public communication
Dec 18
The Use of Twitter by America’s Newspapers - The Bivings Report
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shaneguiter:
- We were able to find multiple Twitter accounts for all of the top 100 newspapers using common sense searching techniques. However, only 62% of the newspapers included links to at least one of their accounts from their website. In many cases these links were buried on the site and difficult to track down. In addition, this means 38% of the newspapers are actively using Twitter, but haven’t yet integrated their presence with their website in even a minimal way.
- 56% of newspapers maintained a directory of their Twitter accounts on their website. This directory from the Los Angeles Times is a good example of the form these listings usually took. Many of these directories were quite extensive, listing dozens of accounts.
- Of the 300 Twitter profiles we looked at in depth, the average account had 17,717 followers and followed back 1,470 other users. However, if you remove the four accounts we looked at that had over 100,000 followers, the average number of followers drops to a much more modest 3,447 users.
- The Twitter profiles of the newspapers send out an average of 11 tweets per day. Tweet frequency varies from 1.1 (The Boston Globe’s Big Picture, The Denver Post’s Woody Paige, and The Akron Beacon Journal) to 95.5 tweets/day (The Boston Herald).
- 51% of Twitter accounts were updated primarily through Twitter’s web interface. The next most popular method with 28% was Twitterfeed, which is a service that automatically posts updates to Twitter accounts via RSS feeds. The remaining 21% of accounts were updated via random other Twitter tools such as Tweetdeck and Hootsuite. This indicates that the vast majority of Twitter accounts (around 70%) are updated by staff members as opposed to a simply being an automated feed.
Dec 17
As Online Music Falters, Pandora Doubled To 40 Million Users This Year.
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itsthemusicpeople:
infoneernet:
Online music services have had a bad few weeks. Imeem got bought by MySpace for next to nothing, Lala got bought by Apple for something ranging from a little to not-very-much. Spotify continues to be a no-show in the U.S. But at least one service, Pandora, appears to be doing quite well for itself.
The service has announced that it surpassed 40 million registered users earlier this month. That means the service had doubled its size in 2009. And it’s adding 600,000 new registered users a week now. Even more remarkable is that half of those new users are coming from mobile devices. And of those, the iPhone continues to lead the way with 10 million Pandora users of its own. That number has grown some 400% this year.
» via TechCrunch
Dec 16
merlin:
Dishwashers, and How Google Eats Its Own Tail
Google has become a snake that too readily consumes its own keyword tail. Identify some words that show up in profitable searches — from appliances, to mesothelioma suits, to kayak lessons — churn out content cheaply and regularly, and you’re done. On the web, no-one knows you’re a content-grinder.
[…]
Something has to give, but I wonder what will — the snake, its tail, or us?
Posting empty BS at scale has never been without its cost to those of us who actually use Google for more than bootstraping a score of execrable income muses.
But, over the past year or two, the urine-to-potable-water ratio of our public well has gone totally out of whack.
The wink-wink, nudge-nudge tolerance for empty Google bait needs to stop. It’s no longer simply a matter of bringing unnecessary tragedy to an already-littered commons—we’re at risk of seeing our biggest public library turn into a pile of empty books whose flashy covers contain nothing but coupons for more empty books.
[via Sippey]
You Can't Make Word of Mouth Viral
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christinebeardsell:
aweissman:
“Virality is something that has to be engineered from the beginning…and it’s harder to create virality than it is to create a good product. That’s why we often see good products with poor …
Dec 15
BRANDS OF THE FUTURE
wolffolinsblog:
Many brands today are not equipped to live online. There is a discrepancy in how they are presented and how they work in the real world.
Steve Rubel’s summary of the Le Web conference accounts for this change:
“One of the great untold stories is just how much Facebook and Twitter are growing off-site. Facebook announced they reach 60 million through Facebook Connect. Meanwhile nearly half of Twitter’s activity takes place away from Twitter.com - they reported. Both platforms are quietly becoming a social operating systems for the web, not just their own sites.”
Meaning often times, the places people first encounter brands are outside the control of traditionally branded platforms like their website, TV or print. Online platforms introduce a whole new set of rules for engagement that many brands are simply not equipped to handle. Consumers are increasingly in control. For instance they forced Tropicana to scrap their new identity in favor of the old one.
Rubel also notes that:
“Second, nowadays no two people see the same Internet. This was a key point that Facebook made saying that we increasingly discover online content not just by algortihms but via the “lens of friends.” Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd brought this to life through rich, moving stories. Google’s Marissa Mayer went a step further saying that the future of news is a “personalized news stream.” This trend has major implications for marketers and PR pros who are accustomed to reaching everyone the same way - it’s simply not possible anymore.”
To that point, no two people see a brand in the same way. The new reality of brands is that their identities must account for changing platforms and preference. The challenge is to create identities that are both flexible yet constant. Brands like Uniqlo while consistent in form can be presented in English, Japanese or any other language. The same can be said for Nickelodeon’s new brand identity. While “Nick” is always consistent the suffix that follows may change depending on the property or the audience. This allows the brand to be irreverent , silly and consistent all at the same time. In common both of these brands have a single form but the context in which they are experienced changes.
Brands of the future will consist of a visual identity that accounts for branded content distributed by a messy, fragmented, user-centric world. These identities will live as digital assets designed to create distinctive brand interactions.
(George Crichlow)
Dec 14
earthmancomehome:
brokenbottleboy:
Men’s Health runs 7 identical coverlines twice in two months. Now, if this was any other magazine I’d say it was a cock-up but take a look at this anecdote from Polly Vernon’s visit to the mag back in September:
My former staff-member moles inform me that Rees approaches Men’s Health as a business project. “If something worked once, he’ll do it again. And again. A cover line, a feature, a cover model… all of it. He’ll recycle over and over.” Joe Mackie says this: “There’s another men’s magazine editor who goes through each new issue of his publication, counts up the number of times the word ‘sex’ is used, and then ups the figure in the next issue. Morgan applies the same principle – to the word ‘you’.” Rees himself says I’m welcome to push the genius line. “Ha ha! Perpetuate that one! Definitely!”
Dec 13
Commodification in the Information Age
newleft:
The images and theme come from the popular YouTube video Did You Know? 3.0
The focus of videos like these on the quantitative aspects of information (measured in bytes) rather than the qualitative demonstrates the treatment of information as a commodity. This focus presents a view of information with value intrinsic to itself rather than use value in relation to other commodities. In addition to reinforcing the pseudo-futurism of high-tech globalization, it presents the idea that regardless of how the information is applied or what the information itself is about, the information itself has value beyond its potential use or exchange value. The very act of producing information, whether that information concerns Harry Potter fan fiction or cluster bombs, is seen as beneficial to society.
Read More
Dec 11
New York Times Launches Times Skimmer: A New Way to Read the Paper Online - ReadWriteWeb
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shaneguiter:
The New York Times just launched a new way to read the paper’s stories online. With Times Skimmer, which first launched as a prototype application earlier this year, the New York Times is trying to bring the feeling and serendipity of reading the physical newspaper to its online presence. Users can choose from seven different layouts. Most of these are based on a grid-based design, though some also mimic the feel of an RSS reader with stories organized in chronological order, or ranked according to the the recommendations of the New York Times’ editorial team.
![gooneruk:
The swine flu pandemic is “considerably less lethal” than feared, chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson says. BBC News
Remember how swine flu was going to kill us all, and that it was probably the most lethal disease since smallpox (TM the fearmongering media)? Back in early July, you couldn’t move for newspaper front pages heralding the coming of the apocalypse in form of a slight mutation of the seasonal flu virus.
I wrote a shitload of posts on it at the time, generally critical of the media’s reaction to the disease and highlighting the fact that it was no worse than any other year’s seasonal flu. A particular bugbear for me was the fact that curable and preventable diseases such as malaria, which kill many thousands times more each year, are not covered by the media at all.
“[I]t’s a tragedy that there were a couple of deaths related to swine flu yesterday here in the UK, but does it really need frontpage treatment from practically every newspaper today?”, I wrote in July, accompanying a graph which showed that there had been an ever so slight spike of flu-like symptoms reported to doctors. Somehow, this slight upturn was frontpage news.
Today’s graph is a lot more interesting. Yes, there were a few deaths in July as the new strain of flu hit British shores, and it has been relatively constant since then. But there was a big, big upswing in November.
Look at the graph: in the first 5 months of H1N1 in Britain, we had around 135 deaths. In November alone, there were around 120.
How is this not fucking news?!?!?! If every single individual death in July merited days on end of front page media coverage and speculation (although when these deaths were subsequently proven to be unrelated to swine flu, the coverage only hit page eleventy…), how come an average of four deaths a day generated no coverage whatsoever?!
I’m a media fiend; I read ridiculous amounts of news every day across most of the British newspaper and BBC websites, yet I genuinely cannot remember a mention of swine flu at all over the last few months. And yet the death rate has soared, in relative terms.
It’s a beautiful, beautiful example of a news cycle at work. Swine flu was a big story in July. Now, when it is actually more prevalent and seemingly having a greater effect, newspapers don’t care. And why don’t they care?
It’s because the other newspapers and media don’t care. All it will take is one front page on the Sun or the Daily Mail and swine flu will be back on the agenda for all media.
And that’s what is depressing. The media has such power to whip up the public into a storm about something relatively minor (see also: Madeline McCann), yet nobody holds them to account later on when they are either wrong or simply ignoring news.
Swine flu was never going to be a big story, was never going to be the world-changing and potentially society-altering disease to end all diseases. But we allowed the media to get away with weeks on end of scare-mongering and sensationalism, yet when they ignore the story later we also let them get away with it.
Yes, I’m ranting once more, but I’m genuinely appalled about how the media is able to shape the public’s opinion so easily and without a sense of moral duty. It’s a money-making enterprise, after all, and following the herd is a lot easier and a lot more profitable than actually fighting the good fight.](http://11.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kugq8bcAFP1qz6jquo1_250.png)
gooneruk:
The swine flu pandemic is “considerably less lethal” than feared, chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson says. BBC News
Remember how swine flu was going to kill us all, and that it was probably the most lethal disease since smallpox (TM the fearmongering media)? Back in early July, you couldn’t move for newspaper front pages heralding the coming of the apocalypse in form of a slight mutation of the seasonal flu virus.
I wrote a shitload of posts on it at the time, generally critical of the media’s reaction to the disease and highlighting the fact that it was no worse than any other year’s seasonal flu. A particular bugbear for me was the fact that curable and preventable diseases such as malaria, which kill many thousands times more each year, are not covered by the media at all.
“[I]t’s a tragedy that there were a couple of deaths related to swine flu yesterday here in the UK, but does it really need frontpage treatment from practically every newspaper today?”, I wrote in July, accompanying a graph which showed that there had been an ever so slight spike of flu-like symptoms reported to doctors. Somehow, this slight upturn was frontpage news.
Today’s graph is a lot more interesting. Yes, there were a few deaths in July as the new strain of flu hit British shores, and it has been relatively constant since then. But there was a big, big upswing in November.
Look at the graph: in the first 5 months of H1N1 in Britain, we had around 135 deaths. In November alone, there were around 120.
How is this not fucking news?!?!?! If every single individual death in July merited days on end of front page media coverage and speculation (although when these deaths were subsequently proven to be unrelated to swine flu, the coverage only hit page eleventy…), how come an average of four deaths a day generated no coverage whatsoever?!
I’m a media fiend; I read ridiculous amounts of news every day across most of the British newspaper and BBC websites, yet I genuinely cannot remember a mention of swine flu at all over the last few months. And yet the death rate has soared, in relative terms.
It’s a beautiful, beautiful example of a news cycle at work. Swine flu was a big story in July. Now, when it is actually more prevalent and seemingly having a greater effect, newspapers don’t care. And why don’t they care?
It’s because the other newspapers and media don’t care. All it will take is one front page on the Sun or the Daily Mail and swine flu will be back on the agenda for all media.
And that’s what is depressing. The media has such power to whip up the public into a storm about something relatively minor (see also: Madeline McCann), yet nobody holds them to account later on when they are either wrong or simply ignoring news.
Swine flu was never going to be a big story, was never going to be the world-changing and potentially society-altering disease to end all diseases. But we allowed the media to get away with weeks on end of scare-mongering and sensationalism, yet when they ignore the story later we also let them get away with it.
Yes, I’m ranting once more, but I’m genuinely appalled about how the media is able to shape the public’s opinion so easily and without a sense of moral duty. It’s a money-making enterprise, after all, and following the herd is a lot easier and a lot more profitable than actually fighting the good fight.
Dec 03
Tiger Woods, No Logo and the impossible existence of the branded-human/human-as-brand
criticalculture:
A few Saturdays ago, the Toronto Star ran an article on whether or not No Logo remains relevant. The article dwelled on the anti-globalization movement of the early nineties, the ascent of which is often misattributed to the book, and liberal misinterpretations of the book and Klein’s thesis, rather considering what the book is actually about — the branding of everything.
In particular, the book frequently returns to Michael Jordan as the prototypical branded human/human brand —an individual who is both adorned and associated with brands, and who is themselves a brand. Michael Jordan is history, and Tiger Woods is now the sportsman of measure.
I don’t recall Klein entering into a discussion of it, but this branded-brand success brings with it serious ontological implications. In abstract, a brand is little more than a symbol imbued with some fabricated meaning, and this meaning is associated to an otherwise ordinary, meaningless, product. For instance, as Klein goes on in the first few pages of the book, the Quaker Oats man gives plain old rolled oats a certain pastoral sentiment. Culture jammers can do what they wish to this image to harm it, but the Quaker Oats man does not need to worry about harming his “image,” because “he” is just a symbol.
The branded-brand human is not so fortunate, because they are both privately volitional and publicly symbolic. The branded-brand human cannot totally maintain a division between their individual self and they symbol that they have become, must struggle to stay autonomous whilst upholding the integrity of the brands that are affixed upon their brand, as well as their own brand. When the volitional human of the symbol “screws up,” all associated brands take a hit.
When hack journalists report on whether or not golf and Nike will suffer because Tiger had to get his woodsie, they’re talking about the idea of the branded human. So yes, No Logo is still relevant.
![gooneruk:
The swine flu pandemic is “considerably less lethal” than feared, chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson says. BBC News
Remember how swine flu was going to kill us all, and that it was probably the most lethal disease since smallpox (TM the fearmongering media)? Back in early July, you couldn’t move for newspaper front pages heralding the coming of the apocalypse in form of a slight mutation of the seasonal flu virus.
I wrote a shitload of posts on it at the time, generally critical of the media’s reaction to the disease and highlighting the fact that it was no worse than any other year’s seasonal flu. A particular bugbear for me was the fact that curable and preventable diseases such as malaria, which kill many thousands times more each year, are not covered by the media at all.
“[I]t’s a tragedy that there were a couple of deaths related to swine flu yesterday here in the UK, but does it really need frontpage treatment from practically every newspaper today?”, I wrote in July, accompanying a graph which showed that there had been an ever so slight spike of flu-like symptoms reported to doctors. Somehow, this slight upturn was frontpage news.
Today’s graph is a lot more interesting. Yes, there were a few deaths in July as the new strain of flu hit British shores, and it has been relatively constant since then. But there was a big, big upswing in November.
Look at the graph: in the first 5 months of H1N1 in Britain, we had around 135 deaths. In November alone, there were around 120.
How is this not fucking news?!?!?! If every single individual death in July merited days on end of front page media coverage and speculation (although when these deaths were subsequently proven to be unrelated to swine flu, the coverage only hit page eleventy…), how come an average of four deaths a day generated no coverage whatsoever?!
I’m a media fiend; I read ridiculous amounts of news every day across most of the British newspaper and BBC websites, yet I genuinely cannot remember a mention of swine flu at all over the last few months. And yet the death rate has soared, in relative terms.
It’s a beautiful, beautiful example of a news cycle at work. Swine flu was a big story in July. Now, when it is actually more prevalent and seemingly having a greater effect, newspapers don’t care. And why don’t they care?
It’s because the other newspapers and media don’t care. All it will take is one front page on the Sun or the Daily Mail and swine flu will be back on the agenda for all media.
And that’s what is depressing. The media has such power to whip up the public into a storm about something relatively minor (see also: Madeline McCann), yet nobody holds them to account later on when they are either wrong or simply ignoring news.
Swine flu was never going to be a big story, was never going to be the world-changing and potentially society-altering disease to end all diseases. But we allowed the media to get away with weeks on end of scare-mongering and sensationalism, yet when they ignore the story later we also let them get away with it.
Yes, I’m ranting once more, but I’m genuinely appalled about how the media is able to shape the public’s opinion so easily and without a sense of moral duty. It’s a money-making enterprise, after all, and following the herd is a lot easier and a lot more profitable than actually fighting the good fight.](http://4.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kugq8bcAFP1qz6jquo1_500.png)