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Journalists get some help in battle over public records
It’s nice to see both parties working together on something, but it does happen. Both the House and Senate passed the FOIA Improvement Act and President Obama signed it into law. Now we’ll see if it makes any difference. The bill is designed to “boost government responsiveness” to Freedom of…
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Manager Mint magazine publishes my article on Leadership
You can read it here. 6 key differences between Leaders and Managers
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Newspaper publisher, lawyer charged with felonies after filing Open Records request
“We are shocked that any journalist would be jailed for simply asking a question,” the Society of Professional Journalists said in a statement in Atlanta Journal-Constitution So are journalists across the country. Not only have the publisher and lawyer been charged with felonies (felonies!), but they had to post $10,000…
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Subscription, on-demand video services hit important milestone (but Live TV viewing is still King)
You may not have heard the term OTT before. It means “over-the-top” delivery of video programming – through a set-top box or internet-connected TV. But I’ll bet you know some of the products and have even used them. Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu are OTT products and the news today…
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The moral dilemma of driver-less cars: save 10 pedestrians or save yourself?
You’re riding along in your driver-less car enjoying the day when suddenly a group of pedestrians blocks your path. It’s too late to slow down and your car has to make a choice: plow into a group of pedestrians and cause multiple deaths or veer into a concrete divider and…
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How do you watch media in your home?
How many internet-connected devices do you have in your home? Think about that for a minute. Connected devices include phones, tablets, game consoles, smart TV’s, laptops and desktops, or anything else that displays media and connects to the internet: DVD and Blu-Ray players that are Wi-Fi enabled, OTT devices like…
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Why your local TV station may disappear forever
If you’re not in the local TV station business, you probably have no idea that your favorite local TV station may be disappearing soon or that your TV set may not work at all in the near future. Those are two consequences of initiatives that are underway right now. Spectrum…
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Confidence in newspapers, TV news hits all-time lows
The folks at Gallup have been surveying everything about American society for decades. One advantage to that is tracking how people think about key issues over time. This June, when they asked about people’s confidence in newspapers, the numbers hit an all-time low. Television News wasn’t far behind, ranking just…
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Senate investigating cable and satellite TV customer service and billing amid horror stories
The US Senate called for an investigative report and will hold hearings on cable and satellite TV customer service and billing practices. The report will be released at the hearings. Execs from Time Warner, Charter, AT&T, Dish Network, and Comcast are expected to testify. They’re likely to get blasted. Horror…
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Publishers seeing a 42% drop in Facebook reach
Drug dealers like to give away a “taste” of their product for free. They want to get you to sample it and then get hooked. It’s only then that they start charging for it and, the more you crave it, the higher the price. Now I’m not really comparing Facebook to…
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How do you know what you’re seeing is real?
Breaking News! At the local TV station, they roll out a microwave live truck, a reporter and photographer, light up the studio, get the anchors in place, and bring in the control room crew. 7 or 8 people, a million dollars’ worth of equipment, and 10–15 minutes later, you’re on…
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Google unveils new “mobile stress test:” how does your mobile site stack up?
By now, I’m sure you know that most traffic to websites is happening on mobile. Months ago, Google started “punishing” websites that weren’t optimized for mobile by pushing them down in the rankings and search results. Those that met the standard were rewarded, including better placement on mobile searches and…
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Amazon suing businesses that post fake reviews
Look out! If you’re one of the businesses writing fake glowing reviews about yourself, or buying reviews, you may have big problems ahead. Not only has Amazon been cracking down on this and sending warning letters, but now they are suing companies.
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Connected TVs: Streaming first, live TV second
Whether it’s a Smart TV with the internet and some services baked in, a Blue-Ray player, Roku, Google, FireTV, AppleTV or one of the dozen other internet-connected devices, US households continue to connect their television sets to the Internet at a rapid pace. A study from Frank N. Magid Associates…
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Google is tracking you on 70% of all websites: How you can opt-out of tracking cookies
I thought it was creepy enough when I noticed Google had pulled information from my email (via Gmail) and displayed it when I searched on Google. Like when I bought airline tickets and got the confirmation through Gmail… and then noticed when I searched Google, it displayed the flight information…
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Next generation of Smart TVs could spell trouble for Local TV stations
This has been coming for some time, but it should send chills down the spines of local TV execs everywhere: a TV screen that when you turn it on doesn’t start on a channel, but gives you a listing of everything available. If you’re local, you’ll probably be tucked inside…
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Warren Buffett on the state of the newspaper industry
Investor Warren Buffett’s company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns more than 30 small and medium-sized newspapers. Buffett has long proclaimed his love for newspapers and his hope for the industry. But in an article by Rem Rieder in USA TODAY, he sounds a little disheartened. “We haven’t cracked the code yet” –…
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How to create your own simple business rules
“All of us have too much complexity in our lives,” said Kathleen Eisenhardt, professor at Stanford University’s School of Engineering. In studying how product development teams with complex rules, no rules, and a few simple rules tackled projects, some simple truths emerged.
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The CNA (Customer Needs Analysis) is Dead
The average SMB (Small and Midsize Business) gets 17 sales calls per month. I’ve talked to some that say they get that many every week. So there’s no doubt they feel overwhelmed, why they don’t take our calls or respond to our emails, and why they may not believe what…
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If you could only pick one: Pay TV or Streaming?
When forced to choose between pay TV (cable, satellite) and streaming services, people that currently use both react differently according to their age. The younger the adult, the more likely they are to choose TV streaming services over pay-TV, and vice versa. So the big news is… young people stream,…
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Internet Video views: Beware data without context
I am a huge proponent of the potential of online video, OTT (over-the-top) video, and online news in general. Both from a consumer standpoint and a producer, online video is a force to be reckoned with. But this breathless reporting about video views, without context, needs to stop. We all…
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Standing up for the First Amendment in the Digital Age
Make no mistake. The First Amendment has been under attack for some time now. The problem is the will to fight seems to be waning as news organizations too often don’t have the resources, or money, to fight the battles. Add to that a new generation of digital journalists and…
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What really drove the sale? When metrics lie
Let me take you back a few years, then we’ll jump ahead to the digital advertising world we live in now. Several years ago, I was talking to the owner of a small business one day about what drove customers to their store. She told me it was simple: the…
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Analyzing $12 billion dollars of actual ad spend and tracking ROI shows surprising results
Accenture Strategy released a three year study from its database of $12 billion dollars in marketing expenditures. It tracked ad buys in 6 categories from 20 major national brands. It’s one of the most in-depth, real-life studies, of what happens to brands that shift dollars from television to digital, either…
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A tidal change in demographics is happening now – unprecedented in human history
How’s that for a headline? But the stats in a recently released report from Bank of America and Merrill Lynch have been called “mind blowing” because of its unprecedented nature. “We are living in the midst of the most remarkable demographic transition in history” – Bank of America / Merrill…
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How long will people wait for your site to load? We put sites to the test
We all know that the faster your site loads, the better it is. With the huge shift of traffic to mobile, it’s even more important that your site is both mobile-friendly and fast loading. How long will consumers wait for a page to load while shopping for your products? Turns…
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Where do people get their news? Social media beats every medium except one
With the fast adoption rate of internet-connected smart phones, you would expect the number of people accessing news on mobile to rise substantially. Well, it did. In a Knight Foundation research study done by Nielsen, 89% of the U.S. adult mobile population access news on mobile devices.
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Ten things great leaders do
He wasn’t brought it to change the company, but he was expected to grow it a significant amount. On his first day, he gathered the key managers together and asked us to pull out a notepad. He asked each of us to think about the worst case scenario at our…
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Will people still read long-form news on tiny cell phone screens?
With more and more traffic going to mobile, specifically smart phones, every day, is there a future for long form journalism on line? That’s one of the questions a recent Pew Research Center study tried to answer. Researchers looked at 125 million cellphone sessions accessing 74,840 articles encompassing 30 news…
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Lessons learned: An industry in transformation
Think about this case study. You’re company is 100 years old and highly successful. In fact, your company is the gold standard by which others are judged. You have achieved the ultimate praise: you’ve become a household name! Here’s the problem. 80% of your core business makes up 100% of…
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It’s not all about content marketing
Yeah, yeah. We’ve all heard it a thousand times: You need to post original content to get traffic. Content is king. That’s what they told me. Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. I’m calling BS on that.
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Five great viral video campaigns for your enjoyment
Some fun spots to break up your day. Ellen DeGeneres and Adele teamed up for a fun adventure. Ellen sent Adele into a Jamba Juice store with an earpiece. She had to say whatever Ellen told her. Funny stuff. As you can imagine, the video went viral on social media.…
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Marketing to teens on social
Want to reach teens with your marketing? You better be prepared to be nimble. We all know tastes change quickly with teenagers. What’s hot one day is ice cold the next. It’s the same with social media. Just about the time you figure out where they are on-line, they move. …
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Organic search dropping: What’s a marketer to do?
So what’s a marketer to do? Paid search is taking over more real estate on Google. Google eliminated the right rail paid search ads and cut the map pack from 7 listings down to 3. But that still means often the organic search results often fall below the fold, meaning…
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