Posts filed under 'New York Times'
By Molly Galler
Today is the first day of the annual South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, TX. From all corners of the earth musicians, film makers and techies join forces for a week of round the clock events and celebrations.
This year, taking center stage on the tech side are GPS based social networks. If you are an active Twitter user, you have seen these updates in your feed. Perhaps a friend has announced they’ve become the mayor of Starbucks thanks to Foursquare. These social networks are becoming more popular and their hope is to become widely adopted by the end of this week.
Caroline Waxler wrote a piece today for Fortune magazine’s Brainstorm Tech blog in which she explains that two heavy hitters in the location-tagging social network space, Foursquare and Austin based hometown hero Gowalla, are viewing South by Southwest as the perfect venue to show their network’s superiority. On the head-to-head match up she writes:
“This is so closely watched at South by Southwest not because people feel like they’re witnessing magic but more for two reasons: One, everyone loves a good rivalry and two, South By Southwest attendees by definition love to geek out. (It’s affectionately known as “spring break for nerds.”) And, what better way to do that than to compete over who is the top visitor to the various venues associated with it? Foursquare is even giving out temporary tattoos to commemorate those achievements.”
Why all the fuss over this one conference? Jenna Wortham of the New York Times wrote on today’s Bits blog:
“For start-up hopefuls, capturing the fancy of the attendees is almost as important as checking out the panels and parties. The high concentration of tech savants supplies a rare opportunity for companies to woo the eyes and clicks of early adopters and influential Twitter users and bloggers capable of elevating their sites and services out of obscurity.”
SXSW runs today through Sunday March 21st and in that time frame Foursquare and Gowalla hope that the heavy hitters in tech will not only adopt their social networks into their daily lives, but spread the word to the masses. One location at a time.
March 12th, 2010
By Ben Haber
Earlier this week New York Times business reporter Zachery Kouwe resigned following a plagiarism debacle. While attention was originally drawn to an article that appeared exceptionally similar to a story in The Wall Street Journal, an investigation found that additional articles by Kouwe appear to have been plagiarized from various other media outlets.
Kouwe’s job was focused on writing for the Times‘ DealBook section and blog, which requires relatively short posts and articles about the large amount of business-related news.
While I was not in Kouwe’s position, I’d imagine that he spent most of his days browsing through press releases and news to identify topics for the blog, and used these releases and article as sources for information. Yes, he should have been more diligent in writing this information in his own words, but I don’t think this is entirely his fault – there is a problem with the system.
As blogs and breaking news reporting have taken over our news cycle, reporters have begun using other media outlets as sources more regularly. It’s easy to simply throw in a boxed quote onto a blog post – and enables you to get the information to your readers more efficiently and quickly then re-writing it yourself. However, if Kouwe simple posted large amounts of Wall Street Journal and BusinessWeek content into his articles, the Times’ would suddenly look like the Business Insider – which they definitely don’t want.
While only Kouwe knows if his plagiarism debacle was intentional or not, it’s clear that his job was to produce a lot of content daily through news announcements and articles, because there was no way he had enough time to actually investigate news like in the past. Is it his fault that he wrote his articles a little too carelessly or the Times’ fault for putting him in this position to begin with?
February 19th, 2010
By Molly Galler
Paul Levy is the CEO of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) in Boston, but that is probably not why you recognize his name.
In addition to his post as Chief Executive Officer of a major teaching hospital in a world renowned medical hub, he is also the founder and author of a health care blog called Running a Hospital and is an active Twitter user from the handle @PaulFLevy.
We met with Paul yesterday afternoon to hear about his social media success and naturally, to pick his brain.
Paul began his talk by saying, “All communications from a company should reflect that company’s values.” Agree.
He went on to say that, “At our place, the mission is to treat our patients the way we would want a member of our own family treated.” Agree again. As a side note, Paul continually referred to BIDMC as “our place,” giving a sincere sense of responsibility, community and family to the place he drives into each morning for work.
Given his position on corporate communication, and his company’s mission, in 2006 he decided he’d like to start a blog; a blog that reflected the company’s values and furthered their mission. Thus, Running a Hospital was born.
One of the first blog posts Paul published that caused quite a stir, publically disclosed central line infection rates at the hospital. The hospital staff had set a goal to lower infection rates, and Paul wanted to share their progress. He didn’t ask permission, he just posted it. Does that make you nervous?
The response did something miraculous. Knowing that their success was being publically documented, the medical staff felt an additional resurgence and enthusiasm for meeting their goal. Paul said, “That was the moment I like to say I invented transparency as a management tool.”
Not only did he see the blog as opportunity to motivate and reward his staff, but he had another idea. What if all the other areas hospital also posted their infection rates? Let’s just say, the response was not positive. I believe the word Paul used was “hostile.” No surprise here, as the BIDMC team committed to reducing their rates and sharing their progress, other hospitals felt threatened and exposed. Hello, competitive edge.
While they may have started to position themselves uniquely from the other local hospitals by sharing information on the blog, did it impact their business and revenue?
You bet it did. The Vanguard health system began to send its patients to the BIDMC emergency room instead of a competitor they had long been referring their patients to. This referral shift caused a 10% increase in patient volume. Not too shabby.
While the medical community is clearly paying attention to the blog (it is currently ranked #11 on the Healthcare100.com blog list), is anyone else?
You bet. When speaking to reporters at the Boston Globe, New York Times and Wall Street Journal, Paul will frequently begin to tell a story and the reporter will interrupt and say, “I know, I read it on your blog.”
When I asked why he chose to communicate through a blog, Paul asks, “Why wouldn’t I use a tool like this? I can share my point of view with a much larger audience than I ever could via a medium like say, the telephone.” He also goes on to say, “A blog is a lower risk method of communication. There is no risk of being misquoted.” If you are wondering if he really writes each post himself, he says, “I assure you my media team does not write these posts, in fact, I get in trouble for scooping reporters on stories without knowing it! I get the idea to write about something, and I do.”
When asked how patients have responded to the blog, Paul shares that, “Patients seem to enjoy the blog. Several of them have sent me their personal stories and when I ask permission to share the stories via the blog they always say yes. Then they forward it to everyone they know.” I think we’ve all been guilty of that type of family email!
Paul’s social media reach extends far beyond the blog. He is an active Twitter user with over 2,900 followers. He only follows 170 people which he explains are, “people I trust and who I am interested in. Their tweets have become my news stream. Twitter has become my librarian.”
Paul is also an active user of Facebook. In fact, during his talk he encouraged everyone in the room to “friend” him. He shared that he receives comments and messages from employees and friends in their twenties who he would otherwise never hear from via corporate email. He is on Facebook to reach people where they are, via the mode of communication they identify with.
Paul has also worked with his team on pages on the social networking site Grateful Nation. They have an employee challenge to see who can raise the most funds for relief efforts in Haiti. They also have a team running the Boston Marathon and that team has put their fundraising pages on Grateful Nation.
Paul Levy is a man who rather than fear the uncontrollable nature of social media has decided to dive in, learn, create, and share via the myriad of available social media tools and networks.
He has inspired his staff both inside and outside the workplace, he has challenged his competitors, and he has positively impacted his business’ bottom line. Now that’s called running a hospital.
February 2nd, 2010
By Molly Galler
Back in October 2008, I wrote a post about charitable organizations embracing donations via text message to help meet their end of year fundraising goals. This week the island nation of Haiti suffered a devastating earthquake and two high profile charities, the Red Cross and Yele (founded by Haitian musician Wyclef Jean), urged those wishing to send aid to make a donation not via check, email, or even online donations, instead they asked for one simple item – a text message.
By text messaging a special code to the Red Cross or Yele you could make a donation to relief efforts in Haiti with the push of just a few keys on your phone. Last week I wrote about some of the exciting mobile technologies unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and its clear that the mobile trend is not just for tech, it has spread to non-profit.
The Red Cross text message donations are being managed by a company called mGive. mGive’s chief executive, Tony Aiello, told Jenna Wortham of the New York Times, “Catastrophic fund-raising is different from the everyday fund-raising that we help facilitate. This is a huge tragedy, and we simply hope to help provide relief. . . Mobile giving is currently outpacing the early days of online giving.”
How popular is the donation method exactly?
In an interview with MSNBC’s Suzanne Choney, Jeffrey Nelson, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless said, “All mobile texters in the United States have contributed $4 million to the Red Cross Haiti earthquake relief effort, the largest outpouring of charitable support by texting in history — by far.”
Nelson went on to say, “Previous donating-via-text message efforts raised $400,000 after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and $200,000 after the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami by all wireless customers in the U.S.”
And it doesn’t end there. To get out the word about donating via text, concerned individuals posted the text message codes on a plethora of social networks, making the plea viral.
Jennifer Van Grove of Mashable wrote a post today praising the Red Cross’ decision to use mobile and social media to raise awareness and more importantly, to raise funds. Van Grove said, “The Red Cross’s involvement in the relief effort is to be commended. Not only did it immediately set up the simplest donation method possible, but its social media presence and outreach, when combined with the State Department’s involvement, has turned this into a viral funding initiative, topping Twitter trends and inspiring action.”
This week it has become clear the most effective method of raising funds is to reach people where they are: on their phones and on social networks. When launching a fundraising campaign, in the wake of a crisis or otherwise, fundraisers should consider that their staring point is in fact mobile.
January 14th, 2010
By Molly Galler
This week is the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas and each morning we’ve been inundated with updates on the newest unveilings from the electronics giants.
Today’s news seems to be focused on the internet going mobile. I am not talking about on your laptop or on your smart phone; I am talking, actually on the move. In your car.
Yes, that’s correct Ford has announced it will soon make an internet dashboard that will become a standard feature in all of its vehicles.
In today’s New York Times article titled “Despite Risks, Internet Creeps Onto Car Dashboards,” Ashlee Vance and Matt Ritchell give all the details of the new system:
“A complex new dashboard console from Ford, which it plans to unveil Thursday, brings the car firmly into the land of electronic gadgets. The 4.2-inch color screen to the left of the speedometer displays information about the car, like the fuel level, while a companion screen on the right shows things like the name of a cellphone caller or the title of the digital song file being played. An eight-inch touch screen tops the central console, displaying things like control panels and, when the car is not moving, Web pages. The system has Wi-Fi capability, two U.S.B. ports and a place to plug in a keyboard — in short, many of the features of a standard PC. The automakers’ efforts are backed by companies that make chips for PCs and that want to see their processors slotted into the 70 million cars sold worldwide each year.”
In addition to the new dashboard USA Today is reporting that Ford is also commissioning tech companies to create apps for this new system, one of which will read your tweets from Twitter out loud while you drive.
Obviously the concern here is safety. What does Ford have to say for itself? Jim Buczkowski, the director of global electrical and electronics systems engineering at Ford said, “We are trying to make that driving experience one that is very engaging.”
While in general, the concern here is that distracted drivers make for unsafe driving conditions for all, from a PR and marketing perspective, this also changes the game.
Currently, tradition media, both print and broadcast, is struggling to hold onto it’s advertisers who are opting for the higher traffic online and mobile outlets. Without advertising it is impossible from some of these traditional outlets to stay afloat. Brining mobile off of laptops and smart phones and into people’s cars give those advertisers one more reason to choose to advertise with online and mobile, as opposed to with traditional print or broadcast media which could be the final nail in the coffin for some of these struggling outlets.
Is Ford driving away with the future of traditional media?
January 7th, 2010
By Kyle Austin
In his typical fashion, David Carr of the New York Times eloquently sums up in today’s Media Equation column why coverage of business isn’t following the business rebound. Or as he mixes words much better than I, “Business is a Beat Deflated.”
Despite, positive news on the economic front, those that cover business continue to be hit with painful developments, which Carr references:
- Last week the Wall Street Journal closed down its Boston office, which had been a long-time staple of deep-dive reporting and investigative journalism. Although they noted that some investigative function will remain, the closing ended Bill Bulkeley’s multi-decade run at the Journal. Bulkeley had been with the Journal for 37 years, covering technology since 1979. He was, up until his exit, the main beat reporter of IBM and EMC, two Fortune 500 staples. (Update: Bill noted to me earlier this week that he was “blindsided” by the closing and was still trying to figure out what was next after 3 decades there).
- BusinessWeek, was sold after 80 year’s of ownership by McGraw-Hill for as little as $2 million a few weeks ago.
- Fortune announced last week that it will cut back from 25 issues to 18 issues a year. In addition, insiders believe that additional cuts will occur across TIME Inc. magazine properties by the end of the year.
- Forbes already announced last week that it will cut a quarter of its staff.
- Carr doesn’t mention that his own paper will shed 100 news room jobs by the end of the year.
Carr uses the data to outline his theory that: “While the business of business may be back, the business of covering it with heroic narratives and upbeat glossy spreads most certainly is not. And probably never will be.”
Its hard to argue against and even tougher to explain to clients (especially CEO’s) that have grown accustomed to associating PR success with their appearances on glossy covers. Peter Himler touched on this last week, when looking at Michael Bush’s piece for Ad Age:
“There remains a vast swath of corporate communicators and their bosses in the C-suite for which a Twitterfeed, company blog, YouTube or Facebook page takes a distant backseat to a prominent piece in Business Week or The Journal or an appearance on ‘Today’ or ‘Squawk Box.’ Believe it or not, even a client’s by-line in the world’s most popular (and conversation catalyzing) blog Huffington Post isn’t viewed by many as having the same value as a piece in The New York Times or the New Yorker.”
It’s not going to get any better. As we know, the business of business journalism is broken in the digital age. With business updates by the second, readership for past-tense features are rapidly dwindling. Therefore, ad dollars that still exist, are moving away from the magazines and into new digital channels. However, Carr hits on something much deeper than just the business being broken. He attributes part of the collapse to consumer resentment and being out of date / touch:
“It’s not that the public has lost its appetite for stories about handsome men in three-piece suits who clink whiskey glasses at the end of a long, not-so-hard day while talking smack about their female co-workers. But “Mad Men” pretty much sates that need. The businessman as Colossus is by now a nostalgic impulse.”
It’s a valid argument. Heck, TIME is trying to leverage the resentment as a way to make money on its business coverage (cover above). Unfortunately, that isn’t a good story for TIME’s colleagues at Fortune, the Bill Bulkeley’s of the world or CEO’s looking to get their name in print – or even Google searches. Those that consume business media consume, as Carr notes “hope and aspiration.”
The issue of Fortune on newsstands now, adorned with a digital image of Obama and Google glasses will probably be one of the best-selling issues of the year. Just like this Economist cover probably was. Therefore, when I look back a few weeks ago to Bulkeley telling me in advance of a briefing that he and the WSJ Boston office were kept away from Obama’s cleantech discussion at MIT “because DC owns all Obama coverage,” it was probably a bad sign on a variety of fronts.
There just isn’t much hope in business journalism these days, unless you’re working on cable TV.
November 2nd, 2009
By Ben Haber
In April 2009 the New York Times Co. threatened to shut down the Boston Globe, unless $20 million in cuts were made from the unions. After a tumultuous 6 months, it appears that the Boston Globe is ready to move on, and just last week the Times Co. decided to take the Globe off the market after receiving at least two preliminary offers for $35 million. The Times Co. noted that the Globe has significantly improved its financial footing by following the strategic plan it set out at the beginning of this year, a positive sign for the paper that was losing $1 million a week earlier this calendar year.
Yesterday, it was Boston’s neighboring city that would receive the bad news, as the New York Times executive editor Bill Keller sent out a memo announcing that the newsroom needs to be trimmed by 100 people. Employees will first receive buyout offers (which the Globe did in February 2008), and layoffs will occur if the needed cuts are not met.
Here is an excerpt from Keller’s memo to his staff:
I had planned to invite you to the newsroom and break this news in person today, but I’ve been hit by something that seems to be the flu. Though I strongly believe in delivering bad news in person, I don’t want to add insult to injury by spreading infection.
Let me cut to the chase: We have been told to reduce the newsroom by 100 positions between now and the end of the year.
We hope to accomplish this by offering voluntary buyouts. On Thursday, the Company will be sending buyout offers to everyone in the newsroom.
Getting a buyout package does NOT mean we want you to leave. It is simply easier to send the envelopes to everyone. If you think a buyout may be right for you, you have up to 45 days to decide whether you will accept it or not.
As before, if we do not reach 100 positions through buyouts, we will be forced to go to layoffs. I hope that won’t happen, but it might.
Our colleagues in editorial and op-ed, and on the business side, also face another round of budget cuts.
October 20th, 2009
By Molly Galler
This morning Peter Shankman, PR guru and founder of Help A Reporter Out, tweeted “Social Media is nothing more than a platform to showcase customer service, whether good or bad. Are your CS priorities accurate?”
Customer service via social media is the top priority for electronics giant Best Buy as it ramps up its ad campaign for the holiday season. According to a piece by Saul Hansell in today’s New York Times, Best Buy is centering their entire holiday advertising campaign around their customer service Twitter handle @Twelpforce (Twitter + Help Force = Twelpforce).
The ads feature customers asking a question to a stadium full of blue shirt wearing Best Buy tech geeks while the Twitter web address is superimposed on the screen. While not all consumers are using Twitter (or even know what it is), Best Buy recognizes that a majority of their customers are gadget addicts who are likely very technologically savvy. With that in mind, Best Buy is reaching their customers where they are – using Twitter on their phones, lap tops and desk top computers.
Barry Judge, Best Buy’s Chief Marketing Officer commented to the New York Times, “ . . . many people who watch the commercial will have no idea what Twitter is. That’s O.K. The commercials stand on their own, but the Twitter reference adds a little post Web 2.0 sizzle for those in the know.”
The emergence of the Twelpforce in July of this year scored Best Buy a cover story on Tech Crunch. Since then the Twelpforce has earned nearly 13,000 followers and has answered an estimated 20,000 questions from interested consumers.
And Best Buy is not stopping there. The company has revamped their Facebook page to allow for easier feedback on products between users. The company also plans to release videos of 25 Christmas songs with new lyrics that talk about the best tech gifts for this season. The videos will be released online, using the Tiny URL service to shorten the links and make sharing easier on social media platforms. Can you hear it? “Jingle bells, buy a Dell. . .”
Best Buy has fully embraced social media by actively using Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to allow consumers to engage with the brand, learn about new products and promotions, and access live customer service. When the company reports its Q4 sales numbers, surely this will have a significant and measurable impact.
To companies who fear the “untamable social media beast” I say, observe the Twelpforce and start taking notes.
October 1st, 2009
By Kyle Austin
Social media is obviously a hot topic for the mainstream media. They see opportunity in using it towards turning their career paths and organizations around, and thus their coverage of it is through the roof.
That said, it was puzzling to hear earlier this year that a survey by PR Week / PRNewswire found that only 22% of journalists were leveraging Twitter for crowd-sourcing, connecting with readers and aggregating their stories on the Web. A separate survey, around the same time, by the TEKgroup found that only 38% of journalists would be interested in receiving corporate news via corporate Twitter handles. Yes, those second numbers seemed promising, but where were the mandates to adopt these strategies – FAST?
Well, perhaps the moves by media organizations like the New York Times, to get serious with social media have paid off.
According to a new survey from Middleberg Communications and the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR), 70% of journalists said they use social networks to assist in reporting. Compare that to the 41% that said they used social networks to assist in last year’s “Survey of Media in the Wired World.”
The online survey, which will remain open for a few more weeks, has the responses of 317 journalists to date. Far less than the 2,174 polled by PR Week and PR Newswire in April, so the validity of the findings may be in doubt.
For what it’s worth, The Survey of Media in the Wired World also found that:
- 69% of journalists go to company Web sites to assist in their reporting
- 66% use blogs
- 51% use Wikipedia
- 48% go to online videos
- 47% use Twitter or other microblogging services
- 30% use instant messaging
- 25% use podcasts
September 24th, 2009
By Molly Galler
Both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal are reporting today that Google Inc.’s YouTube is negotiating with several major Hollywood movie studios to begin offering users access to full-length films on the website (for a small fee, of course).
The average consumer visits YouTube to surf free video clips or upload personal videos to share with family and friends. If you could also utilize the site to stream newly released movies, why wouldn’t you?
Both YouTube and several Hollywood studio giants are banking that you will.
For YouTube itself, these kinds of partnerships represent a chance to move out of the red and head down the path toward profitability. The New York Times reports, “. . . much of YouTube’s audience visits the site to watch a random mix of clips generated by amateurs, which advertisers view with trepidation. As a result, YouTube has been on a long quest to obtain more professionally produced video that it can use to generate revenue and offset the enormous cost of streaming billions of free clips.”
For the movie studios, a deal with YouTube means a much wider, global audience for their films, which is critical as the sale of DVDs continue to plummet. The Wall Street Journal agrees, “Though many studios now sell and rent movies online through services such as iTunes and Amazon.com, that has yet to produce meaningful revenue. By cutting a deal with YouTube, which had nearly 428 million global visitors in June, according to comScore, it can potentially reach a much wider audience.”
While both YouTube and the proposed Hollywood studio partners stand to gain substantially if this deal gets the green light, other entertainments outlets such as Netflix, will need a new game plan to keep up.
Currently, Netflix has adapted to the changing media landscape by offering streaming video to its customers in addition to shipping the hard copy DVDs. As the demand for streaming video continues, will a site with only that one function be able to stand its ground?
If you are a Netflix subscriber, would you cancel your membership when videos become available for purchase on YouTube?
September 3rd, 2009
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