It is no secret that the current presidential campaigns are leaning on social media more so than any other time in history. However, in addition to the obvious choices of Facebook and Twitter, the Obama and Romney campaigns are posting quirky clips to Tumblr and other sites in the hope of attracting younger voters.
“They are taking to fields of online battle that might seem obscure to the non-Internet-obsessed — sharing song playlists on Spotify, adding frosted pumpkin bread recipes to Pinterest and posting the candidates’ moments at home with the children on Instagram,” notes The New York Times.
The efforts are designed to reach younger voters who do not necessarily read the newspaper or watch TV, but spend much of their media time on the social Web. In the case of Tumblr, the interaction typically involves remixed photos, looping animated GIFs and funny videos.
“To remind Tumblr users about the first presidential debate… Obama’s team used an obscure clip of Lindsay Lohan saying ‘It’s October 3’ in the comedy ‘Mean Girls,'” explains the article. “And on Twitter, Mitt Romney’s bodyguard posted a picture of the candidate’s family playing Jenga before the debate.”
“The more people who interact with Mitt, the more likely he is to win,” suggests Zachary Moffatt, digital director for the Romney campaign. “Social extends and amplifies that.”
“It’s about authentic, two-way communication,” says Adam Fetcher, deputy press secretary for the Obama campaign. “Social media is a natural extension of our massive grass-roots organization.”
Conversely, unintentional gaffes or well-intended posts or pictures can lead to a negative impact with social media.
After Obama told a crowd “You didn’t build that” while discussing infrastructure, the Romney campaign uploaded photos of hot dog vendors and others with signs that played on the slogan: “I built this.” And Twitter and Tumblr were flooded with parodies of the empty chair used by Clint Eastwood during the Republican convention.
Last year, 3.4 million ultraslim PCs were shipped worldwide. Despite the slow adoption, NPD DisplaySearch predicts that number to dramatically increase to 65 million by 2015 (one-quarter of all mobile PC shipments).
The expected growth of devices including ultrabooks, Apple’s MacBook Air and MacBook Pro with retina display will be sparked by reduced prices and the devices’ similar feel to tablets.
NPD DisplaySearch also predicts that tablet shipments will exceed notebooks by 2016.
“Tablet PCs have offered consumers what they have been requesting from the notebook market for years, instant-on activation, long battery life, and sleeker designs,” notes Richard Shim, senior analyst with NPD DisplaySearch. “These attributes are the basis for enabling greater and easier accessibility to content and services.”
“Ultraslim PCs are the notebook market’s response to tablets and aim to balance performance and convenience,” he says.
Roku and 3M have announced their Streaming Projector — a new Wi-Fi mini projector capable of 60 lumens, that features 800 x 480 pixel resolution and can expand to a 120-inch screen.
“Measuring 7.8 x 7 x 4.5 inches and weighing just a little under 1.5 pounds, the mini-Streaming Projector runs on the Roku Streaming Stick, which contains all your entertainment apps such as Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus, ‘Angry Birds’ and more,” reports Digital Trends.
“You can also access the Channel Store to add more streams, such as CNBC — which will display the live channel as well as stock tickers and news headlines,” adds the post.
A separate $20 remote may appeal to those seeking an intuitive controller with built-in motion sensor (for example, those who want to play “Angry Birds” by projector). And the Streaming Stick is removable for those who want to connect HDMI ports from an Xbox or laptop.
The $300 wireless Streaming Projector has a rechargeable battery and built-in stereo system. It will ship on October 22.
“The entire device is essentially the Roku 2 XS, the company’s top-of-the-line media center, now with a built-in projector capacity,” notes the post.
AT&T announced its plans to carry the Samsung Galaxy Camera, which is expected to be the first combination of point-and-shoot camera and smartphone.
“The Samsung Galaxy Camera is becoming a hotly anticipated item, thanks to its recently announced Dropbox compatibility and next-gen, ultra-connected focus,” reports Digital Trends.
“AT&T announced it will be supporting the 4G (HSPA+, most likely) camera, which will have run Jelly Bean and have access to the full catalog of Google Play apps,” explains the post.
The Galaxy Cam features a 16-megapixel CMOS sensor, 1GHz processor, 21x optical zoom and 4.77-inch HD touch display. Expected to launch within the next few weeks, pricing has yet to be announced.
Digital Trends describes the Samsung Smart camera line as “a pleasant surprise” in regards to Wi-Fi connectivity. “Manufacturers have struggled with implementing this feature in an easy-to-use, simple way for users, but it’s something that Samsung has done incredibly well. And we only expect this to be an even more fluid experience with the Galaxy Cam.”
The device “stands a decent shot at cornering the consumer camera market: Wi-Fi enabled point-and-shoots are a hot commodity, and strapping a Galaxy S3 to one only sweetens that deal,” suggests the post. “It’s cutting edge, especially for an industry that’s been remarkably slow to adopt and adapt to mobile technology.”
Nielsen reports that television viewership for Wednesday evening’s presidential debate jumped 28 percent to 67.2 million, compared with the first debate of the 2008 election.
Broadcast networks dominated, with ABC drawing 11.25 million viewers, NBC 11.07 million and CBS 10.58 million.
On cable, Fox News was the leader with 10.42 million viewers (its highest-rated presidential debate ever). CNN was second with 6.05 million total viewers and MSNBC was third with 4.71 million.
In a related story from AllThingsD, online video streaming also attracted viewers: “This year, you definitely didn’t need an old-fangled television to watch the debates, with online offerings ranging from simple videos to live fact-checking and commentary.”
YouTube’s politics channel carried an array of content from multiple sources and had “millions of live streamed views of the debates, and one of the highest number of concurrent streams ever for a YouTube live stream,” according to a company spokesperson.
Ustream reports 3.5 million views of debate and debate-related videos, while CNN says their debate videos were started about 5 million times with 1.2 million global users viewing live. Streaming was also available from AOL, Hulu, Aereo and others.
Logitech announced it will launch its Harmony Touch remote this month in the U.S. and Europe. Clearly influenced by smartphone design, the device features a 2.4-inch color touchscreen with channel icons.
Instead of surfing through existing channel guides, users simply tap the icon of their desired network to change the channel — and in similar fashion to mobile screens, functions are controlled by swiping, scrolling and tapping.
The screen holds up to 50 channel icons and can display nine at a time. The icons can be positioned based on most watched channels.
Alternate activities can be controlled by the remote as well, such as switching from cable programming to setting up for video game access.
“Consumers that also own the Logitech TV Cam HD will find a Skype function on the Harmony Touch which can be used to place and accept calls, mute the volume during the call or control the camera’s zoom and angle,” notes Digital Trends.
“The Logitech Harmony Touch is compatible with more than 225,000 home-entertainment devices and more than 5,000 brands, and it can control as many as 15 devices,” notes the press release.
The $250 remote is currently available on the Logitech site and will be offered by retailers including Amazon and Best Buy later this month.
Apple has reportedly begun mass production of a smaller tablet, commonly referred to as the iPad Mini in recent press coverage.
According to unnamed executives at component makers, the new tablet will feature a 7.85-inch LCD with lower resolution than the latest 9.7-inch iPad.
The Wall Street Journal reports: “South Korea’s LG Display Co. and Taiwan’s AU Optronics Corp. began mass production of the LCD screens for the new device last month, the people said.”
Last month, AllThingsD reported that Apple has plans to unveil the new tablet in October. The company may need the smaller device to stay competitive.
“Google in July introduced the Nexus 7, with a 7-inch screen and a price of $199,” notes WSJ. “Amazon last month released the latest models of its Kindle Fire tablets, with the entry-level model priced at $159. Apple’s newest iPad, released in March, starts at $499.”
In a related report, Digital Trends suggests the iPad Mini is expected to cost no more than $300 and Apple’s official unveiling may come as soon as October 10.
Facebook is introducing a new tool that lets users boost their visibility by paying a small fee to have their content displayed more prominently on the social network, essentially turning users into micro-advertisers.
Fees will reportedly vary, but Facebook is initially charging $7 to promote users’ content in testing that began Wednesday with a limited number of U.S. users.
Facebook claims the move is not a planned shift from its current free-to-use model, but an addition to its line of premium services. The promoted-posts-for-users feature was initially tested in New Zealand, and the company says it has conducted similar tests in 20 other countries.
“With Facebook’s revenue growth rate showing a sharp slowdown in recent quarters, many analysts and investors believe the company needs to find new ways to make money,” reports Reuters.
“Last week, Facebook unveiled a feature that lets U.S. users buy and send real gifts, such as eyeglasses, pastries and gift cards to their friends,” explains the article. “Initially available to a limited number of users in the United States, Facebook Gifts could signal the company’s intent to play a bigger role in e-commerce.”
Following Facebook’s announcement that it had reached the one billion user milestone, Mark Zuckerberg posted compelling stats to the Facebook Newsroom.
According to the fact sheet, the social network has experienced over 1.13 trillion “likes” (since February 2009), 140.3 billion friend connections and 219 billion photos uploaded.
However, the data excludes deleted photos. “If we wanted to include all photos ever uploaded, the estimate we have is 265 billion,” explains Facebook. “Photo uploading launched fall 2005.”
Additional numbers include 17 billion location-tagged posts (including check-ins) since the feature’s August 2010 launch, and 62.6 million songs have been played 22 billion times since September 2011 (“about 210,000 years of music”).
The median age of registered users has dropped from 26 in 2007 to 22 in 2012. Also, Facebook now has 600 million mobile users.
Tech companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Twitter are targeting the living room TV, while second-screen experiences for our smartphones and tablets are being introduced by the likes of GetGlue and Shazam.
According to Fast Company, the interest-sharing (and soon-to-be e-commerce platform) Pinterest has been meeting with various TV networks including MTV, VH1 and Bravo.
“While it’s too early to say what such meetings could yield, they serve as a sign of the two-year-old startup’s increasing interest in brands and media,” notes the post. “But what would Pinterest TV look like, should such a thing exist?”
Fast Company was told that the meetings were generally about relationship building (not uncommon with startups) and how to optimize the platform for third parties. “In other words, it’s not likely the 70-person shop is already looking to expand to on-screen TV engagement — it only just landed on the iPad.”
However, it’s worth noting that television brands have played a significant role in nurturing social media platforms.
“Twitter and Facebook have become intertwined with live-TV viewing; Instagram has worked with broadcast networks like CNN; and Foursquare has helped devise interesting applications with the History and Weather channels,” explains the post. “On Pinterest, for example, we’re already seeing popular feeds from MTV and the Food Network.”
Could there come a time when we find ourselves pinning kitchen devices featured on Bravo’s “Top Chef” to Pinterest? “I don’t know yet — maybe,” responds Lisa Hsia, EVP of digital for Bravo, with a smile. “Watch what happens.”
The DSLR is becoming “one of the more interesting tools in the 21st century journalist’s kit,” according to TV Technology.
“Everyone wants the shallow depth of field that DSLRs offer, and it works so well in low-light situations,” says Art Donahue, an editor and producer at WCVB in Boston. “With the fullframe sensor, you’re downsampling to HD. The noise virtually disappears and you’re able to shoot in low-light situations that you couldn’t do with a standard 2/3-inch imager — this is a huge, huge advantage.”
“It’s really hard to monitor audio properly, even with an outboard adapter,” counters Carl Mrozek, an independent shooter based in Buffalo, New York. “Also, the audio adapters make the DSLR package clunky and harder to handle.”
Many new film and video students have abandoned conventional camcorders for DSLRs. “They cost less, produce great pictures and offer a ‘film look’ because the glass is better,” notes Chuck Gloman, chair of DeSales University’s TV and Film department. “I think that eventually it will be universally accepted for news work.”
“It would be good for special applications such as war-zone shooting, where a larger camera would be too conspicuous,” admits Mrozek. “DSLRs have obvious advantages for news applications involving stealth and traveling light. Getting a DSLR through customs shouldn’t be a problem either, where carrying a conventional video camera might.”
However, drawbacks include issues with the sensor overheating, the need for some operators to use an external monitor for better focusing and the comparative lack of handling comfort based on form factor (which may change in the future). Yet its form and size can provide access in terms of shooting news.
“People don’t know you’re shooting video — they think you’re shooting stills,” explains Geoff Poister, faculty member at Boston University’s Film and Television program. “These cameras let you get away with it. You look like a tourist and are not likely to be stopped as a professional shooter might. Plus the images are great — high-definition, which can be downscaled.”
SMPTE has scheduled its 2012 Annual Technical Conference & Exhibition for October 23-25 with a pre-conference symposium slated for October 22.
Billed as “the premier annual event for motion imaging and media technology, production and operations,” the conference will take place at the Loews Hollywood Hotel.
“Join us and network with world-renowned technology thought-leaders in the motion picture studios, broadcast and distribution networks, production and post-production community, software companies, systems integrators, manufacturers, display technologies and distribution providers,” explains the SMPTE conference site.
The event will feature technical sessions, a tech-focused exhibit hall, a welcome reception, a keynote luncheon and the prestigious Honors & Awards Ceremony and Dinner.
Presentations and discussions will involve high frame rates for digital cinema, file-based workflows, image processing, high performance networks, migrating to the cloud and much more.
Registration is accessible from the conference page.
USC undergrads answered questions about their media consumption habits during the September 20th ETC MegaSession.
The students indicated that they typically watch movies in theaters or on laptops and mobile devices, while television viewing is most common as a community experience in dorms and houses.
When in a theater, most electronic communication is restricted to before and after the film is screened. They seemed leery of a second screen interaction that detracts from the immersive movie experience.
However, one student noted: “I’ve always wondered if a film would be developed that integrated social media into the movie. I think it would be fantastic, but it would need to be specifically developed for that.”
The students are annoyed by tech choices that prove disappointing (such as 3D and IMAX), yet seek out the best theater technology for films they anticipate to be viewing events. Favorites this year included: “The Dark Knight Rises” (IMAX), “The Avengers” (3D) and “Brave” (3D).
Live sports and social engagement will get them in front of a TV, but they primarily watch content on Hulu and Netflix. The students noted the growing popularity of piracy sites and generally found the video quality to be good enough for their viewing.
“Second screen activity at home was of interest as long as it adds value and doesn’t detract from the programming,” explains the summary. “Two students suggested pop-up facts pushed during the commercial breaks, rather than during the show. The students were defining second screen activity as something ‘pushed at them.’ They did not mention texting, tweeting or other viewing-time commenting as a second screen activity.”
Nielsen announced it is launching a new rating service that will enable advertisers to gauge the popularity of their campaigns across a variety of viewing platforms.
The long-awaited Nielsen Cross-Platform Campaign Ratings will combine data from online and television metrics. The project was developed in partnership with ESPN, Facebook, GroupM, Hulu and Unilever.
“According to the latest Nielsen Cross-Platform Report, in addition to watching 34-plus hours of TV per week, the average American spends nearly five hours online on the computer,” reports Broadcasting & Cable. “Nielsen also said more than half of Americans now watch video online, with online viewing increasing average weekly video consumption to somewhere around 35 hours.”
“Since traditional TV and the Web typically use different metrics, it has been hard to calculate a campaign’s total reach and frequency across platforms,” notes Advertising Age in a related report. “This effort builds upon Nielsen’s Online Campaign Ratings, which was rolled out last year to provide demographic ratings of online-ad campaigns with metrics comparable to those used for TV advertising.”
“Creating a way to reach, measure and monetize inventory across screens and platforms advances the industry toward the high caliber, seamless standard that can provide new opportunities for players across the industry,” says Steve Hasker, president, global media products and advertiser solutions at Nielsen.
However, some argue that the new approach is oversimplifying matters since consumers engage differently with TV than they do with their digital devices.
Speaking at a Royal Television Society conference in London called “When Worlds Collide: Beyond the Digital Looking Glass,” Anne Sweeney explained that Disney sees the greatest growth opportunity for video consumption in mobile devices.
The co-chair of Disney Media Networks and president of the Disney/ABC Television Group noted that iPad users currently watch 60 percent more video than PC users, while iPhone users watch almost 40 percent more.
“Sweeney said apps are simple and therefore the preferred way for people to watch video on new devices. She said 80 percent of video is viewed that way,” details The Hollywood Reporter. “She also said the ABC player app for Apple devices has been downloaded 6.5 million times and drawn more than 135 million video views.”
Sweeney described ABC as a content engine for Disney, one that serves “as a navigation device and as a brand.”
She described how YouTube is becoming a useful tool, citing how Jimmy Kimmel has used it to help build an audience. She also explained how the stake in Hulu was meant to draw “a broader, more diverse audience” for ABC, which was skewing female at the time.
“The executive said a scene from the popular Pooh stories illustrates Disney’s approach to the digital age,” explains THR. “Pooh says the first thing he thinks of in the morning is ‘what’s for breakfast.’ In comparison, his friend Piglet says: ‘I wonder what exciting is going to happen today.’ Disney follows the Piglet approach, Sweeney said.”
