Boston Combs Mile-Square Crime Scene After Blasts – NYTimes.com.
These monsters will be brought to justice, but it’s going to take a lot of time and patience.
Posted in Media
New CNN boss Jeff Zucker has been making some sweeping changes over at the troubled network, and thank goodness he is. It’s been long overdue.
What has the former ABC executive done in the last few weeks? Well, he completely blew up Starting Points, CNN’s old morning show, and hired Chris Cuomo to co-lead a new morning show. CNN’s morning show was terrible, especially when you put it up against Fox & Friends, no matter what you think of the network’s politics.
Zucker ended the contracts of longtime CNN contributors James Carville and Mary Matalin. And Managing Editor Mark Whitaker stepped down in a statement that makes your ears perk up:
We have a new leader with his own forceful ideas about where to take CNN’s reporting, programming and brand. For him to succeed, I believe he deserves his own team and management structure and the freedom to communicate one clear vision to the staff.”
Zucker has hired Rachel Nichols, the longtime ESPN reporter, to host a weekend sports show and contribute throughout the week. CNN barely covered sports before. John Berman and Jake Tapper are also joining the CNN roster.
And all of these changes have happened in less than a week. It signals a shift towards bigger personalities that can build fanbases for their timeslots and an emphasis on other areas of interest beyond politics, such as pop culture and sports.
In other words, are more entertaining and engaging CNN. That’s exactly what it needs to stop its ratings disaster. Anderson Cooper, the network’s biggest star, still lags behind all of Fox News and much of MSNBC and its standard bearer, Rachel Maddow.
Some of you may worry that CNN’s commitment to breaking news and independent, nonpartisan reporting is about to go out the window. But I think that’s shortsighted thinking that would doom CNN to self-destruction. You can be entertaining AND not have your network take one side or the other in the endless political chatter. And bringing in topics like sports will broaden its appeal.
Good luck, Zucker. It’s going to be a painful transition, and a lot of people are not going to be happy by the time you’re done, but this is the way to save CNN from a slow and painful death.
Image courtesy of CNN
I’m thrilled to announce the launch of “Startup Attention & PR 101: From Launch to Damage Control and Beyond“, my 19-lecture online Udemy course. I’m also thrilled to announce that half of the course’s proceeds will be donated to THRIVE-GULU, a not-for-profit dedicated to building rehabilitation and community centers across Africa, starting with Gulu, Uganda.
“Startup Attention & PR 101″ is a deeper look at how to better work with the press. This is not a course about traditional PR. Instead, it’s a deeper dive into what makes a journalist tick and how you can can take advantage of that for your company or cause.
The course covers four broad themes:
This course won’t make you a journalist’s best friend, but I hope it will give you more clarity to how journalists make decisions and how that affects you and your company.
As I noted above, I am donating half the proceeds from this course to THRIVE-GULU. Thrive was founded in 2010 by Professor Judy Dushku to assist the communities of Northern Uganda to heal from the traumatic events of war, sexual enslavement, extreme poverty and lost opportunities. It’s a charity I’m honored to have supported in the past, and one I’m thrilled I can support now with this course.
So take the course, tell your friends and send me some feedback, because I will be adding more material based on your feedback.
~ Ben
Posted in Announcements, Business, Entrepreneurship, Media, Productivity
Bloomberg TV interviewed me at the Dublin Web Summit last week, asking for some of my predictions for what are going to be the future of tech. They also interviewed a few others, including the amazing Joe Green (Causes, NationBuilder) and David Shing (AOL’s Digital Prophet).
They didn’t have time to air all my predictions, but I’m glad they picked one of my favorites: biofeedback and technology enhancement of health. Check out the full video above if you want to learn more.
~ Ben
Posted in Innovation, Media, Media appearance
If you’re a regular reader of the tech blogosphere, you may have seen some hooplah about startup embargoes. It’s a hot button issue with a lot of bloggers.
(BTW, I think Ryan’s justified to be upset. Publishing second or publishing 12 hours later simply doesn’t get you the traffic, the Techmeme headline, etc. Everyone loses.)
I’ve never really had a problem with embargoes in general, though. When I was a journalist, my job was to write good stories and help entrepreneurs — and if a great story comes with an embargo, then that was fine with me. The occasional screw-up just comes with the territory of the embargo. Journalists and bloggers know what they’re getting themselves into.
Here’s the core issue with embargoes, though: you have to have experience with the press to not fuck them up. Google knows how to do an embargo — they’ve literally done HUNDREDS of them for their various products. But a first-time entrepreneur who has never had to deal with the press on a regular basis? There’s a good chance he or she is going to fuck up.
That’s why, in general, I advise companies to stick with one publication for their launches, so I agree with MG Siegler on that point. I have two exceptions, though:
No press outlet or reporter is ever going to make or break your startup, so my advice is to not worry too much about it. Great products always trump great press. You’ll get better at dealing with the press the more you talk with them and get to know them.
So my advice is this: don’t worry about the embargo. Don’t worry about getting hundreds of headlines. Or, as my friend Stammy might say, stop fucking around and get back to work.
Dear friends, colleagues and supporters,
I’m thrilled to announce that I’m joining CNET and CBS Interactive as a contributing columnist and commentator!
Ever since my departure from Mashable, I’ve posted my personal take on the big technology news of the day on BenParr.com. The response to my work has been overwhelming, and traffic to this blog has skyrocketed. Thank you all for reading, commenting and sharing.
But now I have a chance to make a much bigger impact with my writing. Starting this week, my commentary on technology, social media and startups will appear on CNET several times per week. I will not be doing any straight reporting — CNET has a talented team that already does an amazing job at that. Instead, I will be doing what I’ve been doing here on BenParr.com: breaking down the big issues and players in tech and explaining what it actually means for both the tech industry and society as a whole.
To do that, I will be writing a combination of thought pieces, analysis stories, response pieces and the occasional long-form column. My CNET column is called The Social Analyst, just like my column on Mashable. It’s going to have more bite than my old column, though. I intend to keep tech’s biggest names honest.
I decided to join forces with CNET/CBSi because CBS Interactive CEO Jim Lanzone and CNET General Manager Mark Larkin have an ambitious vision for the future.
CNET is huge: it is one of the 100 most visited websites in the world, but Mark and Jim are not content with resting on their laurels. I believe in their vision and their leadership, and I am thrilled to be working with them.
CNET isn’t my only gig, though. For the last few months, I’ve also been working behind-the-scenes on a startup, which we can’t wait to talk more about! My co-founder and I have a clear vision, as well as a duty to our investors, and we will move heaven and earth (and forgo sleep) to make sure our company succeeds.
My new role at CNET and CBSi is the best of both worlds. I get to reach millions of people with my thoughts on technology, but still retain the flexibility to be an entrepreneur, build amazing products and change the world.
Don’t take your eyes off of CNET. Big things are happening over there, and you won’t want to miss all the action. 2012 is going to be an amazing year.
Cheers,
~ Ben
Posted in Announcements, Business, Entrepreneurship, Media, My musings, Projects, Social Media, Tech
I’ve been following the Path privacy controversy with a great deal of interest for the last week, but Crunchfund’s MG Siegler has somehow steered the conversation from Path’s mistakes to the degradation of journalism.
The result: an increasingly nasty tech blogger catfight that I was going to avoid. That was, until I read this. And this. And this. Oh, and don’t forget about this.
Seriously guys, can’t we all get along? No? Well, that’s fine with me — it’s more entertaining this way. But before we go back to life as usual, I want to address some of the assertions being leveled in this fight.
Quick recap: in a rather depressing post, Siegler rips apart a recent column by NYT’s Nick Bilton, accusing him of not putting in enough work to get his facts straight about the story.
Siegler doesn’t really blame Bilton for his poor writing, though. Instead, he blames the “pageview beast”, which doesn’t care about the quality of an article, but its speed, reach and the level of sensationalism it employs. His argument is simple: pageviews equal advertising dollars in the modern media world, and it doesn’t matter how many facts you get wrong, so long as you get the pageviews.
Of course, when you attack the media, the media bites back. Dan Lyons is leading this charge, but he’s not the only one.
Now for a few quick thoughts on this catfight:
With all that said, Siegler’s post proves, in a twisted sort of way, that the new media ecosystem works. Because of its competitive nature, the media keeps itself in check. Readers get more opinions and can make a decision for themselves based on multiple voices, and when there’s an egregious screw-up, the Twitterverse kicks into high gear. The downside is that more false “scoops” and incorrect information makes it through the cracks in the first place because of the focus on speed.
In the end, the media’s job is to give readers what they want. While MG and I may wish readers would crave more in-depth thought pieces on the startup ecosystem, more of them prefer drama and catfights like the one happening in the tech blogosphere.
But do you know what readers like even more than catfights? They like funny texts, celebrity gossip and Jeremy Lin:
So much indignation on all sides. So little to do with the things that matter, like Jeremy Lin.
— Nicholas Carlson (@nichcarlson) February 14, 2012
My point: life is short, and the human race is probably doomed. Get your fill of lolcats and tech blogger catfights while you still can.
Oh, and as for why bloggers attack bloggers, the correct answer is pageviews. It’s crack for bloggers.
Posted in Media
Dear Sarah Lacy,
First of all, congrats on the launch of PandoDaily! I’m looking forward to reading (and responding to) your sharp commentary on the startup world. A publication focused exclusively on the ecosystem makes sense, and I’m glad to see you join the ranks of the founders that you’ve covered for most of your career.
I also like the idea of the PandoTicker, which is where you aggregate the top news in the startup space. Honoring embargoes for the Ticker while reserving long-form content for exclusives is also a smart move.
But I still have two questions that I’m hoping you could answer:
Again, congrats on the launch, Sarah. I expect that your venture will do very well. I’ll definitely be reading.
Best,
~ Ben
Image courtesy of Flickr, Robert Scoble
Posted in Media
Kingdom Holdings Company, the investment vehicle of Saudi Prince Al-waleed bin Talal, has announced that it has pumped $300 million into Twitter as a “strategic” investment.
KHC has its hands in a lot of pies. It’s the largest shareholder of Citigroup, and it owns chunks of Apple, GM and News Corp (KHC owns 7% of its Class B shares). It’s also in the process of building Kingdom Tower, which will become the tallest building in the world once construction is complete.
But Twitter is the Prince’s first major push into owning the chunk of social media pie. Why is he so interested in Twitter?
The answer, I believe, is that the Prince knows that Twitter is the future of media, and he wants to make sure he has some influence in its development.
“We believe that social media will fundamentally change the media industry landscape in the coming years,” KHC Executive Director Eng. Ahmed Halawani said in the announcement. “Twitter will capture and monetize this positive trend.”
There’s a trend here: he’s not only invested in News Corp, but also Disney, Time Warner and now Twitter. He also owns a range of Arab media properties through KHC’s minority stake in the Saudi Research and Marketing Group.
One could speculate that the Twitter investment is related to the wave of revolutions that have swept the Middle East in 2011. Prince Al-waleed bin Talal is not an immediate successor to King Abdullah’s throne, but a revolution would certainly not be in his best interests.
Regardless, I believe the Prince wants to have a seat at the table when it comes to the world’s most powerful and influential media organizations. The Prince understands the influence of media and can see that Twitter is the future of media.
There aren’t a lot of downsides to owning a piece of that future. I bet the Prince offered terms that Twitter couldn’t turn down.
Image courtesy of CharlieRose.com
The landscape of the tech news and blogging world has been radically altered in the last year, and it just got another big jolt by the news that ReadWriteWeb has been acquired by SAY Media.
First of all, I want to congratulate RWW founder Richard MacManus on the exit. He’s been working on the blog for eight years now, and he deserves to be recognized for his hard work.
It’s important to note though that this wasn’t an up acquisition. RWW has been hemorrhaging traffic for the last year, and it has lost a lot of its key writers/editors, including Marshall Kirkpatrick (doing a startup) and Sarah Perez (now at TechCrunch). Mashable, Business Insider and TechCrunch left RWW in the dust. I love ReadWriteWeb, but someone had to point this out.
Speaking of which, there have been a lot of changes all around, and it’s something my friends in the tech media world have noticed. Let’s recap just a few of the changes:
Wow. Did that all really happen in just the last year and a half? It’s shocking how much has changed in the tech news world recently. It’s in a transition and innovation cycle. Big players are getting acquired while tech reporters and editors are making lots of moves, while others are getting out of the game altogether. But there are rising stars that are replacing them.
The tech news and blogging world looks nothing like the one I joined in 2008. And I have the feeling that we’re nowhere near the end. Expect more big moves and acquisitions.
Image courtesy of Flickr, Annais
Posted in Business, Media, Social Media
