I’d like to discuss the whole ravelbabel concept with you if you’d like. Just send me an email.

Jake

Anyone can post to YouTube, Revver, Google Video, etc. with videos. WordPress has, for some time, offered the ability to post videos from those sites with the simple inclusion of a bit of code.

My point is, a news release or social media news room has allowed the ability to comment with video for at least one year, if the platform was created with WordPress, for instance.

[YouTube]6gmP4nk0EOE[/YouTube]

The video is here at YouTube.

This test is, in part, a response to this press release stating that ravelbabel.com‘s Jake Lowrey “believes his site is the first to be a true hybrid blog by encouraging the submission of video comments.” They actually allow uploading to their site.

I don’t think so. It was possible long before ravelbabel.com issued their press release.

HA! Well, I was wrong right – if I cheat a bit. I think it did work in previous versions of WordPress (pre-2.1) – with the bbcode version – but it does not seem to work now. My apologies.

I also apologize if you subscribed to this post. I forgot about that before I posted this. I’m sorry.

Thank you for volunteering to help. Much appreciated.

Like Dee’s 400+ examples of the MediaRoom, we know you and also the newswires have examples of successful releases including these traits.

So, we are going to be writing to all of you for advice and guidance. We realize, too, that some of this is proprietary. We don’t want to interfere with that at all. We do hope to gain insights which will guide us toward the right questions to ask, though.

One of my favorite aspects of this is the difference between the interest levels of national versus local / regional media. I have my speculations as to what the answers might be, but I’d like to see the real deal from the view of those actively participating in those areas.

Thank you.

I’ve generated several experimental tools in an attempt to spur discussion around what is truly needed, but responses have been hit-and-miss. I hope that a concerted effort like this will produce the feedback that is necessary to guide us on a more focused path.

In fact, I’m volunteering now to provide assistance if you need it. During your research, if your students come upon an idea that could be best presented through a prototype, let me know and I’ll see if I can help.

If nothing else, it will help the students understand what the issues are in this dog fight over the validity, or lack of validity, in developing a social media news release and newsroom.

Thanks.

With Tom Forenski an outstanding exception, very few journalists need more “bells and whistles” in a mediaroom. Something that I can share about our ongoing feedback is nearly all respondents focused on one or two key value propositions.
1. The timeliness of the news (yes…the good ole traditional news release). They felt like a company that had a PR team that was actively updating content could be trusted. In our particular case, that means that the second the news release goes out over the wire it is posted automatically to the Mediaroom using proprietary feeds.
2. The ability to sign up for email or RSS notification of these news releases. Email is still by far the preferred method and most of our respondents weren’t yet using an RSS reader but I’m confident that is changing. Although email is the preferred method…they only want it if they subscribe for it. Unsolicited emails or emails with news releases as attachments are “dead soldiers”…they won’t get through. That said, many many companies are still delivering them that way.

Other assets, PR contact info, etc. were all mentioned as being nice…but again…the core value proposition revolved around the timely deliver of the company’s official news.

This is the state of the industry now. It will change to be sure, but we tend to stay focused on what is demanded right now. As I’ve alluded to in many of my own posts…and one in particular on MarcomBlog, technology evolution is nice and we need to proceed with it, whether it’s the model of SMNR or another. But until “strategy” and “adoption” catch up…we’re all just speculating.

I’m glad to learn of others that are doing the phone interviews in classes. We’ve found them to be very valuable.

The SMNR, or whatever we end up calling it, may be quite useful. What we want to determine is how do they like it now, what would they change and do they think it will gain a foothold.

Thanks for coming by. I hope you’ll continue to touch base with us along the way.

Take care.