flavor of the month" zeitgeist to the Ted Williams phenom, it's a minute-and-a-half event people identify with. "People love a good story. As marketers, we need to hone our own storytelling."
Monty says that given where Williams has been, there's a certain amount of risk, but "There's inherent risk in anything marketers do because we don't have the same control we had. Brands are in the hands of customers. But I think people want to see him succeed; people love a turnaround."
Read more at Media Post
Friday, January 7
Newspaper Removes ‘homeless voice’ YouTube Clip
The YouTube video of the homeless man with the golden voice has to be one of the biggest social media hits in local media history. The YouTube clip surpassed 12 million views. Until it was pulled. Today, according to a message on YouTube, the clip has been removed “due to a copyright claim by The Dispatch. ”
What’s fascinating about this story is the role YouTube played in making this story viral in the first place. Nearly all of the social media links pointed to the YouTube clip, not to Dispatch.com, and YouTube’s own social community helped amplify the volume. While the content was compelling, the social distribution made it explode. Without it, we wonder if Ted Williams would still be roaming the roadside.
It must be maddening for the Dispatch, but welcome to the new reality of social distribution. For stories that take on a life of their own, the benefit of massive distribution — even if you don’t control it — outweighs the value of walling it off on your own site. Pulling the clip is like a slap in the face to the community that helped make the story explode.
Read more at Lost Remote.
Wednesday, January 5
E-book Sales Hit New Highs
E-book versions of the top six books outsold the print versions last week. And of the top 50 (on USA Today's Bestseller List), 19 had higher e-book than print sales. It's the first time the top-50 list has had more than two titles in which the e-version outsold print.
Whether that will continue and what it means for books and bookstores — the physical kind — isn't clear. Michael Cader, founder of Publishers Lunch, a digital newsletter, says: "What's most interesting is what happens next week or over the next month. About 3 million to 5 million e-readers were activated last week. Will the people who got them keep downloading e-books, and at what rate?"
Read more at USA Today.
Whether that will continue and what it means for books and bookstores — the physical kind — isn't clear. Michael Cader, founder of Publishers Lunch, a digital newsletter, says: "What's most interesting is what happens next week or over the next month. About 3 million to 5 million e-readers were activated last week. Will the people who got them keep downloading e-books, and at what rate?"
Read more at USA Today.
Tuesday, January 4
Facebook's Russian Campaign
There are plenty of big markets where Mark Zuckerberg's creation isn't dominant. In Japan, Facebook doesn't rank in the top three, and the site isn't much of a force in Brazil or China, two populous countries where Internet usage is off the charts.
The outlook for Facebook in Russia may be more promising, despite the popularity of homegrown social network sites. Facebook officially launched its site in April and only ranks No. 5 so far, according to Internet tracker comScore, but its growth has been impressive.
Read more at Business Week.
The outlook for Facebook in Russia may be more promising, despite the popularity of homegrown social network sites. Facebook officially launched its site in April and only ranks No. 5 so far, according to Internet tracker comScore, but its growth has been impressive.
Read more at Business Week.
Monday, January 3
TV Viewing Up
Americans watched more television than ever in 2010, according to the Nielsen Company. Total viewing of broadcast networks and basic cable channels rose about 1 percent for the year, to an average of 34 hours per person per week.
Despite a vast oil spill and a midterm election, all of the cable news channels posted declines from 2009. The Fox News Channel remained the most popular of the group by far.
Read more at the New York Times
Despite a vast oil spill and a midterm election, all of the cable news channels posted declines from 2009. The Fox News Channel remained the most popular of the group by far.
Read more at the New York Times
2010: The Decade That Killed (Newspaper) Classifieds
The much-publicized woes of the newspaper industry are due, in large part, to the collapse of classified advertising revenues, and 2010 may well have been the year that buried them for good.
Wherever you looked -- real estate, the job market, the auto industry -- the news was bad, not to say disastrous. Combine that with the secular shift to online classifieds, and you have a perfect storm of adverse business conditions.
Classifieds used to be a mainstay of the newspaper business, reflecting their once-dominant position in local media markets. In 2000, classifieds contributed $19.6 billion or 40% of total newspaper ad revenues of $48.7 billion, according to the Newspaper Association of America.
But beginning in 2006, the market begin softening noticeably, due to competition from free online classifieds offered by sites like Craigslist, compounded by the bursting of the real-estate bubble.
From $2.14 billion in the third quarter of 2000, employment classified revenue has fallen a breathtaking 91% to just $185 million in the third quarter of 2010. From a peak of $1.35 billion in the third quarter of 2006, real estate fell 78% to just $302 million in the same period this year. Meantime, automotive plunged from a peak of $1.22 billion in the third quarter of 2003 to $307 million this year -- a 75% decline.
Read more at Media Post
Wherever you looked -- real estate, the job market, the auto industry -- the news was bad, not to say disastrous. Combine that with the secular shift to online classifieds, and you have a perfect storm of adverse business conditions.
Classifieds used to be a mainstay of the newspaper business, reflecting their once-dominant position in local media markets. In 2000, classifieds contributed $19.6 billion or 40% of total newspaper ad revenues of $48.7 billion, according to the Newspaper Association of America.
But beginning in 2006, the market begin softening noticeably, due to competition from free online classifieds offered by sites like Craigslist, compounded by the bursting of the real-estate bubble.
From $2.14 billion in the third quarter of 2000, employment classified revenue has fallen a breathtaking 91% to just $185 million in the third quarter of 2010. From a peak of $1.35 billion in the third quarter of 2006, real estate fell 78% to just $302 million in the same period this year. Meantime, automotive plunged from a peak of $1.22 billion in the third quarter of 2003 to $307 million this year -- a 75% decline.
Read more at Media Post
How a small Arkansas TV station uses Facebook, Twitter to drive audience to newscasts, website
KAIT-TV in Jonesboro, Ark., is a small station with a large social media presence.
The station, which is in the 180th television market (out of 210) in a metro area with a population somewhere around 150,000, has found ways to gain about the same number of fans and followers as some of the country’s top newspapers.
The station had 19,447 Facebook fans and 2,828 Twitter followers the last I checked. By comparison, a new Bivings Group study found that the top 100 newspapers (by circulation) have an average of 21,214 Facebook fans.
News Director Hatton Weeks has four suggestions for news organizations that want to improve their social media presence.
1. Get everyone involved.
2. At a minimum, post items four or five hours before the news begins to push to the newscast.
3. Find an internal social media guru, and let that person lead the charge.
4. Make sure your website is updated often, and the stories also get shared on the appropriate social media.
Our audience is engaged more with our product, their voice is heard, and they feel like they’re part of the news.
Read more at Poynter
The station, which is in the 180th television market (out of 210) in a metro area with a population somewhere around 150,000, has found ways to gain about the same number of fans and followers as some of the country’s top newspapers.
The station had 19,447 Facebook fans and 2,828 Twitter followers the last I checked. By comparison, a new Bivings Group study found that the top 100 newspapers (by circulation) have an average of 21,214 Facebook fans.
News Director Hatton Weeks has four suggestions for news organizations that want to improve their social media presence.
1. Get everyone involved.
2. At a minimum, post items four or five hours before the news begins to push to the newscast.
3. Find an internal social media guru, and let that person lead the charge.
4. Make sure your website is updated often, and the stories also get shared on the appropriate social media.
Our audience is engaged more with our product, their voice is heard, and they feel like they’re part of the news.
Read more at Poynter
TV Apps
The Consumer Electronics Show gets underway in Las Vegas later this week, and while new tablets, phones and 3D television sets will grab much of the attention, the biggest development in the television business will be the dramatic surge of internet-connected sets and TV apps.
Jason Oxman, senior vice president of the Consumer Electronics Association. “I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a TV on the show floor that doesn’t have these kind of apps built in.”
Read more here.
Jason Oxman, senior vice president of the Consumer Electronics Association. “I think you’ll be hard pressed to find a TV on the show floor that doesn’t have these kind of apps built in.”
Read more here.
Everybody's a Journalist at Basetrack’s Facebook page
Three photojournalists embedded with the First Battalion in Afghanistan are posting dispatches on Basetrack.org, a cool map-based site funded by a Knight Foundation Grant. While the site is terrific, the project’s Facebook page has turned into a unique experience of its own — a sort of collaborative journalism crossed with a support group.
Basetrack updates are mixed with posts from family members. Some post photos, others ask for them, and Basetrack photographers respond in comments. The response has been overwhelming.
And all because Basetrack decided to set their wall to “Basetrack+others”, allowing anyone to post to a tight-knit community of military families, desperate to hear any development from the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan.
Read more here.
Apple's Cloud
Apple’s upcoming year is expected to feature upgrades to its existing product line, but the company is expected to prep a bevy of cloud services running into 2012. According to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster, Apple won’t enter new categories in 2011. This year will be about harvesting gains from the iPad, iPhone, App Store, Mac and iPod and upgrades. In 2011, Apple is expected to launch the iPhone at Verizon in the March quarter with iTunes cloud services also due this year. Going into 2012, Apple will have the stage set for cloud services.
Read more here.
Read more here.
Sunday, January 2
Ad Recovery
WHEN Stephen Colbert wanted to raise money for the recovery efforts after the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, he worked with a behemoth technology company, Microsoft. Every time Mr. Colbert said the word “Bing” on the “Colbert Report,” the company donated $2,500 to the Colbert Nation Gulf of America Fund. That effort at brand integration raised $100,000 for the charity and increased recognition for Microsoft’s search engine.
Television advertising, whether through integrated-brand campaigns like Microsoft’s or otherwise, has been one of the bright spots as the advertising industry begins to recover from the devastating effects of the recession and marketers experiment with a variety of new ways to reach the audience.
This year is likely to bring rapid growth for spending on ads in new media, resumed growth for spending on television advertising and struggles for print media, particularly newspapers.
According to data from Kantar Media, advertising expenditures for all media for the first half of 2010 increased 5.7 percent from 2009 to about $63.6 billion. Television advertising led the pack in spending because of an increase in demand from the automotive and retail markets, and political advertising.
Spending on advertising in local newspapers showed a significant decline over the last 19 quarters, with a 4.6 percent decrease for the first half of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009, according to data from Kantar Media.
For the first time, advertisers are projected to have spent more on online ads than on newspaper ads in 2010, according to data by eMarketer.
Read more at the New York Times.
Television advertising, whether through integrated-brand campaigns like Microsoft’s or otherwise, has been one of the bright spots as the advertising industry begins to recover from the devastating effects of the recession and marketers experiment with a variety of new ways to reach the audience.
This year is likely to bring rapid growth for spending on ads in new media, resumed growth for spending on television advertising and struggles for print media, particularly newspapers.
According to data from Kantar Media, advertising expenditures for all media for the first half of 2010 increased 5.7 percent from 2009 to about $63.6 billion. Television advertising led the pack in spending because of an increase in demand from the automotive and retail markets, and political advertising.
Spending on advertising in local newspapers showed a significant decline over the last 19 quarters, with a 4.6 percent decrease for the first half of 2010 compared with the same period in 2009, according to data from Kantar Media.
For the first time, advertisers are projected to have spent more on online ads than on newspaper ads in 2010, according to data by eMarketer.
Read more at the New York Times.
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