Online Buzz for TV Shows

A study by Optimedia US concludes that a television show's advance buzz doesn't predict its rating performance.

This study focused on five new shows: X-Factor, Playboy Club, New Girl, Whitney, and Charlie's Angels. The study measured Tweets, Facebook likes, Google searches, and Klout scores before the show premiered.

An increase in social media buzz reflects the network's marketing efforts and doesn't reflect how many people will actually tune in to watch.

Ad executives conclude that online buzz isn't a good predictor of which shows will be popular but measures how engaged people will be when watching shows.

Every show on television has a Twitter and Facebook. Many shows actually post their hashtag in the lower right hand corner of the television screen while the show is on so as to increase the online buzz.

The most affective way to promote a TV show with social media cites is to get viewers to Tweet or post a status on Facebook about the show while it is on. This will get more people to tune in if they see people they know and are following commenting on the show.

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Amazon's Kindle Fire Takes Over Android

As Christmas approaches everyone will be wanting the new Kindle Fire. Before even hitting the market, Amazon's Kindle Fire has captured the hearts of tech enthusiasts and the minds of software developers in a way that no Android tablet before it could.

Android Tablets have been pushed off the market by Kindle Fire in North America and now soon in Europe and Asia. Kindle Fire offers a feature for apps that tops off the Android. Kindle Fire apps need to be submitted to Amazon, not to Google, so if this trajectory continues, Google will lose control of its own mobile device.

As this new Kindle Fire sky rockets the market, people are always still concerned about the cost. When you purchase the Kindle Fire you will have no worries about the cost because Kindle Fire is only $199 and is the number one reason developers say it matters.

However, the Kindle Fire still has some concerns to its product. The Kindle Fire does not have GPS, high end perks, and is a little harder to operate than the Android Tablet. Overall though, the Kindle Fire will establish all the Android camps and take over the Google technology.

Kindle Fire will be at the top of most people's Christmas list. With the Christmas days approaching fastly, make that persons wish come true and go out and buy the best tablet in the world today.

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Google and Twitter to the Rescue!

After the allegations of Herman Cain's sexual harassment, people started to view Cain in a new light.

Theres one thing that can truly hurt a presidential candidate when he or she is in the process of running, and that thing is scandal.

It is then when people really start questioning, "Is this guy the guy we really want running our country?"


But good news is, Herman Cain has found a way to fight these allegations head on. By using social media and a popular search engine as his aid. Cain is using keyword Google and Twitter search ads, such as: "Cain Sharon Bialek", which leads to an option of Cain's website CainTruth, which was a paid attempt to bi pass the scandal. The campaign had also bought a promoted Tweet when anybody searched "Herman Cain" on Twitter.

I believe that Cain has made a pretty smart attempt on continuing his campaign and trying to get away from these allegations.

Works cited: www.poynter.org
www.creativecommons.org

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Keeping Up With the Citizens

Who ever said journalists are so special from everybody else? The political analysts sure aren't. Not with Google in charge.

That's because Google's Politics & Elections blog is making it easier for ordinary citizens to become political analysts for the rest of the world. Jake Parillo, part of Google's Politics & Elections team, announced on Monday that the team is asking for citizens to use Google's tools- Google Insights for Search, Google Trends,and Google Correlate, for example- to help the Google team discover political or election trends across the country.

People now have the ability to research and analyze their own political stories. But will they make use of it? Will these tools become commonplace with the average family? Hard to tell. Poynter.org reported last month that out of all the time people spend on the internet, only 2.6 percent of it is spent on current events or global news (22.5 percent of their time is spent on social media websites, and 35.1 percent is spent on website types not specified in the survey, including- yep- pornography). Google's bet seems to be that customizing political coverage for the average Joe is what will make people pay attention to the political world swirling around them, but the real question is whether citizens will put in the extra effort.

One thing is clear, though: if journalists plan on competing with the serious amateur news sources these days, reporters should be the first to dive in to this new technology.

Photo by Danny Sullivan/Creativecommons.org

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Google's Job in Improving Media

The journalism industry is shifting from old media to digital, which has been influenced by real-time social media tools like blogs and Twitter.

These websites allow anyone to be a publisher, leading to some news being unreliable. Legendary TV newsman Ted Koppel suggested at a recent Goggle event that it is Google's duty to fix this problem.

Koppel said that too much of what passes for news is trivial and sensationalistic. Media outlets spend too much time on what news people want instead of what news they need.

The idea is that Google will filter its news feed to focus on the most important news. Google has made steps to secure that their posts are from professional websites by using stories from longtime standing old media sources such as The New York Times.

Google News is the first source of news for many people every day. Since it is such a widely used website, they should feel some sense of responsibility to inform their audience of what is most important to their lives.

Stories about the Casey Anthony trial and Nancy Grace's nip slip are interesting but have no real impact on people's lives.

People need to be more informed of issues that will affect their present and future, such as the presidential race and foreign aid policies.

Photo Credit: Aaron Morrison

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Google Takes Over News, Again

Google News created a new way for readers to easily find the top stories. They’ve created a “Standout” tag which is set in the header of the story in order to flag down the reader.  Also, in working with the competition, there is also a peer-to-element which will send the reader to competitions best stories.

Instructions on Standout

First journalists will identify critical stories and then the stories will then have the Standout tag fixed on the header. Finally, Google News adds a “Feature” label to the story, thus attracting more readers.

In order to prevent companies from labeling every story as important, Google reserves the power to deem what is important. 

Goggle reported that most people go to them for news and as such they claimed to have over one billion clicks every month. 

http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/09/google-news-gets-social/

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Hanging Out with Google

There's a new way for journalist to video chat these days, and its all thanks to Google+'s new features which were announced today. The new version named "Hang outs on Air" will allow journalist to record video and live stream their discussions to their colleagues.

Now with this built in feature, journalist can conduct their discussions publicly by:

• Creating a virtual town hall where they can be outside and officials tell them the latest news.
• Have a meeting with the editorial staff and then after everything is discussed and edited, they can post the video and the written editorial report.
• They can even have a political debate at the Hangout!

If that wasn't the icing on the cake, Google made another announcement that they would be making a few more changes, including: support for Android phones that had front facing cameras, sharing streaming through their computer's screen, and sharing a GoogleDoc.

With all these new changes to the world of journalism, its making me very excited to hop right into the business and learn all these new ways to give me an edge of success.

Picture Credit: Creative Commons.

Accreditation: Jeff Sonderman at Poynter.org

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Google+ and Journalists - Is it Really Necessary?

Facebook is arguably the king of social media these days. If there is anyone who can threaten to steal the crown away, it would have to be Google. The new Google+ may be capable of committing social media regicide.

Google+ is a Facebook clone in some ways, and for that reason there will be many who steer clear of it. What is the point in having another Facebook account?

The reaction to Google+ has been positive from the Journalism community. There are tools and benefits of Google+ that are helpful for a journalist. As of the second of August, there were more than 140 journalists with confirmed Google+ accounts. That is a large number, considering it is still exclusive to people who get an invite from someone.

How are journalists using Google+ so far? A recent Mashable article provided five different ways that journalists have been using this new tool: Talking about Google+, Hosting Audience Hangouts, Engaging Readers, Analyzing News Coverage, and Showing Personality.

The early comparisons between conversations on Facebook and Google+ are already rolling in. During that same Mashable article, they mentioned starting an identical discussion on both platforms

about a study that claims 34% of iPhone users think they have 4G. The posts were published at roughly the same time and had similar prompts, posing questions about the study’s results. On Facebook, there were 57 likes and 40 comments, while the Google+ post had 183 +1′s and 116 comments.

There are other benefits to be found from having a Google+ account that makes it unique. The ability to have content be public or private helps to have a personal account that also allows for personal branding. You control who gets to see your posts through the use of circles. A journalist no longer needs to have a personal account and a professional account in order to maintain their proper identities.

Google+ is also part of the Search Engine Google, which makes it so your posts are searchable, thus driving in more readers without any extra effort spent. Whether you choose to share news and blog posts, or market books and Web sites, your information is easier to find.

More information on how journalists can benefit from a Google+ account can be found here.

A journalist at any level in their career can see immediate benefits from using Google+. There are many more articles about the benefits than were included in this blog. Over the course of the next two years, it will be as essential to have a Google+ account as any other social media platform. I'm ready for that future. Are you?

Photo Courtesy of Jon Lee Clark's Flickr via Creative Commons.

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Speak and Tweet in Egypt

President Hosni Mubarak has had his hands full in Egypt since last Tuesday. Citizens have been outraged and want to kick Mubarak out of power. Many Egyptian protesters are upset about not receiving many things from the government, including their freedom and internet.

Last week, the Egyptian government put a blackout on all internet usage. Government officials felt like this would be a beneficial way to block the outside world from seeing what's going on and from protesters organizing groups via Internet. With the websites blocked, journalists were in a world of hurt, as they were unable to communicate, surf, or report through Google, Facebook, Twitter, or BlackBerry Services.

However, Google and SayNow have provided hope for many reporters to share news once again. They developed a way for people currently in the Egypt area to tweet via phone on Speak-To-Tweet. Users have been given the option of three numbers to leave a voice mail to, which will be turned into a tweet under the hashtag of #Egypt or #speak2tweet.

Imagine being an Egyptian writer unable to report some of the biggest protests in your country. Journalists want to recreate stories so viewers can connect to current events. Many reporters in Egypt currently feel relieved to be provided with a way to do their job.

As journalists, this is a good time for Egyptian reporters to practice reporting news by observation instead of relying on the internet for news. Egyptian queen Cleopatra once said, "I will not be triumphed over." Many reporters should take this advice and realize there is always a way to get the job done and report globally what is going on.

Photo Credit: Nima Maleki

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Is Groupon Crazy?

Mashable is polling readers. They are asking if readers would have taken the money Google offered Groupon for control of its site if they had been the founders.

According to the poll, Groupon's founders denied the $5.3 billion offer Google made to take over the company.

The article references Graphic.ly COE Micah Baldwin:

"Basically, the motivation for a big exit is not longer motivated by 'how much money can I get;' it is motivated by 'what is my legacy,'" Baldwin said. "That simple shift makes their rejection of Google's $6 billion offer not that surprising."

I agree with Baldwin. Groupon is a great site that has been attracting users and has made good money.

Groupon made a good choice because:

1) it freed itself from potential harm under Google's control;

2) it brought attention to itself when it said no to Google, which might attract more users;

and, 3) I'm sure if the company ever decided to sell, there would still be an offer on the table.

Share your view on the subject by answering Mashable's poll or commenting on my blog.

Also, check out the video below showing how Groupon works. If you're like me, you will get very excited thinking about the deals Groupon may get for you.

Learn How Groupon Works! from The Point on Vimeo.

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Google Donates $5 Million in Support of Digital Journalism

In an effort to spur innovation in digital journalism, Google announced on Oct. 26 a $5 million donation to help news publishers in the digital age.

Acknowledging the importance of reliable journalism for everyone, Google will donate $5 million worth of grants to non-profit journalism organizations to help foster new ideas to support digital journalism, reach bigger audiences and make online news more engaging through innovation.

"We hope these grants will help new ideas blossom and encourage experimentation. We look forward to working with the journalism community to help digital news move forward," said Nikesh Arora, president of global sales operations and business development at Google.

Google has granted $2 million to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, host of the annual Knight News Challenge, a program that funds innovative ideas to develop journalism tools and platforms.

Alberto Ibargüen, president of the Knight Foundation, talks about Google's donation to support its innovation efforts. 10/26/2010

The recipients of the remaining $3 million will be announced early next year. So far, Google aims to give the money to international journalism organizations with the same desire to boost the flow of reliable news.

I find it very valuable that such an influential and important company as Google sees the importance of journalism and, even more important, supports it.

Hopefully, this initiative will be followed by even more donations not only from Google, but from other profitable companies that acknowledge the need for innovation within news organizations and the enhancement of digital journalism.

Video Source: Knight Foundation - Vimeo Channel

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Social Media and Advertising

As social media like Facebook and Twitter grow, banner ads are becoming less common.

Banner ads are usually rectangular and placed above, below, or on the either side of a Website.

Even though these ads may be annoying to the average consumer, a good chunk of money is spent on them each year. Last year, $23 billion was spent on Internet advertising with one-third of that being spent on advertising involving banner ads.

Twitter and Facebook are affecting banner ads quite a bit because from my personal experience I haven't seen many banner ads on those forms of social media.

One thing that social media has been a helping hand with is the ability to customize ads based on the user's interaction or interests.

Have you ever noticed how the ads, usually on Facebook, involve your interests?

Google's managing director for media and platforms for the Americans thinks 75 percent of ads will be "socially enabled" by the 2015.

That means that the new advertising formats would allow for "on-the-fly" customization while the user currently interacts with the site.

I find this to be interesting because now social media isn't simply just for personal use. It's becoming a tool for companies as well.

Even though banner ads aren't doing so well right now there will be a new generation that evolves from that failure.

You can go to Dorian Benkoil's blog, "As Social Media Grows, What Will Become of the Plain Old Banner Ad?," for more information.

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Google Cars: Cool and Intriguing

Google announced its enrollment in what could be a benchmark in technology this past week.

Being more specific, according to the New York Times, Google has been working on self-driven vehicles controlled by artificial-intelligence software that allows for a human-like driving experience.

These robot-cars equipped with a GPS receiver, motion sensors, and videocameras, are capable of replicating human decisions based on the proximity of objects around the car.

These modified cars have been set and tested on San Francisco's streets without any human intervention except for a person behind the wheel and a technician to monitor the navigation system in case anything goes wrong. Fortunately, all tests have been successful.

As stated in the official Google Blog, Google's goal in the development of this technology is "to help prevent traffic accidents, free up people’s time and reduce carbon emissions by fundamentally changing car use."

Google's initiative to increase public safety and develop once-dreamed robotics is amazing, unfortunately this technology is far from reaching consumers and it makes me wonder: would this become something like the iPad?

Sure the iPad is revolutionary and allows people to multitask, but not everyone can afford one and some even think it's a waste of money.

If self-driven cars were to become only appealing and affordable to a few people, then Google's new technology wouldn't be as beneficial for society as they wish.

I believe this technology would just be useful to mark another crucial moment in U.S. history concerning technological research and development, thus, I doubt this technology could be profitable and reach a large amount of consumers.

What's your opinion on Google's innovative technology?

Note: Pictures and video of the modified cars can be found in the original NY Times report.

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Become Friends With Your Computer

When making friends, it's important to learn about their particular qualities. If you really want to get close to a friend, you must figure out what's inside of them as well. Be friends with your computer.


Instead of taking everything you see on the screen for granted, learn to change and edit webpages to your liking.


Journalists will increasingly find the need for skills that computer science departments are teaching.


The article, "Hack Into Hackers," by Nicholas Carlson, points out that it's the new journalist's job to learn "enough computer science and software engineering to be able to design tools for information gathering, synthesis, analysis and circulation." Basically to do everything that is involved with being a journalist.


Because of the evolving news world, journalists aren't sticking to one area of reporting. Traditional news jobs are going to becoming less prevalent where internet blogs and microblogging sites are gaining on their audiences.


In the reading, "technology firms like Yahoo and Google" are mentioned as examples of how man, technology and journalism have teamed up to make a power trio.

HTML codes can be used to do just about anything on the internet from editing a YouTube video to making your very own webpage.


By learning how to code on the  computer, you can more easily brand yourself as a journalist and improve your search engine optomization.


Being a new journalist means a more demanding workload and a whole new set of skills required to even begin the job. It is necessary now and will become more necessary in the future to aquire these and various other computer skills to be successful.


Get comfortable in your seat and give your computer a name because in no time you'll be making great friends.

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YouTube, Like Google is Now Instant

Technology is constantly changing. Once you have what you think is the latest and greatest invention; someone bursts your bubble with something better. We want everything fast and free, so our friends at Google helped us out.

Many of us are aware of the new "instant search" that Google now provides. It makes searching even more quick and efficient.

What if YouTube does the same? Feross Aboukhadijeh, a Stanford junior and Facebook intern did just that. How did he do it? Three hours of coding.

If you're like me, you can't code at all and don't know the first thing about it. That is why I am amazed how Aboukhadijeh sat at his computer for three hours and all of a sudden became a famous contributor to the Internet.

YouTube offered Aboukhadijeh a job via Twitter but since he is an intern with Facebook had to decline the offer. So you won't find YouTube Instant on youtube.com.

Although it is still considered Youtube, it's actually called YouTube Instant. You have to go to Aboukhadijeh's site.

Google search for "YouTube Instant", or I'll make it even easier for you. Go to YouTube Instant and try it yourself.

Honestly, I think this is a great idea. The video starts literally starts searching after each key punch. On the downfall, it's only great if you know exactly what you're looking for. Otherwise it can get a bit annoying. Another is you can't click where ever on the stream to play whatever you desire. That option is simply not there. Also, fast internet is a must to get the full effect. My apologies to those who still use dial-up. I strongly suggest an upgrade.

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Google Buzz Gets Scolded By Privacy Officals

Google CEO Eric Schmidt is being criticized by data protection officials from 10 countries for his company's handling of the launch of Google Buzz and asked the company to commit to building greater privacy protections into services.

Jennifer Staddart, privacy commissioner of Canada sent the scolding letter signed by her counterparts in France, Germany, Israel, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Spain, and the United Kingdom.

The letter stated that the officials were concerned that the privacy rights of the world's citizens are being forgotten when Google releases new technological applications. They were disturbed by the recent roll out of the Google Buzz social networking application which is a complete disregard for fundamental privacy norms and laws

The letter also noted that Google has a history of privacy problems with its services, particularly Google Maps Street View.

Google Buzz, which launched in February, was an attempt to hasten the process of creating a social network by designating Gmail users contacts as followers. Googles attempt to catch up with the phenomenal growth of Facebook, backfired by exposing relationships that users expected would remain private.

Google apologized and made some changes to the service. Earlier this month, the company attempted to start over again by asking users to reconfirm their Buzz settings.

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Goolge, News Innovator?

Google may hold the future of news in its hands and has what many publishers wished that had thought of first. Google's newest product, Fast Flip may be the latest tool that will be an asset to news today.

The Fast Flip allows news consumer to flip through news stories. What's interesting about the Fast Flip is that Google is now taking the lead where publishers used to be on top.

Publishing has always been about packaging content such as newspapers, magazines and newsletters.

With a new era of digital media, on the web, the news package is now a function of software which is why Google is the leader and the publishers are not.

Fast Flip is an attempt to recreate a better UI for news. This will be a better way to consume publishers' content than publishers provide on their own site.

In publishing most are focused on how to charge for news but hardly any conversation on how to innovate the packaging of news, much less a new UI for news. Also there is little discussion on how people consume news on the web, about the value of aggregating articles from multiple sources about solving consumers' problems rather than publishers' problems.

This is why Google is taking the lead on figuring out how to create new news package and why they will continue to control the lucrative front end of distribution.

Google is sharing revenue with publishers because Fast Flip goes way beyond linking to actually partially reproducing entire web pages. Publishers will have to be content with the revenue that Google shares unless they finally decide to compete on the real playing field that will determine the future of news and publishing.

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Google...not a Media Company?

Although Google continues to reinforce that they are not a media company, last week they seemed to postion themselves with newspapers and television news shows. In David Carr's article in The New York Times, he calls this "the greatest fight over freedom of expression in years."

Last week Google announce that its division would be exiting China and moving to Hong Kong. China has strict senorship laws that are enforced by their govenment.

It will be interesting to watch as the future reveils itself, as conutries like, Austria, Itlay, and South Korea would like Google to monitor their access to some degree also. By walking away from China, and the vast opportunities there, it will be hard to see them standing for other restrictions.

How forgetful we can be when it comes to our right for the freesdom of expression and free press as residents of the United States.

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China Fires Back at Google

Recently Google and China are at a stand off over censorship and human rights activistism.

Goggle first announced that it would consider pulling out of China as of January, saying that it would no longer censor search results of the Chinese government after a set of cyber attacks targeting human rights activists.

"... we stopped censoring our search services--Google Search, Google News, and Google Images-- on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong..."

However, in response to the recent tactic of redirecting Chinese users to its uncensored Hong Kong site the Chinese government began disabling certain searches or blocking the results, according to the New York Times.

Along with the change there has been some backlash for Google. China Mobile is expected to cancel a deal that was supposed to make Google its default mobile search provider.

People believe that Googles anti-censorship movement against China hasn't had much success, at least from the Chinese Internet users perspective.

In response Google said it hopes that the Chinese Government will respect its decision and announced it will be "carefully monitoring access issues," leaving people around the world wondering: what is Google going to do next?

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Youtube Worth $1.1 Billion

Because Google discloses almost no information about YouTube's financial performance, the best anyone can guess is to make just that, an educated guess. Youtube, the world's biggest video site, will generate over $1.1 billion in revenue by 2011. Google will keep about $700 million of that.

According to Mark Mahaney from Citigroup's, who estimated the revenue of Youtube noted that the site is continually growing and that it is rapidly placing more ads on more videos.

To explain the outrageous figures that YouTube is supposedly taking in Mahaney explains the logic. He takes Myspace's revenue-to-page view ratio and applies it to YouTube, shown in the table to the right.

If you want to play analyst, you can tweak Mahaney's math based on your own assumptions. If you think Google (GOOG) is doing a better or worse job at selling ads than News Corp.'s (NWS) site, you might want to adjust the estimates accordingly.

If you believe YouTube generates much more traffic than comScore (SCOR) counts- which Youtube's people like to hint at even though they will never come out and say it- you could tweak it again.

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