Headline from the June 9, 2006 San Antonio Express-News:
Compared to the June 9, 2006 Wall Street Journal:
and…
Headline from the June 2, 2006 Express News:
Compared to the June 2, 2006 Wall Street Journal:
and…
From the May 12, 2006 San Antonio Express-News:
Compared to the May 12, 2006 Wall Street Journal:
tags: journalism; newspapers; media bias;
Early look at what mobile gaming may be like on the new Nokia 93 given by Nokia technology manager Patric Ojala.
via Darla Mack.
Town hall meeting this Monday May 15 in San Antonio hosted by the Texas Film Commission and San Antonio Film Commission regarding the formation of the new Texas Motion Picture Alliance. More details about the meeting here.
via Alan Weinkrantz in SA Tech Blog.
The team from the University of Texas at San Antonio’s blossoming Center for Infrastructure Assurance and Security will have the home court in the National Collegiate Cyber Defense Competition finals taking place this weekend at the San Antonio Airport Hilton.
With support from the Department of Homeland Security, the competition brings together earlier regional finals winners to test their online security skills.
The CCDC site describes the competition this way:
Unlike traditional “hack and defend” or “capture the flag” contests, this competition tests each team’s ability to operate, secure, manage, and maintain a corporate network. This competition is the first to create, as closely as possible, a realistic corporate administration and security experience…
The rules of the competition are worth a read if you are interested in the tools they will be using and the skill sets they will be challenging. More good info also in an article in the San Antonio Business Journal and a press release from Acronis, another event sponsor.
Good luck team UTSA.
A new research study from the Association of National Advertisers and Forrester Research is another wakeup call for my friends in the advertising and video production business who are buttering the bulk of their bread on the back of the :30 second spot.
Some highlights as reported on the ANA website:
** Almost 70% of advertisers think that DVRs and video-on-demand will reduce or destroy the effectiveness of traditional 30-second commercials.
** When DVRs spread to 30 million homes, close to 60% of advertisers say that they will spend less on conventional TV advertising; of those, 24% will cut their TV budgets by at least 25%.
** Eighty percent of advertisers will spend more of their advertising budget on Web advertising and 68% of advertisers will look to search engine marketing.
** Advertisers are also looking at alternatives to traditional TV advertising and will spend more of their advertising budgets on: branded entertainment within TV programs (61%); TV program sponsorships (55%); interactive advertising during TV programs (48%); online video ads (45%); and product placement (44%).
Some of the research feels slightly like a repackaging of the obvious, but putting some hard numbers to the degree and speed at which attitudes and approaches are changing is valuable and gives those pushing to make it happen some added ammunition and credibility.
If you’re constructing ad campaigns built on strategies that could just as easily be from 1986 as opposed to 2006 I hope this information creates a greater sense of urgency in you.
Start searching for opportunities to smoothly begin the process of cannibalizing those parts of your company stuck in tradition and habit and begin converting them into business units better suited to be a part of this new landscape.
It’s still relatively early in the game and there is time to do it right but the tick tock of the clock is getting louder.
Had a little time to kill between events one night at SXSW last week so I pulled up a stool with Jack at the bar in the Austin Downtown Hilton.
The bartender, a friendly late twenty-something guy, was doing his bartender duty to keep the conversation lively. On our verbal journey together he was telling me about how he is currently using Craigslist to help buy a car, sell his house and find a new place to live. When he learned I was in town from San Antonio, he said he was checking out San Antonio’s Craigslist section and remarked on the dearth of activity compared to other cities. His exact quote was something like,
“Does anybody in San Antonio even have a computer?”.
A little extreme on his part no doubt for effect and humor, but is there a point hidden in his hyperbole? Can one accurately gauge the strength of a city’s technology sector and technology consumer by the level of activity on that city’s Craigslist section? Probably not, but are there less effective indicators out there? Probably.
Remember, these weren’t the observations of a pretentious multiple PDA toting Austin tech snob. This was the point of view of a man on the street working hard for the money. He wasn’t exactly Joe Sixpack, but he might have been his second cousin, and his impression of San Antonio was basically that of a technology backwater.
Well, after that cold shower of one person’s version of our reality, if you are jonesing for a more positive indicator of San Antonio’s evolving technology sector to rekindle your flame then I recommend you follow the interesting work Alan Weinkrantz is doing tracking San Antonio’s tech ecosystem on his SATechBlog. The site has been live for a couple of months now and is starting to find its voice - a unique and much needed one, IMHO.
If you subscribe to Alan’s RSS Feed, and you probably should if you care about this stuff, you get the sense that tech is evolving nicely in San Antonio and that our proverbial glass is actually half full. But then again, if you know what a RSS Feed is, your view may be somewhat skewed.
Time will tell, but I’m rooting for Alan’s take on it to be the one that emerges. In the meantime - hey bartender, another Jack please!
Just in case.
Eyespot is one of my favorite companies that I learned about at SXSW this year. When their VP of Content David Todd gave me a demo of their just launched beta site at their tradeshow booth the synapses in the corporate marketing region of my brain just started firing like crazy.
Eyespot’s branding statement is Shoot. Mix. Share. Ok, the slogan sounds a little familiar but the eyespot service is new in that it is an online video remixer that lets the user remix and mashup video content (audio too) and then share it via MMS with most any video capable cellphone.
Another David (apologies I forgot his lastname) was also manning the booth. Now that we had a little mini convention of people named David going on at their booth, I learned that this David is the coding force behind building the site. He shared with me how he spent months cranking out an alpha version on his own and has only recently been able to start adding other people to start picking up the pace and expanding the effort. I think the staff is up to about six people now. The startup vibe is such a great feeling and I could feel it circulating through them.
Go check out eyespot and see for yourself. The eyespot tour doesn’t really capture what the site is all about. You need to set up an account to be able to play with it. I shared with David (no, the other one) that the tour left me cold after getting the demo in person. I think it might be more effective if they could make a dummy account part of the tour or at least build a Flash simulation that captures the fun of the eyespot experience.
If you are looking for innovative ways to have end users spend more time interacting with your brand, eyespot would seem to open up a new world of opportunities.
tags: SXSW2006
If you didn’t get a chance to attend last weeks John August Professional Writing and the Rise of the Amatuer lecture at Trinity, he posted the prepared portion of his talk online. PDF version is here.
John summed up his thesis of what defines professional writing in today’s world as writing that meets these criteria:
Presentation
Accuracy
Consistency
Accountability
Peer standards
Kudos to Trinity as well for bringing in Doris Kearns Goodwin this week to talk about her new book on Abraham Lincoln, Team of Rivals. A good crowd spanning all demographics turned out.
Her talk was interesting, inspiring and included, surprising to me, some delightful profanity laced dirty jokes. Apparently all that time she spent with LBJ is still paying dividends.
Was also a good Q&A from the audience, aside from the awkwardly out of place Bush bashing from one audience member who couldn’t resist the temptation of the microphone.
Overall was good fun with many stories about Lincoln that have escaped us so far. I can see why the book was optioned by Steven Spielberg well before it was even completed.
