We Are a World of Fledgling TV Stations
In the old Weird Al Yankovic movie, UHF (amazon affiliate link), the loose premise of the movie is that Al inherits a UHF tv channel that’s failing, and has to turn the ratings around to save the station. Soon, all kinds of strange shows come into existence, such as “Wheel of Fish,” a game show where you compete to win various fish (red snapper. Very tasty!). Their winning hit is a children’s show run by Stanley Spudowski, the station’s janitor (played by a pre-racist Michael Richards), with bits like letting kids drink from a fire hose.
It dawns on me that we are a world of fledgling tv stations.
Programmer’s Guides
People don’t exactly know what to share on Twitter, Facebook, Google+, but we know we’re supposed to share something, because that’s what everyone else is doing. The last five posts I put up on Google+ at the time this article was written were:
- A reshare of an interview on how to use Google+ for business.
- A post about which video equipment I use to shoot my videos.
- A movie trailer for the upcoming Hunger Games movie.
- An announcement of doing 30 Days of Paleo with my girlfriend, Jacqueline Carly.
- A link to my blog post from yesterday.
Look at this, it’s almost thematic, except for the movie trailer. But that’s not typical for me. I’m just as willing to share a bunch of funny things or some comic book stories, or whatever else catches my fancy, because I, like several others, are still experimenting with what will make my TV station work.
Are You a Show or a Station?
When we think about programming our fledgling TV stations, I believe there are some differences from how the mainstream has done it for so many years, but also some similarities. First, and I suppose this should be answered before you go much further, are you a station or are you just one show? If you’re one show, then you should consider keeping your programming much tighter. You should consider making only content that appeals to the kinds of people who will watch that kind of show. If you’re a show about cooking, then post cooking content and pretty much only cooking content.
If you’re a station, then you have some flexibility. But even then, you might think about how this all lines up, but be just as wary as mainstream TV stations have become about boxing yourself in. There are several programs on the History Channel that don’t smack to me of history. AMC runs two or more original shows that aren’t American Movie Classics. So, be wary of getting too stuck in the premise of what your station airs.
The Goal of Your Station or Show
At the base of it all, what’s the goal of your station or your show? What are you trying to accomplish? Guy Kawasaki describes his method of populating his tweets and Google+ posting as being part NPR and part QVC. In recent months, he’s said more that he’s NPR, but with pledge drives. And this fits brilliantly with what his goals are for his business.
If I answered this question myself, my goals are what they’ve always been in this space: find useful/helpful material and share it with people, while also making myself available for further business opportunities. As a professional speaker and educator, a good part of my business comes from showing people that I have some unique perspectives for their business, and that I can help them attain business value from what I know how to do. To demonstrate that on social channels, I share some of my own information, but also points of interest with others. That’s not always how I use Google+ right now, but that’s because I’m still testing out the medium so that I can better inform others how it works.
Build Your Own Station
With that in mind, how do you view your own media making? Do you worry that you should be more buttoned up and stuck on one topic? (Hint: you don’t have to be – the new world likes humans more than shows, as my friend Steve Garfield says quite famously: “I subscribe to people.”) And what do you think your show should do for your audience, and ultimately, for you?
I’m tuned in for your answers.
Watch Cricket World cup 2011 live online streaming legally
The 10th edition of ICC Cricket World Cup has started today on 17th February 2011. World cup cricket 2011 is being hosted by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. This time there will be 14 teams, and they will play 49 cricket matches, including the finals. Teams participating in World cup cricket 2011 are Kenya, South Africa, Zimbabwe, [...]
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Bumps And Starts in The Tech World and Getting the Cart Before the Horse
Reading about the lightning speed the tech world evolves at can sometimes be deceiving. The latest trend about smartphones and tablets that are forecast to take over from PCs as the number one selling devices this year doesn’t tell the whole story.
Experts who watch these things like Deloitte are telling us in their most recent technology forecasts that although the PC isn’t the only kid on the block anymore, it’s a little premature to expect that speed and capacity will be one of those factors that will improve simultaneously with availability when it comes to wireless capability for smartphones.
Deloitte’s Telecommunications Predictions 2011 report also suggests that there will be fewer than 30 LTE ( 4G) carriers in six countries that are likely to offer commercial service by the end of 2011. This has a few insiders scratching their heads since it seemed like a logical progression from the current 3G networks what with the proliferation of all the smartphones and tablets that are currently taking a huge dent out of the more traditional computing markets.
There are two reasons for the lag:
- many mobile companies haven’t fully utilized their existing 3G spectrums.
- as it exists today, 4G isn’t offering the quantum leap in features and speeds that other upgrades have been traditionally able to supply.
In the end it really looks like the cart is moving faster than the horse here or , put another way, technology is getting ahead of itself. This kind of news couldn’t come at a worse time considering that the pundits at Deloitte are also predicting that there will be a big spike in the volume of data that’s going to be uploaded and downloaded from the newer devices on the market ( like the Androids ) and the variations on the existing platforms ( like the PlayBook, Research In Motion’s answer to the iPad).
Smartphones And Video Calling
Here’s another point to add to the argument. In 2011, there’s another prediction that video calling will have ironed all the bugs out and become less expensive and more widely available than ever before. However, the experts still don’t see a big boom on the horizon in sales. Bluntly put, most consumers still don’t see a need for video calling so audio will still be the favorite for at least the time being.
However there are some bright spots predicted for this year and they include the fact that the pundits see more free Wi-Fi in-store access to shoppers. It seems that retailers are now seeing that in store comparison shopping in not something to be feared after all; in fact, recent studies have shown that shoppers who can make necessary comparisons right away often make their purchases right in the location they happen to be in.
Maybe writing that the tech world is getting the cart before the horse is a little harsh but having all these new devices ready without a faster better way to deliver the information that they all promise is a little like selling somebody a plasma television when they live in an area that can’t even get HD TV, isn’t it?
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A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger.
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Show The World Who You Are With One Simple About.me Page
If you’re tired of creating numerous social networking profiles on the Web and want just one a single page to direct people to, About.me has got you covered. Within a few minutes of picking a username and adding a short bio, you can have your very own About.me “splash page that points visitors to your content from around the Web.”
About.me is basically like creating a mini website all about you. Besides your bio, you can add a headline, upload an avatar picture, change your fonts and colors and allow visits to email you directly from your profile (via a contact form). You can also upload your own background image, but they also have preloaded images from you to choose from. Be warned that when adding an avatar picture, there is a noticeable distortion due to a decrease in quality.
One of the best things about About.me is that you can add your social networking profiles to your page.
For most services you can choice to either connect your account via OAuth (which will also display your latest updates) or just add a link to your profile instead. When adding Facebook, you can control what content will display on your page; you can choose to show our hide photos, updates and friends. Once your accounts are linked, it may take some time for your content to load – be patient. Once it’s loaded, other users will be able to click on the icons via your profile and open up a small window containing your updates, blog posts, etc. As you can see from my page, it’s a very clean and minimalistic page that really stands out.
After you’d added all your services and have arranged your page as desired, you’ll also want to check out the dashboard. This is where you can see statistics (views, clicks, links) for your page. You can also “use the tools in the Promote tab to let more people know where to find your About.me profile.” As you can see, my dashboard info below is empty because I just created it. Also, the Dashboard is currently in beta, so improvements are being made on a regular basis.
If you’re wondering about the Datastacks tab, it shows details about your activity and weekly updates. You can see how many combined and individual (by site) status updates you’ve posted. You can also see how many combined and individual (by site) friends/followers/contacts you have.
As you can see, About.me was not meant to be just another profile page; it’s your own stylish web page that holds that directs people to all of your social networking hangouts.
What’s your About.me page link?
Copyright © 2010 Blogging Tips. This Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you are looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact us so we can take legal action immediately.
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A selection of e-books to help you improve as a blogger.
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How to Suck at Writing, and then Write for the Biggest Blogs in the World
This is a guest post by Danny Wong. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here.
Writing hasn’t always been a skill of mine. I rarely ever read when I was younger, and still had my father read me books for years after I had learned how to read for myself.
So how did I go from a forced writer (I only wrote things when I had to for school and never for recreation) to an influential blogger?
I started writing for our business blog just because we needed content creators. I was new to this whole Social Media thing, and I could hardly write coherent content, nevertheless quality content. I dreaded it.
We quickly killed my future contributions to the blog because I wasn’t enjoying it, the content wasn’t incredibly beneficial or engaging, and instead I focused more efforts on things I could do to really impact the business.
So I turned to learning how to manage Public Relations because I thought, “If I can’t inbound any visitors to the site and business blog by writing quality content, then let me go out and get traffic from other people’s sites and blogs.”
So I spent a lot of time schmoozing bloggers and writers and then I closed a feature article with a writer on a site called Examiner.com. I thought it was the neatest thing to have such a high traffic site featuring me since it had millions of unique visitors a month. After reading and reveling in the feature article, I saw a Call-To-Action saying, “Write for us” and I thought, “Hm. This seems like an interesting opportunity to build brand awareness through links in my byline and increase my personal brand by just being a (sort of) professional writer.”
The CTA called to me and I answered. Using a referral from the writer that featured me, I ended up becoming the Boston Startup Examiner, and then things just snowballed from there. I starting reading blogs like DailyBlogTips, reading more content on Examiner and other news-oriented blogs, and then starting doing guest posts any blogs that would take my work!
Then I just kept stumbling upon opportunities, and quickly built relationships with lots of editors through my formal PR work and then reached out to them with a guest post ready for their review.
Finally, I started publishing on some of the biggest sites in their niche, like SearchEngineJournal and a local NY Times blog, and then I started publishing on some of the biggest blogs in the world like TheNextWeb and ReadWriteWeb.
Now, I have a blogger account with the world’s #1 blog, HuffingtonPost, and I have a pretty strong portfolio of writings published in an even stronger set of blogs, which gives me leverage when trying to publish articles on other sites when I can say, “My name is Danny Wong and I have contributed writings to NY Times (blog), HuffingtonPost, ReadWriteWeb, TheNextWeb and Examiner.”
Just to break down how I went from sucking at writing to writing for some of the world’s biggest blogs:
1. I had a relationship with a writer at a media outlet that had open invitations for writers to join, and spent way too many hours crafting my application writings as well as my first few posts.
2. I was reading more blogs and books, and spent more time writing blog posts that I would never publish just for the sake of practicing writing.
3. I started publishing anywhere and everywhere that would talk to a small-time writer like me, especially one that had some interesting thoughts and experience in startups and entrepreneurship.
4. Some of the bigger blogs I read had published guest posts on their site, so I contacted the first person I knew who was a writer (a relationship I built through my PR work) and asked how I might become a contributor. Sometimes, I was directed to the editor who would then request I submit a post to them directly, or I would have already had contact with an editor who was anxious to see how I could contribute to their business.
5. The bigger sites bit. Admittedly, I did spend several hours writing my first post for each outlet, but it was well worth the time investment because I started the relationship off on the right foot, and then became a semi-frequent contributor.
6. I name-dropped all the different media outlets I had contributed to when pitching myself to publish with a new media outlet, so things just snowballed as I built up my credibility. As I became more credible after publishing posts with more and more influential blogs, the bigger blogs started to pay attention to me and were more than happy to take my contributions.
It took quite a bit of hard work, networking and determination to build up my writing skills and my writing portfolio so now I can proudly say I am a blogger with the #1 blog in the world and write for several of the biggest blogs out there.
What tactics did you use to publish with big blogs and sites?
About the author: Danny Wong is a writer at HuffingtonPost (you can see his column here), the #1 blog in the world, and the co-founder of co-created dress shirts startup, Blank Label.
Original Post: How to Suck at Writing, and then Write for the Biggest Blogs in the World
It’s a Shark’s World After All
Tuesday | Today's idea: Sharks and other scary nature-documentary fare are the new inarticulate action figures that export well to foreign entertainment markets. [The Economist]
Idea of the Day
I’ll Be Speaking At Blog World 2010
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was definitely going to Blog World Expo this year. At that time I was only planning to attend the conference.
Then I heard they were welcoming speaking proposals, so I decided to send one. Long story short I got approved, and I’ll be speaking at the “New Media 101″ module. The title of my presentation is “Google AdSense Optimization.”
I am really looking to flying to Vegas in October. First of all the keynotes, presentations and panels are looking great. Here are some topics that will be covered:
- How to Get Media Coverage for Your Blog
- How to Keep Your Blog from Being Hacked, Stolen or Otherwise Violated
- 5 Strategies Bloggers Should Learn from Online Marketers
- How to Sell Your Blog
- How to Run a Successful Webinar Business from Your Blog
Second, I’ll finally be able to meet many friends and business contacts I only talked with online so far. People like Darren Rowse, John Chow, David Risley, Leo Babauta, Jonathan Fields, Yaro Starak and so on.
Many blog readers already emailed me saying they’ll be going too, so I’ll try to organize a DBT meet-up or something like that. If you are going, I hope you manage to attend my presentation too!
As we get closer to the event I’ll post more updates, so stay tuned.
Original Post: I’ll Be Speaking At Blog World 2010
Watch FIFA world cup 2010 Quarter, Semi finals and Final live online
The 19th FIFA World cup football matches are proceeding successfully in South Africa. Group and pre-quarter matches are already over. Now people are eagerly waiting for the first Quarter match scheduled for today evening. The 8 teams qualified for the Quarter final of FIFA world cup 2010 includes Brazil, Netherlands, Uruguay, Ghana, Argentina, Germany, Paraguay [...]
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Watch ICC Twenty20 (T20) world cup 2010 live online
The most awaited ICC T20 world cup for the year 2010 will start from April 30th at West Indies. This time the ICC World Twenty20 will comprise 4 groups playing 12 league matches. Playing countries include India, West Indies, England, Australia, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, [...]
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The World War of Generations
Friday | Today's idea: If you think the crisis in government spending is a result of the Great Recession, you're wrong, a columnist says. Bank bailouts only hastened the long-predicted war of generations that is now upon us -- and going global. [The Times of London]
Idea of the Day