World Smartest News Reader?!

Slate today announced the smartest news reader after the death of Google.

Prismatic, a news reader app that aims at getting to know users’ interests and surprising them with stories they wouldn’t have found their own. Without human editors, the app is entirely based on machine-learning algorithms. However, the author claims that after using Prismatic for months, you will find that it knows you better than you know yourself. It should be noted that it is not until you interact with the app that it began to distinguish itself from other applications. “Prismatic’s software will be silently watching and taking notes as you linger a while on some and quickly move on from others.”

The heart and core of the app lies in the machine learning technology. It’s founder and CEO, Bradford Cross, is a former hedge-fund researcher and data scientist who once used machine learning to predict the flight delays. Underneath the newsreader skin, Prismatic is a machine-learning company. Its algorithmic approach to what people in the business call “discovery” holds huge promise for applications ranging from news to entertainment to dating websites.

Instragm v.s. Vine — Mass and Creatives

 

 

With the advent of Instragm’s unveiling of its video application, tech pundits cannot wait to put it with Vine head to head. They do share a lot of commonalities: both of them are own by social media giants and both of them allow users to create small shot-motion films.

Yet the differences between the two are even obvious. Perhaps the major difference is that while Vine allows for only a 6 second looping clips, Instragm allows for 15 seconds, which gives it lots of advantages.

In fact, several first-hand users even claim that the two appeal to very different groups of audience and should not be compared too closely. For one thing, Vine’s looping feature tends to let users creatively turn 6-seconds video into something much richer than one would think about. Many marketers have flocked to Vine to make fun & whimsical ads. For another, Instagram boasts a large fan base, and its filters, longer video length, stability technology and already-ingrained user behavior will keep its video offering very similar to its photo offering.

That said, Instragm will surely slow Vine’s growth to an extent, even they intend to weave into the different niche market. Let’s just have a bag of popcorn and wait them to unfold in their own way:)

Mobile Marketing: Rethinking Customer Acquisition and Data Acquisition

Social networking is currently dominating in a full-fledged manner and the growth of mobile social media has also been phenomenal. Mobile social media is now being used to promote brands and posting reviews and comments about various products and services.

Multimedia engagement is on a rise and e-commerce has turned into M-commerce. However, legions of companies still don’t get the essentials of the mobile marketing and get stuck in the old-school thinking.  According to Avinash Kaushik, in order to make business successful in the future, some key factors needed to be taken into consideration:

 – Rethink customer acquisition and brand engagement 

Mobile platform provided a new opportunity to re-think customer acquisition and brand engagement, shifting from interruption to becoming a persistent part of someone’s life.

The traditional marketing strategy is to do research and bidding and guessing and demographic/behavior targeting and so much more just to guess when to interrupt people with a message about the brand. However, instead of interruption, the mobile marketing weaves its way into the audiences’ life.

Case Study:

Procter & Gamble does utility marketing really well on mobile platforms. Its mobile application including the uber-famous SitOrSquat and the fun Crunch Band are just some examples of apps that allow P&G, at a very low cost, to become part of our lives by helping us look beautiful, solve pet problems, remove stains and find a clean public restroom in a hurry.

Procter & Gamble is among the batch of early adopters of QR codes in the United States. Recently, it s also using OR codes to create mobile stores inside Toronto bus shelters. The insight is that people can purchase household items while they are on the go and kill the waiting time more productively. This kind of e-commerce that is built into an urban landscape is an innovative way for brand and retailers to expand the e-commerce experience for consumers.

– Rethink customer data acquisition and intent targeting

Since companies now can collect customer data through exchange value for data (with permission), why get the data converted into monetization opportunities and create hyper-relevant targeting opportunities based on the consumer intent signals?

Case Study:

One case in point is Triplt. One simply put the information of air, hotel, car rental, etc to Triplt and they will organize it into a neatly cohesive itinerary instead. And if you happen to purchase the Pro version, it will then delve into your data and remind you the missing information if there is any.

Another example is the finance management app called Pageonce – Money & Bills, which provides one-stand access to all your finances account that include banking, brokerages, investments, credits cares, and so on.

Recent Trends in Mobile Marketing:

– Targeted Geo-Mobile Coupons

More mobile location-based advertisers are using geo-fenced strategies, a survey from CouponCabin.com reveals that 2/3 of the mobile phone users would be at least somewhat interested in a mobile application that lets them get notifications for geo-targeted coupons. Saving money, convenience and a reminder to use the coupons have been cited among the top three factors for the interest.

– Passive Location-based Applications

On SXSW 2012, several location-based applications have risen to get the audience’ attention, among which Highlight, Glancee, and Sonar got the most buzz. Such apps track data of the users’ locations throughout the day and automatically find other users in the vicinity. However, once concern is that how these app will address the issue of privacy successfully , which is a clear concern with this type of tracking.

Trapped in the Headline Writing

David Ogilvy suggested headlines were the most important factor in communication.

On average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.

David is right to the point. Common sense tell us that we will not respond to something if fails to capture our attention at first sight. Having been a web editor for years, I know clearly that no matter where people are looking for your articles, they are first looking at the headline.

As an web editor, I m used to tweaking others’ titles. However, as an author, sometimes I feel furious that the editors take my title too far.

On March 20th, Tea Leaf Nation published my article–Online Youth Communities Go Offline in China, Calling for Real-Life Change. Next day, the Atlantic carried out the article and turned the title into “In China, Digital Activists Are Starting to Meet Up in Person”which completely changed my original meaning. I don’t like the expression of activist, and I am not satisfied their taking away of the youth community, which is the focus of my article. Well, I am trapped into my own belief, I think….

 

 

3D Frantic – Start with the 3D Doodler

Yesterday I bought the world’s first 3D printing pen on Kickstarter and I just could not wait to try it out.

On Feb 19, WobbleWork initiated its First 3D Printing Pen at Kickstarter and reached its $30,000 funding goal within its first few hours.

Compared with the expensive and complex 3D printer, the 3D printing pen looks like a budget- and user-friendly alternative.  The $75 3D-printing pen allows users to start drawing anything within minutes. It requires only a power outlet and has no need for a computer, or even an SD Card. The only trick is to writing upward, which means to draw in the air. However, my architecture friends told me that drawing a three-dimensional object takes a lot of trial and error.

How Does It Work?

The 3D printing pen takes away the heart and core of the 3D printing, which uses ABS plastic to quickly cool and solidify into a strong stable structure.

What can the 3Doodler make?

According to the co-founders of the 3Doodler, it works on almost any surface, also can be created as freestyle 3D objects, or in separate rates, ready to be joined together with other projects.

Storify – Making Sense in the Noise

It’s all about storytelling and Storify knows it.

Perhaps it tries to carve out a quiet place for those rational minds from the hustle and bustle of Twitter.

“We have so many real-time streams now, we’re all drowning. So the idea of Storify is to pick out the most important pieces, amplify them and give them context,” said Burt Herman, the co-founder of Storify.

As a news writer, I took the tool to prepare for my writing. I browse the relative news, monitor people’s reaction on Twitter and Sina Weibo, collect the useful pieces, and dump them all to my Spotify. It’s just like a outer substitute for my not-enough-big brain and it works out well. I love the face

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Surely it’s not limited to news reporters. For business, it can be utilized as a channel for product promotion. For individual, it can be leveraged as a tool for self-branding.

But for many news agencies, they nowadays just use the tool to collect tweets en masse.

Burt Herman reminded the users of using the tool wisely and effectively:

– To give credit to the person you quoted is important. It makes your post more visible and others like being mentioned:)

– Storify is not only about embedding, but also about being embedded. Have your story embedded anywhere to drive traffic!

Here is a quick look of the classic application of Sportify:

How Storify is Used during Presidential Campaign

How Guardian Reporter used Storify to Sort Out Fake Statue of Liberty Photos

 

 

Storyful – How Social Media Curation Tool Helps News Agencies

In an age of day-to-day information noise, it’s journalists’ responsibilities to filter the information flow and spot the newsworthy content.

The Storyful therefore weaves in as a social media curation tool to help the news agencies scour the web for newsworthy content.

Storyful is aggregated by professional journalists who keep an eye on the news resources 24/7 on various of social media platforms and  finds the most relevant news content. Their major work is based on two levels, one is to collect compelling and real images and videos for the news agencies, and the other is to develop social media tools for journalists to better collect the information.

In the coverage of Egypt revolution, Storyful has helped with minute-by-minute development, which the big news agencies do not have an access.

In Gavin Sheridan’s view, Storyful is ostenisbly fit into the big picture as it’s not just news agencies that need information and content in today’s world, but also finance industries, governments and NGOs.

Real-time Advertising in SuperBowl for the First Time

I watched Superbowl mainly for the advertising part rather than the game itself. This year, despite the regular advertising of those big names, the real-time marketing made a splash due to the accident blackout.

Case Studies

Oreo created a post on Twitter immediately after the blackout. “Power out ? Not Problem. You can still dunk in the dark.” Getting a right tagline with a compelling image is the key to any brand. But in the context of social media, reacting quickly with wit rocks.

Audi also replied to the blackout in the first place— Sending some LEDs to the @MUBSA Superdome right now. As is known to all, Audi is famous for its spectacular LED technology. It also mentioned its competitor, Mercedes-Benz’stwitter in the tweets since Benz is one of the sponsors this year…

What Constitutes a Good Real-time Marketing

Oreo’s advertising agency, 360i acknowledged that “it was able to make decisions so quickly because the Mondelez-owned cookie brand was a broadcaster advertiser in the Super Bowl, and so was closely monitoring chatter and interaction with consumers on all social media channels.”

According to the Real-Time Marketing Model , Five main factors constitute a good real-time marketing, including a trigger factor (in this case, the blackout), Creative Content Component (the witty tagline),Media purchase (broadcaster advertiser), Promotion engagement (Twitter), and Measurement and Analytic.

Here are also some take-away for ad agencies:

– Twitter has become the major platform of the advertising.

– Ads has become a dialogue rather than a monologue.

– Be prepared to be spontaneous.

Transmedia Storytelling – Tell a Coherent Story through Multiple Platforms

Yesterday I attended the annual event of NYC Transmedia Meetup group. Although I believe I heard about the term before, I totally have no idea of what Transmedia is. Participants were nice, well, compared with tons of other meet-up events… I was told that it’s all about storytelling by the group initiator, who own Storycode, a platform to create storytelling apps on mobile.

Simply put, Transmedia Storytelling is about crafting a cohesive narrative through multiple platforms and formats. Documentary filmmakers use it to tell better stories and engage audience. Change angents, like half the sky, use it to facilitate a united global movement.

Like any other business, audience is always the key. There is no right or wrong in storytelling. It is all about who your audience are and how you structure your story.

Mediashift provides some tips for a good transmedia storytelling:

– Do not repeat the same story on different platforms. Try to let each platform be unique.

– Make the interface as simple as possible to access.

– Partner with others to lower the cost.

– Story always come first.

Tedxtransmedia

Citizen Reporting and Local Engagement

Original Post from http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2012/12/could-citizen-reporting-be-the-sweet-spot-for-local-engagement338.html?utm_campaign=mediashift&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fanpage

The main difference between the professional newsroom and citizen reporting is the fashion of delivering content. While the traditional journalist concentrates on the one-way delivery of content, the new media has opened up the landscape of two-way interaction.

Compared with the professional journalists, citizen reporters have not received professional training and therefore their work quality may very. Therefore, instead of professionalism, the opportunity to tell the stories and to publish the work matters most. According to the survey of several citizen-reporting projects such as Akronist.com, The Rapidian and Community News Commons, ENGAGEMENT is the most driving force behind citizen reporting.  “I completely agree that the engagement should be made before the content is created, ” said the director of Akron Digital Media Center, Chris Miller.

The four most common ways for citizens to engage include articles, photos, videos and podcasts.