Two great stories this week that illustrate how the influence of bloggers equals and sometimes eclipses mainstream media:
TechCrunch reports on an erroneous Engadget story that shaved $4 billion off the value of Apple. The story, based on a fake email sent from Apple servers, said the iPhone was delayed.
Brooke Barnes of the WSJ writes about the lengths that networks are going to to woo “mommy bloggers” (subscription required):
Trying to tap into the burgeoning power of blogs as promotional tools and fed up with the jaded attitudes of professional critics and TV feature writers, studios and networks are flooding bloggers with free stuff in hopes the flattered recipients will reward them with positive coverage.
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Fox News Channel says it recently thought about trying to flatter a New York Times writer with an invitation to an industry dinner hosted by President Bush. Instead, Fox says it sent invites to several New York media blogs — outlets it considered to be of more strategic importance.
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Warner Bros. recently flew seven bloggers to British Columbia to promote its teen drama “Supernatural.” The bloggers got to stay free of charge at Vancouver’s Sutton Place Hotel, where rooms start at $162 a night, and spend a day hanging out on the show’s Canadian set.
The studio emphasizes that the budget was minimal. “There were no luxury spa visits or lobster dinners,” says Sharan Magnuson, senior vice president of world-wide publicity. (Perks of that level, say PR executives at other studios, are reserved for writers from foreign publications who vote on the Golden Globe awards.)
The declining newspaper business has already made TV critics an endangered species at many mid-market papers. The Star Tribune in Minneapolis recently nixed its TV critic column. (A role held by my good friend Neal Justin.) The story quotes one Disney executive considering changes to the TV Critics Association’s semi-annual press tours, where critics meet with network executives and stars of upcoming shows. If the critics lose that access, the jobs will be tougher for those that remain.
From everything I’ve read about the Engadget story, this could have just as easily happened to CNBC or any mainstream outlet.
The blogola story is a little different. Many news outlets (including the Star Tribune) have tight gift policies that restrict the kind of favors lavished on the bloggers in the story. Many (though certainly not all) outlets pay the expenses of critics attending such junkets.
Does such payola influence what’s written? Almost certainly.
Disclosure: I’ve been to several TCA events with Neal and I previously worked at startribune.com.
Google introduced a new Java-based mobile email application today. It has instantly become my second-favorite mobile application, after Google Maps.
I’ve been using Google’s mail on my cell phone with my phone’s Web browser for a while now. It has worked reasonably well, but compared with the new app, WAP is crap.
Gmail mobile provides an easy-to-use interface that minimizes the number of keystrokes required to perform basic tasks like checking and responding to email. Thoughtful keyboard shortcuts are available for common tasks like going back to the Inbox, composing a message and searching. It also renders common attachment types, such as PDFs and Word docs.
Search is definitely the killer feature. I can quickly search across more than 10,000 messages. I often use Gmail to send notes to myself. With mobile search access, I’ll be doing this more often. (The WAP application has offered this, but the search feature has been broken for the last few months.)
Google is to be applauded for bucking the wireless carriers’ Gouge First pricing models for wireless applications, instead choosing to go over the top of the data services. Gmail and Maps are both available as free downloads without monthly service fees.
Some of the things I’d like to see:
- Tighter address book integration. I’d like to be able to look up contacts in my address book and call them right from the application. If I’m reading an email from someone in my address book, I want the option to call.
- Easier searching of contacts when I’m addressing an email. If I’m searching for Robert, I want to be able to enter 7-6-2-3-7-8 instead of 7-7-7-6-6-6-2-2-3-3-7-7-7-8. (This is one of my pet peeves about mobile apps.) I also would like to see Google carry over the list of most frequently used contacts to the mobile app.
- Saved searches. I’d like to be able to have my most frequent searches stored so I don’t have to keep entering them.
- A view that shows me email only from people in my address book.
When I check my email, I scan the list of new messages for names of people I know.
This is something that machines can do much faster and better. With the volume of spam and bulk mail these days, some of the vast effort spent on reducing spam should be spent on showing users the good stuff.
You can do this the hard way today with many mail services by creating filters for each person you want to highlight (or move to a different folder). This is usually a multi-step process; few people will create and update these filters.
There’s a simple, high value way to accomplish this: Check the messages against the email addresses the user has sent email to and the user’s address book, then highlight the ones that match.
If the user has categorized the address book, you could also color code the highlighting to indicate whether the message is from friends, family, co-workers, etc.
The most interesting part of My Times is that you can pick from modules selected by Times journalists. Want to know what David Pogue is reading? You can click to see that he recommends Engadget, AppleInsider, Slashdot, Gizmodo and his own stuff. (Unfortunately, I can’t link to this page.) These pages are good resources that would be even more useful if they provided direct links to the RSS feeds so that you could subscribe with your preferred personal home page or news reader.
