Tech giants may have their own views on what journalism should become, but some news organisations are questioning what benefits the social vision of future news can really bring at a time when they’re struggling for business survival…
Lunch-stealing?
“Facebook will make north of $3 billion in advertising this year,” FT.com MD Rob Grimshaw told the Paley Center For Media’s international council in Madrid on Thursday ”This is not doing anything good for journalism – in fact, it’s destroying it.”
Many news publishers now pipe stories through Facebook, which has also become an important referrer. Guardian.co.uk has made itself available inside a Facebook app. Grimshaw was not criticising such journalism efforts. “We have to engage with social media,” he said.
But Grimshaw is concerned that Facebook is beginning to gobble advertising money from news publishers. “I don’t blame Facebook, but I do blame the publishing industry for being very naive about some of these fact,” he told the gathering of digital news bosses in Madrid.
“Not all distribution is good distribution,” Grimshaw said. “We have to bring people back to FT.com, where we can generate revenue from them. It works very well, we’ve built a profitable model. The idea FT journalism could be freely consumed across all media platforms is not a panacae.
The nauseum of crowds?
Some leading news organisations have also concluded efforts to engage readers in journalism may not be all they’re cracked up to be.
Even The Guardian appears disappointed by Open News List, its effort to involve readers in story planning.
“It’s great that people read it, but they don’t really contribute to it as much as we hoped,” Guardian deputy editor Katharine Viner told the Paley’s assembly.
“How much time and effort do people really want to put in to deciding and running their own news agenda?,” BBC News director Helen Boaden asked, suggesting only unemployed people really have the time to engage in that way.
“A lot of people are very happy for an ‘evil’ news editor to run it and to have someone else tell them what’s important in the world that day.”
And Wall Street Journal Europe deputy editor Neil McIntosh agreed, dismissing the call Google and Facebook made at the same conference to invent a better means of communicating news than the traditional narrative story.
“Our readers need us to sift,” McIntosh said. Readers are often crying out for less, not more. They’re still looking for the nut graf and the sort of stories I was taught to bash out 20 years ago.”
WSJ has, however, recently introduced Streaming Stories, a way of presenting live-updating material alongside conventional narrative.
Teenagers use game consoles for 8 minutes per night, on average, during primetime, which is more than twice as much as the general population.
Women spend 61.2% of their time-shifted viewing during primetime watching Dramas.
Women are 6% more likely to visit a social networking site and 6% more likely to check email during a TV program, but men are 20% more likely to check a sports score.
Younger people are across the board more likely to engage in other activities while watching TV than those 55 and older, with the exception of checking email. People 55 and older are more likely to check email during a program than those 35 or younger.
67 million males watch video online in the U.S.
Not surprisingly, the report found that people aged 18-34 are the most active with social networking. Those same people are also watching less TV than the older generation. This seems to suggest that younger people are swapping TV screens for their mobile devices, which is further supported by data that shows the time spent on live primetime TV every day increases with age.
The Nielsen report looks at demographic trends in U.S. media usage, comparing differences in the usage of primetime TV, online video, social media, and tablets.
Most people know that the corporate world is heavily concentrated, with a shockingly small number of massive parent companies owning a huge share of the world. But it’s hard to keep track of who is who and who owns what. The graphic below is a nice visualization of that dynamic for consumer brands:
Just how concentrated is the business world? One analysis of 37 million companies found that the top 147 owned 40% of the total wealth. That’s nuts.
Just think about Cadbury. If you’re like me, you associate them with chocolate eggs and that’s about it. But they apparently own Dentyne, Sour Patch Kids and a bunch more and are in turn owned by Kraft. In some sense it’s a testament to the power of brands that most of us never consider this. Kraft wants you to associate certain feelings with Dentyne, and they don’t want those feelings to have anything to do with macaroni and cheese.
And the media world is no exception, as the infographic from a few months back (via FastCompany) shows:
Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms are having a tremendous impact on the sports world for fans, players, teams and sponsors alike. We try to stay on top of that here at Mashable, bringing you stories on great sports memes, moments of unexpected discovery, sophisticated marketing strategies and more.
But sometimes a stellar infographic is needed to put things in perspective. This one, from the sports medicine company KT Tape, shows the different ways social media has changed sports during the past few years.
More than 80% of sports fans monitor social media sites while watching games on TV, and more than 60% do so while watching live events. Players have capitalized on social media and fueled massive buzz as well. More than 9,000 people per second tweeted about Tim Tebow after he threw an unexpected touchdown pass in last season’s NFL Playoffs. Jeremy Lin gained more than 550,000 followers in a single month while taking the NBA by storm earlier this year. And soccer stars Kaka and Ronaldo have leveraged their sport’s global reach to become Twitter’s two most-followed athletes.
KT Tape pulled research from The Wall Street Journal, ESPN.com, CBSSports.com and other sources to compile these facts and much more. Check out the infographic below for the full picture, then tell us in the comments — how is social media changing your sports experience?
Time Warner Cable's TWC TV streaming TV service has already arrived on iOS and Android 4.0, so what's next? According to information we've received, the next stop should be connected TV platforms, starting with the popular Roku media streaming boxes. We already got a glimpse of TWC TV on an HDTV during CES 2012 when it was being demonstrated at the Panasonic and Samsung booths, and were told at the time that it could launch on "multiple platforms" later this year. While company personnel are currently being briefed on compatibility with Roku the launch could still be some time off, as previous preparations for rollouts like streaming to PCs came months ahead. We contacted reps for the company about the plan and received a "no comment" in response, so there's nothing in the way of official word just yet. Either way, if all you want to do is ditch the bulky cable box for a diminutive hockey puck, it seems like 2012 could finally be the year.
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Well, who could have seen that coming? LinkedIn has released version 5.0 of its iOS app and the big feature is that it now natively supports the iPad. LinkedIn is currently the world's third largest social media site with 150 million members in over 200 countries.
On the iPad the LinkedIn app is divided into three sections: "You," "All Updates," and "Inbox." "You" allows you to easily view your profile, post updates, see who's viewed your profile, and add contacts. "All Updates" is the real meat of the app. It's a beautifully designed interface that allows you to see all your contact's updates, see what they're sharing, and read headlines and articles from LinkedIn Today's news feed. Finally, "Inbox" is, of course, your LinkedIn mail which allows you to read your messages and accept new invites.
As I've written before, it's cumbersome to view the LinkedIn website on an iPad, so the addition of iPad support to the already beautiful iPhone app is more than welcome.
LinkedIn 5.0 is a universal app and a free download.
Every company should run a quick social media audit each quarter to make sure content is properly optimized and every aspect of their social presence aligns with their brand. The great news is that it shouldn’t take more than an hour to perform.
This 60-minute audit is different from a full social business audit. You’re not looking deeply at goals, competitors, engagement rates, campaign efficiency, or ROI. The purpose of this is to address the kind of company maintenance issues that often get pushed off into the distance and are then forgotten. Addressing these small issues should help you build a better, more effective, and well branded social media presence. Here’s what you should cover.
1. Refine Your Design
The design of your social media profiles is part of your branding. This is why you should make sure to customize your backgrounds, avatars, and profile images so that they reflect your brand.
When it comes to a profile image, use the same one on all social media platforms to promote consistency. Check out Apple Vacations social profiles for a good example of this. They have a great looking Apple taken from their company logo that has a nice modern feel and is consistent across all of their properties.
Also, when you create your main company image make sure to give it a descriptive label, such as YourCompanyName.png. Do not upload something generic like “small_cropped_profile_image_3456789.png.” The reason is simple: A descriptive label helps your SEO.
Finally, keep in mind that your page backgrounds on platforms like Twitter are a good place to advertise yourself. So, when possible, add links to all of your social profiles in the design.
2. Fill Out all Important Pages
The profile, bio, and about pages are very important from an SEO perspective because that is where search engines pull the meta description that shows up in search results. This is also, usually, the first thing people read when they want to learn more about a company.
Always fill these pages out completely, and make sure that they contain keywords that are relevant to your business. For example, if you’re in interior design, that should be one of the key phrases listed. This will make it easier for people to find you on traditional search engines as well as social search engines.
In addition, double check phone numbers, dates, pricing, and email addresses to make sure they are up-to-date and the same across your various pages. You should also link to your other social profiles from these pages.
3. Gauge Online Engagement
Looking at your engagement on social platforms is a quick way to gauge if you could be doing a better job of interacting with your audience. Make a list of any potential issues you see and set aside some time to figure out how best to address them.
Next, scan your profile walls for engagement opportunities. Did you miss anything worth addressing? If so, take some time to respond, whether it’s directly on the wall or via private message.
Run a search for your company name on social media platforms, major search engines like Google and Bing, and on at least one service like NameChk. You essentially want to look for any red flags and imposters.
Then run a second search for your brand name and words like “love,” and “hate.” This will give you a sense of the kind of pages that come up were a customer or client to do the same kind of search. Also, it will help you see if there are any comments worth addressing. Make a note of any positive or negative issues you want to investigate at a later date. If possible, save those searches or subscribe to them via RSS so you don’t miss anything in the future.
After looking at the engagement on your profiles and mentions of your brand identify, take some time to jot down ideas for addressing them. For example, are there common themes that you could answer with a blog post or campaign?
4. Look Over Internal Accounts
This particular part of the audit could be tricky, depending on how your company is set up. The upside is that once you do this a few times, you will start to develop a process for addressing any issues that come out of the audit.
First off, ensure all login information for company accounts is current and in a secure location accessible to those who need it. It’s a good idea to use the same email address for all social accounts, but use something like social@thecompanyemail.com or yourcompany@gmail.com. That way your social profiles aren’t tied to a single employee and you’ll always have access. I had a client whose marketing manager left on bad terms and no one could access the social accounts. They were all tied to the ex-manager’s personal Gmail account. It took two months to get access and change everything.
Also, review internal policies and guidelines for employee social media usage, and check public employee profiles for compliance. If an employee’s account is set to private, don’t worry about it unless you suspect issues. If it’s been a while since you’ve circulated your policy, send it out, along with a few reminders on how to remain compliant.
Next, review training materials. Double check privacy policies and instructions on how to post to platforms. The reason: you want to make sure that the next time you have a training class you aren’t using outdated information.
This audit outline is by no means complete, it’s a starting place. Each time you go through this process you’re going to discover things you do and don’t want to look at and end up evolving it into something that fits your needs. Just like everything you do in social media, make this your own.
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We test a lot of external power packs here at the top-secret TUAW labs, most of which are just powerful enough to top off an iPhone or iPod touch. But what if you need enough juice to top off a couple of iPhones or an iPad? That's where Mophie's new juice pack powerstation PRO (US$129.95) comes in handy. Read on for a full review and a chance to win a juice pack powerstation PRO.
The juice pack powerstation PRO is to most external power packs as a gasoline tank truck is to the tank in your family car. It has a capacity of 6000 mAh, which is over four times the capacity of the 1432 mAh battery in your iPhone 4S. Imagine being able to completely charge an iPhone 4S four times from the powerstation PRO, and you have a pretty good idea of its capabilities.
That won't completely recharge a new iPad, which has a huge 11666 mAh battery, but it will extend the operating time by another five hours or so. The original iPad battery (6600 mAh) and iPad 2 battery (6930 mAh) will see almost a doubling in operating time from the juice pack powerstation PRO. The pack pumps out energy at 2.1 Amps, about what you'll get from the standard iPad power brick.
The powerstation PRO is incredibly well-built -- in fact, it's IP-65 rated, which means that it's protected against dirt, sand, and water. Sure, you won't want to bring it into a bathtub with you, but it could probably withstand the spray from a shower as the charging and output ports both have their own watertight seals. The entire power pack is made of aluminum and steel with a rubber-like impact resistant exterior.
Size-wise, the powerstation PRO is only 2.63" x 4.53" x 1.03" in size and weighs 7.6 ounces. It's small enough to fit in a pocket, although I wouldn't recommend putting into a pants pocket unless you don't mind getting strange looks. A set of four LEDs on the front of the case act as a "fuel meter" to tell you the charge level of the powerstation PRO.
How did the powerstation PRO work? Just great. I didn't have a chance to drop it down a hill and into a river like the guy in the video below, but I was quite impressed with both the speed with which it charged my iPhone and the rugged looks of the case.
And now for a giveaway! To enter, just fill out the form below completely and click on the submit button. Only one entry per person, and you must follow the rules:
Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States, the District of Columbia and Canada (excluding Quebec) who are 18 and older.
To enter, fill out the form below completely and click or tap the Submit button.
The entry must be made before April 30, 2012 at 11:59PM Eastern Standard Time.
You may enter only once.
One winner will be selected and will receive a mophie juice pack powerstation PRO valued at US$129.95