Category Archives: Digital Media Strategy

Integrating Buffer into your iPad Twitter workflow

Frustrated that you can’t use Buffer from within your media consumption apps? Zite? Instapaper?

Read on to learn how to integrate Buffer into your info-pr0n apps for easy one-click, queued tweets.

Buffer is a web service that lets you schedule your tweets so they are published at pre-set times throughout the day.
Buffer schedules your tweets

I regularly read Zite and Flipboard in the morning and retweet anything I find interesting. At night, it’s time for Instapaper. While browsing throughout the day I use the Buffer bookmarklet to make sure my tweets go into my publish queue. No such luck when using Zite, Flibpoard or Instapaper since they’re not integrated with Buffer.

So I end up publishing a ton of info early in the morning and late at night, which may not be the best approach.

How can I use Buffer from within Zite, Instapaper and Flipboard if it’s not integrated into them?

I’ve found a nice workaround using a web service called IFTTT (ifttt.com – If This, Then That) that allows you to create a workflow using a number of web apps, such as Delicious, Instapaper, Gmail, etc. [Hit me up for invites if you want to try it.]

The idea is to create a one-click workflow that allows you to share content through your Buffer queue without having to re-format e-mails, copy, paste or any extra steps you might be needing at the moment.

ifttt puts the internet to work for you by creating tasks that fit this simple structure:Using IFTTT to integrate Buffer with your iPad twitter workflowThink of all the things you could do if you were able to define any task as: when something happens (this) then do something else (that).

My IFTTT setup:

I’ve created two tasks that solve the Buffer issue for Zite and Instapaper.

I’ve connected IFTTT to my Delicious account, my Instapaper account and my Gmail account.

There’s 3 bits of magic that help make this happen:

  1. Instapaper offers an RSS feed of your liked items.
  2. Zite posts to your Delicious account using a via:zite tag.
  3. Buffer offers you an email address where you can send your tweets to queued.

Now, on IFTTT create two tasks:

1. Send Delicious bookmarks from Zite to Buffer:

if [there’s a new bookmark tagged via:zite in your Delicious account] then [send an e-mail with the bookmark from your Gmail account to Buffer’s e-mail address]

Now all you need to do to share articles from within the Zite app is click on the Save to Delicious button.

2. Send liked Instapaper items to Buffer:

Using IFTTT to integrate Buffer with your iPad twitter workflowUse a New feed item from channel to check your Instapaper Liked Items feed.

if [there are new items on your Instapaper liked feed] then [send an e-mail with the article from your Gmail account to Buffer’s e-mail address].

You’ll find your Instapaper Liked Items feed at the bottom of your Instapaper Liked page, where it says This folder’s RSS.

Just like any article in Instapaper and off it goes into your Buffer queue (please note that Instapaper takes a while to refresh your RSS feed, so this may not be instantaneous – not that it matters, since you’re queuing them for later anyway).

In both cases, set the e-mail’s subject to the title of the bookmark/article ({{title}}) and the body to the url ({{url}}). You can edit to your liking to add additional info to your tweets.

For Flipboard, we can take advantage that Buffer’s email address begins with “add” and the emails are formatted in a way that plays nice with Buffer. Simply select Email Link, begin typing “add” until autocomplete shows the Buffer address (usually at the top) and send away. (The reason I don’t use this same approach with Zite is that Zite truncates the article title when e-mailing).

There you go. Buffer integrated with my most-used info-pr0n apps. Sweet.

Use this link to create your own Buffer account and receive one extra tweet space in your buffer: http://bufferapp.com/r/e32e1

How do you integrate Buffer into your daily workflow? Let me know in the comments.

And if you enjoyed this post, please retweet it and follow me on Twitter @cgranier.

Creating a Shortcode for the Organize Series WordPress Plugin

Insert this code into your WordPress functions.php file (or custom_functions.php if you’re using Thesis like I am) to enable a quick way to display a series of articles created with the Organize Series plugin.

function get_thumb_series( $atts ) {
	extract( shortcode_atts( array(
		'ser_id' => false
	), $atts ) );
	if ('ser_id' == false){
		return false;
	}
 	global $post, $orgseries;
	$series_post = array();
	$posts_in_series = array();
	$settings = $orgseries->settings;
	$ser = $atts['ser_id'];
	$result = '<div class="episode-list">';
		$series_post = get_objects_in_term($ser, 'series'); 
		$posts_in_series = get_series_order($series_post, 0, $ser, FALSE);
		foreach($posts_in_series as $seriespost) { 
				$result .= token_replace(stripslashes($settings['series_post_list_post_template']), 'other', $seriespost['id'], $ser_ID);
		}
		$result .= '</div>';
		return $result;
}
add_shortcode( 'get-ts', 'get_thumb_series' );

Usage

On any post or page (and possibly anywhere else) where you want to list a particular series, enter the following shortcode:

[get-ts ser_id='n']

where n is the ID of the series you want to display (you can find this in the Manage Series admin page).

So, for instance, if you want to display a list of posts contained in a series with ID=10, you’d enter the following in the text of the post or page:

[get-ts ser_id='10']

Why and How did I do this

I’m using the wonderful Organize Series plugin on a site I’m working on to display hundreds of TV episodes together in a logical arrangement. As part of my CMS strategy, I needed a way to display the content of a series on a page that is not a part of the series.

Suppose you have all the episodes of “The Big Bang Theory” organized in a series so that you can jump from one to the next in a logical order and not be constrained by a blog’s chronological ordering system. If you want to create a page with additional info about the show, there’s no clear way to add the episode list to the page. This Shortcode will allow you to do just that.

The Organize Series plugin includes a file filled with useful functions (orgSeries-template-tags.php in the plugin’s folder). Figuring out how to put all that info to good use was a bit harder, since Organize Series now keeps all their support forums behind a pay-wall. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine solved that by letting me look at some older pages from back when the support forums where open.

Further help came from Aaron Jorbin’s post on WordPress Shortcodes – A how to by example.

The nice thing about this Shortcode is that you can edit the output to suit your needs. The reason I called the function get_thumb_series is that I originally wanted to generate a list of episodes with a thumbnail next to each one. I still haven’t done that, but there’s nothing keeping you from changing the function to return whatever it is you need. I’m currently using the default functions within orgSeries-template-tags.php (and the function itself is an abridged version of get_series_posts()), but will eventually add my own to return just the information I need about every episode (thumbnails, air dates, duration, etc).

I’ll add links to example pages once the site goes live. In the meantime, let me know if this article was helpful to you and feel free to post any fixes or updates.

Google TV is coming (and we told you so)

The New York Times (Google and Partners Seek TV Foothold) and Web TV Wire (Google TV On Way – Search Giant Teams With Intel & Sony For Android-Based Set-Top Box) are reporting that…

Google and Intel have teamed with Sony to develop a platform called Google TV to bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes. (NYT)

RED66 readers (yes, all three of you) got a glimpse of the future and already knew about this development four years ago, when I wrote about “Google Media.” Some choice quotes from that article:

Google has been quietly getting ready to bring the power of its brand and technology to the way you experience music, television and media in general.

Google has the equipment and expertise necessary to set up a massive media distribution and tracking network, integrated into their existing search and advertising technologies.

Google is also making inroads into the set-top box business, hoping to bring television media straight into your television (whether it’s in your living room or your mobile phone).

At the time I wrote that article (April, 2006) I made a mock-up of what a Google Media Dashboard could look like, based on their Google Finance interface. What do you think?

Google TV Dashboard

Read the original article here: Google Media.

And, as always, feel free to comment below and share it with your friends (hint: use the retweet button at the end of the article).

How to Make Money With Digital Media

Hulu - 24

The first question that comes out of any Media Executive when I mention New Media is “How will we make money?” To which I always answer “How will you make money without new media?”

However, they make a valid point: this is a business and if we can’t make money at it then we should be doing something else. So let’s try and figure out what it takes to make money online with your content.

Old Media Revenues

Let’s begin by looking at the costs of making television content and its associated advertising revenue. I’ll be using Fox Network’s “24” as an example.

  • Producing one episode of “24” costs around US$4,000,000.
  • Each 30 second advertising spot during “24” sells for around US$364,000.
  • Each episode of “24” is seen by around 10 million viewers.

If Fox sells 100% of the advertising slots on “24”, they make 364,000 x 2 x 16 = US$11,648,000. The cost to each advertiser is US$364,000 / 10,000,000 viewers x 1,000 = $36.4 CPM (cost per one-thousand viewers). If FOX wants to supplant their television network with pure online distribution, then they need to find 32 advertisers, each willing to pay $36.4 CPM, and -more importantly- ten million viewers willing to seat through 32 advertisers while watching their shows online. Good luck with that, but it’s not happening.

Old Media Models, New Media Tools

Remember that you’re not trying to replicate your business model online, you’re trying to supplement it and, eventually, re-invent it. You’re giving your viewers the convenience and freedom to watch your content when they want to, how they want to and where they want to. All you need to do is make sure A=B: let every viewer who migrates online represent as much revenue as they did on TV. Many will still watch you on BOTH places.

Fox Networks has an interesting problem here: they make about one dollar for every viewer. That’s a $1,164 CPM rate (remember, even though it costs each advertiser $36.4 CPM, Fox can potentially sell 32 ad slots during each episode of “24”, netting them $1.16 per viewer – think about that the next time you pay $1.99 per episode on iTunes).

Now, Fox cannot get anywhere near a $1.1K effective CPM rate for online content, but CBS can apparently sell their shows online at higher advertiser CPMs than on television, and Hulu is selling ads at $20 CPM, so let’s assume Fox can sell eight spots on each online episode of “24” at $40 CPM (for argument’s sake). That makes Fox $320 per thousand viewers.

New Media Thinking

So, how do you design your new media strategy? Think about the following ways to maximize the revenue around your online content:

  • Get your content online, it adds to your regular programming.
  • Give the viewer the choice to watch your content online.
  • Foster a community around your content: it’s all about the engagement.
  • Online lets you target and personalize advertising. Use it to your advantage and charge a premium for it.
  • Your online audience will tend to be younger and more attractive to advertisers.
  • Online content will not cannibalize your regular programming, it will enhance it.
  • Use online distribution to your advantage: if you run out of inventory, find partners that will give your content additional exposure.
  • Allow the viewer to gain control.

And remember, the time is NOW.

Is Apple Playing Games with iTunes Rentals?

Last night, my friends decided to rent Superbad since some of them had not seen the movie already. They looked for it on Comcast OnDemand but it was no longer available. I knew I’d rented it in HD from the AppleTV store, cheaper than Comcast, so we looked there as well. I was surprised to find that Apple now only has Superbad for sale at $14.99 and no HD version.

Where is the rental version of this movie? Why has it suddenly disappeared? The AppleTV was even kind enough to remind me I’d already rented this movie when I tried to buy it.

I wonder what’s going on here… is Apple carrying out some kind of experiment? Do you know of any other movies removed from the rental pool?

Chime in with your comment. We’re now using the Disqus system for your convenience.

superbad-bigposter.jpg

[image found via http://scenescreen.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/he-said-she-said-superbad/]

Go Viral with the 3 Stripes

Who knew the graffiti scene was so complex? This successfully-viral ad from Adidas, takes us behind the scenes with a graffiti artist:

The production quality of the ad is top-notch, the content is interesting (did you know there are several types of paint can nozzles available? I didn’t) and branding was subtle but effective. I have the Adidas brand burned into my head – even though I don’t recall them selling any particular product with this ad.

I found this via Chris Brogan’s blog.

Did you like the ad? Pass it around then and tell’em where you found it.

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5 Mindset Shifts Every Media Executive Needs to Make

Media executives thinking about distributing their content online (and they all should) need to make important mindset shifts in order to understand what the digital revolution is all about, how it affects their business and what benefits it can bring to their operation.

I’ve outlined five mindset shifts every media executive needs to make:

1. Digital Is Your Battleground

OLD: We sell advertising space on television and throw in a bonus on our internet properties.

NEW: We sell advertising space on our Internet properties and throw a bonus on our television network.

Drastic? Yes! But you need to start thinking this way if you want to understand where your company is headed. Digital content distribution will eventually be your main revenue stream.

You need to start thinking digital:

  • Have all your content ready in digital formats suitable for distribution via downloads, podcasts, iTunes, streaming and cellphones.
  • Convert your advertising rates to digital format and train your sales people in the new lingo: figure out how much you charge per minute per thousand viewers and use this as a starting point.
  • Think about how you’ll monetize your shows online and plan accordingly: pre-roll, mid-roll, banners, page sponsors, and subscriptions are all valid.

2. Engagement Is The New Rating

OLD: What matter is the size of our audience.

NEW: What matters is how engaged our audiences are.

You’re used to thinking about how many million viewers your shows garner. You need to start thinking about how many ways your shows intersect with your viewers’ lives. Study Lost and look up how many online communities have grown around the show.

Let your audiences interface with your content. Make it shareable in a way that lets you track views and advertising. Turn your content into a social object. Make it either:

  • part of the conversation,
  • a conversation starter, or
  • a gathering place.

If you’re creating content for TV or film, plan ahead and create additional content for digital distribution: side stories, character background, games, behind-the-scenes footage. There’s only so much you can tell in a one-hour show… develop your story online.

Don’t be afraid to listen to your audience, or to talk to them.

3. Your Earnings Will Come From Elsewhere

OLD: How are we going to make money online?

NEW: How are we going to make money if we don’t go online?

Of course you need to make money. And enough people have lost their shirts online to make even the bolder ones worry (think of them as the pioneers, with the arrows stuck on their backs). But look at it as an investment… just like you invested in HD technology, Beta SP, Nielsen reports and new studios: make a business plan, plan a strategy, hire a consultant, set-up a team, start small, think big, or not. Your current market is shrinking, it’s time to look elsewhere.

4. There Are More Than 24 Hours In A Day, There’s More Than One Distribution Channel

OLD: We deliver content 24 hrs a day on one channel.

NEW: We deliver unlimited content via unlimited distribution channels.

Forget about a 24-hour day. You now have access to unlimited audiences willing to watch any content at any time. Many of them are even willing to consume multiple content simultaneously. The programming grid is a thing of the past. You still need to offer quality content, but when it’s always 5pm somewhere, the meaning of prime-time changes.

5. What You Think You Know About Your Audience No Longer Applies

OLD: We must adapt our programming to our audience.

NEW: We can distribute any content to any number of audiences.

Want to create a news show, a sports channel or a cooking network? Why not all of them? If you’re a general programming station. think niches. If you’re a niche-content producer, think multiple niches. You have the know-how and production capability, you don’t need to constrain yourself to one particular audience. Experiment with old content, new content, new versions of old content, old versions of new content… it’s the Internet, there’s an audience for anything.

What do you think?

(Disponible en español en Technosailor.com)

How companies that learn will take your lunch money

In an age of constant innovation, it’s important to identify behaviors within your company that may hinder its chances of success.

Do you belong to a learning organization? Is anyone keeping up with innovations? Are employees encouraged to do so? When an employee comes up with a new idea, does that idea make it through the organization and reach the right people?

David Garvin and Amy Edmonson, authors of the HBR article on Learning Organizations, define a learning organization as one “skilled at creating, acquiring, interpreting, transferring and retaining knowledge” and capable of “modifying its behavior to respond to those new knowledges and insights.

So, how does your company cope with innovation? I came up with the following chart to depict what I see as the four types of learning organizations:

The 4 types of Learning Organizations

Is your company an Early Adopter of innovative ideas? An Early Adopter is a company that innovates, stays up-to-date with new ideas and technologies that may impact its operations and has a system in place to reward innovation, experimentation and implementation throughout the enterprise.

A Late Adopter tries to stay up-to-date with innovation on a longer cycle. Late Adopters experiment with innovative ideas when they’re a bit more mainstream and tested. Being a Late Adopter is not necessarily a bad thing, as you can sometimes lose focus of your core business by over-innovating or following too many new ideas without ever integrating them to your operation.

A Laggard company is one that incorporates new ideas when strictly necessary. A Laggard won’t adopt a new technology until it’s vital for its continued survival. While this may work for certain niches with enormous barriers to entry, this behavior eventually catches up with them (or actually, their competition does).

Flunkers are simply blindsided by innovation. Not having any mechanisms in place to look at new ideas, or convinced that their idea is simply the best, they wake up one day to find that a competitor owns their market or that they’ve simply become obsolete.

Ray Stata, cofounder of Analog Devices, Inc once said that:

The rate at which organizations and individuals learn may well become the only competitive advantage.

In order to remain successful, individuals and organizations must learn faster than their competition in order to get ahead and stay ahead of the pack. If the rate of innovation in your particular industry is greater that your rate of learning, you’ll invariably fall behind.

Are you or your company geared for learning? Is someone in your company keeping you informed of new technologies that may affect you? Will you know what hit you?

Leave your comments… I’d love to take this conversation forward and refine some of the concepts presented in this article. Do you have a story to share about how innovation affected your company or life?

Additional info:

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A List of News Organizations using Twitter

Several traditional media organizations are using Twitter to distribute breaking news and alerts in a timely manner. Many media employees are also using Twitter to inform their followers of news as they happen, before they get back to the newsroom.

I’ve tried to condense a list of traditional media organizations using Twitter, with links to their Twitter accounts and graphs of their Twitter usage. I’ve only included those that have recent activity.

If you know of a news organization using Twitter as a distribution outlet, drop me a message through the comments form below, indicating their name and Twitter account.

You can follow me on Twitter at @cgranier.

A Spanish-language version of this post is available on my regular column at Technosailor.

Newspapers

Charlotte Oberver, Charlotte, NC @theobserver (stats)

Clarín, Argentina @clarincom (stats)

Courier-Mail, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia @cmbreakingnews (stats), @cmail_breaking (stats)

Diario Correo, Ecuador @diariocorreo (stats)

El País, Madrid, España @el_pais (stats)

El Porvenir, Monterrey, Mexico @El_Porvenir (stats)

El Siglo Web, San Miguel de Tucumán, Argentina @elsigloweb (stats)

El Tiempo, Bogotá, Colombia @eltiempocom (stats)

El Universo, Ecuador @el_universo (stats)

Financial Times @FTmedianews (stats), @FTfinancenews (stats)

Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu, HI @starbulletin (stats)

Knoxville News Sentinel, Knoxville, TN @knoxnews (stats)

LA Daily News @ladailynews (stats)

La Nacion, Chile @nacioncl (stats), @lanacioncl (stats)

La Tercera, Chile @latercera (stats)

LA Times @latimesbreaking (stats), @latimesworld (stats)

Milenio, Mexico @Milenio (stats)

Nashua Telegraph, Hudson, NH @NashuaTelegraph (stats)

The New York Times, NY @nytimes (stats)

The News & Observer, Raleigh, NC @newsobserver (stats)

The Oregonian, Portland, OR @oregonian (stats), @OregonianBiz (stats), @OregonianTraff (stats), @OregonianSports (stats)

The Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, FL @orlandosentinel (stats)

Times Online, London, UK @timesonline (stats), @TimesNewsUk (stats)

USA Today @ondeadline (stats)

Radio & TV

BBC @BBC (stats), @bbcsa (stats), @todaytrial (stats), @BBCClick (stats), @bbcmundo (stats), @bbcbrasil (stats)

CBC News, Canada @cbcnews (stats)

Channel News Asia, Singapore @ChannelNewsAsia (stats)

CNN @cnn (stats), @cnnbrk (stats), @CNNNewsroom (stats)

Fox News @foxnews (stats)

KOAT, Albuquerque, New Mexico @KOAT (stats)

KPBS News, San Diego, CA @kpbsnews (stats)

News 2 Colorado, Denver, Colorado @News2Colorado (stats)

NPR News @nprnewsblog (stats), @nprnews (stats), @bryantpark (stats)

Radio Cooperativa, Santiago, Chile @Cooperativa (stats)

RNZ Radio New Zealand News @rnz_news (stats)

RTÉ News, Ireland @RTEnews (stats), @RTEbusiness (stats)

VenezuelaPress, Venezuela @VenezuelaPress (stats)

WICU 12 News, Erie, PA @WICU12News (stats)

WLWT, Cincinnati, OH @wlwt (stats)

WOSU Public Media, Columbus, OH @WOSU (stats)

Other

47 News, Tokyo, Japan @47news (stats)

ABC News, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia @abcnewsbrisbane (stats)

AgendaTwiMedios @agendatwitter (stats)

AmericasReport @AmericasReport (stats)

Breaking News Alerts @BreakingNewsOn (stats), @LivePressAlert (stats)

CNET News @CNETNews (stats)

ESPN Headlines @espn (stats)

Los Angeles Fire Department, Los Angeles, CA @LAFD (stats)

Mahalo News @mahalonews (stats)

MarketWatch @MarketWatch (stats)

Marketwire @marketwire (stats)

Motor Awards, Venezuela @MotorAwards (stats)

MSN Noticias, España @msnnoticias (stats)

MSNBC @msnbc_world (stats)

Noticias Emol @twitter_emol (stats)

Poynter, St. Petersburg, FL @Poynter (stats)

Sina News, China @sinanews (stats)

Sunchales Hoy, Sunchales, Santa Fe, Argentina @sunchaleshoy (stats)

Thailand News @thailandnews (stats)

The Potsdam News, Potsdam, NY @ThePotsdamNews (stats)

Correspondents, Media Employees

Adam Boulton, Sky News, London, UK @SkyNewsBoulton (stats)

Darren Waters, Technology Editor, BBC News @djwaters1 (stats)

Ginny Skal, WNCN NBC 17, Raleigh, NC @ginnyskal (stats)

Jim Long, NBC @newmediajim (stats)

Wayne Sutton, WNCN NBC 17, Raleigh, NC @waynesutton (stats)

Let me know of any other news organizations using Twitter as a distribution method… Use the comments form below the article.

You can follow me on Twitter at @cgranier.

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Counter-Strike vs. Wii: Two Sides of the Same Social Coin

Counter-Strike and the Wii offer two very different social experiences that you should study when planning your social media strategy.

Exosocial Networking

Counter-Strike is an online cops-and-robbers game where you collaborate with and compete against players around the world to complete missions. Real time chat and voice communications keep the team on the same page, while your screen shows the position of every other player in the game. Counter-Strike is the type of social experience considered anti-social by the rest of your family members: you’ll forget most of them even exist. But you’ll forge great new friendships with your squadron teammates (and your enemies too).

Endosocial Networking

The Wii, on the other hand, is the ultimate in-house social tool. You’ll find yourself enjoying countless hours with the rest of your family and even get to know unknown facets of your significant other’s personality. I’ll bet it’ll bring most of you much closer. You can even invite friends over to join the fun.

While both Counter-Strike and the Wii will keep you at home, one will connect you with people across the world while the other will connect you to those close by.

Why is this important to your business?

When planning a social strategy for your business, you need to keep in mind both examples.

Are you connecting with your customers but failing to create the in-house bonds that will turn your workforce into a team? Or are you focusing on in-house, team-building exercises but failing to create a strong, lasting connection with your clients?

It’s important that you explore both sides of the Social Networking coin, building a strong team that knows each other’s strengths and creating a strong relationship with your client so that you can anticipate his needs and improve their experience with your product or service.

Which tools or techniques are you using to create social bonds in your business? What’s your Counter-Strike and your Wii?

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