The social media buzz was unavoidable. A posting by Arik Hanson prompted an idea. BurrellesLuce currently posts transcripts of several industry Twitter chats, so why not see what the social media world is saying about Jobs?

Many of the posts were posted via Apple products, and the re-tweeting of this fact, probably helped to stall Twitter. There were several trending words and hashtags, but the most poignant was #iSad.

Some of my favorite posts were:

• @Peter_Max: Remembering Steve Jobs 4 more than computers & iPhones. His concern for the environment & the idea to Think Different were his true gifts!
• @libbykober: “Steve leaves behind a company that only he could have built, and his spirit will forever be the foundation of Apple” #RIPSteveJobs
• @wobiwan: Three apples changed human life; Adam’s apple, Newton’s apple and the Steve Job’s apple. #RIPSteveJobs #iSad
• @ladygaga: From his own invention I open my browser to it’s homepage. Today it took my breath away. #ThankYouSteve. Going to eat Apples all day.
• @claiirebearclaiirebear: My life has been changed and impacted by a man i’ve never met. Such dedication and brilliance. RIP. #ThankYouSteve
• @rene: #ThankYouSteve for all the products you’ve made for Apple. I can’t live without my iPhone 4, iPad 2, & Other products. RIP Steve Jobs! #iSad
• @Vegas__Paul: Steve Jobs: born out of wedlock, put up for adoption, dropped out of college, then changed the world. What’s your excuse #thankyousteve
• @debhalasz: All I know is 10 years ago we still had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope, and Johnny Cash and now we have no Jobs, no Hope, and no Cash. #isad
• The Next Web blog – Beautiful: Public #thankyousteve Tweets visualised into a giant Steve Jobs poster. http://ca.engage121.com/articles/1094388190/
• Apple World – Slideshow: Steve Jobs through the years. http://ca.engage121.com/articles/1093980712/

You can view the entire #iSad and other Steve Jobs related transcripts here.

What are your favorite Steve Job tributes?

It’s that time of year again. Yesterday, Apple launched another sleek new product: iPhone4S. Noticeably different during the launch was not the appearance of the phone—which retains the same look as its older model—but the appearance of their new chief executive Tim Cook. In the promotional video below, it advertises that, “Your I-Phone can do more than any other phone.”  How so? For starters, Siri is your personal assistant built into your phone. This voice activated system can dictate measurements, recipes, reminders, timers and much more in natural language – proving to be the next wave of semantic innovation.

Besides voice recognition, the new smart phone is made smarter by these other features. 

• An 8 megapixel camera with backside-illuminated CMOS sensor that carries more light and is 33 percent faster.
• Video camera is now 1080p, and includes video image stabilization.
• Downloading data through wireless system is twice as fast
• The new phone has a longer battery life than its older counterparts. 
• Sprint is now another service provider that will carry the new phone that is priced between $199 to $399.

While others may show loyalty to the Apple brand and pre-order the new model, on October 7^th, others have voiced opinions of being duped by an “imposter,” according to “Apple’s Absent iPhone 5 Whose Fault is it Really?” Matt Peckham, Time/Techland, while the Tech communities were busy informing each other through social media outlets about the upcoming I-Phone5 launch, Apple stayed mum. Instead Apple pulled the wool over the public’s eyes, and we learned about the 4S—we never knew we wanted. Consequently, Apple Stocks dropped 5 percent after the launch, confirms, Mashable’s “Apple Stock Drops 5% Following iPhone Event.” Whether or not this was due to the market or directly linked to the disappointment about the new smartphone launch is moot.

What do you think? Are you impressed that the new smartphone can be your personal assistant or is Siri the most amazing thing that no one will use? Most importantly, do you think Apple needs to do some PR damage control for inadvertently misinforming the public and not simply being there to acknowledge they were never going to release an I-Phone5 yesterday?

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Before joining the Burrellesluce team in 2011, Kelly interned at CondeNast’s Glamour magazine as an editorial intern to the senior style writer and was an editor of her college newspaper. She received a B.A. in Behavioral Science and Business, Society and Culture from Drew University with honors. After graduation, she worked as a sales associate at Nordstrom and took a month off to travel abroad throughout Europe. In Kelly’s free time, she enjoys traveling, fashion, reading, bringing awareness to Breast Cancer, running 5Ks, baking and social media. Twitter:@miss_mulholland Facebook: BurrellesLuce; LinkedIn: Kelly Mulholland

E-Books Get More Interactive With Amazon’s New Author Q&A Feature (ReadWriteWeb)
“Amazon nudged the experience of reading books ever-so-slightly further into the future today. The company announced a new feature for its Kindle reading platform that lets readers ask authors questions about their books as they’re reading.”

 Juror Pleads Guilty After ‘Friending’ Defendent (Mashable.com)
“Jurors and defendants are not meant to be friends — even if it’s just Facebook friends. Four charges of contempt of court probably drilled this point home for 22-year-old Jonathan Hudson of Arlington, Texas.”  

Apple’s Cloud Still Isn’t Streaming (AllThingsDigital.com)
“When is a stream not a stream? When it’s a download. While a video making the rounds today makes it seem as if Apple’s upcoming iTunes Match service will stream music from Apple’s servers to a user’s device, that’s not the case.”

Zuckerberg Tops Vanity Fair’s “New Establishment” List Again (And Look Who’s No. 40) (AllThingsDigital.com)
“Vanity Fair magazine put out its high-profile “New Establishment” list of the top 50 people, who are ‘an innovative new breed of buccaneering visionaries, engineering prodigies, and entrepreneurs, who quite often sport hoodies, floppy hair, and backpacks.’”

Ex-NYC Deputy Mayor: Hyperlocals Should Help Citizens ‘March on City Hall’ (StreetFightMag.com)
“Journalism and community are rapidly converging in the hyperlocal space. But the big missing piece is meaningful participation by local government.”

Nielsen 2011-12 Rankings: Washington DC, Seattle Move Up, While Atlanta and Phoenix Drop (TVSpy)
“The Top 20 local markets will see some changes this year, according to Nielsen. The 2011-12 list of DMAs, released today, measures Washington, DC and Seattle each moving up a rank — to 8 and 12, respectively — while Atlanta and Phoenix each drop down one spot, to 9 and 13.”

Amazon initially thought they were sidestepping the sensitive music licensing problem by allowing its customers to upload their songs in MP3 or A.A.C. format and then storing it in the cloud, enabling consumers to play the music on any Android phone, Android tablet, Mac or PC, regardless of where they were. “We don’t need a license to store music,” said Craig Pape, director of music at Amazon in this Reuters article. “The functionality is the same as an external hard drive.” 

What Amazon neglected to do was license the rights, for this type of activity, from the major Hollywood film studios and record companies. The labels immediately fired back, but rather than engage in a nasty drawn out lawsuit the two sides quickly realized they needed each other (for now anyway) to compete in this new music sharing market, fueled by the changing desires of the consumer. Amazon is currently engaged in talks with all members of the big four (Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Group, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group) to discuss how this latest business model can make sense for both sides. If the two sides come to an agreement, the way we access music will change dramatically once again; however, the question remains, how will the music industry be affected by this sudden access to online stored music files. And other than the consumer, who stands to benefit the most from this new platform?

David Bowie predicted in 2002 that music would become “like running water or electricity,” notes this article penned by John Naughton, The Observer. At the time of the original interview, Apple’s iPod had only just been released. Bowie understood that “iPod users were, in fact, the audio equivalent of travelers to primitive countries who carry bottled water because public supplies are unreliable or unsafe. In a comprehensively networked world, Bowie surmised, people would eventually become more relaxed about carrying their supplies of bottled music: when they needed it, they would just get it streamed from the network.”

I wonder what artists think of their content, once again, being downloaded and potentially shared by millions of people without a licensing arrangement on the table. Will Mick Jagger shout, “Hey! You! Get off of my cloud” (ok, that one was too easy) or will Rihanna say, “Come on, come on, I like it, like it.”?

The music industry continues to struggle to keep up with the consumer’s demands, but finally appears to have recognized its better in the long run to accommodate music fans rather than waste time in court.

What are your thoughts? How do you think cloud-sharing with affect the music and media industries? Share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

A “battle of attrition” aims to inflict losses on an enemy that are less sustainable compared to one’s own losses.

According to this New York Times, Netflix recently made a bold move by launching a new “streaming only” service, offering unlimited streaming movies and TV shows for a mere $7.99 a month. Also, in addition to Netflix paying the Post Office a whopping $500 million dollars a year in postage to mail out their signature red envelopes filled with disks, they will now pay studios another hefty sum for rights to their movies by recently completing a combined deal with Paramount, MGM and Lionsgate for one billion dollars. This does not include deals Netflix made earlier in the year with other major studios, such as Sony, Warner Brothers, Universal and 20^th Century Fox.

So why are cable providers like Time Warner Cable and Comcast getting hot under the collar? Let’s take a closer look:

Netflix currently pays Starz, a pay TV channel, about 15 cents a month for each subscriber (which allows their customers to watch streaming movies from Sony and Disney), pennies compared to the $4 to $5 a month that cable and satellite owners pay for access to Starz, according to Rich Greenfield, an analyst at BTIG Research.

These types of deals, which allow consumers to access a larger catalogue of movies and bypass their local cable provider by accessing them online, couldn’t come at a worse time for companies like Time Warner Cable and Comcast. Cable providers already reported a net loss of 119,000 customers in the third quarter of 2010, the largest decline in 30 years.

A “battle of envelopment” involves an attack on one or both flanks.

Comcast is fighting back on two fronts by slapping Level 3 Communications, a provider of internet backbone services, which handles Netflix content, with “additional traffic fees.” Incidentally, Comcast, who’s acquisition of NBC is imminent, already competes directly with Netflix through their new acquisition of Hulu (Comcast owns 32 percent stake in Hulu). The rate hike could easily be seen as a way for Comcast to milk their competition, however, they can make the argument that Netflix’s massive volume is overtaxing their system and therefore should pay more. A recent study by Sandvine, a broadband equipment maker, showed that Netflix’s 16 million customers accounted for more than 20 percent of all Internet download traffic in North America during peak evening hours)

A “battle of encounter” is a meeting engagement where the opposing sides collide in the field without either having prepared their attack or defense.

If all of this wasn’t enough to make cable executives nervous, Netflix followed up their unlimited streaming offer by announcing a deal with newly formed film studio, FilmDistrict. As highlighted in this New York Observer article, the part of this deal that could prove to be a game changer is that it doesn’t include the standard “pay TV window” wherein new releases go to the cable industry first, then premier on Netlifx a few months later. 

According to The New York Post, Netflix is also in talks with studios about gaining access to “current episodes” of primetime TV shows and is willing to pay between $70,000 and $100,000 per episode. This is a first since Netflix has always offered only TV shows from past seasons.

Through all of this, media companies have been in constant negotiations with all of the “content distributors” – cable providers (Time Warner Cable and Comcast) and online providers (Netflix) – with behemoths like Google, Sony and Apple waiting in the wings as all three plan to compete in the game of online streaming distribution. Google, however, has already met heavy resistance from the networks. ABC, CBS, and NBC who all said they would not allow Google TV to stream full episodes of their shows. This should make for some interesting future negotiations between the two sides. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the networks suddenly changed their mind if Google TV’s relatively new service begins to take off.

A “battle of annihilation” is one in which the defeated party is destroyed in the field.

So what about the consumer, the eyeballs everyone’s vying for in all of this? I for one couldn’t be happier with all of the choices I suddenly have to watch movies or TV shows. The Internet is once again threatening the “middleman,” or, as I like to think of it, just another case of the Internet once again replacing one of the “brokers” of the world. We’ve seen it happen to some extent with real estate, stock trading … and now entertainment.  For 30 years cable providers have been the “brokers” for entertainment, bringing media and consumers together. It appears, for the moment at least, another “broker” is in jeopardy of once again being replaced by the Internet.

So what are your thoughts? Who do you think will win the on-going battle? Are you happy with the choices you have to access entertainment content? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

For me, it’s official – the world has gone totally mobile. The other night a commercial, on a kids’ cable channel my daughter watches, featured a Grandmother giving her little grandson (he looked about six to me) a tablet-reader for Christmas. I’ve been forewarned and won’t be shocked if my eight year old asks for one.

No wonder the rush continues for traditional media to expand to mobile devices, with some innovative apps already rolled out and others on the way:

• The Economist just launched an enhanced version of its publication for the iPad and iPhone. Readers can tweak the layout and graphs so they can receive all the robust content of the magazine, but in a format that makes sense for a small screen. “You’re trying to recreate your print magazine but redesign it to make the most of the medium,” said Oscar Grut, managing director of digital editions for The Economist.
  
• Oprah’s O, The Oprah Magazine has just released its iPad app to much fanfare. As described in the Marketwire release, “’I love the written word, and I love the iPad — to me, it’s another way to experience the intimacy of this magazine and its part of the future of the business,’ said Oprah Winfrey. ‘It’s a new way to connect with our readers, who are on a path of becoming their best selves.’”
• New Corps’ Rupert Murdoch and Apple’s Steve Jobs recently announced they would be teaming up to create a new iNewspaper. “The collaboration, which has been secretly under development in New York for several months, promises to be the world’s first ‘newspaper’ designed exclusively for new tablet-style computers such as Apple’s iPad, with a launch planned for early next year,” writes Edward Helmore in this Guardian UK article. “According to reports, there will be no ‘print edition’ or ‘web edition.’”

In fact, there are already enough publications with apps (over 700) available to audiences and readers on the iPad that strategic research company McPheters and Company was able to put together a ten best list. “McPheters ranked the print-to-iPad products based on design, functionality and use of rich content.” The list presents an interesting mix of both newspapers and magazines covering the gamut of lifestyle, culture, politics, news, sports, food, fashion, etc. The number one spot went to The New Yorker app, with apps for newspaper circulation heavy-weights USA Today and The Wall Street Journal making the list at number eight and ten respectively. Fashion entrant Net-A-Porter made the list at number five.

Mobile applications are becoming such an integral part of the media landscape that other industry organizations are taking notice. The American Society of Magazine Editors announced that among the changes to the National Magazine Awards 2011, they will include a new award for mobile editions.

In this age of PR 3.0, how are you using mobile apps to connect with your audiences? If you use a mobile device to read newspapers and magazines, what outlets would top your list of best media apps? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

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Bio: I’ve been in the media business all of my adult life, first in newspapers before going full circle and joining BurrellesLuce, where I now direct the Media Measurement department. I’ve always enjoyed meeting and especially listening to the needs of our customers and others in the public relations and communications fields; I welcome sharing ideas through the Fresh Ideas blog. One of my professional passions is providing the type of service to a client that makes them respond, “atta girl” – inspiring our entire team to keep striving to be the best. Although I have been lucky enough to travel through much of Asia and most major U.S. cities for business or pleasure, my free time is now spent with my daughter, visiting family/friends, and of course the Jersey shore. Twitter: @domeasurement LinkedIn: Carol Holden Facebook: BurrellesLuce

Rumors of iNewspaper, the new iPad application, have begun taking center stage with Internet chatterboxes. With its new app, Apple would create digital versions of publications by selling subscriptions on behalf of the publishers (and taking a cut of the profit, for sure!). However, the iPad friendly newspaper is not a new idea by any means.

Flickr Image Source: Byrion (Byrion Smith)

The biggest names in publishing have already established themselves on the iPad including the New York Times, BBC News, Wall Street Journal and AP News. Some downloads, such as the Wall Street Journal, are even free; however for access to exclusive content, a subscription purchase is required. According to PCWorld.com, WSJ users can even create a custom “watch list” of their stocks and funds.  For BBC iPad readers, you can view articles in several languages including Spanish, Russian and Arabic. But, the real niche of online news subscriptions is the customization options. BBC News allows users to personalize the content they view based on interest. While offline, the application will search and locate stories for the next time you turn your iPad on.

Will the iPad subscription based model help drive revenue to electronic publications? The answer is, probably, yes – especially as free views of online articles become more limited by publishers. But the momentum and accessibility of online publications will likely urge readers away from the classic hard copy publication (e.g., commuters who rely on a good paper to read while taking a bus or train to work).

The trend toward an iNewspaper product is a sign of the times as the world becomes more reliant on the Internet than ever. Apple seems to have found itself at the forefront of this technology and has placed itself comfortably in the middle (as publishers learn how to better monetize their content) likely allowing Apple to earn quite a few pretty pennies in the meantime.

As a communications professional, do you think that e-publications will ever take the strength away from hard copy publications? How do you think this will impact your public relations, marketing, and advertising efforts? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas. 

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*Bio: Soon after graduating from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, in 2006 with a B.A. in communication and a B.S. in business/marketing, I joined the BurrellesLuce client services team. In 2008, I completed my master’s degree in corporate and organizational communications and now serve as Director of Client Services. I am passionate about researching and understanding the role of email in shaping relationships from a client relation/service standpoint as well as how miscommunication occurs within email, which was the topic of my thesis. Through my posts on Fresh Ideas, I hope to educate and stimulate thoughtful discussions about corporate communications and client relations, further my own knowledge on this subject area, as well as continue to hone my skills as a communicator. Twitter: @_LaurenShapiro_ LinkedIn: laurenrshapiro Facebook: BurrellesLuce

Image: www.aftermathnews.wordpress.com

In March 2009 I wrote my first blog post, here on BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas, about how emerging technologies and platforms were changing the way we consume news – supported by input I gathered from a media summit I had attended that featured panelists such as Joe Scarborough from MSNBC’s Morning Joe and BBC’s Rome Hartman.

I wrote, “And with the rise of ‘citizen journalism’ and this ‘Pro-Am’ partnership that is developing with media, the panel agreed that consumers will have a stronger need for trusted brands, filtering, and editing to help navigate the media.” A year and a half later, the cream seems to be rising to the top in this fragmented media universe.

Today the “trusted brands,” such as The New York Times, are beginning to abandon the old business model of offering free content in exchange for paid advertisements. They are instead looking to generate additional revenue by putting their text, audio, and video behind pay walls or by offering their content as an app for a small fee. “I think we should have done it years ago,” said David Firestone, a deputy national news editor commenting on the NYT’s decision to put some of their content behind paywalls beginning in 2011. “As painful as it will be at the beginning, we have to get rid of the notion that high-quality news comes free.”

The Times Co. Chairman and publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. added, “This is a bet, to a certain degree, on where we think the Web is going…This is not going to be something that is going to change the financial dynamics overnight.”

In fact, no one is sure where the web is going; this undeniable shift away from free content will certainly make life more difficult for the Googles of the world who rely on free content to fuel their search engine. Consumers may turn to company’s like Apple for their media, who adopted the “paid content” model early on by making content available for small fees through iTunes and more recently showing consumers how convenient it is to access a magazine or newspaper digitally for a small fee on their iPad.

 Fox News this week launched its new iPhone political app, available through iTunes for 99 cents. “The idea is that this is your essential guide to daily political news,” says Chris Stirewalt, Fox News digital politics editor, “to put power into peoples’ hands to give them the opportunity in this history making, nation shaping election, to have the tools at hand so that they can really understand and add to the depth of their experience.”

With more people opting to have their media pushed to their smart phones and iPads rather than retrieving information over the Internet it will be interesting to see how this affects web browser traffic. As free content slowly disappears, news websites and aggregators such as the Drudge Report and the Daily Beast may have a tougher time filling their sites with the hyperlinks that contain the raw material that drives much of their sites traffic. Instead the eyeballs will be looking in other directions – with more people willing to pay for content this may ultimately prove to be the antidote that saves a hemorrhaging newspaper industry.

It appears we are on the verge of coming full circle on how we get our news. We’ve gone from relying on newsstands and subscriptions to searching and accessing free content online, only to return to paying the publishers directly once again for their content through app fees and online subscriptions.

Paperboys and newsstand operators may be on the verge of extinction; however, content providers like newspapers, network, and cable TV and movie studios may have the final say in how their product is consumed after all.

As public relations and marketing professionals, how are you getting your news? How do you think the evolving media landscape will affect your ability to successfully conduct media relations and assess the value of your efforts?

The iPad was released last Saturday. Until last week coverage of the iPad was limited by Apple’s press embargo, which restricted the potential

Flickr Image: lighthack

consumer’s access to both imagery and analysis. For the online Apple enthusiasts, this may have been an unavoidable hindrance, but it did little to quell the enthusiasm for all postings iPad-related. While social media circles were abuzz for weeks prior in anticipation of the April 3^rd release, the coverage in the traditional (print) media was more subdued in the buildup.

The first images of Apple’s tablet computer were revealed, along with its name, in late January. Outside of tech circles, the public (online or offline) saw precious little imagery of the product in action until the release weekend. And again, for that dedicated market segment, that was of minor impart as their purchasing decision was set. But for another segment of the populace the coverage of the iPad by the traditional media in that crucial introductory weekend window would be their introduction to Apple’s revolutionary platform. What did the readership see of the iPad in their weekend newspapers? What did or didn’t they encounter if they happened to read that self-same article online?

Analysis of the coverage drawn from 60 major U.S .newspapers, for the release weekend of April 3-5, reveals a familiar pattern of content and coverage that we have seen in previous postings.

April 3
Out of 45 iPad-related articles which ran that day – the day of the iPad’s release – 33 were accompanied by an image of the product. The majority of these graphics were reproductions of the official release photo of the iPad. When compared with their corresponding web versions, only eight articles published the original image. The remainder consisted only of text. Only one out of a dozen syndicated articles could be located online.

April 4
Sunday sees a doubling of articles and imagery as the focus shrifts to local iPad frenzy. Newspapers in all major markets published a combination of syndicated and original content typically datelined from an Apple retail showroom. Photos of campout lines and of the lucky first purchaser accounted for nearly 100 images found in print that day. While some corresponding sites did contain a wealth of extras, such as video and interviews, the overall ratio was only slightly higher than from the previous day. Only 44 of those valuable images transitioned from print to web.

April 5
Less than 40 of the major papers ran an iPad article in their Monday editions. Many of them took a business news angle, reporting sales figures from the previous weekend. And, quite interestingly, only half of those were accompanied by a graphic of either an original or syndicated flavor. While this may have been related to either the news cycle or typical Monday space limitations in print, on the web-side a mere 10 of the 40 ran with graphics.

The release of the iPad was a huge event and not only for Apple. Application providers and traditional media outlets are betting on the iPad for the delivery of multiple layers of content and increased revenue. Thus, more than a few industry watchers have commented that the iPad’s release was simply “too big to fail.” Even with all of these factors in its favor, though, there was a considerable loss in content for the iPad’s coverage when transitioning from print to corresponding web coverage.

I’ve heard it said that “some people will read your story and some people will read part of your story, but EVERYONE will look at the picture.” If this is the case the accompanying image is vital to measuring impact. If the picture isn’t there could you be losing a prospective buying audience? If you aren’t evaluating the whole story with pictures, where they are included, is your marketing team able to properly evaluate the impact of your brand? This study again leaves me with a lot of questions and one answer: the image is a powerful component to have in your PR and communications arsenal.

If the release was for a lesser known product or a launch of a new brand, what kind of impact do you think the lack of consistent translation from print to online coverage or lack of image would have on reception? Please share your thoughts with me and the readers of BurrellesLuce Fresh Ideas.

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*Bio: A native of Mesa, Arizona, I graduated from the University of Arizona with a major in Near Eastern Studies. I began my career with BurrellesLuce in 1997 as a reader. As with most readers, I developed a special relationship with my assigned papers – those small town dailies and weeklies of the same flavor that my family had been employed in for two generations. Currently, I hold the position of quality assurance specialist, troubleshooting daily production issues. Outside interests include woodworking, and keeping my wife and dog happy. Twitter: BurrellesLuce; Facebook: BurrellesLuce

Instead of being a “shared experience,” TV is quickly becoming “an experience we share.”  That observation, made on a recent episode of NPR’s always-enjoyable Culturetopia podcast, really rings true for me.

I’m a first-generation television kid and am old enough to remember when the television dial was really a dial with 13 numbers. There were just three networks plus an educational channel and an independent channel or two that mostly showed old movies. Miss “The Twilight Zone,” “Ed Sullivan,” “Laugh-In” or, later, “Saturday Night Live” and you risked being left out of the lunchtime conversation. 

That was pretty much the way of the world until the first video recorders began appearing in homes and offices in the 1980s. Almost overnight it became possible to borrow a missed episode of “Cheers” from a coworker who hadn’t forgotten to set his VCR (as long as he didn’t have a Beta machine).  

This opened up a whole new world for communications professionals. Suddenly it became possible to record, copy, and share cassettes of the annual meeting or positive media coverage with employees, customers, and other stakeholders. 

Fast forward a decade or two and digital technology made it possible to post videos on company websites and e-mail links – or even short clips – to your key publics. Even more importantly, you could forward clips of cats playing the piano or bears catching fish to your friends.

Technology has continued to advance at warp speed. You can now see most of your favorite shows online or buy them for a couple of bucks on iTunes. More than 65,000 videos are posted on YouTube every day. And someone somewhere almost certainly watched the Super Bowl on his cell phone.

With more than 100 million viewers, the Super Bowl is one of television’s few remaining shared experiences, something almost everyone watches at the same time. Maybe Michael Phelps swimming at the Summer Olympics or the finale of “American Idol” also qualify. I’d like to hear your nominations. 

So what does all this mean for professional communicators? 

In some ways it makes our jobs harder. We have more channels to monitor and more competition for people’s attention than ever before. We have to do a better job of training, prepping, and equipping our spokespeople, because screw-ups can live on and on in cyberspace. And we’ve got to be more prepared than ever to respond quickly, effectively, and creatively to disasters, rumors, and PR challenges that didn’t even occur to us a few years ago.  Bad news can go viral faster than you can bathe in a KFC sink.

On the opportunities side of the ledger, we also have more tools at our disposal than ever before. We can respond to negative press overnight or, ideally, even quicker. We can set up dedicated YouTube channels, as Best Buy, Mercedes Benz, Apple and hundreds of other companies have done.  And we can get the word out – from executive speeches to news clips – faster and to a broader audience than ever before, with a few mouse clicks.

Six decades after television took over America’s living rooms, its power to communicate, persuade, and entertain continues to grow.  What are you doing to tap into the power of television in the social media age?