Archive for August, 2014

Future of media bla-de-bla

Tuesday, August 26th, 2014

Actually, this is interesting enough.

So Buzzfeed gets $50 from Andreessen Horowitz, decides it will create a movie studio.

Post this, Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz talk “software will destroy the world” and more in this podcast.

Meanwhile one of the other Bens talks on a podcast about why Buzzfeed is a very interesting investment. Supporting blog post from him. The way they do “native” advertising could be one future of media. Advertiser picks a topic/area and Buzzfeed does a Buzzfeed on interesting content with the advertiser marked as a sponsor.

Re/Code are now doing it too. What’s interesting there is their journalists DO NOT write this content but do we really look at who write pieces? Well actually, I do as you can easily spot biases depending on the writer. For example you can see who is in bed with what tech company in the broadsheets quite easily. Metaphorically.

And 2013 content and traffic starlet Upworthy are getting hit by traffic decreases which they blame on training their new staff. New one on me that one. How long does it take to train these staff and does not say something about the structure that bringing new staff on board causes dips in traffic for months?

Upworthy, Buzzfeed and even most Irish media websites are over dependent on Facebook right now. And now Facebook at last have said they’re going to combat click bait articles. Interesting to me is they’re using a lot og techniques Google uses to measure if a site is good content or not e.g. how quickly they click back to FB, the faster = less quality.

These few tips on how to increase or sustain reach on Facebook may be of use.

Now look at this switch too. MLB TV streams are moving away from desktops to devices. They’ll also move from traditional TV stations to streams too. Goodbye TV stations maybe, definitely “channels”.

So this is why Twitch which was meant to be bought by YouTube is being bought by Amazon now for nearly $1 Bn in cash. Twitch is 3 years old. 3! Retaining their independence with Amazon seems to be the message. Remaining independent is the hot new thing. Twitch is where gamers stream their games and millions of people watch them every month. It’s huge and it seems nobody in “traditional’ media saw it coming. This is going to happen more and more.

In January, Twitch reported that 58 percent of its viewers spent more than 20 hours per week on the site.

20 hours!

Fluffy Links – Monday August 25th 2014

Monday, August 25th, 2014

This is exact;y why I do training and talks even if it’s the same talk nearly every time. You learn more by teaching it or prepping as if you’re going to teach it.

Traffic to Telegraph surges because of deeper thinking and integration with Facebook.

Risky podcasts. Well, podcasts on risk.

Would love to see this for Ireland. Searches from poor areas and wealthy areas.

Tom Doorley on Cork restaurants and the ones he likes.

Livermorium. If I were to have a heavy metal band, that’s the name. (It’s the heaviest metal in the world).

Fiat gets their Tumblr audience.

Citizen Journalism bolloxology. A smartphone doesn’t make you a reporter but here are some BBC tips on how to report better if you happen upon a newsworthy event.

Growth Hacking as a term has a higher bullshit ding than SEO but this post on getting 100s of thousands of email leads. It’s actually simple enough stuff with a little automation.

Rageviews

By @mikearauz “My Company Adopted a Holacracy. It Kind of Sucked”.

A bit dense but. Things I’ve learned from Andy Rachleff.

Just. Wow. Unicorns!

Critics say this is the best documentary film ever

Fluffy Links – Monday August 11th 2014

Monday, August 11th, 2014

Ireland’s first Mobile Journalism conference with a tonne of workshops. March 2015.

One day there’ll be millions of mini-satellites in space that you can rent and use like some kind of Amazon Web Service. SSaaS – Space Satellite as a Service or something like that. A Scottish company is already on their way to this, they’re called Clyde Space and one of their mini-sats called the Funcube can be connected to by schools.

For shame. Really, Irish number ones. So much novelty shite.

Remember Dollar Shave Club? They’re doing VERY well as it happens. Razors, by post. It works.

Digitising the life of Salman Rushdie.

Wikipedia apps for the developing world. Free access. Now if they had some peer to peer option to share the offline content with other phones, it would be really clever.

More ways to earn from your clients without being a pushy git.

Ice cream that changes colour when you lick it. Very Willy Wonka.

A bit dense but good. Business lessons from Andy Rachleff.

Not a fan of Andreessen of late but this podcast on bundling and unbundling can give you insight if you are in business or want to get into business.

Time chunks not time confetti. Managing your time. And another guide says kind of the same thing but also encourages you to log your time, almost like a food diary.

Sir Christopher Meyer on maintaining peace. “if you want your neighbour to be peaceful and friendly, don’t make him thin and angry, make him fat and prosperous

Ask two friends to reach recommend a book you should read. Find the connection between the two of them.

The future of PR – Robots

Wednesday, August 6th, 2014

Stay with me on this. See the recent BBC news piece about a Korean baseball team adding in robots to the crowd so it appears the team is followed more than they are? Sure, people have been buying followers for years in the virtual spaces but now it’s physical spaces.

And at the same time we have these scientific studies showing how humans will mimic the facial expressions of robots. Silly humans.

The spontaneous mimicry of others’ emotional facial expressions constitutes a rudimentary form of empathy and facilitates social understanding

This mimicry occurs even though these participants find the android unsettling and are fully aware that it lacks intentionality

Now the study does say when the android is videoed instead of being in person, less mimicry occurs. They can fix that I bet. See the issue here is we mistrust someone as we can read their face and even the best trained PR people do actually find it hard to physically hide their lies despite what comes out of their mouth. But with with robots you can perfectly program the facial expressions and we’ll smile back to the “genuine” smile. A physiological study shows that when people give their driverless cars names, they are more forgiving when the vehicle has an error.

So another oil spill and this time BP whips out the robo-spokesperson who like Johnny-Cab, tells you with a face full of contrition that they are sorry and it wasn’t their fault. Suckers.

And this from a few years ago when two bots argue with each other

Fluffy Links – Tuesday August 5th 2014

Tuesday, August 5th, 2014

Last chance to book a place at the Twitter workshop in Dublin tomorrow.

LukeW: Offline First is the new Mobile First.

Mentions of burgers, celtic tiger and beer on Yelp Dublin over the years. Kind of a useless tool really.

This almost reads like a whistle-blowing system for Central Bank Employees.

Working with your customers to co-design products/services.

A night in the museum, sleepovers for adults. Can we do this is the dead zoo?

This is a RIG. BBC video production rig. What comes after the very expensive steadicam.

This Gareth Pugh guy seems to be very much inspired by sci fi. Beautiful fashions.

I really like this. Just another great way that comic books are being so creative with how they communicate.

Where all those user interface symbols come from.

Genius. Order your food with a certain accent to get a discount. Or arrive as a super hero.

How to “paint” WiFi. Clever way to make invisible wifi appear to be visible.

No fuckhead you are NOT a storyteller:

You are not a storyteller – Stefan Sagmeister @ FITC from FITC on Vimeo.

Full double album