Last week, I went to the city for several new business, client and partner meetings. Now, when I say the “city” I mean New York City. Growing up outside Manhattan for 14 years there really is only ONE city- and it’s New York. As a Bostonian and now suburbanite, when I head into Boston, I head into “town”, but I digress…
Some quick thoughts to share:
- Don’t bother bringing your iPhone. Seriously, it’s dead weight in your pocket, the AT&T network is simply too overloaded
- Be sure to visit the new “underground” Apple Store on Fifth Avenue- across from the old Plaza
- To save a few dollars, and to get some much needed exercise, I walked most of my way through Manhattan. Grand Central to 90th and 2nd. 90th and 2nd to 86 and Lex (through park), Wall Street to 16th and 6th. Best decision I made. You simply can’t spend time in taxicabs or the subway when you’re in the city, you “feel’ the city by walking through each neighborhood.
- The site of the Twin Towers is still very much an empty space. Hard to believe it happened 9 years ago.
- Can’t wait to bring the family there next week, next month, or very very soon!
- Interesting fact of the day: I traveled to NY from the Greenwich train station. More people go IN to Greenwich to work, then go OUT of Greenwich to head to the big Apple- who knew?
- If you are a small business owner or entrepreneur, seriously consider switching over to Apple. While your iPhone doesn’t work, you can still do lots at the Apple Store (there are five of them in Manhattan) While at one of their stores, I was able to get an hour of training on some new company software, recharge my latpop, warm up (it was 29 degrees out) and enjoy the company of some genuinely nice, friendly people. It’s practically like having a remote office in every city.
Yesterday, YouTube announced the formation of YouTube direct- a new platform for news organizations that allows them to “request, review, and re-broadcast user-submitted videos with ease.” It’s a new idea already in use by the likes of NPR, ABC News, The Washington Post, The Huffington Post and more. I wonder what it does to:
A: the economics and structure of news organizations
B: The attitude and perspective of “citizen journalists”
This means lots of things, in no particular order….
1. I think it continues to set YouTube ahead of the smaller (and really smart, good ) competitiors like Vimeo, Viddler and more. They thought they had their work cut out for them before, look out now…
2. It will change the way news organization gather their information. The Channel 7 news truck won’t have to head to the fire on Main Street because videos are being uploaded already by citizen journalists. They can simply report back on the story from their cozy studios and get the facts from interns and young reporters on their cell phones and laptops.
3. What’s in it for the citizen journalist? Nothing really. What’s the incentive of sending ABC news the exclusive (and only) video you caught of say, the plane landing in the Hudson river? It will get uploaded and viewed on ABC News and abcnews.com, not necessarily to your YouTube channel- if you are a new business owner trying to make a name for yourself with some video, forget about it.
4. What makes a “news organization” in this day and age? Dialogue just signed up (applied) for this program last night. Am I an official news outlet? Why? Why not?
5. How is this going to sync with the existing YouTube channels created by News organizations? Will this simply complement the effort or begin to take traffic away from the channel.
So, these are some initial thoughts for the day. What do you think?
