Twitter for News (my Saturday evening post)

Veteran Technology Journalist Leo Laporte observed yesterday that twitter “is the new place to go when you need to know.” He said it on twitter, of course.

He was suggesting twitter has become a premier medium for breaking news. And he’s right. People who “tweet” over this  three-year-old messaging software either send breaking news or what they are doing/thinking/planning at that moment.

Laporte made the comment based on the story that Google yesterday was reporting every web site as malware. I first saw it on  twitter. Hmmm, I’ll go to news.com for the full story including Google’s response. There it said, the Techcrunch blog broke the story. But twitter is I where saw it first and is where I am hearing more and more news first.

Twitter which has been the source of endless columns  examining its reason for being. But it is a great way get news instantly. Here’s another example…..I got a half dozen tweets within five minutes as the Illinois senate voted to impeach Blago a couple of days. Twitter told me what was happening blow by blow as it happened. The medium is fast, pervasive and concise (I’d post the string, but don’t have the tweets anymore..)

You still have to go to a traditional news source to get the full story, but twitter does a great job pointing the way with the breaking headline.

Twitter offers all kinds of stats about how traffic spiked during the inauguration or in past Super Bowls. Something bad or newsworthy happens, all those tweeters are going see and report on it first from their mobile devices. Well known digital maven Jason Calacanis has 50,571 followers on twitter, which equals the size of mid-size newspaper. He can’t be following that many people – it would crush his computer or mobile device! President Obama has 218,000 and our friend Leo has about 80,000! Twitter is a news force to be reckoned with.

Boeing Starts to Assemble Fifth 787 Dreamliner

Fifth "Flight Test" 787 Moves into Assembly

Boeing said it has moved its fifth “flight test” 787 Dreamliner into  assembly today, signaling a steady ramp-up in production of the long delayed airplane. Number five will also be the first outfitted with GE’s GEnx engines.

“It’s the first new 787 to enter production since September. You’ll see a steady drumbeat of airplanes entering and exiting final assembly,” a Boeing spokeswoman said. The current schedule was disrupted by last fall’s 58-day machinists strike.

“This airplane signifies our return to a steady production rhythm,” vice president of 787 Final Assembly and Change Incorporation Jack Jones was quoted as saying in the press release. The announcement is also significant because the ZA005 will certify the GEnx engines in flight. The first four planes use the Trent 1000 engines from Rolls Royce.

The fifth plane, designated ZA005, is the seventh to enter assembly. Two are used for fatigue and static airframe testing and will never fly, the spokeswoman said. ZA005 is the fifth of six airplanes that will undergo flight testing and when finished with that are “refurbished” for customers.

Boeing’s press release set an optimistic tone after a series of setbacks resulting from nagging fastener shortages. ZA001 and ZA002 have undergone fastener “rework” while ZA004 and ZA005 are in the second production position, the press release said. Engines are hung in the fourth and final assembly position where ZA002 is now, Boeing said. Across the 787’s network of 40 tier one suppliers, 30 787s are in production.

The 787 order book juggernaut suffered one casualty this week when Russian S7 airlines canceled an order for 15 787s, bringing orders down to 895 across 58 remaining customers.  ZA001, the first 787 that will fly, is still slated for wheels up the second quarter.

Why do I write about the 787? It is the ultimate expression of engineering across all disciplines and seeing it fly for the first time in the second quarter should be a mega rush. In my former life at designnews.com, I and the rest of my former edit team wrote countless stories and features about the 787 and I cannot stop now so close to first flight!

The Most Social Brands of 2008

Vitrue just released its social media top 100. Apple grabbed spots 1, 3 and 7 with iPhone, Apple and iPod. No surprise, there. The list reads like a who’s who of corporations with big brand name recognition and financial clout, save a bunch of broke car companies. Yes, 19 car brands made the list and Sears was number 100. Sears!? Social!?Their floor sales people were among the most grizzled I encountered over the holidays.

So what is the social media top 100? Apparently, it’s the brands getting mentioned most in social networks. Let’s see if the big brands promote their presence on the list which they may understand less than I do. It’s not on Apple’s home page at the moment.

This is how Vitrue explains their measurements as follows:

“The Vitrue SMI calculates scores about the brand’s social conversations. We apply a series of algorithms to reflect the frequency of usage, the size of the social media environment, and the magnitude of the conversation. The result is a single numeric score for each brand: the Vitrue Social Media Index (SMI).” Maybe the Ad Age story explains it better.

There’s a list for everything and this is one I have not figured out yet.  Measuring the “the magnitude of the conversation.” Say what?

Here’s The Vitrue 100 Top Social Brands of 2008:

1. iPhone
2. CNN
3. Apple
4. Disney
5. Xbox
6. Starbucks
7. iPod
8. MTV
9. Sony
10. Dell
11. Microsoft
12. Ford
13. Nintendo
14. Target
15. PlayStation
16. Mac
17. Turner
18. Hewlett-Packard
19. Fox News
20. BlackBerry
21. ABC
22. Coke
23. LG
24. Best Buy
25. Honda
26. eBay
27. Sharp
28. Lincoln
29. NBA
30. Pepsi
31. General Motors
32. McDonald’s
33. General Electric
34. Walmart
35. NFL
36. Mercedes
37. BMW
38. Samsung
39. Nike
40. Subway
41. Dodge
42. Pandora
43. CBS
44. Mercury
45. NBC
46. Disneyland
47. last.fm
48. Toyota
49. Cadillac
50. Chevy

Salvation in WordPress

When one leaves their job without another to replace it, the first thing many journalists do is look for tools that can keep their name in the public eye.  I fit this mold.

One tool that has served me extremely well in the past few days is WordPress, a comprehensive and free content management system. Its developers  refer to it as a blogging tool, but WordPress rivals some of the most expensive content management systems I have used.  In short, WordPress is wonderful and I am grateful to its developers.

I was up with a sharp-looking web site and blog  so fast (this one) that a few followers asked: “How did you do that?’

I had a bit of an edge. I had used the WordPress editor as a blogging tool in my previous job as an editor-an-chief.  And I’d used others content management systems so I knew the posting drill. Anyone can figure out WordPress and should not shy away from trying it. WordPress also has its own traffic reporting system.

WordPress has been around since 2003 and in 2007, there were 3.8 million downloads so I am hardly on the cutting edge with it. I have barely sctatched the surface.

WordPress.org even has a future release schedule and developers polls users on their problems and what features they’d like to see in coming releases. As of this writing, there were 4,010 plugins for it and downloads totaling  20,363,588! I guesstimate I was about the 20,361,419th download.  And yes, there’s a Dummie series book on WordPress.

WordPress is a digital life force, operating as an Open Source project under the principal that software should be developed shared at no cost to the user. That’s a noble idea if not a bit impractical. But I sure appreciate it.

Swearing off The Today Show

After five decades, I have sworn off The Today Show. FOREVER!

It’s been a mushy feelgood variety show for years, but this morning’s show was the final straw when Matt Lauer blamed Nancy Pelosi for the stim getting aced by House Republicans. Then he criticized President Obama for engaging Rush Limbaugh. What got to me wasn’t  so much that his comments and questions were partisan as they were just plain stupid. Doesn’t he review these before they’re handed to him!? The issue was that nary a Republican voted for the stim which was a huge failure of GOP leadership. Period.

“Change it. Change it,” I screamed to my wife. “I’m done. No more Today Show.” To her credit,  she’s wanted off The Today for a couple of years now.

It’s MSNBC’s Morning Joe for us where the political dialog is both bi-partisan and reasonably intelligent. I long for Bryant and Katie! And Dave Garroway, Frank Blair and Jane Pauley!

Republican Vote Abominable

Maybe President Obama will work hard to get bring Republicans into the fold, but I don’t have to. I was sickened when I heard The Big Stim (stimulus package) did not get a single Republican vote today in the House. Not a one and it still passed by a comfortable margin, 244-188.

Is the bill that bad? No. But for this first of what is sure to be many stim votes, it’s an ominous sign  that gridlock will continue to afflict the nation’s lawmakers. Bi-partisanship? HA! Come together to get things done? Spitooooi.  President Obama? You’re too naive.

The president and Democrats still seem disposed toward compromise, but who’s interest does a watered-down bill serve? If we are  putting people back to work, the majority of the bill has to involve spending. Tax cuts and rebates  have NOT worked. And the bill already contains a $165 billion in tax breaks, according to a Jan. 29   WSJ story that I read, strangely enough, on Jan. 28.

The vote is a horrible reflection on House Republicans. They show no flexibility and little awareness how much Americans are hurting. Where was the Republican dealmaker who can show the GOP is not just the party of Rush Limbaugh that was so soundly spanked in November?  My kingdom for a Dirkson, Pell or Saltonstall. Who has the guts to reach across party lines? Eleven democrats who voted nay apparently did.

Someone should tell the ever grim-faced House minority Leader John Boehner two things: tax cuts mean little to people with little or no income, and 2) visit Wilmington in your beloved state of Ohio whether it’s in your district or not. Yeah, that’s the one where DHL is pulling up stakes and decimating  an entire community.  Hear what they have to say about tax cuts versus spending programs that create jobs.

Lyons on CNBC

Remember new and aspiring journalists, truth is still the mission. Which kind of reporter do you want to be? I could watch this video of my friend Dan all day.

D Average for Nation’s Infrastructure

The American Society of Civil Engineers has issued a damning report card on America’s infrastructure that looks an awful lot like my high school grades -   Cs and Ds. Actually, ASCE only gave out four Cs, the rest Ds in 15 categories such as rail, roads, dams, transit, aviation, energy and wastewater. Average grade was a D which would boot out any student out of college.

The truth be told, I got mostly Bs, a few Cs and maybe one D. Wouldn’t it be nice if the nation’s infrastructure did that well?

The Report Card is an indictment of the nation’s infrastructure and its overseers (that’s us…), but should come as no surprise. Once you build it, you have to maintain it. The mentality of ignoring out these vital facets of our society ties into living beyond our means and slavish worship of Wall Street fortunes no matter what the consequences. We lost sight of what was important and only now seem to be realizing it.

Anyhow, the report card says it’ll cost $2.trillion to repair over next five years. Of course, civil engineers have a huge vested interest in seeing us spend gazillions on infrastructure. But all you need to do is drive under a few crumbling highway overpasses to know the report card is pretty damned close to the truth.  If my kids weren’t already chasing their dreams in college, I might try to persuade at least one of them to pursue civil engineering.

Journalist’s Rolodex for today is Facebook

“Johnnny, this is you,” my friend  Steve exclaimed yeterday.

It is me, but I was never a Facebook holdout. A year ago, I embraced Facebook immediately as a tool and find myself with  665 friends now. The majority are professional contacts and I am proud to say I know or knew most of them. Really. And in my freelance capacity now, I suspect they’ll prove invaluable (or valuable, depending on the way you say it).

Buddy and media-savvy Steve was referring to column in yesterday’s Boston Globe by an unemployed reporter who reluctantly signed up for Facebook . I’m not sure why he was so reluctant and I suspect the author was a good 2o-30 years younger than me. No matter. Covering technology which I’ve done most of my carrer makes one quick to embrace it.

Any journalist or marketer for that matter who ignores Facebook might as well be passing on the Internet. As a journalist for more than three decades, I’ve built up hundreds of valuable contacts and Facebook has reconnected me with many from the 80s and 90s who would otherwise have been lost to the vapors of the past.  Facebook will be indispenable until something comes along and replaces it. And I have  no doubt that will happen.

For now, I can live with a few Facebook downsides such as loss of privacy – a topic too extensive and murky to cover in this quick post. Facebook can be a royal time-waster especially when it comes to things addictive games. Whoops, gotta go! I need my Word Twist fix.