Creative Video Blogging and The New "Instant Journalism"
VoIP Watch: January 06, 2007"
With all that is going on this year at CES, an event I'm going to for the next few days it's going to be the independent news sources, not the main stream media where a lot of the "breaking news" and more interesting stories get told. With blogging, podcasting and video blogging from anywhere there's an IP connection, we have entered an era of "Instant Jouralism" and of "just in time" distribution of news content.
The way news is gathered, who it is gathered by, where and how it is disseminated is changing. What people want to know about, and where they go to find it, is changing too.
Take the Technology Evangelist, Benjamin Higginbotham, and the way he is taking creativity in blogging to the next level, using video blogging, reporting and video mail to tell people all the cool things that are happening at CES this year. The way he's doing it, asking the audience what the want covered, then going out, getting the stories and posting them to his blog is very imaginative and part of what I'm labeling "the New Journalism" which is fueled by "Instant Journalism."
Using client SightSpeed and his own web site, Higginbotham will be telling the world what he's seeing and hearing about in Las Vegas. In the sake of transparency, he's doing this unsolicited but SightSpeed certainly appreciates his efforts for they, like I, know a great idea when we see it.
If you have a question, send him a video mail via SightSpeed and he'll get you the answer. His email address is videomail@technologyevangelist.com
With events like the always tasty Lunch at Piero's, ShowStoppers and Pepcom, all media showcases, and hundreds of bloggers walking around with video cameras, video phones, laptops with webcams, a new kind of "instant journalist" will be be starting to appear at a level like never before. Because of this, I'm expecting CES to be a revitalized news event, and at the same time, an event where the unknown can become known, not only from the usual sources, but from new and unexpected places. It's the "new instant journalists," even those without press passes, who will be wandering the halls at CES that will be finding products and stories that makes the show interesting. Search engines for blogs will take on a new level of importance and old school search engine optimization will go out the window as the blog search tools care only about two things, how recent is the posting and how relevant is the post.
On the human, um Public level, this also means, the usually dismissive approach many old school PR people have taken of bloggers and online journalists will have to change. Heck it better. Bloggers are now as important to the established companies as the mainstream media have always been, not just to the new and emerging companies with something new to show. As a matter of fact if you have to pick between the analyst, media or blogger this week, unfortunately the analyst drops to third in importance if you've got something to tell and sell. Candidly some media types who are not on deadline should take a page out of the sportswriters creed and code of mutual respect...photographers and those on deadline to the front of the pack, everyone else to the back.
I'll be at CES this week along with clients Nokia, TalkPlus, ATS, SightSpeed and NextAlarm all of which are on site either in their own booths, or in partner booths or both. There will also be private suites and private show rooms scattered around Las Veags making a portable GPS a dream come true. At media events I have my press badge and as a member of the instant journalism world hopefully at the front of the pack, not at the back of the room.
With events happening almost around the clock in the city that never sleeps, this years CES has all the trappings of being something really big, but in reality it's just another edition of the ultimate toy show for boys and girls. What is going to make it different this time is the Internet's new Instant Journalists. You see, for the companies that can tell their story, show their wares and which don't manufacturer hype, but have something to say, and are willing to give time to the new "Instant Journalists" will be the ones that get seen and it will be the Instant Journalists who tell that story for them like never before, in a time frame that has now become the standard, not the exception---Instantly..
