Posts filed under 'Media'
Posted February 15th, 2008 by Scott
With so many restrictions and guidelines in place for the media during the Olympics, I thought it was interesting to see this announcement made today by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) allowing competing athletes the ability to blog. The IOC considers blogging as “a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism.” This is interesting to see because I feel that blogging is absolutely a form of journalism; especially since we live in a world where companies are now reaching out to their PR agencies more often to “leak” new product information to consumers online.
I think that allowing blogging is a great idea and could potentially generate more of an audience for the Olympics (which equals more brand exposure for sponsors). People have the ability to develop a personal interest in athletes if they choose to follow them via their blog. At least they can get the athlete’s take on events prior to NBC’s report hours after the events occur.
This definitely adds another notch to blogging’s belt 
.
Posted February 8th, 2008 by Neha
Fashion Week in 2007 was the year for the celebration of staple institutions in the fashion world. Lacoste was applauded for 75 years of defining timeless and Ralph Lauren took a much deserved bow at the end of the runway for 40 years that have reshaped the industry.
As last year applauded the traditional, Fashion Week 2008 has embraced the new. New media that is. In 2006, bloggers were handed the much vied for press passes among the Anna Wintours of the industry. 2008 sees another first on this front. IQONS.com, a social networking platform that has connected some of fashion’s premier young talent with the industry’s superstars, was enlisted as a media partnership, alongside longtime traditional media partner The New York Times.
I find the most compelling aspect of social media to be the ability for a community to contribute their own thoughts and build upon one another’s ideas. It gives everyone a voice, even those who don’t get those prized seats at the runway. So I find it fitting that with the induction of this new media partnership, IQONS will circulate the first issue of its user-generated magazine among the jewel tone clad fashionistas perched under the white peaks of the Bryant Park tents. Meanwhile I will shiver in Boston, and try to live vicariously through some of my favorite fashion bloggers (Fashion Tribes) who were given the ultimate nod from the industry by getting press passes to arguably, the most glamorous week of the year.
Posted January 11th, 2008 by admin
I caught an episode of “Access Hollywood” the other night. One of their feature stories was the re-launch of their companion website www.accesshollywood.com – Who cares, right? Well, Access Hollywood does…and BIG time (and they should). While I was intrigued by the length and depth of airtime given to this story, it was host Billy Bush’s voiceover commentary that grabbed my attention. In it, he described how central and integrated Access Hollywood’s website has become (in a very short time) to the distribution of entertainment news & media. What used to be a second thought to the on-air broadcast is now a rush to post content online.
And then while watching CNN’s coverage of the New Hampshire primary results, I literally had a “holy crap” moment: Suddenly my “viewer experience” became a seamless “user experience” because of the way CNN converged its online and on-air media.
The highly watched cable news network managed to pull this off in a number of ways:
- Purposeful Crossovers: The on-air broadcast of the results maintained a persistent running tally of votes framed around the visual commentary – if a viewer was watching CNN in HD, they’d get access to additional data points along both sides of the frame. Throughout the broadcast, host Wolf Blitzer would lead viewers to reference their laptops and check out CNNpolitics.com in order to drill down and hone into more granular real-time specifics. While lots of broadcast programs lead people to the web, it was the effortless, integrated, “live”, and complementary nature of the use of their website that grabbed me.
- Embedded Content: At certain points throughout the broadcast, CNN would feature segments from the various campaign’s live video feeds and direct viewers to CNNpolitics.com to tune into any of the candidate’s specific coverage for further viewing and analysis. Since the on-air broadcast only gave samplings of each campaign event, viewers were easily able to target their preferred candidate online and augment the on-air content. Although CNNpolitics.com was referenced constantly throughout the broadcast, it wasn’t disruptive – it felt right.
- Integrated Look & Feel: CNNpolitics.com was a natural creative extension of CNN’s “Election Center” set design and broadcast graphics. The two mediums visually became like one. Viewers who frequently turned their attention from being an online user to an on-air viewer felt a single, integrated experience.
The fundamental shift in the way in which we consume and interact with media has now tipped the scale from the after thought of “supporting Web information” to primary online content. We’ll be seeing many more examples of this in 2008 as TV continues to become an inefficient content consumption technology.
Posted September 24th, 2007 by Neha
Rumors that 14 year old Disney star Miley Cyrus is pregnant circulated around radio waves bright and early this morning. The radio program, Matty in the Morning, had assistants frantically trying to confirm these rumors. Once upon a time, when a rumor needed to be verified, contacts at print publications like US Weekly were on speed dial. Yet, this morning the contact that was bombarded with phone calls and email was none other than the most notorious blogger.
Listeners were assured that all efforts were being made to contact Perez Hilton to solve the mystery of the alleged pregnancy. Kerry, a member of the Matty in the Morning team, proudly stated that she had Perez Hilton’s cell phone number and another team member was simultaneously flooding Perez’s inbox with inquiries.
A brief post on Perez’s blog quelled the rapid rumor and put it to rest. But one thing remains true - a shift became apparent this morning when traditional media turned to social media for news and content. The blogger used to generate content by scouring magazines and gossip columns in newspapers but now Perez Hilton, the king of gossip, has emerged the ultimate source of
Hollywood chatter.
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