Category: New Media

A Note to Jeff Jarvis of Buzz Machine

I tried to leave a comment on this excellent post from Jeff Jarvis on Buzz Machine. For some reason I got an error message the first time I posted, and then got a duplicate comment warning when I tried again.

Jeff had taken issue with Brian Williams’ approach to interactivity on the NBC Nightly News broadcast. Here’ my comment for Jeff:

I agree completely with your comments. I’m glad NBC is offering its content as a podcast (at least placing its wares in a place that’s more convenient for me, so I can watch on the bus in the morning), but when I saw this mailbag segment Friday I, too, struggled with dyspepsia.

Reading kudos from viewers, utopian “We are the World” suggestions and one lame complaint about choice of tie color and pattern isn’t media glasnost.

At least Bill O’Reilly, whatever you think of him, usually reads a sampling of hate mail and plaudits, to show that “if everyone is mad at you, you must be doing something right.” That’s not great either, but at least it’s a step above this.

Have you checked out Brian Williams’ blog? I haven’t yet (will probably head over there now), but I wonder if that’s interactive to the point that it lets people leave comments.

If it is, maybe you could post a link to your post on his blog.

The big networks aren’t going to turn the keys over to what still is an audience of 8-9 million for their over-the-air program that still commands tens of thousands of dollars per second for ad revenue.

I know you’re saying it formerly was an audience and it used to be content, but if there is going to be real interactivity it’s going to come in a related blog, not in the broadcast.

So maybe I overstated a bit when I started by saying “I agree completely.” I do agree this kind of “pick a few notes from the mailbag” is a waste, but I don’t think we’ll see what you’re advocating in the broadcast program.

The good news is people like us have ways of talking back (as you did). Five years ago we wouldn’t have had a chance.

Are you going to post this on YouTube? I’m wondering why you use embedded QuickTime instead of YouTube. It would seem the BuzzMachine could get even more buzz if people could include your video in their blogs.

This comment has gotten a lot longer than I had intended…so I’m going to post on my blog, too. 😉

Thanks for all you do.

Maybe this will work in Jeff’s blog as a trackback.

Meanwhile, Jeff, if you’re seeing this, I did just go over to Brian Williams’ blog, and he does have a place for comments. Maybe you could leave a comment there with a link to your post.

I don’t know whether it will get past comment moderation. They post this disclaimer:

All comments must be approved before appearing in the thread; time and space constraints prevent all comments from appearing. We will only approve comments that are directly related to this post, use appropriate language and are not attacking the comments of others.

It’s worth a shot, don’t you think? I can see that they would have heartburn about putting criticism of their program on their high-priced broadcast platform, but if they are interested at all in any kind of real conversation, it would seem a comment from you, and a link to what you said on your blog, would be a minimum level of engagement.

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NBC Podcasts ‘Nightly News’ and ‘Meet the Press’

Video podcasting gets a bump from NBC, which has announced it will make complete podcasts of Meet the Press and Nightly News with Brian Williams.

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Thanks to Lost Remote for the tip.

ABC also is extensively into podcasting. The thing I like about the NBC offerings (at least from what I’ve seen so far), is I think we will be getting the whole programs as they go over the air, but just time-shifted. ABC seems to be focusing more on “extras” – which is fine, but I like to see what has actually gone over the air on the network.

Part of my job is to stay up-to-date on health news, and particularly to be able to get copies of news clips that feature Mayo Clinic and its physicians and scientists. We have devices to record the network news and scan for relevant stories, but now with NBC this may have gotten even a little easier. At least it seems like a good back-up.

The NBC Nightly News file for last night is 81 megs. I’m in part of the house where the wireless signal isn’t strong, so it will take a bit to download. This might give me a good way to watch the news on the bus in the morning, since I’m on the bus at night while the show is on. I understand each night’s program will be available after 10 p.m. Eastern. I may have some more thoughts on this tomorrow after I’ve viewed some programs.

It may not be as entertaining, but it’s cheaper than buying episodes of Lost (which I think is still a pretty good deal anyway.)

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Electronic Disruption Not Just for Media

Whatever you think of global warming as a scientific phenomenon, from the perspective of John Kotter’s penguin fable it is undeniable that economic icebergs are melting from underneath all sorts of businesses and their employees.

Time magazine announced some huge changes this week, and Jeff Jarvis, as usual, has a spot-on commentary. I found this statement particularly compelling:

I think that general-interest magazines may well be fated to fade away. General-interest anything is probably cursed. For the truth is that interest never was as general editors and publishers thought it was, back in the mass-media age. Old media just assumed we were interested in what they told us to be interested in. But we weren’t. We’re proving that with every new choice the internet enables.

Yet special-interest magazines — community magazines, to put it another way — have a brighter prospect — if they understand how to enable that community.

Time‘s travails, the ouster of the LA Times‘ editor for refusing to adapt to economic realities, the continued decline of newspaper readership, and Gannett’s more realistic approach to the kinds of changes needed for long-term success in the news business highlight the pace and extent of change we all face.

Large, established news media organizations probably feel this most acutely, because they have seen their core business as creating, editing and distributing content to mass audiences. Too often they also have tacked “on paper” to the end of that sentence (or some other specific medium that reflects the way they have always done it.) As technology drives the costs of developing and distributing content toward zero and choices multiply, the erosion of mindshare for the old-media oligopoly is inevitable.

But although those working in media may feel the changes most acutely (or at least have a bigger megaphone, even in a fragmented media landscape, to talk about it), icebergs are melting in all sorts of industries.

The New York Stock Exchange announced this week that it would cut employment by 17 percent, or 500 jobs, largely through and because of more electronic trading.

Amazon’s S3 service (I need to look into this) offers unlimited data storage and transfer at low flat rates, enabling start-ups or more established companies to focus on building their business and traffic, instead of how to scale their server space. Don MacAskill, CEO of SmugMug, details how S3 has saved his company well over $500,000 in the last seven months, and how he expects savings of well over $1M in 2007. He was spending that money somewhere else before he made the change to S3, so for whoever those vendors were, some warm water is coming under their iceberg.

Congratulations to those organizations that are keeping their eye on meeting needs and serving customers, and finding ways to meaningfully contribute. Not all will be successful. But it’s great to see organizations like CBS sending out “scout penguins” by launching a service like this, to see if this is a way to provide information people want.

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Thoughts from the Bulldog Online Measurement Teleconference

In the Bulldog teleconference today I came away with some helpful insights about how to use online monitoring. My earlier post has more of the points I made.

Evan made a really good point that you need to measure things that are in keeping with your goal, and what the desired user response is. For example, if your goal is to influence opinion through an initiative as opposed to selling something, focusing on click-throughs is short-sighted; it gives you numbers that are relatively meaningless.

Angie Jeffrey walked us through a measurement matrix she has developed. You can reach her for a copy of this by email at (I think she will be willing to share this if you ask. Please let her know Lee sent you her way…which would be one way of getting some anecdotal measurement of how many people are taking action based on this post.)

Donna added that setting measurable objectives means we need to define the target audience, what we want them to do, and in what time frame. For example, we want 75 percent of articles in electronics trade publications that mention our company to include at least half of our key brand messages. She also showed her dashboard of key measures, which she uses to share information with TI management.

I would welcome any comments or questions from people who want to have a discussion about this.

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Bulldog Reporter Online Measurement Teleseminar

At noon CST today I’m going to be participating as a panelist in a Bulldog Reporter teleseminar entitled Online Measurement: Proven Tools and Affordable Techniques for Tracking Brand and Reputation on the Internet.

Among the sites I use for tracking mentions of Mayo Clinic in the blogosphere (and in other on-line sources such as news sites) are

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Ice Rocket
Google News
BlogPulse (can track trends of blog mentions vs. a competitor, or look for a spike in your own mentions, which may indicate an issue that needs attention.)

I use the same tools to track some other issues I care about, and set up searches that are connected to RSS feeds that automatically send updates to my RSS aggregator. I use NetNewswire for Macintosh because I like being able to take my feeds with me on my laptop when I ride the bus. There are other software packages available for this, or you can use My Yahoo!, Google Reader, My AOL, Newsgator or other on-line services so you can read your feeds from any computer. The only downside is you need to be connected to the internet.

In addition to potentially giving an early warning about issues that may be brewing, I also find these services (which are all FREE) helpful in identifying potential story ideas. Frankly, most of our mentions in the blogosphere are positive, although we do see posts falsely claiming Mayo Clinic support or validation for a product. We follow up on those, involving the Legal department if necessary. But we have lots of patients who have blogs, or people blogging about the experience of a family member at Mayo Clinic, and we have had some occasions in which we see a compelling patient story in a blog, and have followed up to see if the patient would be open to having a story on the Mayo Clinic site for patients.

And, of course, now that I’ve done this post I will see it show up in those monitoring sources I’ve mentioned above.

We also use some flat-rate paid service for more comprehensive on-line monitoring, primarily of news sites. That’s what is really nice about the web and automated on-line services: instead of a per-clip fee, you get everything for a flat rate. We still use a clipping service for the print clips because the on-line versions of major newspapers differ from their web sites, but particularly for major stories we can use free and flat-rate online monitoring services to get quick feedback and pass it along to the patients involved, to caregivers and to leaders of the organization.

I look forward to hearing my fellow panelists’ contributions.

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