Worth paying attention to....
And how about this factoid:
In February MySpace.com overtook the BBC site in terms of visitor numbers and grew six-fold year on year, according to internet monitor Hitwise.
Mark Glaser has a pretty humorous take on March Madness as it gets underway today (Full disclosure: As I type this I have the CBS Sportsline live scoreboard open on an alternate screen, but, Andrew, for the record, I am NOT watching video...!).
Coincidentally, I am preparing a presentation titled "Photos, Photos and More Photos (and Maybe Video)" for the sports editors from around Ottaway who will converge on Campbell Hall for a 3-day conference next week, similar to the one we hosted for the online editors. At the end of Glazer's column was this little nugget:
UPDATE: As of 12:30 pm Eastern Time on Thursday, I couldn’t even get into the site to watch live video and was 101,776th in line to get in. If I had registered earlier in the week, and was a VIP member, I would have got in within five minutes. That means at least 200,000 people are watching the tourney video, with 100,000 more watching a “Waiting Room Meter” to see when they’d get in.Now, live video is a labor-intensive and expensive undertaking. It's not likely that most of our locations could pull it off yet. However, it is fun to think about the possibilities for video clips of local, high-profile events that folks from throughout our regions and beyond would love to watch. Think Figawi for Cape Cod and Nantucket, Mavericks for Santa Cruz, or Bayshore Marathon for Traverse City. That's the message I'll be carrying forward to the sports editors: Corner the multimedia market for the quintessential events in your market, and expand from there.
Oh, the irony of the graphic and headline juxtaposition on washingtonpost.com:
More coverage of the sale, via Romanesko....
Calling Dave Winer the Blogfather was my idea, but it apparently isn't as original a moniker as I'd thought. Check out how many folks consider themselves to be more worthy of the title.
Dave Winer, considered by many to be the Blogfather, indicates today that he will stop blogging, probably before the end of this year.
Winer can claim several fames, including that he is among those instrumental to the development and improvement of RSS.
Though you might want to check this out:was our sunday top story
Love it! Anything that adds a three-dimensional quality to the storytelling is a win in my book.Difficulty in pulling it together?
It did not take too much work to pull it all together. On Friday I found out that there was a large graphic illustration of the accident to go with the story. (It ended up running on black and white vertically in print).I was able to reuse the house price map I developed last year, which cut down on the production time enormously. I resized the graphic that one of our print designers created, cut out the mini-maps and renumbered the dots so the map could be displayed horizontally.Once that was done, I dropped the graphic onto the old house price map I had. All that was needed at that point was to re-script the map for the new layers and code in the new text for each spot.Probably took about an hour to build late on Saturday night. Went live at around 3:30 am sunday.
In addition to the multimedia resource materials Lauren Hertel put together in Stockton, you'll find this page useful too. It's podcast-specific, but the equipment would work for any in-house recording you undertake. A bit difficult to take Ludington's equipment on the road, but in my experience it is a good idea to have a dedicated space and equipment for in-house recording, so that a reporter or photographer can take portable equipment on the road and you still have a place at the home office for day-to-day multimedia efforts.
Incidentally, have you checked out Seacoast's robotic podcast? I'm a little uncertain as to how long the monotone voice can hold my attention, but it's a start, right? My unsolicited suggestion: Turn that midday video update into a video podcast, a la Rocketboom.
Anyone else dipping a toe into podcasting?
Jeanne Hubbard in Traverse City points out this audio slideshow-building software: Soundslides.
Runs on Mac OS X 10.3 or higher, and costs $39.95. In use at boston.com, and elsewhere.
Hey Neighbor, Stop Piggybacking on My Wireless - New York Times
Just for the record, if you want to come park in my driveway and use my wireless connection, I've got no problem with the latter. Surf away.
But if you stay longer than an hour, I'm likely to start charging you for parking.
Such is wireless life in suburbia.
OK, so minutes after my last blog post, NYT shows off its breaking news might.
I went back to find the wi-fi article I read earlier today in the print edition, and on their home page at 8:32 p.m. ET they already have the news of George Clooney winning best supporting actor, with a link to a nominees list that they're updating live by adding stars next to the winners.
House blogging inspiration comes today from Stephen Metcalf's feature in The New York Times Magazine. My wife and I have spent the last five years restoring our 19th-century Cape Cod home, so we enjoyed the concept of blogging the work and sharing lessons learned, trials endured, and costs overrun.
But even the esteemed NYT has landed in my doghouse tonight (and I'm sure they're shaking in their shoes...). Metcalf cites three blogs, one of which he names by URL. Thank you. But the print version neglects to pass along the addresses for Our Old House and Casa Decrepit. Count that as pet peeve number one. Pet peeve number two, and the bigger crime? No related links can be found in the online version either.
Why didn't I link to Our Old House above? Because it took me four tries to find the right one. Therein lies the challenge for the reader. Here's the links I hit upon in my search, with the fourth being the correct one:
Loving Len's blog. Good voice. Interesting, newsroom insider transparency. It's good stuff, Len. Hope you're finding it to be a fun experience thus far.
(Now there's some love for ya, buddy!)
Spied via I Want Media today: The State of Blogging at America's 100 Largest Newspapers: Chart by the Blue Plate Special team.
For context, go here.
They're careful to note that this was simply a look at the 100 largest newspapers. They will eventually be looking at smaller papers too.
Interesting podcast idea from NYT: Reporter James Barron describes the three most e-mailed stories every weekday.
But once the why-didn't-I-think-of-that novelty passed, a glaring weakness emerged: As I'm listening to the podcast on iTunes (or my new iPod), I can't click to read the stories.
(Surely Apple is developing wireless connectivity for the iPod, or how about a Bluetooth synch capability? Ah, what do you know... it's apparently in the works.)
Best case scenario for NYT? If I'm listening on the laptop and Barron hits upon a story that I'd like to check out, I have to go to nytimes.com, scroll halfway down their lengthy homepage to find the Most E-mailed module, and hope that the story is still there if I'm listening to that day's podcast (which won't always be the case because I am not yet in the habit of listening to my downloaded podcasts every day, though the recent addition of an iPod to my electronics arsenal may change that).
Phew! That's a lot of work.
If it's not in that module...? Well, NYT has already lost me. I've got to get back to work.
My criticism is in not intended to discourage anyone from podcasting. Instead, it's a reminder that as we experiment with such mediums, we need to be mindful of how the user will interact with it.
And you've read this far into my blog post, here's a treat for you: a direct link to the nytimes.com Most E-mailed page. Also, as a complete non-sequitur, here's a cool snowplow photo from Feb. 14.
Of course, what I'm wondering is that if Manny arrived at 9:01, why did it
take until 9:34 to send a 1-sentence alert? Maybe I'm just being picky....
-----Original Message-----
From: Boston.com Newsletters [mailto:newsletters@boston.com]
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 9:34 AM
To: spolay@ottaway.com
Subject: Breaking sports news: Manny arrives at camp
Manny Ramirez arrived at Red Sox camp in Fort Myers at 9:01 a.m. this
morning, wearing a No. 81 Tim Brown Oakland Raiders jersey and accompanied
by his representatives, including agents Gene Mato and Greg Genske.
