It’s that time of year, again: where the SXSW Interactive 2012PanelPicker is open for public voting! For those of you who are already versed in the innovative, educational treasure trove that is SXSW, I don’t think I need to expound any further. For the rest of you, read on:
“The 19th annual SXSW® Interactive Festival challenges you to envision the future of innovative technology. Featuring five days of compelling presentations from the brightest minds in emerging media and scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders, SXSW Interactive offers an unbeatable line up of special programs showcasing the best new websites, digital projects, wireless applications, video games and startup ideas the community has to offer. From hands-on training to big-picture analysis, SXSW Interactive has become the place to preview of what is unfolding in the world of creative technology.” – SXSWi’s “About” page
One of the really cool parts about SXSW (you know, aside from all that exposure to cutting edge media and tech mentioned above) is the crowd-sourced component of the event’s sessions via the site’s PanelPicker. Last week, public voting opened for over 3600 very strong speaking proposals. Public voting will factor into the selection of a privileged 500 or so for the show itself. That’s right: YOU have a say in who makes it to the agenda. What better incentive to attend is there? Voting ends 11:59 p.m. CDT on Friday, September 2, so hurry up and add your two cents.
Of note, your friends at Racepoint Group and Digital Influence Group have thrown a couple hats into the ring. Check out the sessions below and if you like them, feel free to vote (and encourage your friends to do so, too).
Everyone knows that the media industry has experienced widespread changes during the past few years. As a result of these changes (particularly the creation of a 24/7 real-time news cycle) many media outlets have changed the way they work with businesses and PR companies.
There have been a few outlets that have been the driving forces of these changes, most notably TechCrunch, which has done its best to make the embargo extinct. Unfortunately, TechCrunch often takes on the role of the the schoolyard bully, blasting theentirePRindustry. That is why I want to take a moment to call your attention to Wade Roush, the chief corespondent at Xconomy.
I’ve worked with Wade many times in the past when he was located in the Boston area (he’s now in San Francisco) and each time he was an absolute pleasure to work with (I also did a Q&A with him for RaceTalk, which you can view here). After (what I believe to be) years of frustration around broken embargoes, Wade faced the music on May 6 and declared the embargo dead (for him). As TechCrunch did, Wade wrote a story about why he’s no longer going to work with embargoes. However, instead of attacking an entire industry while making this announcement, Wade provided reasoning, explanations and advice.
On July 29 Wade wrote another story related to PR, this time focused on how he decides which stories to write about. In this three page article, Wade explains the various ways that he finds story ideas, the types of articles that he wants to write and the best ways to approach him in order to maximize everyone’s time. Once again, the article was informative and respectful, and it was clear that Wade spent a great deal of time trying to educate and help the PR people that he currently works with and may work with in the future.
The purpose of this post is not only to share Wade’s tips and advice, so PR people can work well with him and other reporters and bloggers. I also want to take a moment and point out how Wade is a shining example of a great media person to work with. He is thoughtful, respectful, considerate, and most importantly, a great journalist.
As anyone reading this blog is aware, News Corp CEO and Chairman Rupert Murdoch is in a bit of hot water. Newspapers that he owns – particularly British tabloid paper News of the World, was caught in a shameful and embarrassing phone hacking scandal, where they hacked into the voice mail messages of a murdered schoolgirl, relatives of deceased British soldiers, and victims of the 7/7 London bombings.
Since this news broke, people from News of the World and News Corp have been blamed, fired, arrested, and even found dead. And to make matters worse for Murdoch, the FBI is now investigating to see if News Corp publications hacked into phones of September 11th victims.
While Murdoch states that this is the most humbling time of his life, it also creates a very difficult time for his 51,000 employees at newspapers, magazines, television stations and online outlets around the world. Quite simply, they are forced to report on the despicable actions that that their company, and potentially their CEO, are responsible for.
Just imagine how uncomfortable it must be to report that the person in charge of your company, and ultimately responsible for your job, could be guilty of illegal and unthinkable actions. In the video below, staff from FOX News makes it clear that the topic is not one they’re enjoying when the topic first breaks.
However, as information around the scandal has developed and hearings have taken place, Murdoch has been at the mercy of the enormous media empire that he himself built. And the reporters that he hired to report the news and share their own opinions and insight into our current events are now looking at him and his gigantic media conglomerate in the most critical light, with no choice but to report the despicable acts that have occurred.
Yesterday VentureBeat announced that Jolie O’Dell has joined the outlet as a technology and business writer. O’Dell is a terrific writer that will allow VentureBeat to cover more areas of technology and businesses, and comes to the publication after a year-long stint at Mashable.
The big question I had whens seeing this news, is why did O’Dell leave Mashable, a blog growing whats seems exponentially every day?
O’Dell wrote a blog post explaining her decision, which complements Mashable and all of the people she worked with there. However, she is very clear about why she decided to leave: too much fluff coverage. Here it is in her own words:
I was beginning to kick against the pricks, so to speak, about some of the directions Mashable was taking. The posts that have made Mashable the powerhouse it is have been by turns in-depth/insightful and popular/timely. Perhaps because I’m a lifelong cultural contrarian (and certainly because I loved the company enough to want to make substantive positive contributions to its overall tone and character) I was becoming more and more cynical about latter category, regardless of the fact that a large portion of Mashable’s audience very much wanted to read those posts — the celebrity news, the infographics, the current events coverage, et cetera.
I’ll be honest, I do enjoy reading Mashable’s infographics and some of the fluff pieces. However, when I see an entire article on something Justin Bieber posted, I wonder if Mashable’s just trying to get those extra page views.
O’Dell’s honesty and openness in explaining her departure is quite fascinating, and it will be interesting to see if other voice their opinions about Mashable’s topics of coverage moving forward.
If you’ve been watching the news lately, I’m sure you’ve seen the Rep. Anthony Weiner Twitter story. In short, he sent a picture of himself to a woman via Twitter. After denying he sent the picture for about a week (he claimed his Twitter account was hacked), Rep. Weiner finally admitted that he did indeed send the picture, but it was meant to be a direct message.
While the details of this story have supplied endless jokes for the late night comedy shows, it also shows that people have a fabricated sense of privacy. How many times have you heard about people mistakenly sending public tweets that were meant to be private, sending photos that weren’t meant to be shared, or posting a Facebook status that was meant to be a private message.
The social media snafus are endless, and a lot of high-profile people have been making them. Politicians, athletes, actors, musicians – everyone has had their fare share of mistakes. And it’s not just limited to people. Companies, such as Chrysler and Red Cross, have been victim of careless Twitter mistakes when employees published their own tweet to the company handle by mistake.
So what does this all mean? I think there are 3 valuable social media lessons we can learn from Rep. Weiner’s Twitter failure:
Learn how to use social media: If you’re not sure how to use the platform correctly, you’ll probably make a mistake.
Don’t be stupid: If you’re sharing something through social media, make sure it’s appropriate. Privacy is an illusion, just because you share something through a private message, doesn’t mean the person receiving that information won’t publicly distribute that content with one click.
Be honest: If you make a mistake just admit it. Rep. Weiner attracted so much more attention to this story by lying about it, which dragged it on for an entire week. If you mess up admit it right away and move it.
Late last night, much of the digitally connected and cable-wired world learned of the death of Osama Bin Laden. The nation learned through Facebook, Twitter, text messages, CNN, NBC, and pretty much any medium that required some form of electricity. Many of us were engaged on multiple platforms simultaneously, tweeting the President’s remarks as we tuned in to our news stations of choice.
In addition to retweets, emotional reactions and smart-alecky remarks, I noticed another sentiment in my feeds: “I wonder how many editors are ripping up the front pages of tomorrow’s paper at this very moment.” I admit, I was among the curious. However, I figured that the death of the mastermind behind 9/11 was newsworthy enough for those in journalism to pull a frenzied all-nighter.
Either my qualifications for what constitutes “Stop the presses!” are way off-base, or sometimes even the most breaking of news is no match for print media deadlines. While some publications such as The New York Times managed to keep up with the news, others, including USA Today and METRO, did not. Still others, namely The Wall Street Journal, decided not to waste trees, and printed copies with and without the headline news.
It’s not uncommon for me to read about news in Monday morning’s paper that I’d already heard about on Twitter Sunday afternoon, but this will be the first instance where my Tuesday morning paper will likely be featuring Sunday evening’s news. I’m curious to see if and how the editors will address the lag in news time.
After launching a new subscription model on March 28th, the New York Times has reportedly sold 100,000 digital subscriptions over the past three weeks.
While this is a very positive start for the NYT, it’s possible these numbers were aided thanks to a significant discount offered to readers: 99 cents for a 4-week trial. The normal cost of a 4-week subscription ranges from $15 to $35, and it remains to be seen if the trial users decide to continue subscribing past their initial four week subscription offer.
If the NYT can maintain their current subscription rates for a full year it will have a major impact on their bottom line – to the tune of $20 million.
Are you currently subscribed to the NYT with the 99 cents offer, and if so, do you plan on keeping your subscription past the 4-week trial?
Today Sam Whitmore stopped by our office, and we had the chance to catch up with him afterwords and discuss what’s in store for PR and media in 2011, pay-walls and media outlets adoption of group-buying. Check out what he had to say:
This is a guest post from Dan Walsh, an Account Executive at Racepoint Group. Follow him on Twitter @DanWalshed.
RaceTalk recently had an interesting conversation with a blogger for MSNBC.com about a major company’s approach to the media. Once considered one of the most innovative and well respected companies in the world, in recent years it has lost some of its luster with the media and consumers.
One of the reasons for this slip, the blogger hypothesized, was the way they reacted to critical articles and questions posed by the media:
“You know how they tell you that when your car goes into a skid you’re supposed to turn in the direction of the skid? They did the exact opposite – they yanked the wheel the other way.”
As a seasoned New England driver, his point was well taken… this is a recipe for disaster. Very few companies can get away with even temporarily stonewalling the media – let alone making it part of a long-term strategy. As counterintuitive as it may be, often the best way to deal with negative coverage is to open the lines of communication. Find new ways to bring the media in and help them see what makes your company special.
Negative reviews and critical articles are unavoidable. How you respond is completely within your control. Remember: turn in the direction of the skid.
This is a guest post from Dan Walsh, Account Executive in Racepoint Group’s Waltham office. Follow him on Twitter @DanWalshed.
Natali Morris’s announcement yesterday that she’ll be leaving CNET at the end of April was certainly surprising. Not so much because a popular reporter was leaving an influential news site but because that news site wasn’t Engadget.
In case you haven’t noticed, over the last two months the tech media landscape has seen some turnover… to quickly recap:
February 18 – Senior Associate Editor Paul Miller leaves Engadget
March 30 – Senior Mobile Editor Chris Ziegler leaves Engadget
March 30 – Host of CNET’s Loaded and The Early Show Tech Contributor Natali Morris leaves CNET
Perhaps even more surprising is that each of these reporters left their current gigs without a new (public) home in hand.
Personally I’d like to see them all wind up at GDGT.
For the unfamiliar, GDGT was founded by the formidable tag team of Peter Rojas and Ryan Block (of Gizmodo and Engadget fame) and is somewhere between social network and peer review platform.
It was really Natali’s departure that got me thinking about the possibility that GDGT could launch an editorial team. Currently most of the content on the news tab is linked from other sites. Imagine if they were to hire some of the recent free agents listed above. A mix of professional and crowd-sourced reviews with the sharp commentary of any of the pundits above could quickly propel GDGT into direct competition with CNET and Engadget as the premier destination for consumer tech news and reviews.
With Josh leading the direction of the editorial (without the guiding hand of AOL) and Natali taking the reigns as the producer and creator of a GDGT show, the site would develop more of a mass appeal while remaining true to its roots. In short, it would be a force to be reckoned with.
After 
