Remember those early Web 1.0 home pages with the navigation buttons and long “Welcome to our Website” paragraphs? Which eventually morphed into more dynamic content, maybe even a blog? How about just making YouTube your home page?
In a recent conference call I cautioned against being “a PowerPoint company in a YouTube world.” I’m guessing the kids at Boone Oakley don’t do a lot of PowerPoint presentations. [By way of Planet Nelson]
The National Air and Space Museum was one of the more interesting places we visited in Washington. The original Wright Brothers plane, the Apollo 11 command module… a lot of history. Would take days to see it all.
During the cab ride back to the hotel, we struck up a conversation with the driver and asked about celebrities-he-has-driven. His list included: Telly Savalas, Senator James Lugar and the Reverend Jesse Jackson.
Best tipper? Telly. Gave the guy a $50 on an 8 dollar fare. Worst? Jesse stiffed the guy. Not a penny. Our driver still can’t believe it. About 4 our of 10 fares do not tip. Amazing.
Our friend –and DC local– Dianne took us to a hole-in-the-wall BBQ spot that was pretty damned good. Then a stroll in Georgetown. Somehow not as sexy as it seems in all the spy novels.
It’s been a good trip but we’re both ready to see our dawgs, deal with our dead refrigerator and get a cup of Rocket Fuel.
Telling someone how to be creative is like explaining how to wiggle your ears. But Hugh MacLeod’s little blog-to-book (Ignore Everybody – And 39 Other Keys to Creativity) has some useful insights. Here are my favorites:
Mindy McAdams (Teaching Online Journalism) points us to a speech by David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief for Reuters News, to the Intl. Olympics Committee Press Commission (June 23, 2009).
“We in the traditional media … must concentrate our efforts on defining and developing that which really adds value.
That means understanding what really can be exclusive and what really is insightful. It means truly exploiting real expertise.
It means, to my earlier point, using all the multimedia tools available and all the smart multimedia journalists to provide a package so much stronger than any one individual strand.
It means working with the mobile phone and digital camera and social media-enabled public and not against them. Working against them would be crazy.”
The last few days playing with the iPhone, Twitter, Posterous and YouTube make his last point really hop off the page.
I think the long-term success of our news networks –of everyone’s news networks– will depend on understanding and implementing these ideas. Okay, maybe the short-term success.
Hard to beat the iPhone for audio and video if you want immediate and easy upload to YouTube. The stills are not as good as the Casio delivers. (Can you guess which took the photo below?)
Posterous is fun and easy but not sure that it gives me much that Twitter does not, especially since YouTube now talks to Twitter. There is something about seeing the media nicely presented, in-line on the Posterous page, but you have to get folks there. I’m looking forward to seeing how Tweetie gets video from the iPhone to my Twitter stream.
It all gets a little confusing with literally too many choices. But I do like being able to share the media quickly, even a some sacrifice in quality. I’m guessing I’ll wind up using Twitter, YouTube and Mobile Me for on-the-fly. The blog will get posts like this, after I’ve had a time to reflect and look more closely at the available media.
I started playing with Posterino a couple of weeks ago and finally got around to creating my first poster. More on that in a moment. For those that missed the earlier post, from the Posterino website:
“We shoot a lot of marvelous pictures, bury them deep down in the file system of our computers and most of them never see the light of day again. The solution is simple: Compose a “best of” poster every couple of months and pin it on the wall in your hall.”
For my first poster I decided to use images of Sheryl Crow. I’ve collected a bunch over the years, almost all taken by others. (You’ll recognize your photos, I hope)
With enough time and patience (and Photoshop), you could create this montage one image at at time. With Posterino, you decide the size and layout of the poster… pick the group of photos you want to use… and hit go. If you don’t like the result, you shuffle. I didn’t spend a lot of time arranging image. I liked the randomness Posterino provided.
Then you just send the image off to a print site and you have a nice poster to hang on your wall. I sent this one to uber-fan Ann (who took some of the non-Sheryl pix in the group).
Oh, one more thought on this. While lots of people have some of the images included in the poster… nobody has them all. Except me. And, now, my friend Ann.
I learned this morning –via Twitter– that the Edward R. Murrow Awards will be announced this morning (11Eastern)… on Twitter. One of our company websites won a Murrow award a few years back and it’s kind of a big deal.
The awards are presented by RTNDA, which used to stand for Radio-Television News Directors Association. And may still. But the association now refers to itself as “The Association of Electronic Journalists.” A good move.
Choosing to announce their annual awards on Twitter speaks volumes. I salute the “AEJ” for recognizing and using this tool.
After a morning at the Spy Museum and the Lincoln Memorial, we grabbed a taxi back to the hotel for lunch and R&R. The driver asked if he could keep it on the station he was listening to –it was in a foreign language– because the news was on. We said sure.
When it sounded like the news was over, I asked what language was being spoken. It was an Ethiopian station out of NYC. I wondered where else he might get news about Ethiopia. And how many other people in this country have few or no sources for news from their home country.
Could this be a possible future for “terrestrial radio?” Or, perhaps it’s present. I think most big cities have stations programming for those we once referred to as “minorities.” Which, I suppose, is the only place this makes sense. Not a lot of Ethiopians in Western Kansas.
Reminds me of the days of “block programming.” One 15 minute chuck after another, each segment different from the one before and after.
If there were only some way to return radio to the people. To let them decide how their “airways” would be used.
I jammed my way into some very crowded Metro cars to make my way down to M Street where Paul Roe [Fez #30], the owner of British Ink was taking part in an art exhibition called Artomatic. Paul was doing pre-session consultations while his colleague, Cynthia, hummed away on a guy’s right bicep. He squeezed me in for a chat and I even got to sit in the tattoo chair. The interview ran just under 12 minutes.
We’re using the next few days in D.C. to field test the new iPhone. I continue to be amazed at the quality of the video (and audio) from the iPhone.