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.

In the first week alone, Weiner’s indiscretions were mentioned a whopping 13,000 times in online news articles. That compares to just 4.5k mentions for Schwarzenegger’s scandal and 2.5k mentions when Eliot Spitzer got caught with his wallet out. That’s a huge difference compared to how these scandals were picked up by print publications (yes, they still make them out of paper) during the same period. Newspapers and magazines ran just under 600 stories about Weiner in the first week of coverage. Compare that to 3k stories for Spitzer, 2k for Tiger and 1.6k for the former Governator. So why did print media snub Weiner while online outlets went crazy for him?

• The internet is getting pretty popular. While it’s not the whole story, over the past couple of years online news has become a primary source for many readers. There are more news outlets online and they are pumping out more coverage than ever before (the graph is in chronological order of event).
• While most sex scandals involve mistresses, escorts and housekeepers, Weiner’s trysts were primarily virtual. Kind of makes sense that online news outlets would be interested in what happens online.
• What happens on Twitter…. is everyone’s duty to retweet. People who use Twitter and Facebook were intrigued to find their communication tool being used scandalously by an authority figure and everyone wanted to talk about it. The constant buzz on social media let news outlets know that reader interest was high.
• With layers of photos and chat transcripts being revealed, online news outlets had an excuse to post multiple articles and updates on the story.
• The story is a little smutty. Print pubs are typically a bit more traditional and might have preferred to mention the situation and move on…instead of dishing the dirty details.

Why do you think Weinergate is so hot online? Is the story really worthy of so much more coverage than other recent sex scandals? Let us know what you think is behind Weiner’s big numbers by leaving a comment.

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!

Reposted from out Impact Watch Blog

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.

Some of my biggest questions about Fox placing these hashtags on screens are: What are Fox’s goals?  How are they going to measure success?  Has Fox monitored and cataloged show-related tweeting in the past and will compare it to when the hash tags appear on TV screens?

Further, what is Fox expecting from more Twitter activity?  Does Fox hope that greater buzz will attract more viewers to its shows?  Is it planning to sell “sponsored” tweets from one of its official Twitter accounts during the conversation of an episode that is currently airing?

What do you think?  During which, if any, shows did you see the hashtags on your TV?

On a personal note, I would like to thank Fox for renewing Fringe for a 22 episode fourth season.  THANKS!

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.

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.”

Several TBG staff members are at the AMP Summit 2010 (@ampsummit) in downtown Washington, DC today and tomorrow. This event  brings together leaders from the political, media, and policy arenas to discuss the way that technology is impacting the consumption of news and politics in today's world. AMP2010 is very similar in theme to the Personal Democracy Forum that the Bivings Group helps sponsor every year. (click here to see the Bivings Report coverage of PDF )

We created a specific SLURP140 just for this conference, so if you would like to stay in the know about the panels and discussions happening in DC this weekend  – click here (on on the SLURP140 image on the left) to check out the live twitter stream.

This image shows the SLURP140 view of the top 10 most active twitter users for the AMP 2010 summit thus far into the conference. As you can see – TBG is squarely in 7th place.

If you would like to be informed about what TBG staff is doing at the conference, follow their tweets at @bivings

On August 24th, @TylerGray and I attended a networking event hosted by @MediaBistro. This was one of several social media gatherings that our staff has attended over the course of the past several weeks, and we wanted to give you, our reader, a glimpse into what the events were actually like.

The below video is a short look into what the DC online media networking events often look like. We also took the time to interview a few of the interesting people we met at the MediaBistro event. Hopefully their unique jobs and innovate use of social media inspires others to think outside the box. Below is their contact information. If you would like to get featured on The Bivings Report at the next networking event, feel free to tweet @Bivings and let us know.

Thanks for Ruben Muska of Paradigm Companies and Kelly Barrett of the new startup Hy.Ly for sharing their interesting work!

Guerilla and social media marking campaigns all dream of going viral – a la Old Spice Man on a Horse – but some advertising really strikes out. Below is a look at two particularly bad unfortunate ad campaigns that resulted in more bad press than good. Let this be a lesson that for every Old Spice man on a horse, there is also an Aqua Teen Hunger Force bomb scare.

Mafia Wars: Leading to Wars with City Hall

No more than a few weeks ago, the video game maker Zynga was advertising for its Mafia Wars Las Vegas expansion pack.  Allegedly, this company authorized an ad agency to plant fake $25,000 bills on the sidewalks of San Francisco.  The plan was for pedestrians to pick up said bills, and find the address of the Mafia Wars website, where they could get information on Mafia Wars: Las Vegas. However, the City of San Francisco did not take the marketing tactic very well – and reported that the cleanup effort was of great expense to the city.  The San Francisco’s city attorney’s office is now officially investigating the incident.

“The Last Exorcism” and Chatroulette: Two iffy things that did not go great together

Everyone’s favorite random video chat website Chatroulete was seemingly the perfect medium on which to promote the Lionsgate horror film The Last Exorcism.  Its complete anonymity lents itself well to beginning short-lived interactions with strangers.

Playing off of this random notion, the marketing team behind The Last Exorcism decided to show a taped video to those connecting to it on the Chatroulette .  Subsequently, they released a video on their YouTube channel showing the “best of” reactions of those watching the exorcism video. In the clip, a female begins gesturing to remove her clothing, when suddenly her eyes roll back and she screams into the camera before the screen goes black. Meanwhile, the viewer is expected to look at the reactions on the male’s faces – which show notable distress.

While the Chatroulette “social experiment” service is currently down, the videos were released as part of a marketing campaign to drum up excitement for the movie. However, this is not the first YouTube video in this movie’s marketing mix. A few weeks ago, a website called Church of Saint Marks appeared online with supposed “information” on exorcism. Meanwhile, the site actually featured one of the main characters from the movie, Reverend Cotton Marcus of the fictional Saint Marks Church.

 A new DC News Site launched last Sunday– and the local social media scene has been abuzz with the innovation, social media outreach, and hyper local focus seen on the site. The pages of this online portal will function to aggregate news from all over the DC metro area and create a one-stop-shop for DC residents. TBD is owned by the same company that owns POLITICO, but its model of news delivery is decidedly different. The site seamlessly mergers the ‘old media’ video news from WJLA (Channel 7) and News Channel 8 with news reporting and blog posts.

Reaching Out to The Blogging Community

127 local blogs from across the Washington DC metropolitan area have joined together to contribute and publish content though the TBD portal. The neighborhood blog section features stories from TBD staff writers as well as those found on DC-area blogs.  In order to continuously improve their content, the site is also asking for reader feedback (and not just in the comments section). Yet the best part of the new site that if you input your zip code into a handy search bar, TBD will tailor content specifically for you.

In addition to engaging with users on numerous social media platforms, TBD also released several mobile phone applications –allowing readers to get their news on the go. The Bivings Report can assess with high confidence that this new website is an arbiter of great things to come as social media merges with traditional media formals on the web. It features a large amount of white space and is intuitively designed with the end users' experience in mind.