Yesterday morning, on a slow Sunday, I was witness to yet another disaster being reported from first hand sources on Twitter. This has reoccured for the small explosion at Times Square last year, Earthquake in China, Bombings in India, Fires in L.A., and now a propane factory exploding in Toronto.
Of course, this leads to some risks: 1) Sources may panic, and over or under state the situation. 2) Determining who is a credible source is a challenge, 3) Echos from the online network may over pump or mis state very important facts that could impact people’s safety. How did I know that Photojunkie wasn’t lying? I don’t. I did however first review his site, his history on Twitter, and saw his pictures and videos before pointing to them.
Key Takeaways
The new News Wire is now Twitter, the “Twire”?
News continues to break from first hand sources, in the past, the press would break the stories.
The jobs of the press are both easier and harder: They’ve improved access to sources in real time, but the level of noise has increased.
Press and Media must monitor Twitter: we’ve never seen information break as fast as this.
Press still have a very important role: vetting out what’s true and false to the best of their ability.
The community (myself included) must be mindful of what’s real and what’s not, over hyping or spreading false information could impact lives.
Emergency response teams and local municipalities should monitor the online chatter, just as they do emergency short wave channels.
Below are some shocking videos that were taken, warning, there is harsh language, and some of this is very frightening, imagine being woken up in the middle of the night, the cause unknown, I can imagine how scary this is.
Above Video (Language, Scary): This YouTube Video (already seen 59,000 times) has some cursing, so be careful when playing at work. The reaction and shaky scene isn’t out of the next Cloverfield movie, but it has the same scary intensity of first person recordings. In the past, news teams would have to interview these witnesses, now we see for ourselves through their eyes. There’s no way a journalist could truly report the shockwave and people’s reaction, if pictures tell a thousand words, what do videos tell? (video found on Dave Fleet’s site)
Shifting to Onboard Camera on N95
Just about every year, I drop, lose, break, my camera. This time, I dropped my Canon IS700 in the streets of San Diego, and now it only takes blurry pics. No worries, I squeezed 10,000 (estimated) thousand photos out of that $300 camera, adding to my flickr account of over 22,000 photos. (Insert Asian joke here)
I’ve shifted to using the on board 5 megapixel camera on my Nokia N95, and downloaded Shozu, which is a photo/video management tool that lets me seamlessly upload in real-time photos to flickr or any social website of my choosing. It’s a slower process than a point and shoot, but what I make up for convenience of having one device, and automatic upload are worth it.
Convergence: Web, Camera, Video, and lastly, a phone
In many ways, the cell phone is a media platform, I can publish live streaming video using Qik, blog from wordpress, Tweet to my network of 3800, or call (the feature I use the least) any blogger friends to get the word out about anything almost anywhere.
Marketing happens everywhere, anytime
How does this apply to Web Strategy? This is both a threat and an opportunity for brands. Uploading content in near real time (good or bad) is so simple and easy, there are no more secrets, they just haven’t been uploaded to the web yet. If I’m ever having a great (or bad) experience with a brand, I’m very likely to want to let my network know, they deserve to know.
This impacts the media business: live concerts, sporting events, and other performances will be streamed live to the web, the only admission is internet access. I recently met with a client from Japan, they encourage customers and prospects to participate in mobile games real world games in their marketplace. Photo games, GPS treasure hunts, and self-expression are all encouraged.
The following photos are all taken by my Nokia N95
In any case, I’m still experimenting with the photo settings, this is a lone “photowalk”, but here’s a few sample photos from today, the subject: gorgeous San Diego, Catalina Island, and the USS Midway.
They were uploaded in real time by Shozu, there was no photo editing.
Staring down the nose of an F14
I’m going to experiment with live video streaming from the mobile phone soon, but I may need to but a spare battery, as I know it eats up power very quickly.
If you’re an expert at taking photos with mobile phones, feel free to offer me any advice.
Please note that as an Analyst, I have the opportunity to test, analyze, review products that are in my coverage area, as a result, this phone was provided to Forrester from Nokia.
Edward Sussman, the President of Mansueto Digital and built the new FastCompany.com has responded to my analysis. He’s done a great job addressing the many points I made, and has responded both on my blog and on his site, where I cross posted.
He’s shared some numbers of growth including activity: “We are approaching 1,000 reader posts a day about business topics raised by our journalists” and member involvement: “Members have set up more than 500 blogs about business.”
I’m going to continue to watch Fast Company as a media company who is embracing the social computing aspect of the future and I encourage you to also watch.
Thank you Ed for being so forthcoming, I will watch with great interest.
Hong Kong University professor Rebecca MacKinnon shares her insight on online journalism and recent censorship that MSN did for a blogger. She discusses her online debate with former Microsoft Evangelist Robert Scoble, you can read her analysis, his response, and her response.
Rebecca is clearly knowledgeable about this topic area, but I ran out of memory, so the best way to learn more is to subscribe to her blog. Oh, and she certainly impressed me with her ability to handle very spicy food.
Here’s one of the last Web Strategy Show videos that will be published on this round (new readers: I interviewed the top web and marketing leaders in the industry at PodTech, see archives). Josh Hallett is known in the web marketing and social media fields, and is frequently seen at conferences speaking, sharing, or just taking pictures. Based out of Florida, he’s become a personal contact of mine, and he recently visited me at PodTech in Palo Alto.
Josh shares with us at the WeMedia conference on the topic of Citizen Journalism, (1:10). He discusses how we both witnessed Shel Israel pissing off the traditional journalists in the room who are holding on to the old publishing model in a new world. The challenge of monetizing the social sphere continues to come up (although I’m very aware of how elite bloggers are cashing in). Find out about the tools used in Citizen Journalism. Josh has designed some of the top blogs out there, when he named off the list, it was many of the blogs that I’ve read. He’s sure right about mastheads for blogs need to clearly state what the blog is about, you only have a few seconds to impress upon visitors that they get the context.
Speaking of blog design, this blog was heavily modified by me, I tweaked an existing template, created the banner, and shifted the style sheet. In the spirit of practicing what I preach I actually polled my community to give me feedback about this blog design.
(Update: The Photo and Video have been removed by request of the Father, who originally sent it to me)
Just this morning I posted how kids don’t want to add their parents as friends in Facebook, and provided the handy crises management template. How timely.
Here’s the story, my friend added his son in Facebook as a connection, today he saw his son left comments on a photo, and it showed up on the father’s newsfeed. He followed the link to the photos and found out his son had a party at his house (with under age drinking) with many kids, and there were pics to prove. His son had previously told his dad he didn’t have a party, but the Father suspected something was off, and Facebook helped clue it all in.
Here’s the video interview, he chose to remain anonymous, I assure you this is no hoax, and if you know me or have been to some events, you’ll recognize the voice. (and maybe the shoes)
(Update: Video removed by Father’s request: fear of legal action)
While underage partying is nothing new (I was a kid too) the dynamics of social media are astounding. The father never would have known about the party if it wasn’t for Facebook.
For some reason, I feel like tagging this post “citizen journalism”.
If you’ve read the Cluetrain Manifesto, you’ll know how the internet empowers individuals and smashes barriers. I had the opportunity to interview Rey Ramsey, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the One Economy Corporation, he shares his passion for his program to deliver access to the internet to low-income communities.
One of the outputs of the One Economy corporation is the beehive is a community website that provides resources as:
“We created the Beehive to be the place to go for information and resources around the things that matter in our lives: money, health, jobs, school and family. And, we’d like you to have a little fun while you’re here so, we’re throwing in some games and quizzes to keep it interesting.”
Townhall, a medium for civic journalists, community advocates and youth to engage provides “It uses technology to make it easy for people to share ideas, discuss topics and learn about issues.”
This just goes to show that you don’t need fancy gear to take meaningful shots. For this photo, I snuck up to the top balcony when no one was looking and squeezed off a few shots. I was using the flowers as a foreground for depth in the photo, I adjusted the light settings, and took a half a dozen shots. Later, I came home and desaturated the photo in photoshop, and posted it as my lead picture on my blog. I try to look for interesting angles (people often ask why I hold the camera up so high) and since it’s a very compact camera, I can hide it in my palm and take a shot of unsuspecting individuals when they’re not expected it (and those are often the best kind). It’s kind of a guerrilla style of photo taking.
The original picture, which was featured on the Techcrunch post
Photo in the San Jose Mercury with photo credits (Thanks Dave for getting the paper for me)
It’s a new dawn of media, anyone can create media, share and build using easy-to-use, inexpensive, and efficient tools.
I was really hoping that Delta Airlines (newsroom) would apologize after this week’s citizen video raging appearing on YouTube, and the blogosphere. I’ve gone to their website nearly everyday, and have not seen any apology or retribution for the delayed and miserable customers. CC Chapman had a horrible experience in the past, I wonder if anyone apologized to him?
What would be an appropriate way to respond? If Delta was my client, I would use similar media to “fight fire with fire”. I’d have a senior executive give a sincere apology and offer the customers a free round trip ticket for their pains. Maybe a live Ustream that allowed a few of the customers to ask questions, and then have it archived and put on a variety of video networks and linked from the Delta news room.
This is an industry where the barriers to switching are very low, every move counts when it comes to me making a decision on flying.
I heard about this from a few people I talked to today, the consumerist, and even my wife was watching it on the news this morning. It sounds like a hellish experience. Delta Airlines unfortunately had it’s passengers, crew, and plan stranded on the Tarmac for 7 hours, which was Delta Flight 6499 JFK to DFW on June 25, 2007. Although nothing to do with Web Strategy, it does have something to do with Citizen Journalism.
Remember when Jet Blue had a similar incident? They made a public apology using online video. A social media consultant, I recommend that Delta respond quickly, authentically, and try to repair the damage. If you work for Delta, you can contact me, my email is on the top right of my blog.
