Wednesday, November 18, 2009

More Power to the People (Just in Case You Thought YouTube Was Declining)

Yesterday, a New York Times article announced that web video giant YouTube had signed up NPR, Politico, The Huffington Post, and The San Francisco Chronicle for "YouTube Direct", which is a program that uses a new method to manage video submissions from readers.

The article stated that the feature is a new way for users to upload videos and clips directly to news organizations for them to review and possibly highlight on their national broadcasts/publications. According to the web site's head of news and politics, YouTube is trying to "connect media organizations with citizen reporters," which isn't the first time a web site has attempted this, but is the first time a web site as big as YouTube has taken steps to promote amateur/citizen journalism and independent reporting.

The most recent nationally publicized events are the Elections that took place in Iran a few months ago and the protests that surrounded them. The world most likely would not have known what was really going on if it had not been for those who posted videos to YouTube and the news organizations who broadcasted the amateur clips.

I think this is another step in the right direction; it will allow independent journalism to flourish, it will give more power to the average citizen, and it will broaden the perspectives of world events. Certain companies might not like it because it may give the people more power but I think those companies should look at it as an opportunity to work with the very same people they are trying to get to watch their broadcasts.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Too Many Tweeters Tweeting on Twitter

With Twitter having become one of the most popular social networking tools in the world, one has to wonder how many tweeters and tweets are too many? A New York Times article recently reported that the number of tweets per day exploded from 2.4 million to 26 million in a span of just nine months, according to a University of Iowa researcher.

The article explained that the growing number of tweets wasn't a problem to individual users, but had become a problem for corporate giants who invested money in being able to search users' tweets to tap into "the pulse of the world" (Microsoft, Google, etc.). Methods that used to work when using text searching (as used with search engines) have become useless because there is basically too much information out there in the world of twitter to pinpoint the info desired and searches end up with search overloads (i.e. the bing commercials).

Twitter's answer to the problem is geolocation, which basically uses global positioning in cell phones to "include a precise location" with each tweet. This allows those searching through tweets to filter them by location. The article states that this feature could be available in the next few weeks.

I think geolocation could be a great tool, not just for tweets but for the internet in general and all social networking as well. It would make it relative, kind of like going from national news to local news with one click. But, I think other problems will arise in the future with twitter, especially with all of the new tweeters joining the network. With geolocation and whatever other improvements occur in the near future, I think Twitter's most popular days have yet to be seen.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Another Multimillion Dollar Company Makes a Profit in the Recession

It's common to hear about the greed of companies leading to them make profit these days, despite the recession. It's also common to hear about companies having to cut jobs and cut back on expenses just to minimize their losses. But, there is at least one company that by scaling down has actually acheived its short-term goal of turning the recession into a positive, all while ethically following the rules.

According to a New York Times article, Viacom (the company that owns MTV and Paramount Pictures) reported a rise in profits for the third quarter, but it was "a performance acheived through cutting costs and shredding workers."

Though Viacom's two main sources of revenue declined (advertising and feature films), its net earnings for the quarter were still over $60 million more than the third quarter of 2008. The main drivers were the success of the video game "The Beatles: Rock Band", and movies "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen", "G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra" and "Paranormal Activity". The increased profitability is attributed to the costs cut and the decreased amount of movie releases for the year.

I think Viacom was one of the few companies that did it right. America was living beyond its means after the surplus in 2000 turned into a multi-trillion dollar deficit by 2008. It was overdue for the country to scale down everything and Viacom was the perfect example of how companies should deal with the recession; they lost revenue but increased profitability, cut jobs but rose in the stock market, and made fewer movies but the only thing that did was filter out the lower quality movies, which led to more money made per release.