Googling it up on YouTube

Google (owner of YouTube) wants the world to know it now has a 411 directory service. Instead of advertising on TV, it's using YouTube. Make sense, right. I think it's an interesting example of how companies can use YouTube for advertising and how the medium (YouTube) shapes the message. The spot's more than an announcement--it's almost a 90 second informercial. It's a demonstration approach using Google geeks to show how Google 411 works. When's the last time a 90 spot on TV actually worked? However, here on YouTube because it's simple and resembles a user-generated video it seems to work. This is a telling example of how to keep a spot real, appealing and focused. It's a low-cost spot demonstrating how effective YouTube can be as an advertising medium.

Don't date robots

As a follow up on my rant on the i-Phone and the other new tech product lines competing for my dollar, I thought it appropriate to consider the issue of technological determinism. The theory states that "we make the tools and then the tools re-make us." From H.G. Wells to today's Battlestar Galactica and to my personal favorite-- the intergalactic hit The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, popular entertainment has explored issues and raised warnings rooted in this theory. Marry our consumerism culture with technological determinism and perhaps we all should heed the warming posed in a Futurama anti-robot propaganda film.

i-Phone schmy-Phone

i-candy I don't want

The unveiling of product lines (new revenue streams) like the new generation of i-phone bores me. Until the PRICE really comes down I'll keep all my separate gadgets. I don't even like my LG phone with Verizon. Crappy service, outrageous rates and lame features are all designed to separate me and my money.

Can someone explain to me why texting is so darn expensive? I guess because it's popular and the demand is driving corporate greed? I'd rather embrace the gadgets, gizmos and online services I use and enjoy. My TiVo (mine dates back to the Series 2), my Flip Video cam, my portable hard drive, g-mail, Hulu, Amazon Unbox, Pandora, my cable modem and cable telephone, Flickr, Blogger, etc.

My daughter wants a Wii so bad she's started saving up for one herself. I don't see the big deal. It looks like a video game without the wires. Remember, I was one of those in the original Pac-Man generation who jumped on every innovation that came along with rolls of quarters-- I just can see dumping money into a new generation of the same, lame and money draining product lines. Perhaps because I'm no longer the target demo I've become jaded. Perhaps I'm just developing savvyness to the ways of consumerism and electronics. Or perhaps I only embrace the things I find useful and beneficial or moderately entertaining in my life. While I listened XM Radio when I had the free subscription in the mini-van, I could never see any value in paying for it.

Even the big screen TVs haven't impressed me yet. How can I justify that huge cost of the cable package upgrade to receive those HD channels? It makes the cost of the HD screen insignificant. Add on to that the HD channels require a cable box or receiver and you lose me. I don't need another device wired up and collecting dust around the television set. Merge the PC and HDTV into one device with my TiVo service (I'm bored with DVD's as they just take up space). Give me data files I can easily store -- or better yet let me stream it. Like Pandora with music. I'm tired of collecting audio files for songs and keeping them stored and managed on my device. Let someone else pay for the music, store it and manage so I can listen when ever the mood strikes. Give me more services like movie from Amazon Unbox (but I need a much better selection). Let me access it, watch it and move on to the next one when I want it. If I care to see the same movie again, I'm sure it will show up somewhere on cable or there's Hulu. Right?

For the love of salsa, what the frak gives with the all the negative vibes?
Sorry to be so sour about the i-phone update. I guess the price of gasoline, the loser economy, a choppy Indiana Jones sequel that failed to be greater than the sum of its parts, more lame reality television, potentially deadly tomatoes (from the same government that brought us "Death by Peanut Butter" and "Lead Toyland") and the lack of any genuine leadership in our country in both the public and private sectors has me a bit grumpy today.

Coming Soon- A New Season of The County Line

Take the The County Line show open, add new music and some graphics and you have an instant promo for the fall season of TCL. I couldn't find a pinch of fairy dust or any eye of newt to add to the recipe as we're working on a no-frills budget.

Broken News

The Onion News Network pokes some fun at the hype stations place on breaking news...don't let the facts get in the way of the coverage. The breaking news culture feeds the frenzy in this spoof as the producers have an obit graphic ready for the reporter on scene in this mock live report. If only the real news tried as hard as ONN.

Breaking News: Something Happening In Haiti

Video for the sake of video

Blogging some video off YouTube just because it's fun to watch...






One of the "news pegs" used in broadcast newsrooms that J-schools really don't teach to is the compelling "video or audio" element. I'm sure they use the "compelling" photograph news peg at newspapers, even if they don't want to take responsibility for how it drives content. In television, this explains the endless number of useless, low impact stories. Think about all those fires at abandoned buildings. The assignment desk always makes any fire more important by justifying it through the video.

"We have flames," someone will shout across the newsroom.

The next thing you know those flames are in the A-block and there's a video tease. Consider all those worthless traffic accidents you see in small and large market newscasts? Do we have video? If you do, it's in the rundown and the less sexy, but high impact story from an important government meeting is cut.

Flip Video to the Titan News Rescue!

FLIP VIDEO ON THE SCENE COLLECTING AUDIO AND VIDEO FOR TITAN RADIO NEWS










This story on TitanRadio.net and Titan Radio is courtesy of Alex Hines and my Flip Video camera. Shot on the scene and the audio ripped from the AVI file for the noon radio newscast...and raw video and the interview posted online via TitanRadio.net and YouTube. Quick, easy and the gear fits in your pocket. It's raw and dirty...but when you're working for free...





Stolen truck really runs away
Monday, May 19, 2008
NEW WILMINGTON, Lawrence County-- Borough police solved a case of a reported stolen pickup on Monday as they determined it was never stolen-- it ran away. On Sunday evening, Westminster history major Matt Steffy reported his truck stolen. He and his roommates live in a rented home along New Castle Street. It appears someone may have failed to put the truck in park. Roommate Alex Stubenbort tells Titan Radio News it rolled away from the house and down a hill into McClure's Run next to the New Wilmington park. You can see raw video of the scene where the pickup rolled and hear Stubenbort's account of what happened.

You can also see the video here on titanradio.net or via ou YouTube links below:
Raw video #1 of the runaway truck
Raw video #2 of the runaway truck
More Video- Roommate explains what happened

Shooting commencement highlights with Flip Video

I used Pure Digital's FLIP VIDEO to shoot the video for this year's highlights now on titanradio.net. There's very little to complain about this tiny, tough little camera that saves AVI files you can edit in most video editing software, upload online, embed, etc. Flip Video's files are more user friendly that those expensive consumer hard drive cameras with specialized video extensions that make it impossible to do anything with them outside the limited software that comes with the camera.

Flip Video is affordable and pretty cool. Just keep extra AA batteries handy.

The raw video clips are on YouTube. Links to all of them are on titanradio.net.

BC 601's Amazing Race Theme Comes to Life

NEW WILMINGTON, Pa (titanradio.net)--Instead of cramming for a final exam, Westminster College junior broadcast communications majors worked with Titan Traverse to bring their own version of reality TV's The Amazing Race to life. Broadcast Capstone instructor Brad Weaver says students were required to come to the first day of class with a completed application for the television show. He also required them to team up with someone in the class or off campus.

"The questions on the application were provocative, forcing them to think about their goals outside of college," Weaver said. "I used the application as a tool for self-reflection and to explore career paths."

You can see and hear from students in the video files here on titanradio.net or watch via our YouTube link.

Initial reactions from the students were mixed.

Melissa Maines of Clearfield said, "I've been watching the show since the first season, so I was really excited when Mr. Weaver told us about the assignment."

At the other end of the spectrum was Aimee Gerber of New Castle: "My first reaction to this assignment was ‘absolutely not,' but this application isn't like any other application. This one forced us to think about ourselves, about our character, what we're most afraid of, how we cope with conflict."



As the semester and the project progressed, attitudes changed especially after Titan Traverse staged it's own version of The Amazing Race for the students to run. Chose the raw video clip you want to view from the links here:

• Raw video clip 1: Race to the finish line & meet the winners
  
• Raw video clip 2: Shooting compass bearings with Titan Traverse
  
• Raw video clip 3: Racers drive each other up the wall

Bill Sadler of Youngstown, Ohio, commented, "Putting the million-dollar prize aside, our project has a hidden message. This was to show us we have a wide variety of strengths, and we are qualified for any task given to us. We will be entering the ‘race' of the job market soon and will be competing against many for one prize."

Doug Kunst of Bellevue said, "The Amazing Race was a clever way for us to reflect on who we are and where we have come from. For me, it was realizing how good a fit I am to broadcasting."

Nicole Piszczor of Broadview Heights, Ohio, related, "In the end, it made me realize more about who I am as a person and as a professional."

Shayna Marti of New Wilmington observed, "The application asked questions that really made you think about yourself and your partner. I realized that I really didn't know my partner that well, but I recently found out we make a pretty good team."

Weaver said, "One of my goals was for the students to discover ways to ‘sell' themselves beyond the bullet points of a résumé, while exploring the kinds of questions employers might ask."

Each team was responsible for producing the three-minute application video The Amazing Race requires. The final exam period was an Amazing Race-themed event organized by Westminster's Titan Traverse staff. It included canoeing across Brittain Lake, climbing a rock wall, mountain biking, and solving clues to reach the finish line.

WARNING: With YouTube the F-bomb is the last thing you want to drop on local TV

SEE THE VIDEO HERE- WARNING...you will hear it if click it.

WNBC management and anchor Sue Simmons would seem less than professional when this aired in the nation's largest market. While most New Yorkers probably hear it or say it several times a day, it's a shame someone paid that much can't control her language around an open mic. Could it be that big egos carry big tempers with big mouths? Just read the news, please.

USA Today reports she's apologized. Perhaps she should sit out a newscast with a bar of soap in her mouth.

Live from N.Y.: Local anchor apologizes for saying [expletive] on the air

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2008/05/live-from-ny-lo.html

Sue Simmons says she's "truly sorry" for using foul language during a promotional spot for the newscast she anchored late last night on WNBC-TV.

"Simmons was teasing a story about the high cost of groceries when tape of a cereal box suddenly switched to the cruise ship from which a woman fell and disappeared Sunday night," the Daily News says. "The goof prompted Simmons to shout off-camera, "What the [expletive] are you doing?" The screen then went black."

About 30 minutes later, Newsday says the 11 p.m. broadcast began with an apology.

SEE HER humble APOLOGY HERE.

END OF THE SEMESTER IS MID-SWEEPS

My end of the semester frustrations
seems to be echoed on my favorite shows...
where the heck are these storylines going?