Weinergate Big in Online News
It’s a safe bet that by now you are completely burned out on Weinergate. And I know why. News coverage of NY Representative Anthony Weiner’s bizarre sex scandal has been wall-to-wall since the story broke; it’s on the news, on the web, and in your Twitter feed. Pew Research Center found that the story accounted for up to 17% of total news coverage at one point – 3 times the coverage of the President Obama during the same period! I took a look at online news coverage – legitimate news outlets online – and found that Mr. Weiner has outpaced a variety of other (in)famous debauchers in volume of coverage.
Tracking World Press Freedom Day 2011 #WPFD with Slurp140
In addition to the great resources available on the United Nations Education Scientific and Culture Organization’s (UNESCO) website for World Press Freedom Day, we humbly submit our own Twitter tracking and analysis tool Slurp140: http://www.slurp140.com/wpfd/. Also be sure to check out the livestream going on right now!
What’s up with that Twitter hashtag on your Fox TV show?
During last Friday’s episode of the Fox sci-fi show Fringe titled “Lysergic Acid Diethylamide,” Walter, Peter, Broyles, and Bellivia were tripping on LSD. I almost thought that I was tripping when I saw “#Fringe” just above the logo of Fox 5 (WTTG – the DC affiliate) in the lower right hand side of the screen (different affiliate logo pictured below).
When I was watching the Glee episode “A Night of Neglect” last night, I also saw “#Glee” above the Fox 5 logo. So, Raising Hope was going to have a hashtag, right? Wrong. Hmm… So, when I was searching for a Glee screenshot to get its hashtag, I found one from Fox 41 (WDRB of Louisville), and there is no hashtag.
Further, I checked these episodes on Hulu, and there were no hashtags there. That makes sense since Twitter is more about real-time communicating, and Hulu is not about the here and now. It allows you to an extent watch shows when you want to.
Granted, Fox in the past has used Twitter to host tweet ups with show cast and crew members during episode airings. So, what about this new development? Here’s my thinking about this…
- Fox probably thinks that fans of some shows tweet more than fans of other shows. With Fringe attracting a vocal sci-fi crowd and Glee a more youthful crowd, it makes sense to encourage them to tweet. So, why doesn’t Fox think Raising Hope fans tweet that much about the show?
- TV network and affiliate politics likely obliges (if not requires) Fox to request affiliate permission to place the hashtags above their logo.
- Fox probably chooses to place this hash tag on the screen on a show-by-show and affiliate-by-affiliate basis.
- This is a good time to experiment since show plots are now rapidly progressing toward their season finales. That means more people will likely tweet about the late season plot twists and turns.
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Gary Bivings on Digital Politics Radio – October 5th, 2010
TBG’s Gary Bivings appeared on the Digital Politics Radio show with Karen Jagoda on October 5th. Gary and Karen primarily discussed the California Gubernatorial debates of the previous week, while also touching upon the paramount role that social media plays in the new election cycle. A few highlights and the mp3 interview bellow. Next appearance: Tuesday, October 19th at 3:00pm EST.
Meg Whitman vs. Jerry Brown : the California Gubernatorial Race
Gary and Karen mentioned the political importance of engaging the latino vote in California, where over 30% of the voting population self-identifies as Hispanic.. Thus, Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman held a debate in late September that was exclusively televised and dubbed in Spanish on the channel Univision. The YouTube video below shows a snippet of two candidates discussing the hot-button issue of illegal immigration.
The Whitman campaign has been exceptionally proactive in its use of social media and ad campaigns. For instance, when doing a YouTube search to find a video to link to this blog post – the top video links were sponsored by the Whitman camp. (See image above).
Subsequently, Gary and Karen discussed the use of Twitter to spread potentially damaging information about political opponents. The example they cited was urging political allies to propagate on your behalf using social media and online networks a la Jerry Borwn’s. Likewise, they discussed the constant mud-slinging occurring on twitter streams – wherein different constituencies of voters were able to engage in online debates in an uncensored way.
The show segment finished up with talk about the Connecticut Senate debate – wherein Democratic Candidate Richard Blumenthal and Republican Candidate Linda McMahon participated in the first televised debate of their race. Both Karen and Gary mentioned their excitement at this dynamic Senate race as the election nears.
2010 AMP Summit: From the attendee perspective
If my own and the @bivings tweets hasn’t already tipped you off, I was fortunate to spend last Friday and Saturday at the inaugural AMP Summit. Organized by our friends at the David All Group and a distinguished leadership committee including Joe Trippi, Jerome Armstrong, Robert Bluey, Peter Corbett, Peter Greenberger, Todd Herman, Bruce Mehlman, Leslie Sanchez and Jonah Seiger, the AMP Summit built on the successes of several conferences related to technology, politics and government.
In terms of critiquing the AMP Summit, David All and his team deserve a lot of credit for effectively managing and mitigating many of the little things that irritate frequent conference goers / networking junkies. In short, it is obvious that the organizers of the AMP Summit made a decision not to cut corners and put a great deal of thought into making the experience of attendees as smooth as possible. The organization of breakout sessions into four separate tracks (Activism-Media-Politics-Lab) and categorization of panels by their focus (Case Study, How-To, Thought) was generally accurate and useful for attendees to determine their schedules.
The speakers were all subject matter experts who delivered interesting presentations while also leaving more time for Q&A than you typically see. The lunch hour and 30 minute breaks between panels provided for plenty of time to talk to presenters, network with other attendees or catch up on work emails without feeling the need to dash off to your next event. Rather than trying to cram as much as possible into the summit, there was a clear focus on quality instead of quantity. The location was easily accessible via public transportation and the conference took place in a reserved area of the hotel. The food was excellent and the Starbucks coffee was kept warm and flowing all day. Networking receptions and choice of locations was absolutely fantastic (iPad DJ @ranajune rocks!).
On the minus side, having the second day take place on a Saturday was something many attendees did not commit too. However, the smaller crowd made for more intimate discussions with panelists and even better networking among those who stayed around. Although it technically made for a 6 day work week, it is tough to imagine a better or more productive way to spend your Saturday afternoon.
Other areas for improvement include the ever vexing problem of providing quality Wi-Fi that can handle
hundreds of high bandwidth users. For next year’s AMP Summit, having the ability to connect your Facebook & Twitter accounts in order to create & share your schedule (SCHED in DC Week) and then network and connect with other attendees (Gov 2.0 Attendee Directory) would be truly valuable. Finally for those of us who live-tweet these events, having the speakers’ Twitter handles ahead of time and the presentations to view afterwards would be a big timesaver.
All in all, AMP was a good and welcome entrance to the world of technology conferences. Just like no one individual or organization has a monopoly on the internet, no one brand or organization has a monopoly on tech conferences. As an added bonus, AMP was wise to create hype for next year by awarding prior attendees with “Level 2” privileges next year.
For more on AMP check out the conference blog & Facebook Page and OhMyGov’s recap “The AMP Summit in 50 Tweets.”