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journalism / Monday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on The Agars, Buzzfeed and our garage
7
Aug 17

The Agars, Buzzfeed and our garage

John Agar Sr., wanted to do something with his son, John Jr. John the younger has cerebral palsy and, while they were looking for a thing to do, they found the 5K. Dad would push son 3.1 miles through the course. They got lapped by a power walker. So they resolved to train harder. And these guys are something special. I could tell you, but John’s sister Annie is about to show you:

They race all over these days, the Agars inspire and delight and even challenge Michael Phelps to races. Phelps, who was last seen in a simulated race against a shark, hasn’t taken them on yet.

This is an interesting idea. Buzzfeed is going to do a Twitter broadcast. I’m trying to work this out in my mind. Poynter tells us about it:

BuzzFeed News is launching a morning show on Twitter later this year, and it’s hiring a team to get it off the ground.

The next broadcast from the company that brought you exploding watermelons and a live goat ambush is a weekday newscast aimed at “an audience that wakes up hungry for the latest in ‘fire Tweets,'” according to a May 1 press release from Twitter (which also announced streaming shows with The Verge and Cheddar).

The winner here is Twitter. I’m not sure it is the right idea for Buzzfeed — curating the ideas of the many seems like a return to an older distribution model in a different envelope — but maybe at a place like Buzzfeed it doesn’t have to be the right idea just now. Maybe you just have to have the idea, because that’s going to lead to The Idea. I don’t know what The Idea there is going to be, but they have plenty of sharp people on board and it’ll develop over time, or strike as an epiphany.

Wouldn’t you like to have The Idea first? It isn’t hub-and-spoke. It isn’t TMZ and it won’t be a gatekeeper style. It won’t be the old Buzzfeed kitten and listicle model, either. And again, you can’t curate everything coming out of the firehose. A small portion of the success of the social media monsters can be attributed to the implications there. Even if you tried, it would be a Kardashian tweet here, a sports blooper there and today’s best pet or kid video. And then you’ve got a host basically reading tweets to us as a show. And the hashtags. (Don’t read hashtags allowed.) Or, slightly better, you get a panel laughing and reacting or maybe even contextualizing the content. A super smart version of that might be viable. You might create the Twitter broadcast version of some of the better network or cable shows — but cooler, for a social media program. But then there’s gravitas, name recognition, the boring logistics of “Can you get that person on?” And then, if they are good, can you get them regularly? Are they in demand for network appearances? And which show would you choose if both sets of producers called?

All of these traditional — or newly traditional routines, if you will — will present the same issues here. But I think, for them, it has to drive you back to Buzzfeed. Why would a site who made their name as a part of the evolutionary media disruption go exclusively to social media, another ripple from their point of view? There’s something to be said for presence and branding, of course, but that’s not the big goal out of this. Maybe it is an offshoot of a new growth pattern, a new revenue stream for the company that seemingly fell well short of their projections last year. Maybe they’re starting their own gif-driven social media platform.

Or what if this is successful? What if the website, which grew on those lists and rewrites and became an earnest newsroom and, to some, an influential juggernaut, ultimately spins off their video programs.

I have a notebook sitting in a closet where I doodled out the mass media fragmentation models. It basically went from four big blobs to a bunch of lines and dots. And it seemed, back in 2006 or so when I was writing in that book, that all of those dots and smaller blobs and indistinct triangles and other shapes would naturally one day coalesce again. I thought of it as a natural reaction to funnels at the time. Maybe it is a corporate response to market forces and the silo-ification that is bound to happen. It has happened before.

This I wondered about while straightening up in the garage this evening. But the boxes in the garage didn’t give me the answers. I’m down to watch and see. I did not have The Idea.

Today, that is.

Update: My friend and Knight Fellow Andre Natta chimes in, because he’s smart and I asked him too. He made three keen points. One of them I wanted to include:

Because, is there really a better use than managing accuracy during a breaking news event (or managing the hot take hose)?

That would be a great feature. Who do we trust for that? We don’t trust traditional media for it 98 percent of the time. We should trust them more. Is Buzzfeed going to bring me the Ryan Seacrest-Cronkite of this generation to tell me the Kansas City Star is on the ground and has bonafides and is offering legitimate Twitter coverage the next time there’s a big problem in the ‘burbs?

If that’s the case maybe who is really missing out here are the news networks. Buzzfeed won’t build this out for breaking news. That’s an important model, but it isn’t sustainable for them. What’s more, CNN and the like struggle with a variety of on-air management issues in slower news periods.

As for Andre’s thought on the “hot take hose” … Here’s something that may very well be impacted by such a Buzzfeed move. Watch the “trending topics” and “who to follow” boxes. Already, if you click a trending topic that “who to follow” box updates with relevant or topical accounts. Now throw in a video box on the right side, with some slick production under the Buzzfeed brand and the topics amplify. It is a traditional media idea, agenda setting theory. Walter Lippman’s original idea, that the media are what connects events to audience, and all of the scholarship that followed, which basically says “Media can tell you what to think about” works here. If Twitter is a water cooler. There’s about to be a new, very dynamic co-worker hanging out there.

adventures / Instagram / memories / Monday / photo / site / Twitter / video — Comments Off on Back in the U.S.A.
5
Jun 17

Back in the U.S.A.

We arrived safely and on time and only inconvenienced by the inconveniences of the modern convenience of air travel.

Which is, at times, inconvenient.

But we were well-fed. Customs was a chore, even in the fast lines. And, like all things in New York, the moment you stepped onto the curb you knew exactly where you were and why you didn’t want to be there.

We made it back to the in-laws to find that Allie hadn’t missed us at all:

That was Friday. I flew back yesterday. The Yankee dropped me off at the curb:

I made a video of the flight:

And, now I am back in town, back at the office, back to the regular routine, now with jet lag! If history is any guide, I still have another two days until I can walk that off.

The above video makes the 31st video I’ve produced in the last two weeks. Add to that 103 photos that have also been uploaded to the site. And that’s just what I’ve shared here. So, with the trip well-documented, it seems a good time to take a little break on the blog. There’s an anniversary post coming up, of course. And if anything interesting happens in the next few weeks I’ll throw it here as well. But, otherwise, let’s say hiatus until July. In the meantime, follow along on Twitter and Instagram. They never seem to stop.

Friday / Instagram / IU / Twitter — Comments Off on And we’re clear
28
Apr 17

And we’re clear

IU / memories / Thursday / Twitter / video — Comments Off on What day is it?
27
Apr 17

What day is it?

I skimmed through Twitter before I sat down to write this, as I sometimes do. And I had three intelligent tweets in a row. That’s worth pointing out:

Elsewhere, another day at the office. We’ve wrapped up all of the shows, except for one final shoot tomorrow. There are oral histories being booked and recorded. Classes are winding down. Parties and end-of-the-school-year meetings are being held. I attended two of the former and one of the latter. I got a nice thank you card.

And I thought I might start going through some old videos. I had this idea last week while I was working on new video graphics. (I have three new opening and closing videos after spending some quality time with After Effects.) So here is something I shot in Belgium in 2015:

The Cathedral of St. Michael and St. Gudula is a Roman Catholic church in the heart of Brussels. Beautiful church. Worship here is thought to date back to the ninth century. The current structure was built between the 13th and 16th centuries. The stained glass windows and confessionals go back that far. The pulpit was added in the 17th century and the carillon, heard here, was installed in 1975. During 20th century restorations the remains of a Romanesque church and a Romanesque crypt were discovered.

And now I want another Belgian waffle.

cycling / IU / Monday / photo / Twitter / video — Comments Off on This isn’t entirely about cycling
24
Apr 17

This isn’t entirely about cycling

We saw the women’s race on Friday and the men’s race on Saturday. Both days it was supposed to rain. Both days prevailing winds kept the showers away. And late in the day on Saturday spring returned again. It is a skittish spring.

Anyway, the race strategy is all about transitions. There are up to four members on a team and you are swapping out riders left and right to meet the rule requirements and to keep your teammates fresh. The ideal thing to do is to break away from the pack so you can have a bicycle exchange without losing any time. So the guy leaving the race is revving up to about 130 RPMs only to stop on a dime and let the teammate take over. And sometimes that leads to crashes. And sometimes there are just crashes in the field itself. I could do without that. But these guys were moving, averaging just over 24 miles per hour for two hours, counting a few caution laps.

Here’s a green flag restart after one of the race’s three big cautions:

Little 500

And here is the winner coming across the line, the paper calls them the people’s champions, the Black Key Bulls:

Little 500

A fine bicycle race! Here are some clips:

I made a gif, too, if you prefer:

By Sunday afternoon it was fully spring again … promising another attempt at the second season of the year, this one destined to last a full 48 hours before some cold and gray day moves back into the region. So it was spring and sunny and crisp and we set out to enjoy. On our bike ride on the north side of town I found two cool barns:

Barn

Barn

Which brings us to today. We got to play the part of tour hosts for a bit today. The grandson of a family friend is making his college trips and he was here for a quick stopover for a few informational sessions, some building tours and meeting a few students. Late in the day we caught up with them at the Sample Gates:

Sample Gates

Truly, it was chamber of commerce weather. It is always just like this here young man, no matter what they tell you.

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