Tag Archives: blogging

Pork Board sees light (feels heat?) of citizen media

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A few days ago I posted about Jennifer Laycock getting hassled by the National Pork Board because she was selling T-shirts they felt infringed on their trademark and campaign “The other white meat.” Laycock was surprised by the Boards threats, and wrote an impassioned blog post about the situation.

It looks like the Pork Board realized that hassling an activist blogger over a T-shirt that parodied their branding in the name of a good cause (breast feeding) would probably hurt their brand more than it would ever protect it. Laycock reports that “I have received an apology from Steve Murphy, the CEO of the National Pork Board and we are currently working toward a resolution.” [via Podcasting News]

Big Pork puts squeeze on breastfeading blogger

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Jennifer Laycock runs a blog called The Lactivist and writes about breastfeeding and human milk banking. It’s mostly a gathering place for breastfeeding moms to come and share their thoughts and experiences. Yesterday she received a cease and desist letter from a law firm representing The National Pork Board. The gist of the letter was her use of the phrase “the other white milk” violates their trademark on the phrase “the other white meat.”

I’m certainly not qualified to argue who is right or wrong in this case, but I’ll bet the folks at the National Pork Board didn’t expect their letter would get any publicity.

Blogging the Hoosiers

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Disclosure/Disclaimer: The company I work is the current multimedia marketing and broadcast rightsholder for Indiana University (and a bunch of other high profile colleges and universities). The views and opinions expressed on this blog are my own and have no connection to Learfield Communiction.

Newspaper BlogsIt was brought to my attention today that a couple of Indianapolis newspapers –The Herald-Times and The Indianapolis Star– were blogging about the Hoosiers. Hoosiers Insider and the Hoosier Scoop are pretty typical for newspaper blogs.

Hoosier Scoop had audio of a post-game press conference and included short video clips from the press conference and students storming the floor following Indiana’s 71-66 win agaisnt No. 2 Wisconsin. And they had someone (an intern?) live-blogging the big game.

“3:38, second half: Indiana 64,Wisconsin 59”

Companies like ours –and there are only a handful– pay a lot of money for exclusive broadcast and marketing rights. But we’ve entered the world of blogs and podcasts and YouTube and camera phones and maintaining “exclusive” control of the sporting events becomes something of a challenge.

And what’s a “broadcast” now? Just radio and TV? And the fans are getting in the act. How do we stop them from putting audio, video and still images on their blogs and in their podcasts? And should we stop them? Should we encourage them?

But back to the Indianapolis blogs. Here’s what I’d do:

Hold a contest to find the best Hoosier blogger in Indiana. To be eligible, you have to have been blogging for at least six months. Fans come to a website to vote on the three finalists. The winner gets a brand new laptop and digital camera…and a seat in the press box for every home game, where they blog the game. What the hell, let’s plut a webcam in the booth so fans can watch the announcers. I’d have our on-site producer pulling play-by-play audio highlights and making them available to post. All of this, of course, would be sponsored.

I’d leverage our broadcasts and access to coaches and such, to out-blog the newspaper guys.

I remember, back in the mid-nineties, the first time we saw a university include webcasting in their bid specs. It seemed almost… cute. A novelty. I can’t wait to see what the next ten years bring.

Demystifying blogging

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My buddy Chuck posted the following to his blog (AgWired) today:

“Hi there AgWired fans. This morning I’m doing a new media presentation with the folks at John Deere and their agency, BCS Communications. This is an example post for the presentation.”

So what? For many (most? all?) of the people in the room, updating a web page is a Dark Art. Magic. At the very least, a pain in the ass. Some person or persons (or a committee) has to approve the copy and then send it to the web people and –eventually– the web page gets updated.

Chuck just logged in to his Word Press account. Bangs in the copy above…hits the submit button…and publishes for the world to see. It took less time than it is taking me to tell you about it.

I’ve used this analogy before but it’s a good one. When a room full of execs see a demo like this (I wasn’t there but I’ve done a few of these)… it’s like the scene in every Tarzan movie with the Great White Hunters “make fire come from stick,” or when they crank up the movie projector (where did they plug it in?) for the pygmies.

AgWired: Guerilla video

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I refer you, once again, to AgWired for a good example of how easy it is to add video to your blog or website. Chuck Zimmerman is covering the International Poultry and Feed Expos in Atlanta. His posts include –as always– still images and audio. But he is increasingly dropping in short video clips.

He’s just roaming around the floor in this clip but he could just as easily have stopped to interview an exhibitor or speaker. The operative word here is “easily.” He ran the video through Windows Movie Maker (free) for a quick edit and a title…uploaded to YouTube (free)…and then embedded their flash player in his post. Done.

Contrast that to dragging around a cameraman and sound guy (expensive) who have to get back to a studio for post-production (expensive: time and money). Then you gotta get it to the TV station or cable channel and blah, blah, blah. Chuck is carrying everything he needs on his back and if the expo hall is wifi’d…all he needs is a place to sit down.

Radio Iowa: The Blog, getting noticed

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Allbritton Communications launched The Politico today. It’s a free tabloid with an estimated circulation of 25,000 aimed at political junkies and Beltway insiders, and its companion website.

The Politico has garnered attention by snagging high-profile journalists to run the paper. Two of The Washington Post’s top political journalists — editor John Harris and reporter Jim VandeHei — left to become The Politico’s editor-in-chief and executive editor, respectively. Reporters have been lured from Time, U.S. News and World Report and the New York Daily News, among others.

Ben SmithOne of these superstars, Ben Smith, is blogging and includes our own Kay Henderson (Radio Iowa) in “Ben’s Favorite Blogs.” Just the latest high-profile link love for the Bloggerista.

In this 2003 post, I included Kay in my list of “Blogs I Would Read if They Existed.” And now it does. And I do.

More The Politico here and here.

We’ll send out a press release when it’s over

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The Hardest Working Blogger in Show Business, Chuck Zimmerman, is in Berlin, covering the annual meeting of the International Federation of Agricultural Journalists. IFAJ is “a non-political, professional association for agricultural journalists in 29 countries.” As far as I can determine (and Chuck is aware), he is the only person blogging this event.

You gotta figure that at least some of the attendees have laptops and digital cameras with them. Not one blogger in the bunch? Maybe there’s coverage of the event at the official IFAJ website…nope.

Old Media types can’t understand why I’m even asking? Bloggers can’t imagine attending something like this and not putting up a couple of posts.

Mr. and Mrs. Edwards court bloggers

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Radio Iowa News Director O. Kay Henderson chatted with Mrs. John Edwards this afternoon about –among other things I imaging– blogging. Here’s a couple of excerpts from her post/transcription:

“It’s just a great medium and I’m really glad to have the opportunity to speak without having somebody say what I meant to say, you know, which happens whenever there’s a reporter between you — or even, honestly, your own press people — between you and the people you’re trying to get to listen to what you have to say.”

“Here’s what the Internet has to offer. It is a direct medium between people. There is no filter. There is no intervention and that is unparalelled. If you think back about the way we used to communicate in a democracy centuries ago where people stood in the town square, handing out pamphlets with their opinions on them — isn’t this the closest we’ve really come to that again? We’ve returned to that which is what we were based on, where people can stand on their little corner of the Internet, handing out their opinions to people who are willing to listen to them.”

Criticizing Congress

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“In what sounds like a comedy sketch from Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, but isn’t, the U. S. Senate would impose criminal penalties, even jail time, on grassroots causes and citizens who criticize Congress.

Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself.”