Live-blogging has become an important aspect of launching products and services at media events. The 1440-minute news cycle is influenced on a tweet-by-tweet basis and if you can maximize “live buzz” the chances of your news sticking around for more than a Hollywood-minute are pretty good.
Apple has mastered the craft of creating venues for live-blogging. They set up venues with stadium style seating and fast connections, while always saving the biggest piece of news for last. This creates the need to hang on every word, sentence and slide they present.
Despite Apple’s polish though; live-blogging has struggled to become enjoyable to follow for tech fanboys. In fact, mainstream publications like the New York Timesproved again yesterday that they don’t quite get what readers are looking for in a live-blog. Namely, speed and visuals.
That said, tech blogs used yesterday’s event as a coming out party to illustrate that they’ve come a long way since the live-blogging of 2006. Today, live-blogging produces several high-quality photos a minute and real-time updates. There were probably too many live-blogs to count yesterday, but I happened to stumble across a few of the best as Leo Laporte and Ustream managed to loose me with their inconsistent audio. Here’s my thoughts on the best:
#1: gdgt: Ryan Block kept my attention the best. His posts appeared to be faster than anyone else that I saw and picture updates were seamless. Or as Nick Bilton of the Times’ Bits Blog called their posting “like an Olympic diver; not even a splash.” It sounds like Ryan may have had the Rackspace hosting guys working a little overtime to make it happen.
#2: Gizmodo: Jason Chen and Brian Lam took the live-blogging on in tandem, which was unique. True to their nature their sarcasm was a little stronger than engadget’s or gdgt’s and their pictures were just about the same. However, it appeared that Gizmodo may have been better prepared for the lighting than engadget.
#3: engadget: Joshua Topolsky, who pals around with Jimmy Fallon in his spare time, did almost as well, although he did seem to lag behind Ryan on speed of posting information. He was on pace with posting pictures but they appeared to be of slightly less quality and darker than Gizmodo’s (may have been his angle). Topolsky stayed focused on bits of information and direct quotes from Jobs’ himself. Engadget’s servers also appeared to be less prepared as the site struggled with traffic.
It’s almost time for the Superbowl again, which means companies are getting ready to shell out significant money for a 30-second commercial spot on the one day people actually watch – and look forward to – the commercials. This year’s estimated cost for 30 seconds of airtime: $2.5 million (if only that could go toward creating jobs).
In preparation for the big game, Coca-Cola has debut a sneak preview of a Superbowl add (well, part of one anyway) on their Facebook fan page in order to raise money for the Boys & Girls Club of America (and get some consumer attention). The add can be viewed in the Live Positively tab of the page.
In order to see the commercial – which features the Simpson’s – users must post a gift (a.k.a. post/note) to a friend’s wall. Each gift results in a $1 donation from Coke to the Boys & Girls Club of America, and Coke will donate up to $250,000 total (the equivalent of a 3 second add during the Superbowl).
After sending a gift, users are able to watch a sneak peak of the commercial. While it seems promising (it’s about the country’s economic problems – what else!), I have no idea how it ties into Coke (however, the currently Blackberry commercial on TV has more to do with purchasing a Beatles album on iTunes then it has to do with the Blackberry).
One would have to be living deep under an enormous rock not to know that today Apple is launching its new product – the iPad. As the media continues to flood with buzz about the product launch, there are several key takeaways for businesses planning their next product launch:
1) Who are you again? – Part of the reason the Apple iPad is creating such a stir is that it’s attached to a major brand name. If the press and consumers already know about your company, they will be more eager to see what you do next. Building strong brand recognition should be a top priority in on-going business strategy.
2) Go big or go home – Although this may seem obvious, when launching a new product, be sure it is actually new. Offer your target market something completely unique that the industry has not yet seen or experienced.
3) Anything you can do, I can do better – Consumers are already able to read content on their laptops, mobile phones and e-readers, but those screens can be small. Apple is bringing to market a product that will enhance electronic reading with a large, sleek screen and agreements with newspapers and magazines to display their content on this new wider lay out. Why have something that only meets some of your needs, when you could have something that meets all?
4) X Marks the Spot – When blocking off a day on the calendar for a launch, be sure to do your homework. Find out what other stories and events are taking place that same day or week. For example, launching a product today, the same day as the Apple iPad announcement and the President’s State of the Union address would not be a good idea. Choose a date for your launch when the story will have the biggest impact.
5) Plant the seed – Want to make a splash on launch day? Let your top press targets know about the announcement in advance. Although the topic of embargoes is a heated debate amongst PR professionals and reporters, if a reporter is willing to honor an embargo, giving them time to research their story in advance of launch day is extremely beneficial. Highly informed, accurate news coverage is the best kind of coverage.
Disclosure: Racepoint works with Sony’s e-reader division.
Some waking from a coma this week might think the Apple Tablet is able to find the cure to cancer or create world peace due to all of the attention that it’s getting. There are articles popping up left and right telling us all about this new tablet, even though we still don’t have real confirmation that it exists. It’s overshadowing everything, including President Obama’s speech tomorrow – which seems to be a lot more important then Apple’s rumored new device. Has a gadget ever received so much attention before it was launched or confirmed?
Sure, the Apple Tablet sounds cool – I admit, it should be good for newspapers and magazines if it can provide them with a decent revenue model, but it’s not like people are going to need to purchase this product – it’s very much a luxury. First, it will likely be very expensive, just like all of Apple’s products. This means then a very small percentage of the population will actually purchase one. Second, is a tablet the right product for right now? People have been purchasing smaller mobile devices (smart phones), not larger ones. Since the Tablet won’t fit in your pocket, it simply replaces a laptop, or becomes another gadget for the living room.
I understand that people follow Apple’s every move, but this time it seems a bit overdone (how funny would it be if tomorrow’s announcement is about a completely different topic!) Can we please see the Tablet for what it really is: another device Apple wants us to purchase and add to our collection of gadgets so that we can post tweets and brag about which gadgets we have and how cool they are.
I’m not against the Tablet (although the constant talk is getting pretty old at this point), I’m just questioning how it can possible live up to the hype. If it was some other lesser known company that was developing it, there would be a lot of questions brought up instead of people drooling over the chance to see some photo-shopped picture of the device.
So let’s take a step back and see what the Tablet is all about before we credit it with changing the world.
Disclosure: Racepoint Group works with Sony’s eReader division.
I’ve written before about the need for press releases to evolve. Yes, the formal release that some folks still cling to may be dead – but there is a growing need for social or digital media releases that distribute multi-media information to consumers and media members.
At Racepoint Group we’ve been using PitchEngine for several of our clients who are interested in distributing announcements and news via a more social, cost-effective platform. The service has been good for the most part. The free service that PitchEngine offers, in it’s most basic form, distributes social media releases that live for 30 days. The use of this platform (which gets picked-up by Google News), in addition to a release going live and living on a corporate Website, has been a good mix for most companies.
PitchEngine allows you to add images and links to video to each social media release – in addition to making it easy to share on social networks. However, despite the growth of the service (they note 14,000 brands have created thousands of releases since it launched in October 2008 ), the ability to physically embed video and other multi-media files is still a challenge. The overall feeling you get is that the text is still more important than the visual – which in this day and age seems backwards.
This is where PressLift enters the equation. The new service and platform created by Drop.io - a New York-based, social, file-sharing service – will officially launch during Social Media Week in February. However the Beta or Meta version of the Website is now live at PressLift.com. PressLift aims to be the simplest and best way share multi-media with press and consumers – all of which will be easily embeddable.
While it doesn’t appear that PressLift, will offer a “free service” – its Drop.io creator Steve Greenwood noted recently that it would be competitively priced (although not subscription-based) – the paid service may be appealing to brands and digital-minded agencies who realize the need to address a better delivery mechanism for rich content.
Unlike PitchEngine’s customizable news rooms (paid service – ($35/mo or $400/yr for standard archiving/hosting for unlimited releases), which offers a slightly customized experience (Vanity URL’s often have numbers attached, video is hard to bring in); PressLift aims to create a real customized experience that offers a real sub-domain for brands (company.presslift.com).
In fact, one way to look at PressLift is as an “informational micro-site” rather than a press release or even a press room. One of PressLift’s promises is that creating a PressLift page “is as easy as creating a Facebook page.” Will the service deliver on its promises? Time will tell. We’ve begun to try out the service in its meta form and will have more to report back over the next couple weeks.
Last week, only a few days before Apple declared record sales for its iPhone, The White House entered the fray of iPhone applications. The administration’s iPhone app “puts the latest information from the White House in the palm of your hands,” according to its pitchman – White House press secretary Robert Gibbs.
In addition to listing out the applications functions, such as: accessing exclusive photos, videos and Webcasts; Gibbs takes the opportunity to take a lighthearted shot at the White House press corps.
“In fact, if you want to see me set the White House press corps straight every day, live, now there’s an app for that,” Gibbs coyly delivers before walking into a daily press briefing.
Add “making a joke about blowing up an airport” to the list of what not to tweet.
After a canceled flight disrupted his travel plans, British traveler Paul Chambers (26 years old) wrote on Twitter that he was going to blow the U.K.’s Robin Hood Airport sky high:
Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your sh** together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!
However, the authorities did not find this particular tweet to be very funny. A week following the post, the man was arrested under the country’s Terrorism Act and question for hours. He was eventually banned from going to this specific airport again
This is not the first time this has happens – but it is the first reported case in the U.K.
Earlier this week Cision and George Washington University released a survey, which reported that 84 percent of journalists believe social media sources are less reliable than traditional ones. Of the nearly 400 editors/journalists, which answered a custom questionnaire, 89 percent reported using blogs, 65 percent reported using social networking sites and 52 percent reported using micro-blogging sites like Twitter as part of their news gathering.
However, almost all of the respondents noted the reliability issues with Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites. In fact, none of the responding journalists / editors said “that news and information delivered via social media is a lot more reliable than news delivered via traditional media.”
Is this really a surprise though? I’m a huge advocate of journalists, editors and news organizations using these social media platforms, but I think we all understand that you need to take your bits of information and source leads with a grain of a salt. Yes, they’re a great tool for finding new potential leads, stories and information, but after that it comes back to the basic guidelines of reporting (verifying with two sources, fact checking, being objective, etc.).
That’s why this whole sending 5 journalists to a farmhouse in France with only Twitter and Facebook access to report stories doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Yes, it’s fun story. A bizzaro, Real World France-journalistic hybrid; but it won’t really prove anything. While these tools are growing in importance, they’re still just a part of your toolbox. The phone is still a powerful tool – people will say things there that they won’t say on social media or in an email (no paper trail). Your writing acumen, commons sense, etc. are powerful tools.
In addition, when looking strictly at news gathering – corporate Websites continue to be the most common destination for reporters doing background research or looking for information (Chart below).
Of course, the study also overlooks that social media is a powerful distribution / aggregation tool for journalists and editors. According to Venturebeat the NYTimes.com received nearly 3% of its traffic from Facebook in December 2009. And even with a scheduled move to metered traffic, the Timeswill still allow referral traffic from social media sites to see Times stories, without counting against their “meter”.
So while the five strangers picked to live in a farm-house in France, and have their stories Twittered, may have trouble confirming their sources and fact-checking, they should have no trouble distributing their stories.
When Twitter exploded in popularity over the past year it was largely because of the celebrity influence on the micro social networking site – not it’s ability to welcome new users. For those unfamiliar with Twitter (as most new users are) it was difficult to find people that you genuinely were interested in following.
However, Twitter has just launched a new tool that suggests who to follow in 20 different areas/topics. This allows users to finally an easy way to locate interesting people in the topics they’re passionate about.
While almost most of the recommended Twitter handles aren’t people (or businesses) that are going to follow back and engage in conversation, it does help get new users acquainted with Twitter.
Peter Shankman’s HARO (Help A Reporter Out) announced today that the service will become a little more personalized next week. In a blog post, Shankman reported that on Tuesday, HARO will begin offering users new ways to access the site, and trim down the amount of queries they receive daily.
Among the new features HARO will offer:
Subscribers can chose which sections of HARO they want to receive and access HARO through email (the current method) or through HARO’s website.
Advertisers can chose to place ads for individual sections (i.e. technology, lifestyle).
Reporters can rate and comment on pitches (a tool Shankman hopes will teach people how to write better pitches).
Shankman says that while each of these updates have come from user feedback, these are all optional, so that subscribers and advertisers only have to make these changes if they want to.
HARO’s turn towards personalization is a smart move, as recent emails have given subscribers as many as 75 queries to search through – which can be overwhelming and time consuming. Furthermore, making all changes optional allows HARO to keep its users happy, unlike every time Facebook implements massive mandatory changes to its layout.
