I took a class on a field trip today. This is the class that takes three or four each term, which is one of my favorite classes, mostly, I think, because of the field trips.
So here we are in the conference room at Intermark Group in downtown Birmingham, where the students learned a bit about the day in a life of PR practitioners, advertising reps and creatives.
They give us a quick walking tour, offices, cubicles, a server room, some of their edit bays — they have a full service production studio in their building — and the famous camper:
They bought it online, restored it, had it installed and now all of their clients try to have their meetings in there. One of the dozens of neat touches you’ll find in a shop full of out-of-the-box thinkers.
Things to read … because sometimes you have to stay in your box.
Here are three quick ones to frighten you:
Retailers warn Congress that more cyberattacks are looming
Bankers want retailers to bear the costs of data breaches
Cyberattacks are on the rise. And health-care data is the biggest target
Who wants to go back to stamps and checks?
What can make audio go viral? NPR experiments with building earworms for social media:
So why doesn’t audio go viral? It’s not because shareable audio doesn’t exist — it does. If you’re an audio listener, you’ve probably heard something amazing, surprising, or funny that you really wanted to share. But in many cases, there are boundaries that prevent shareable audio clips from spreading.
When we started experimenting around audio and social, we identified three hurdles.
It is a shame, really, because audio can work as such a focusing agent, or an atmospheric agent, or a telling agent. There’s something inherently compelling about really good audio — recognizing and capturing it is an art unto itself — but if you’re discussing the nebulous “go viral” as a goal then you are talking about online. And, usually, if you can record audio you can record video. And, of course, in video sometimes the audio is lowered, or removed, or just overwhelmed by what the eyeballs see.
Take note of this, it will be huge. Amazon Lays Foundation for Giant Video Advertising Business:
Amazon is shedding a little more light on where it hopes to take its ad business. It is announcing that it has inked a deal with video ad company FreeWheel to provide the technology for Amazon to build out its video advertising business.
FreeWheel is essentially responsible for putting the right video ads in front of the right Amazon customers.
In short: Get ready for a lot more video ads on Amazon video content.
Get ready to buy in pre-roll, buying from more directions in Kindle and buying, buying, buying everywhere.
Still don’t think your packages are being delivered by drones, despite 60 Minutes’ breathless efforts.
The first thing you have to know about this one is that the headline and the story don’t play well together. The US will build regional ‘hubs’ to combat the impacts of climate change
The Obama administration is pushing ahead with its vow to mitigate the effects of climate change. Today, the US government announced plans to create seven “climate hubs” that will offer information and resources to communities in rural regions across the country.
Specific details on the hubs are slim for now, but each one will be tailored to a specific region’s climate-related challenges — such as water shortages, forest fires, pests, or floods. The hubs, which will be overseen by the US Department of Agriculture, are largely zeroing in on farming and ranching. In a statement, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack noted that the hubs will help ensure that “agricultural leaders have the modern technologies and tools they need to adapt and succeed in the face of a changing climate.”
The first question I have: Why not just use the existing Extension infrastructure? They are in place. They have a wide array of experts. They are already networked into the local farming and ranching communities and so on. The answer to that question would be telling.
Just enjoy the comments. NBC News’ Richard Engel: My Computers, Cellphone Were Hacked ‘Almost Immediately’ In Sochi. Also, there are plenty of things about this that don’t make sense yet, but do enjoy the comments.
Two posts on the multimedia blog today:
And I think that will be enough for a cold Wednesday. Here’s to a warm weekend coming your way.
