The New Journalist/ism
In case you missed it, the new journalist/ism is upon us. Powered by wifi and blog-engines, journalists like Dan Farber over at ZDNet are hammering out stories live from announcements. They are breaking a few rules along the way – commenting on what ‘competitors’ are saying – in this case Shankland, opting for speed over gramatical accuracy, and capturing the essence of the event.
This has been going on for a while now – Farber’s peice on ZDNet today just bought it home for me.
If you are in a non-technology industry and see this happening in your trade rags and elsewhere I’d love a few other examples.
Media Extensibility
The power of the media coupled with the power of participatory communications can be a wicked thing.
I’ve been waiting eagerly to see the first reviews on the new Windows Treo and if there is one review to wait for, it is Walt Mossberg’s. His brutal, but polite, honesty is to be admired. The cascade effect of his review can be witnessed over at BuzzMachine. Today, rather than the echo of a negative review being solely restricted to word of mouth – or a “did you see that” – it is a case of “did you read, see, hear that” as well. The echo isn’t just louder, it has more depth.
I wonder what effect this will have over time on the theory of “Chasm Crossing” (a theory I passionately beleive in). In the past the power of PC Magazine and Walt were absolute. They made and killed product in a couple of pages. Now I can triangulate news quicker – not just listening to the reviewer but also the early adopter. This has definitely changed the mechanics of “Chasm Crossing” – it might have even altered the concept.
One thing that many of these reviews fail to focus on is the ecosystem that surrounds a device of this kind. I recently bought one of the new Blackberry’s. The device itself is nice, although the lack of camera and WiFi is annoying. What isn’t nice is the absolutely archaic email service that a consumer has to use to collect and forward emails. The automated deletion of emails on the server once they are deleted on the device rarely works and so you pretty quickly are unable to recieve emails until getting to a PC and browser.
To make things work, Blackberry’s world is a Windows world. The mail interface works inconsistently across platforms, only working well on Internet Explorer.
And, Cingular is still stumped as to why the International roaming capability works OK in some places and not at all in others (I know this will result in a conversation about replacing my SIM card – meaning the problem is unique to my device).
Finally, the lack of applications for the Blackberry is really apparent. I got used to all kinds of useful apps on my Treo and Sony phone. There are very few for the Blackberry and those that are there aren’t priced to move.
I was ready to give the new Treo a shot but I’m going to wait. Triangulating the news has convinced me again not to be an early adopter.
Intel Leaps To New Logos
Dan’s got images of Intel’s new Logos. So far so bad. Seems to be a trickle out announcement backed by some text heavy ads:
“The lowered “e” gives way to the oval swirls, and “Leap ahead” reportedly takes over from “Intel inside” as the main phrase associated with the company. Not exactly a big leap ahead, but it’s the gesalt that counts. The Yonah mobile processors have been dubbed “Core” (no more Pentium M), with Duo (for dual core) and Solo (single core) implementations.”
That leaves Dell with a funny E.
At Last! The Holmes Report Hits The Blogosphere
One of PR’s most influential is blogging – Paul Holmes of the ‘must read’ Holmes Report. I’ve been a long-time reader of the report – the news content, while important, isn’t what makes the subscription worth it’s weight in gold – it’s Paul’s editorials and commentary. Not having to wait for a .pdf each week is going to be a good thing!
One of his first posts is a sizzler on the hot issue of paying media for editorial:
Paying Journalists is Wrong on Ethical and Pragmatic Grounds:
Retired army public affairs specialist Charles Krohn launches a
spirited defense of efforts by the Pentagon to buy favorable coverage
in Iraq, in a Baltimore Sun column that ran under the headline "Paying foreign media makes sense if it helps us win the war."I’ll
get back to what I consider to be a mighty big "if" in a minute,
because we can deal with the ethical aspect of this first. The only
reason to buy editorial coverage (rather than ad space) is because
editorial coverage is inherently more credible. The intention is to
deceive people into believing you earned coverage, when in fact you
bought it.
I’m with Paul. How can you foster the existence of real democracy with the presence of pay-to-play with the media?
Why companies monitor blogs
Interesting read from C/Net on why companies monitor blogs:
Ultimately, the point of tracking what online consumers are saying about brands is to be able to react quickly if something bad happens or learn from the good things people say. Either way, though, companies are learning they have to pay attention.
