Archive for October, 2007
By racetalk
By Amisha
Virgin America recently launched with limited routes and it’s the first airline to “get” the digital lifestyle. I flew on Virgin America for the first time last week and was blown away by Red, its in-flight entertainment system. It makes every other airline’s entertainment offerings look downright archaic.
Computers are embedded in the back of each seat and networked to servers in the cargo hold of the plane. Each passenger gets a 9-inch touchscreen LCD and miniature keyboard/remote combo, both of which can be used to watch TV and movies, listen to music, chat with other passengers, play video games and even order a snack from the flight attendants. Each seat is equipped with a USB port to charge mobile devices and a 110V adapter to charge laptops. An Ethernet port is also available, but it’s not of much use until Virgin flips the switch on its in-air Internet service.
There are more features in Red than any single passenger will probably use on a single flight, but there’s something for everyone. I enjoyed browsing through Virgin’s music, creating a custom playlist and dozing off to some relaxing tunes. When I woke up I used Red to order a snack and some hot tea. I drained my laptop’s battery before boarding my return flight from Washington D.C. to San Francisco, but was able to plug in and finish up a document before I landed.
The system isn’t perfect by any means. Several of the television channels weren’t working and it’s disappointing that in-air Internet access was down. There are 3,000 songs in the library, but this is actually quite limited compared to what many of us are used to on iTunes and other music services.
Other airlines are going to have to play some serious catch up. It’s going to be really tough to fly cross country on another airline that offers up ‘Wild Hogs’ as its only entertainment option.
Now, about adding that in-flight manicure?
October 9th, 2007
By racetalk
By Jordan
While most people online Sunday night were checking the day’s baseball and football scores (Go Sox! Go Pats!), MSNBC.com quietly unveiled their first acquirement in its 11 year history –and its first foray into social media. Late Sunday night, everyone’s favorite homepage announced the acquisition of Newsvine, a news site continuously updated by “citizen journalism.”
Newsvine has gained recognition since its launch in March 2006 through its merging of mainstream reporting from the AP and ESPN, the crowdsourcing of individual contributors, as well as its user-driven ranking system of top stories as seen on competitors’ sites like Digg.com.
More interesting however, is the trend of major brands purchasing smaller, independently run news aggregators and social media sites. In Newsvine’s case, uber-corporations Microsoft and General Electric (by way of NBC) have followed in the footsteps of Ebay’s acquisition of StumbleUpon.com, Wired.com’s purchase of Reddit and Yahoo! of De.lic.ious.
What remains to be seen is whether the influence of a bureaucratic Microsoft or the editors at NBC negatively effect what is essentially built as an open source news model. Newsvine CEO Mike Davidson has publicly promised for the site to continue to operate independently of its new owners.
On the plus side, Newsvine will soon feature original MSNBC.com content on its site – a first among its competitors.
October 9th, 2007
By racetalk
By George
We believe in digital media at Racepoint (in fact, one of our founders Larry Weber has written a great book about it).
But like everyone else, we sometimes make mistakes. Hey, even the mighty David Ortiz strikes out on occasion.
This week, on his own accord, one of our team members posted a comment on a blog using a pseudonym (and no he’s not a soon to be fired employee, Valley Wag). In fact, he’s a promising young PR professional with a bright future.
I want to be clear that our employee was not posting on behalf of a client or Racepoint. He was posting as himself – or himself behind an alias. You can read the original postings here and here.
His mistake from our perspective was two-fold. He posted a personal comment from Racepoint Group and he posted about a client that he is not authorized to blog about. He regrets his mistake and has apologized to the blogger who has graciously accepted and even invited him to participate as a formal writer for the site.
We have a golden rule on blogging at Racepoint Group: transparency. Our policy is to identify ourselves, who we work for, and which client we are representing while posting and commenting. As Larry says about this episode: “Social media is an uncontrollable atmosphere – and that’s the beauty of it. And like in real life negative things can happen. We apologize and move on.”
We obviously regret the commotion we’ve caused and hope that others can learn from our misstep here. I know we have – it’s been the topic of conversation around the office for the last few days. In the end, it’ll make us better at what we do.
We’d love to keep this conversation going about the dos and don’ts of digital media relations. It’s a fantastic communication tool, but it’s still evolving, which leads to mistakes. I’m sure we’ll be making a few more stumbles as we go along. This won’t stop us.
So how about those Red Sox?
October 5th, 2007
By racetalk
By Carla
In case you all missed it, New England Web 2.0 companies are raising big bucks and overshadowing our West Coast friends. Comparatively, New England raised $11.5 million more than San Francisco in the first half of 2007, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t going to turn Boston into the technology hub overnight.
Silicon Valley has earned its reputation for a reason. Surviving the dot-com bubble, the area hosts thousands of tech companies including household names Google, Apple, eBay, Yahoo! and AMD. What is promising for the New England area is the amount of growth it has experienced year over year. In 2006, the region brought in $62 million, while it had already amassed more than $102 million by mid-2007.
Not that Bostonians should become overly giddy—we’ve missed a chance or two to make Boston the home of some of the biggest technology companies. When Mark Zuckerberg and Eduardo Saverin first looked to Battery Ventures in Waltham for financing for their social networking site with 1,000 or so users, they were turned down. And now the Palo Alto-based company is worth as much as $6 billion.
But not to worry, Boston has plenty of start-ups developing technologies to keep those Googlers on its toes. With the energy and nanotechnology sectors heating up, Boston definitely has a fair shot at rising above the Valley and it’s clear that the venture capital exists to fund innovative new companies.
October 2nd, 2007
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