TechCrunch Archives - Brandsplat

January 6, 2010 By splatter Leave a Comment

Live blogging media of choice for timely news

live_blogging

Yesterday the Google Android phone, named Google Nexus One, was unveiled to a drooling public. In the days of yore, a press conference would be the only way to get the skinny on new products and services, or, at a trade show. But in the age of the intertubes, anyone can get up-to-date information by tuning into any number of online outlets. Many of us who were following the event chose to check out live blogging sites. Live blogging is the process of taking notes, photos, audio recordings, video etc., at an event and quickly posting it up to your blog as the event unfolds. Many companies hire blog content writers or reporters to do this for them so they can focus on the event. Some examples of live blogging are the Matt Cutts live blog and the one I followed on TechCrunch. Live blogging can be a great way to widen your audience when unveiling a new product or service or when your company is having an event. If you want to get really fancy, consider doing a live video-stream so that you can point a camera at your event and broadcast it across the world instantly. Live video-streaming can be costly, because you have to have massive server space and there are technical issues when streaming live data. In fact, I was viewing a live stream (I won’t mention the name here) of the Nexus One event and it went down due pressure put on the server. But live blogging costs nothing but time and having someone who can type fast and report on the event in an interesting way. Live blogging is a great solution for any size company looking to shine the spotlight on new wares or services. Have you ever used live blogging to report on your company events?

October 7, 2009 By splatter Leave a Comment

This barcode replaces the blog headline.

barcode_google

You may have noticed that Google has replaced its logo with a barcode. Why? Well, according to The Christian Science Monitor explains that it is to celebrate the 57th anniversary of the first bar code patent. According to the site,

“On October 7, 1952, inventors Norman Woodland and Bernard Silver were granted the first patent for their invention. The only difference between the bar code we know today and the one Woodland and Silver invented was that it was comprised of a series of concentric circles, not the 59 black-and-white vertical lines synonymous with the current design.”

TechCrunch furthers the explaination by adding,

“The barcode on the Google homepage is Code 128 encoded, which is a standard way of encoding ASCII character strings (ie. A-Z, a-z, 0-9, etc.) into a barcode. It would be safe to assume that Google used their own open source barcode project, Zxing to generate the barcode. The same library is used in Android for barcode recognition.”

I’ve used barcodes ported to my iPhone to claim coupons in the real world. One merchant giggled as she scanned my phone and it actually worked. Ah, the joys of the Interwebs.

October 1, 2009 By splatter 1 Comment

Can you put a price on a pixel?

How much should a pixel cost? Or better yet, how much should carefully arranged pixels that were once free cost? Well, more and more people are expecting their pixels to be free from the get go, that’s what attracted them to said pixels in the first place. Case in point, a new iPhone app for Twitter called Tweetie 2Â was recently announced to be priced at $2.99 a pop.Â You would think the twitter universe would be gleeful considering the rave reviews for Tweetie 2. Think again. When actress Alyssa Milano let her fans know her displeasure about the new cost of the once free app, she let the world know by tweeting out a big “Boooo”. This, in turn, created a lot of debate on the subject of giving you something for free, then charging you for it later. Another example of how pixel pricing is creating some buzz comes to us from the world of another social media giant.Â A recent Business Week blog post titled, “Facebook users can afford to pay” , suggests that Facebook should cash in by charging users for services rather than trying to generate revenue via advertising. But if Facebook starts charging for stuff that people once got for free, wouldn’t that create an exodus to an alternative social media network, like Twitter, for example? As Twitter becomes more Facebook-like, that might not be such a bad idea. Just think, you would only have to manage one social networking platform at a time and you could let the other one collect dust on your browser. Maybe it’s not such a bad idea after all.

September 17, 2009 By splatter Leave a Comment

Hot off the press. Traditional media still king.

According to the 2009 State of the First Amendment Survey, most Americans prefer getting their news from traditional media.Â Â In a recent press release, Gene Policinski, vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center said,

“…while new forms of obtaining information, including Twitter and social media are much discussed and growing in use, most Americans continue to rely on the same news organizations — including the news reports picked up by online news providers — on which they have relied for decades.”

This is not surprising since the majority of overall advertising budgets are still spent on traditional media, and only a fraction goes to new media. Wherever the most eyeballs go, so goes the budgets. But that small fraction continues to expand and will continue to grow as more people turn to the Internet for their information and entertainment needs. Some traditional media outlets have radically changed their models and have incorporated digital strategies like social media and blogging as part of their news network and are working with bloggers and tweeters to better take advantage of the digital frontier. However, some media sources, like AP News, are trying to regulate their content by putting forth strict guidelines designed to control how their stories are spread across the Internet. Last year, popular site TechCrunch announced it would ban articles and information coming from AP news in response to actions taken by AP News against a popular news aggregate which used their content without permission. More recently, TechCrunch wrote an interesting article titled,Â “Behind The A.P.’s Plan To Become The Web’s News Cop”.Â Also, in a recent ibrandcasting post, I wrote about popular bloggers in Germany who released a manifesto that appears to directly challenge traditional news outlets like AP News and promotes the free flow of information. The role of traditional media in the digital landscape is still a bit blurry. Whether traditional media embraces new technology or tries to mold it as they see fit, one thing is for sure; in the card game of news, traditional media still holds a pretty decent hand.

September 15, 2009 By splatter Leave a Comment

Hey pal, can you spare a whuffie?

New and exciting things are popping up everywhere at TechCrunch50 One of the coolest is The Whuffie Bank. According to the company,

“The Whuffie Bank is a nonprofit organization dedicated to building a new currency based on reputation that could be redeemed for real and virtual products and services. The higher your reputation, the wealthier you are.”

Pretty simple idea. Currently supported by Twitter, the The Whuffie BankÂ plans to offer access via Facebook, FriendFeed, Digg and any other reputation driven online tool. So how does it work? You’re encouraged to communicate via your social media many times a day. But make sure your tweets are relevant, because your peers can thumbs up you or send your Whuffie Bank account into the red. To build up your account, build a good online reputation. Here is how your Whuffie worth is calculated by a fancy algorithm that:

“1.Â Detects Public Endorsements – Each time a message you put on Twitter gets retweeted or a Facebook post gets liked by others, that’s considered a positive endorsement for you.

2. Measures Level of Influence – A person that’s constantly retweeting others will be spreading the impact of his influence among many people. On the other side, if a person retweets a message once in a while, that will have a bigger impact.

3. Considers Existing Reputation of Members – Being endorsed by a Whuffie-rich person will have a stronger impact than being endorsed by an average user.

4. Analyzes Content of Messages – A message with a link that gets retweeted usually it’s because of the content in a website rather than the person sharing it in the first place. So when someone gets retweeted for something they exclusively said, that will have a bigger impact on the algorithm.

What’s really cool is that they actually plan on printing (or minting) real Whuffie currency that you can use around the world. I want a Whuffie! I promise I will use it only for good. So how do these guys make money? Well, for now they are a self-proclaimed non-profit.Â How fresh! Maybe one day the greenback will be replaced by the Whuffie and we will all get along. But then will the Whuffie become the root of all evil just like other currencies? Let’s hope not. To start building your Whuffie empire, check out the The Whuffie Bank homepage.

September 9, 2009 By splatter 1 Comment

German bloggers go big with journalism manifesto.

ship_fight

Fifteen of Germany’s most prolific bloggers have stirred up quite the hornet’s nest by releasing what they are calling “The Internet Manifesto. How journalism works today. Seventeen declarations.” Â According to TechCrunch Europe,Â just hours after the release, servers got slammed by an onslaught of visitors and the site shuttered. The instant attention it gained was a magnificent example of how powerful a medium the Internet can be. The manifesto appears to be a direct shot across the bow of traditional media and aims to further challenge news and media outlets to adapt or change the way they think about this brave new world. I found the second tenet of the manifesto most interesting. It says,

2. The Internet is a pocket-sized media empire.
The web rearranges existing media structures by transcending their former boundaries and oligopolies. The publication and dissemination of media contents are no longer tied to heavy investments. Journalism’s self-conception is-fortunately-being cured of its gatekeeping function. All that remains is the journalistic quality through which journalism distinguishes itself from mere publication.”

In other words, journalism is becoming less a platform for making money, and more a platform for spreading ideas, information and news. This implies that the days of paying for your news and information are slowly winding down. The manifesto has thus far been translated into nine languages and will continue to spread on the Internet. This puts the concept of journalism on the world stage where people of different cultures can take part. Where else can you do that? And you can expect traditional pulp based news to carry the story in addition, gaining even more momentum. In Europe, it’s already shown up in ink of the non-digital ilk. When was the last time some copywriting gained the attention of the entire world? OK, maybe The Bible falls into that category, but even that took a few thousand years to get take hold.

Live blogging media of choice for timely news

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This barcode replaces the blog headline.

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Hey pal, can you spare a whuffie?

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German bloggers go big with journalism manifesto.

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