Wireless Muse: Reiter's Wireless Internet Weblog

PodCampDC: NPR, NBC News discuss Qik, Twitter, video for radio stations

http://www.wirelessmuse.com/photos/nokia_n82/

I attended PodCampDC (see above) this Saturday and the most interesting session for me was by Andy Carvin of National Public Radio (NPR) and Jim Long of NBC News.  Carvin and Long discussed the value of Qik and Twitter for news gathering.  Also, I had a brief but interesting conversation with Carvin after the presentation.

Carvin is the senior product manager for NPR’s “Community.”  He’s a champion of blogging, social networks and camera phones.  He’s a blogger, has a Twitter account, uses Utterz (that I need to explore) and he and Long have a Qik account.

I don’t know Long’s exact title, but he’s a cameraman for NBC News who travels around the world.  He blogs and uses Qik (including interviewing singer/activist “Sir” Bob Geldorf).

Presentation on Qik

Carvin asked PodCampDC attendees in the room if they would use Qik to capture the presentation, and two people helped out by using his Nokia 95 to record a video.  About half of the presentation is on Qik (see below) and if you’re interested in these subjects, it’s well worth viewing. 

The Qik video was transmitted via WiFi AT&T Mobility's HSDPA network, and both the video and audio quality aren’t bad.  However, the signal crashed during the presentation, which is the reason it isn't available in its entirety on Qik (see Carvin's clarifications in the comments section).  (Near the beginning of the video you can hear Carvin say he was using Qik — “it is Qik and we’ll be talking about it later” — in answer to a question from me, whom you can’t see.)

Long notes that many people using Twitter learned about the recent earthquakes in the Midwest.  Carvin was instrumental in getting NPR to use Twitter (by first posting just news headlines).  He discusses how the NPR radio show “The Bryant Park Project,” now uses Twitter as a major source to obtain ideas for its New York City-based program.

Video for NPR

After the presentation, I asked Carvin whether he thought video would be a significant part of NPR, and he said yes.  This is a fascinating concept:  An audio medium posting videos.  NPR already posts videos on its Web site, and more are on the way.

(In my mobile TV weblog I wrote about a newspaper using Qik for videos of pro-Tibet protesters during the Olympic torch bearers running in San Francisco.  A print publication posting videos.  This is game-changing as radio and print publications become more multimedia oriented, especially being able to post newsworthy events as they happen, thanks in large part to camera phones.  As I’ve been writing for some time, live streaming cellular video is revolutionary.)

Carvin told me he is ordering more demonstrating Nokia N95 camera phones to NPR and hopes, but doesn't know, whether the network will order any (see his remarks in the comments section). 

The N95 has become something of a standard for many bloggers and video bloggers because of its excellent (for a camera phone) video recording capability at 30 frames per second.  I agree that the N95 is great for camera phone videos (and a great phone in general), but the new N82 (that isn’t available in the United States) might be a bit better. 

I’ve posted several N82 videos and more are on the way (courtesy of Nokia’s blogger program allowing me to test the handset).  I've also posted photos taken with the N82 and, as with the videos, more are on the way when I get a chance to upload them.

Speaking about mobile ads, blogs, iPhone at CSS conference

Earlier this week I spoke about mobile advertising, the Apple iPhone, weblogs and camera phones at the Center for Sales Strategy’s (CSS) “Marketing Technology Summit” in Minneapolis.

CSS offers consulting services, conferences and workshops to sales people in the media — print, radio and television.

I was on a panel moderated by Phil Leigh, a long-time technology analyst, who now runs Inside Digital Media where he posts lots of interesting audio and video podcasts of technology executives (see below).  I first met Phil more than 20 years ago when I was the editor/publisher of the magazine and newsletter of the first trade association in the United States for the independent providers of paging and mobile telephone (then called “radiotelephone”) services.

First detailed mobile research report

Phil was an analyst at Reinheimer Nordberg where he wrote in the early 1980s what is probably the first detailed analyst’s report about the opportunities in the paging and mobile telephone businesses. 

(At the association — then called Telocator Network of America and later called the Personal Communications Industry Association) I spent a lot of time talking to analysts and the press, especially when cellular was under discussion — but not yet implemented.

Although the phone companies were involved in mobile communications, the driving force at that time were the independent providers — called radio common carriers — whose main business was mobile.  For the phone companies, mobile communications was more of a rounding error.  The phone companies didn’t get interested until cellular, and I was around from the very beginning.

Phil was nice enough to interview me via phone, using WebEx, a few days before my CSS presentation and he’s going to be posting that interview — probably in two parts — in a little while.  Update:  Phil just posted the first part.

My presentation

During Phil’s panel I discussed — to the audience of media sales executives — the value of mobile advertising.  I also discussed why the iPhone could be so useful from an editorial and, most importantly to the audience, an advertising sales standpoint.

I also discussed the value of weblogs — with a twist.  I suggested audience look at the existing weblogs and consider asking some of those bloggers to write for their newspapers and radio and TV stations.

Much of what I discussed will be in the pre-show interview I did with Phil.  (In late June Phil conducted an audio podcast with me about different mobile topics, uincluding the ramifications of the iPhone and George Gilder’s “teleputer.”)

Where are the laptops?

One last point:  Although the hotel (wonderful place – 42” plasma TV, smaller TV in bathroom, five-head shower, great downtown location; highly recommended) offered WiFi in the conference room, you had to pay for it ($13 a day, I think) and CSS didn’t subsidize the cost. 

Unlike at virtually all the wireless/computer conferences I attend, at the “Marketing Technology Summit” almost none of the attendees were using a laptop (see BlackBerry 8300 “Curve” camera phone photo above).

As a big fan of WiFi at conferences, I think CSS should consider paying for WiFi use so it’s free to attendees and include information on their Web site that would be useful before and during the conference.  I’ve conducted a few tutorials/workshops about using WiFi at conferences and the benefits far, far outweigh the disadvantages.

Using the tools

Moreover, the attendees at the Summit are all very, very interested — and many of them very apprehensive — about how the Internet is affecting advertising sales.  It seems to me that these sales executives should be using and viewing the technologies and services — such as weblogs, social networks, Web sites — about which they are concerned — during the conference.

They should be checking out the Web sites mentioned by the speakers, checking the speakers’ credentials and looking at any resources CSS could upload in anticipation of the event.

News organization seeks "questionable" camera phone photos, videos

A major news organization is looking for camera phone photos and videos that walk a thin line between what is ethical to shoot and what is not in preparation a story about the effects of camera phones.

One example pointed out to me by a producer at the news organization is a 20-year-old man who took a camera phone video of himself commiting suicide by jumping from a bridge in the U.K. and transmitting the video to his fiancee as he was falling to his death, according to a report in Sky News.

The producer is looking for images from camera phones that could help illustrate ethical considerations involved when taking a still photo or shooting a video.

Contact me

If anyone has any examples or knows of examples -- in the United States or abroad -- please contact me and I'll relay your information to the producer.