Author: kullin

Social media in the Hudson River plane crash

The plane crash in the Hudson River in New York yesterday, is front page news also here in Sweden. It’s a fascinating story with a happy ending for the 155 people onboard thanks to a heroic performance by the pilot and his crew. And once more we see the power in social media when it comes to reporting breaking news in real time. My colleague Erin Byrne has a good description about how she heard the news first via Twitter.

“I first learned of the story via a “newsbreak” type alert from Twitter to my mobile phone.”

Among the very first reports was a Twitter post by Janis Krums from Sarasota, Florida, who was on a ferry that arrived on the scene just a few minutes after the plane had crashed into the freezing water. People were standing on the wings waiting to be rescued when Krums posted a note via TwitPic: “http://twitpic.com/135xa – There’s a plane in the Hudson. I’m on the ferry going to pick up the people. Crazy.” The photo he took from his iPhone was probably the first to be posted online and it has already been viewed more than 90,000 times on TwitPic alone.

Only thirty-four minutes after Krums had posted his photo online he was interviewed live on TV by MSNBC (video here). Other traditional media also reached out via social media to get hold of eyewitness stories. The Charlotte Observer first sent a news alert via Twitter and then posted several requests on Twitter.

BREAKING: US Airways Flt.1549, bound for Charlotte, has crashed into the Hudson River in New York City. Updates at www.charlotteobserver.com

If anybody sees passengers or witnesses on crashed jet twittering, pls DM to Observer

we’re looking for stringers with a journalism background for tonight in suburban New Jersey. DM to the Observer

we’re looking for stringers with a journalism background for tonight in suburban New Jersey. DM to the Observer #planecrash

#flight1549 Contact the Observer if you were on the plane – we’d love to tell your story. DM this address

#Hudson #USAirways Contact the Observer if you were on the plane – we’d love to tell your story!

The pilot Sully Sullenberger already has 22 fan groups on Facebook and there is even a Swedish one. Well deserved.

Update: Here is a map of Flight 1549 flight path.

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Blog network Feber launches new design

feber Feber is one of the largest blog networks in Sweden, which includes sites such as gadget blog Prylfeber, fashion blog Modefeber and Mac blog Macfeber. Feber has just implemented a totally new and cool redesign of all the blogs and if you are tired of seeing my little red icon everywhere you can check out Feber to see what I really look like. I am interviewed about the recent surge in Twitter users in Sweden along with Joakim Jardenberg and Fredrik Wass.

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WordPress has suspended Dagens Media’s new blog

Digmar, the new blog about digital marketing by the Swedish magazine Dagens Media has been closed down by WordPress for violation of terms of service. This message is what greets visitors to Digmar at the moment.

wordpress

In a comment to my post last week, Ola Eriksson at Dagens Media writes that the blog was closed after a post about advertising on Facebook.

“I suspect that I made an incorrect link and created a link with and advertising ID in it by mistake. I guess that this is what WordPress doesn’t like. I am working hard to get the blog back up again.”

We hope that the blog comes back up soon, especially since it is also nominated to the YABA awards, just like Media Culpa.

Update: The blog was down for four hours, but is now up again.

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Vote for Media Culpa as Best Swedish Media Blog

The good people over at Daytona have come up with a new blog award for blogs about PR, advertising, media and internet. The award is aptly called YABA – Yet Another Blog Award. And since this blog has been nominated to Best Swedish Media Blog, today I kindly ask for your support.

Please go to this page and under the “media” section, Media Culpa is listed as one of ten blogs to vote for. Cast your vote and add your email address for verification. You will get an email with a link. Click, verify, done.

The competition in the media category is really stiff, with several other brilliant blogs. I would be ever so grateful for your help.

UPDATE: Now there is a yellow widget in the right sidebar of this blog. Just click on the button to vote.

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My 10 thoughts about Dagens Media’s digital site

Dagens Media is one of two major Swedish trade publications in Sweden about media and marketing (the other one being Resumé). Back in 2004 I sent a quick email to then editor in chief Rolf van den Brink which resulted in (probably) the first Swedish article about blogging from a marketing perspective. It was an interview with me, Mark Comerford and Tove Lifvendahl. Digital communications has now become such an integral part of the communications toolbox that Dagens Media today launched a separate website and a newsletter called DIG, about digital marketing. A blog called Digmar apparently has been around for a few months as well.

The initiative doesn’t at all take advantage of any of the ditigal tools that are available today. Dagens Media is asking for input, so here comes my initial thoughts.

1. Great idea. The more that is written about social media and the like, in traditional channels, the easier it will be for us to get the laggards onboard with digital initiatives. So even though a newsletter sounds so 1996, it might be just what is needed to reach the not already convinced.
2. The site will be exclusive for paid subsribers. I think that is the wrong way to go. This is the kind of content that needs to get legs and spread across the net. A few provocative thoughts here, a link bait there, and suddenly you will have half the Swedish blogosphere buzzing about your articles and giving you nice inlinks.
3. Comment number 2 leads into the social tools that should be added, the first one should be RSS. No news site should be launched in 2009 without RSS feeds. Since I realize that the paper needs to create some revenues somewhere, the feeds could be published as partial feeds so that readers need to go to the site to read the content. Not the way I prefer to consume feeds, but often a necessary step for most news sites.
4. Social bookmarking tools. Make it easy for readers to spread the word.
5. Google Friend Connect. Although I haven’t seen the effects of Friend Connect, it might be a good way to turn the site more into a community. Or Facebook Connect.
6. Wiki. Why not? There are tons of information that could be useful to store in a wiki: case studies, links, dictionaries, resources etc. One fresh example: the new list of Swedes on Twitter. These initiatives are starting all over the place. If Dagens Media are a tad bit creative, they can host all that information on the site.
7. Twitter and Jaiku. Join the conversation. We want to see the reporters on Twitter and Jaiku. And read their tweets on the site.
8. While you are at it, go for the whole enchilada – lifestreaming. We want to see your delicious links, your shared items in Google Reader – all of it. In other words: dogfooding.
9. Twingly. Show blog links. Give something back to stimulate blog linking.
10. Ning. Build a community with Ning. Jerry Silfwer created a PR community that quickly drew 300+ members. You could easily do something similar.

I am sure I can come up with more ideas, but now I need a cup of tea, so that’s all for now. Other ideas?

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Has Twitter reached a tipping point in Sweden?

I don’t know to what extent the use of Twitter during the Mumbai attacks has had an impact, but suddenly we can see a surge in the number of new Twitter users from Sweden. And not just individuals. Organizations are also joining. Today the staff behind the editorial pages of Svenska Dagbladet started an account at http://twitter.com/SvDledare, claiming to be the first Swedish media outlet on Twitter. Sydsvenskan has been on Twitter a while but only publishes a feed of links to articles. No conversation at all there.

Political parties are now also joining Twitter en masse.
– The Social Democrats can be found at http://twitter.com/socialdemokrat.
– The Left Party: http://twitter.com/vansterpartiet.
– The Green Party: http://twitter.com/Miljopartiet.
– The Centre Party is at http://twitter.com/Centerpartiet and its youth division CUF at http://twitter.com/cuf.
– The Moderate Party has protected updates and no followers: http://twitter.com/Moderaterna.
– The Liberals also have an inactive account: http://twitter.com/folkpartiet.

It’s still early days, but the opposition is ahead of the ruling parties.

Initiatives like this list of Swedish Twitter users and a hashtag for Swedes on Twitter (#svpt) will help grow the network quite rapidly. And my prediction is that by the time we move into election campaigning in 2010, Twitter will be a much more important micro blogging platform than Jaiku, due to the ease of use. The ability to easily re-tweet messages also makes Twitter far more viral than Jaiku, although I find it way easier to have meaningful conversations on Jaiku, it simply doesn’t scale the way that Twitter does.

Footnote: I am @kullin on Twitter.

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