Media Watch

With so much video floating around, it's easy to be tempted to put some of your own out there. And a lot of business professionals have a pretty good reason to make video part of their marketing strategy. It can't be terribly complicated, right? Somehow, $10,000 later, your videos aren't quite what you had invisioned. They sound terrible, the lighting isn't right and there's some jerking while panning and zooming. Notice my first observation was bad sound. That seems to be the first thing we notice about bad video, which seems counter intuitive, but true. It's also the first thing the beginner shooter neglects. And unfortunately the fix often means a new camera or expensive audio recording gear (and an editing nightmare). The reason the audio isn't clear is because you're using the built-in microphone on the camcorder. So the camcorder becomes the mic, meaning for best results, you would have to hold the camera as if it were a mic. In that way, you c...

Crime seems to love my neighborhood, especially police chases.  This is the second one that sped by my house in the past year, but the fourth that I know of to flee through my neighborhood.  There was also a wanted person being retrieved across the street and a murder six blocks away this month.

I came across a neat iPad app today that assembles aggregators' content into sets of print-style pages you can flip through, similar to a book reading app.  It's called Flipboard and it really cleans up some otherwise cluttery articles from their native homes. Out of the box it comes with some preset feeds, including facebook, twitter and Google Reader modules, all setup and waiting for you to...login.  Yep, just supply usernames & passwords for your accounts and it'll take you for a spin around your social network. But wait.  Where does that login information go?  On one hand, you have journalists telling you, "Never share your private information," and others extolling the virtue of this new whiz-bang newsreader. That's a problem because this data mining operation, no matter how well trusted, could be compromised by hackers, same as credit card companies.  Recently dozens of institutions had egg on their faces when they were forced to reveal to the...

Former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore visited Iowa today. Known as "Ten Commandments Judge", Moore made the announcement on WHO Radio in Des Moines this morning.  During an interview with conservative talk show host Jan Mickelson, he said he's forming an exploratory committee for a possible presidential run. Moore is perhaps best known for refusing to remove a monument bearing the Ten Commandments from the Alabama state courthouse. Watch raw video from this morning's interview.

Former Minnesota Governor and possible GOP Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty spoke with Iowa radio talkshow host Jan Mickelson on Friday, April 1. Here is the dialog. Mickelson: A number of people emailed me this question. You mentioned clean coal. What the heck is that? Pawlenty: Ha ha. In South Dakota, they were willing to put up a coal plant that had the best technology of today. We approved it because they needed to run the lines through Minnesota. And it was the best of coal technology as it exists today -- or back then, 2010. And within thirty days or so of us approving that project, the Obama administration put a hold on it. And the investors said we’re not going to have this much delay and this much problem. They fled and the project got killed. So clean coal, I think, can be defined as, we need to use coal, but we...if someone wants to come forward and invest in the best-of-class technology as it exists today and build a coal plant, I think that’s something ...

Former Minnesota Governor and possible 2012 GOP Presidential candidate Tim Pawlenty was a guest on WHO Radio's Jan Mickelson Friday, April 1, 2011.

Media companies like to monetize special areas of their websites by co-branding them with their advertisers.  It wouldn't be fair to hold these sponsorships to the same performance standards as one would expect with banner campaigns.  Nevertheless, advertisers come along after the campaign and demand metrics. Web page metrics are not calculated in the same way an ad server would measure impressions and click-through rates for banner campaign. The best way to manage this post-campaign misery is to spell out the standards up front, in writing and in conversation.  It must be made clear, provably, that simple web page sponsor graphics aren't for everyone, that impression and click-through data cannot be tracked or reported.  If the advertiser recognizes the value of associating a particular web page and do not require performance metrics, only then should they consider placing an order for these areas. Knowing and fully understanding this, g ahead and ask for page...