By BRIAN STELTER
Published: December 7, 2008

CNN says it wants newspaper feedback as it creates a news wire service to compete with The Associated Press and other services. At a meeting last week, one newspaper staff member offered his advice — and shared the framework of CNN’s plans — in real time on the social messaging Web site Twitter.
“Still definitely a work in progress,” Ryan Pitts, the online director for The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., wrote on Twitter last Tuesday, while expressing enthusiasm about the wire service’s potential.

CNN, a division of Time Warner, invited several dozen newspaper editors to Atlanta last week for a summit about its forthcoming news wire. Gatherings of journalists aren’t usually off-the-record affairs, but CNN probably didn’t expect each segment of the summit to be shared with the Web. Then again, the increasingly popular Twitter, which allows users to share short messages with others, sometimes acts as a wire service as well. (CNN declined to comment.)

The network’s executives said repeatedly at the summit that they are “not trying to replicate A.P.,” Mr. Pitts wrote under the username “onemoreryan.” Unlike the A.P., which offers packages of content to subscribers, affiliates of the CNN wire would receive access to all of its content. But it would be a smaller product: according to Mr. Pitts, CNN’s off-the-cuff estimates of 8 to 10 national articles a day, and a similar number of international and financial articles, raised eyebrows among the newspaper editors. The company’s theory, he wrote, “is that most papers don’t need huge bucket” of news, “just best of the best.”

Providing some feedback of his own, Mr. Pitts suggested that simple graphics and maps should be part of the CNN service. He wrote that sports and photos would be “the big holes to fill for potential customers,” but added, “there are sources for those.”

While arguably the most important point about the product, the price, wasn’t discussed at the meeting, Mr. Pitts pronounced himself “very impressed“ with the organization. He even offered feedback about the bathrooms: “three stars.” BRIAN STELTER

TalkShoe this afternoon released a major upgrade to their live podcasting platform, one that allows for a call to be created mobile, on the fly and independent of a connection to the web.

CEO Dave Nelson posted the details to the company blog today:

So now you can do a movie review as you leave the theater, inform your audience about a breaking news story, or tell your friends about a hot new restaurant while the taste is still on your tongue.

You may recall a similar service was released back in March by TalkShoe competitor BlogTalkRadio called CinchCast. The primary difference between the BlogTalkRadio offering and TalkShoe’s new feature is the ability to bring in callers to the show and broadcast it live (Cinchcast is time-shifted only).

As a podcast producer who has frequently used TalkShoe as a valued production tool, I can say that this is one feature that’s been on my personal wishlist for quite some time. It allows TalkShoe to move into the category of journalistic tool that Twitter has found itself in, and adds another utility to the repertoire of the New Media producer.

In essence, it finally allows users to have the same functionality in audio format they’ve had for quite some time with the video format thanks to services like Qik and Flixwagon.

Tech Now by Paul Brent

No handheld cellphones … No dialing, no texting, no handheld GPS, no checking e-mails on the Blackberry.

That, in a nutshell, will be the effect of a new communication device ban proposed by the Ontario government that is making its way through the Legislature.

The looming ban will mean a big change in the habits of drivers accustomed to keeping in touch while on the go. However, wireless options are available for many of those same functions and since the law will still permit “hands-free,” a huge business opportunity awaits firms that can provide the right technology.

And that has QNX Software of Ottawa smiling. QNX’s software is already found in over 50 per cent of all vehicles equipped with factory installed hands-free systems. That works out to more than seven million vehicles.

Andrew Poliak is director of Business Development at QNX, for the auto sector. I reached him in his home state of Washington, which also has a cellphone ban.

He says the Ontario move is good news and will help expand the market. One month after California’s cell ban went into effect, for example, sales in that state of Bluetooth phone kits jumped to four times the national average.

QNX designs the software that allows phones, iPods, Global Positioning Systems — almost anything — to work in a car and interact with the car’s audio system.

For a phone, that usually means voice-activated features, so you don’t even have to look at your device or punch numbers while driving.

Poliak says studies show poor-quality audio on a hands-free system increases driver distraction, so they have developed improvements in audio both incoming and outgoing. The next step is to use their software as a gateway for a variety of onboard electronic functions, from entertainment systems linked to the Internet using Bluetooth and WiFi in the car, to sensors that tell the driver if they’ve wandered out of their lane.

Another piece of technology that’s getting attention comes from Vancouver’s Aegis. Their software determines if your cellphone is moving above a certain speed and it then stops accepting calls until you stop. Emergency 9-1-1 calls and other calls that you designate — such as a parent trying to reach a child — will still get through, though other callers are advised that you’re driving and to leave a message. A final point to consider about driver distraction: R.A.C., a car organization in the United Kingdom with seven million members, says studies show that the radio and the CD player pose a bigger risk of diversion than cell phones.

I don’t know whether to think recent calculations for mobile video consumption (or lack thereof) via the four top wireless carriers in America are just a little bit Halloween spooky, a big point of concern, or perhaps a good omen.

It’s come to be a common refrain that most of the country’s residents are mobile phone users. But what they do with their devices is, particularly in media consumption, very unlike the advanced markets of Asia and places elsewhere. Less than 3% of American subscribers bother to consume on-demand video in any form. “Woe is US?”

That number, released by Comscore yesterday, is certainly not an attractive one for any carrier to next to its name, especially given the activities made possible by new(ish) strides in mobile broadband penetration across the country by various networks. Whether it is a 4.4% usership that AT&T managed to serve circa June-August 2008, the 4.2% tallied for Sprint, or the the 2.4% figures each given to T-Mobile and Verizon, none shine very brightly.

To get specific for a moment, so-called amateur video clips (a la YouTube) ranked #1 among those who did use the carrier’s video services, followed by music videos, comedy clips, and film trailers. Each segment managed to net over 1 million users. (Alternatively, Web browsing, email transfers, and photo and video sharing are all working double-digit percentiles themselves, totaling over 100,000,000 users.)

As anyone with a good perception on data rates demanded of video downloads knows, the “packaged” experience delivered by carriers is 1) nowhere near like using a desktop-sized Web browser, and 2) costly. These factors, compounded with unavailability of many media options and television channels and whatnot, do much to make media services somewhat unappealing to many people. New software breaches that barrier, no doubt, but such developments are young and far from a common convenience.

What’s more, present platforms used to deliver streaming and on-demand video to handsets (only few of which manage to interface with online services really well) should really be taken for what they are: mobile broadband and Internet use. It’s entirely reasonable to think, then, that consumers wish to consider mobile broadband and Internet use very much the same way they do their land-based residential and at-work broadband connections. Which is to say, “give me access for a fee and let me do what I want to do and see what I want to see.”

Wireless carriers of course don’t appreciate this sensibility very much, since it essentially designates their task as a dumb ISP, so to speak. No value added. Just build the towers, sell the handsets and monthly connections and allow the user to do what the user wants to do from there on out. (How very libertarian and Ron Paul-like of the user. And we all know how wigs in the major parties regard independent thinkers.)

All said, I would think that an average of 2.8% penetration for the on-demand mobile video market is just a notch or two above crumb-sized. So I can only imagine that the figure is directly attributable to the age-old law of supply and demand. If the product isn’t adequate, nor will demand be. Time for carriers to be a little more free-thinking (philosophically, if not financially) with their mobile media delivery models, it seems.

By Jacqui Cheng | Published: October 20, 2008 – 01:14PM CT

It turns out that the typical American family is also the most networked, according to a new report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. In addition to having 1.34 children, a dog, and a white picket fence, the American nuclear family is more likely to have cell phones, computers, and a broadband connection compared to other households.

Pew, which surveyed 2,252 adults in the US between December and January of this year, found that over 90 percent of married-with-children households have at least one cell phone, in addition to one computer. This is compared to only 84 percent of all adults owning one cell phone, and 77 percent owning one computer. 58 percent of these nuclear families have two or more desktop or laptop computers, in fact, and 89 percent own multiple cell phones (47 percent own three or more).

Pew noted that while some fear that technology is ruining families, the survey found that “couples use their phones to connect and coordinate their lives, especially if they have children at home.” Spouses, parents, and kids all manage to stay connected by cell phones and the ‘Net during the day when they are separated, and are more likely to share moments with other family members online. (@daughter: OMG school was so lame today!) At least a quarter of survey respondents said that their families today feel closer than their families when they were growing up, thanks to the Internet and cell phones. 60 percent said that new technology has not affected family closeness.

At the same time, there are some elements of the “traditional” American family that appear to be falling by the wayside—due, in part, to technology. Pew said that households with the most technology are more likely to be dual-income households, which also means that they work longer hours and use the Internet more. “Those with multiple communication devices are somewhat less likely to eat dinner with other household members and somewhat less likely to report high levels of satisfaction with their family and leisure time than are families with lower levels of technology ownership,” wrote Pew.

The firm’s findings come just a few weeks after AT&T released survey results saying that families are using SMS to communicate with each other more than ever before. 76 percent of parents felt that their children were more likely to keep them abreast of their activities through text messaging, while 73 percent of parents said that their kids were more likely to respond to a text compared to other communication methods. Spouses and romantic partners were also found to be texting more, with 68 percent using SMS to send love notes to each other.

One thing is clear from both of these surveys. Technology may be keeping us busier than ever, but you can’t beat picking up the phone or sending a quick e-mail to your loved ones just to say “hi.”

By Jacqui Cheng | Published: October 09, 2008 – 05:05PM CT

Hate on the kiddies and their SMS speak all you want, but text messaging is taking off among the masses. AT&T has released data from two studies it recently commissioned, showing that both families and romantic partners are using SMS more and more to communicate. Parents think texting with their kids makes them cool, while lovestruck texters are finding themselves using SMS to flirt and send romantic notes.

We’ll start with the families. AT&T conducted 1,048 online interviews with parents and 1,022 online interviews with children and young adults to get a feel for their usage patterns. They found that 76 percent of parents feel that their children are more likely to keep them abreast of their activities through text messaging than other methods. 73 percent said that their kids were more likely to respond to a text message than other methods of communication, and a full half of parents feel that texting with their kids makes them “cool.”

Kids, of course, love text messaging. Large majorities feel that it’s easier to communicate with friends this way and keep their parents up-to-date on their activities (84 percent and 82 percent, respectively). 48 percent of kids said that texting was a better use of their time than calling. I’ll be honest: I wish my parents would text me too.

“Texting is sometimes the easiest way to keep track of my kids,” stated mother Janet Sturley. “They’re so much more likely to respond quickly to a text message, and it’s the most convenient and inexpensive way to keep tabs on them. I’ve become extremely fluent in the language of text.”

The same apparently applies when it comes to relationships. AT&T surveyed a thousand adults between the ages of 18 and 55 and found that 68 percent had sent a “love note” via text message. Another 67 percent used SMS to flirt, while 52 percent said that “thinking of you” was the most common text message to receive from a spouse. The very early stages of dating benefited from text messaging too, with just over a quarter of respondents saying that they’d be more willing to accept a first date if they exchanged texts first, and over half of the group had shown a text from a suitor to someone else in order to get their interpretation of the message. That’s apparently not a bad move, since 84 percent said that text messages could be misunderstood by a date or suitor.

Of course, AT&T has a commercial motive to publish these results, since the company peddles text messaging plans with all of its cellular voice packages. However, with an increasing number of services using SMS, it’s no surprise that people are texting more, including to the ones they love.

Further reading:

• Found via mocoNews: Text Messages Increasingly Used By Families And By Those Who Date: Report

Twitter is nothing short of a phenomenon. At the very least, it connects people to each other through a rich and active exchange of ideas, thoughts, observations, and vision in one, highly conducive ecosystem (known as the Twitterverse). The social fibers that weave together this unique micromedia network is strengthened by the expertise, respect, trust, admiration, and commonalities. These fabrics bind the people who breathe life and personality into the global community as well as fueling the disparate micro communities that ultimately extend across the Long Tail.

Of all of the social tools and services that are pervasive throughout our digital society, only a select few communities can boast the pseudo fanatical conviction that Twitter‘s users unanimously possess.

Twitter is quickly gaining momentum, support and market inertia and is on direct path to mainstream awareness. Compete.com numbers show that roughly 2.5 million people visit Twitter.com each month, growing at about 250,000 – 500,000 users per month and up over 440% since this time last year. Just as a comparison Facebook receives about 41 million unique visitors per month.

Twitter is not only embraced and cherished by the people who rely on it for expression, insight, news, and communication, it is also the darling of the developer community. Almost every single day, a passionate developer, b2b or b2c application company, or tech enthusiast will develop a new tool, service, or solution to make Twitter a more personalized, professional, streamlined, effective, and/or fun experience.

If you live in the world of socialized marketing, communications, relationships, communities, research, service, digital anthropology, fundraising, publicity, product development, publishing, events, online reputation management (ORM) or simply seeking to increase your proficiency and efficiency on Twitter, there is surely no shortage of tools and applications that can help you.

I created this snapshot guide to help you extend the reach and the efficacy of Twitter for your personal brand as well as the brand you represent. This is the first part of a multi-part series. If you’d like me to review and include additional tools and services, please share them in the comments and I’ll integrate into the next rev.

Twubble can help expand your Twitter network. It searches your friend graph and introduces and recommends new people who you may want to follow.

GroupTweet is similar to Yammer, except it’s within Twitter. Workgroups, extended networks, communities, and anyone who wants to broadcast and share private tweets to a specific group can do so for free using this unique and helpful service.

Twitt(url)y is a service for tracking popular URLs people are sharing on Twitter as a way to identify trends, topics, and new and interesting tools and services. It’s basically Techmeme or Google News for Twitter, but for all popular links shared in a given day.

TwitLinks aggregates the latest links from the worlds top tech twitter users.

TweetDeck is a must for any community manager, marketer or researcher tracking important and relevant conversations on Twitter. It’s an Adobe Air desktop application that enables users to split their main feed (All Tweets) into topic or group specific columns allowing the tracking of a broader overview of tweets based on keywords or groups of people.

Gridjit is a social portal that lets you view your web universe in a more visually rich way. It becomes your hub for tracking conversations, interesting people and those they @ frequently, and also provides a central location to post and share.

Tweet Later allows you to schedule tweets for a particular time and day. It also allows you to auto-follow those who follow your account and provides an auto-welcome feature to send a custom message to new followers via DM or in the public timeline.

Twist analyzes and presents trend comparisons and volume between keywords and tags.

Whoshouldifollow.com makes it easy to find relevant, like-minded friends as well as friends of friends based on keyword and validated networks.

Twitter Twerp Scan

Twerp Scan checks the number of followers of everyone on your contact list, the number of people they are following, and the ratio between those. If the person is following more than (n) people (can be customized), and has a Following-to-Followers ratio higher than 1:(m) (can be customized), you’ll be notified by a link. Even if you have no use for that, you might find Twerp Scan a helpfultool for keeping an eye on your growing list of friends and followers.

Before Summize, now the official Twitter Search engine, Twemes and #hashtags provided the ability to index conversations based on keywords, groups, topics or tags also known as #hashtags. These Twitter memes can now be followed outside of the public timeline through a focused and dedicated stream.

Tweet Scan, like Summize (Twitter Search), is a search engine for Twitter. Both services provide the ability to search keywords, company/product/competitors names, users, etc. The services also feature the hottest search trends at that particular moment. I have noticed that in some cases, one or the other, consistently provides results that the other missed. Note, by clicking “Replies” in Twitter, you’re only seeing tweets that start with @yourname. These search engines also track users as well as important and relevant keywords – as they appear.

twInfluence allows you to measure Twitter influencers, not just by followers, but also by reach, velocity, social capital and centralization. It also publicly ranks the top 50 influencers in each category. This is an important tool for identifying the tastemakers that you don’t already know in the Twitterverse.

TwitterGrader measures the relative power and authority of a Twitter user by calculating the number of followers, the power of the network of followers, the pace of updates and the completeness of a user’s profile. Here’s the result for @briansolis

Twittertise allows you to advertise on Twitter and track the success of branded communications with your customers. As a social marketer, you may also enjoy the ability to schedule and measure your communications on Twitter. The platform provides URL tracking technology to measure the effectiveness of your traffic driving ability on the platform.

Twitterrific is an elegant and “lite” software application that lets you read and publish tweets from the desktop, iPhone and iPod Touch.

Recently acquired by Seesmic, Twhirl is a social desktop dashboard that centrally manages activity, messaging, and updating for Twitter, FriendFeed, Identi.ca, and Seesmic.

TwitterWhere provides the ability to update Twitter with your current location.

Tweetbeep is the Google Alerts for Twitter and is a “listener’s” dream service. It allows you to monitor conversations that mention you, your brand, related or competitive products, as well as links to your website or blog, even if they use a shortened URL, such as tinyurl.com. You’re alerted as your keywords appear, reducing the need to manualy search for them.

TwitterFeed connects your blog to Twitter and automatically feeds posts into the timeline with each new update.

Even though Twitter features a directory search engine by name and email address, TwitDir always seem to find everyone, even when Twitter misses a contact. I use TwitDir when I’m looking to discover whether a particular contact or someone I’m trying to connect with is using twitter. Alternatively, you can use Google or Yahoo search and type “PERSON NAME” (in quotes) and the word twitter (outside of the quotes) in the search box to find the username. See example.

Ping.fm is a central distribution service for sending updates to multiple social networks, including Twitter, with one click. Supported services include Plurk, Identi.ca, Facebook, Pownce, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Brightkite, Jaiku, hi5, Kwippy, among other. Note of caution, broadcasting updates doesn’t replace the need to participate in each community that you wish to build and maintain valuable individual relationships.

BrightKite is a location-based social network that connects directly to Twitter. You can share your location and also locate friends geographically from the Web or your mobile phone. The service also offers an easy and direct channel for uploading pictures and notes to BrightKite and also Twitter – perfect for those with camera phones!

TwitterLocal is the ideal service for quickly finding active voices within a specific city, state, postal code as well as the vicinity, ranging from 1 mile to 20. Not only can you search those voices, you can instantly produce an RSS feed for each search criteria to monitor localized conversations through your feed reader. Here’s an example of the results for a search within 1 mile of San Francisco.

Twitpic provides a bridge from your camera phone to Twitter. Pictures can either post to the Twitter public timeline from phone via email or through the site.

Follow Cost estimates the potential attention (or annoyance) cost of following a particular individual or account. Here’s the result for @briansolis.

Twitter Mobile Applications

Twittelator is a Twitter client for the iPhone. You can manage multiple user accounts, update your accounts, share pictures, a map of your current location, connect with other Tweeps, read tweets from your contacts, and direct message (DM), and reply all from one app.

Twitterfon is a fast, simple Twitter client for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is focused on 80% of your tasks in Twitter such as viewing friends/replies/messages in the timeline and also sending/replying tweets.

Twinkle is a location-aware network for the iPhone and iPod Touch that helps you discover, connect, and send messages to the public timeline and also to people nearby. You can share photos and update your Twitter account from the phone.

Twitterberry

Twitterberry is a full-featured Twitter client to read and post updates from BlackBerry phones.

By Nate Anderson | Published: October 15, 2008 – 06:08PM CT

The FCC’s Office of Engineering Technology has released its long-awaited technical report (PDF) on “white space” prototype devices, and the conclusion comes right up front: “At this juncture, we believe that the burden of ‘proof of concept’ has been met. We are satisfied that spectrum sensing in combination with geo-location and database access techniques can be used to authorize equipment today under appropriate technical standards.”

Note that focus on “proof of concept”; the OET doesn’t argue that white space prototypes work flawlessly yet, and the report makes quite clear that they do not. In fact, they don’t do lots of things, including “communicate with other devices.” But what they do show is that spectrum sensing of TV signals can work with great accuracy, even if transmission currently causes problems.

The testing 

Five devices were submitted for testing and came from Motorola, Microsoft, Philips, Adaptrum, and the Institute for Infocomm research. None were ready for production, and the devices showed tremendous variance when it came to details like detection speed; while Motorola’s box could scan each TV channel for an existing signal in 0.1s, the Adaptrum device took a whopping 185s (per channel!).

But the devices were quite good at their main task in most of these tests: detecting TV signals. As the report notes, “All of the devices were able to reliably detect the presence of a clean DTV signal on a single channel at low levels in the range of -116 dBm to -126 dBm,” which is tremendously sensitive. With “real-world” signals, though, that come complete with multipath distortions and other problems, the devices performed a bit less well.

Clean signal posed no problems

Real world signal was a little harder

In addition, some devices showed false positives and false negatives (which are the worrying ones here). That raises the possibility of having white space devices transmitting on occupied channels, which FCC tests confirmed would cause local interference. But the FCC appears to be operating under the assumption that geolocation databases would have to be consulted before devices could broadcast. Such databases (Google has offered to host one) would tell each device what TV channels are free in whatever region of the country the device is deployed; combined with spectrum sensing, geolocation should prevent even less-sensitive devices from broadcasting over occupied channels.

This was tested with the Motorola device. “During the field tests, the Motorola device’s geolocation/database feature was used in combination with its sensing capabilities,” says the report. “In those tests, the Motorola device correctly reported all occupied channels used by stations within whose contours the WSD was operated.”

In his press conference backing the white space idea earlier today, FCC Chair Kevin Martin indicated his support for allowing the devices to transmit in the next adjacent channels to TV signals (though at lower power than if buffer channels were available). This proposal, which was already trashed by the broadcasters, apparently comes from some OET testing. The OET report notes that “no interference was observed when the Adaptrum device transmitted on an immediate adjacent channel even with the transmitter in close proximityto the receiver with a roof-top antenna.” (Adaptrum was one of the few devices that actually could transmit in prototype form.)

Cable problems 

The cable industry has also been worried about white space devices, claiming that their broadcasts could affect cable systems. The OET found support for such “direct pickup interference” in some cases. To give you a sense of how such issues might affect some homes and not others, consider the following passages from the report:

1) “The cable converter (set-top) box was inserted into the signal path and connected to the DTV’s tuner input. The set-top box was tuned to virtual channel 220 (cable channel 77) and a good quality digital picture was observed. The Adaptrum transmitter was tuned to channel 26 and activated at full power (no external attenuation). Interference was immediately observed in the form of a complete loss of picture.”

Yikes! But then, after replacing the cabling:

2) “Finally, all of the existing routing from the cable service wall outlet to the converter box (including amplifier, splitters and cables) was removed and replaced with a laboratory-grade patch connecting the wall outlet and the converter box input. The Adaptrum transmitter was reset to its maximum power (all external attenuation removed) and turned on. No interference was observed until the transmit antenna was moved very close to the converter box (within 0.3 meters).”

Not pretty, but it works

In other words, poor cabling and interconnects could lead to problems for digital and analog cable users. Sascha Meinrath of the New America Foundation told us earlier this year that the issue was no reason to delay on white spaces. “If cable installers have failed to properly terminate their lines, that would facilitate RF pickup. If providers have used such cheap gear that they are not properly shielded, that too would cause a problem,” he said. “In either case, the failures lie with the cable industry—foregoing a useful new technological innovation (in essence, rewarding the profit-maximizing, corner-cutting that the cable industry alleges is a problem) doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.”

This may or may not be true, but the political reality is that the FCC has to tread carefully when it comes to certifying any new technology that has the potential to disrupt nearby cable systems. It’s one thing to make an argument that installs should be done with better parts; it’s another to explain to non-techie TV watchers why their signal is scrambled.

Balancing all the competing interests here is of course why the entire issue is as much political as technical, but the OET report and Kevin Martin’s words today indicate that the idea will probably be approved in some form at the November 4th FCC meeting. Given the rough state of the current prototypes, we won’t see anything workable on the market for some time, but it’s at least beginning to look like the lengthy battle white space backers have waged for unlicensed access to spectrum may not have been in vain.

Given the nature of the OET findings, though, there’s something in the report for every side to spin, and spin they will in the coming weeks as the vote nears.