Waiting For Downloads

A moment for more thoughts on the future of the {YOUR MASCOT NAME HERE} Channel. The ability to project one's brand belongs to those who retain rights, and when yielding rights, does so in a way that maintain as much control as possible while trading that for A) filthy lucre; B) better distribution tools.

Case in point: ESPN360.

Look, I'm not the only person in the world who's 17-year-old son has an overwhelming desire to watch one out-of-market team whenever, however. And I'm not the only person who took the time to build a cheap (less than $350) but screaming fast, tuned for video lunchbox computer who's only purpose in its digital life is to drive a plasma screen HDTV.

Open weekend courtesy of Hurricane Ike allowed some quality tuning and tweaking time with the box, and by the end of Saturday night, the games we were watching were of no less quality than the old over-the-air analog signals I grew up with. To have the access was well worth the trade in quality. More important -- the price? Well, thank heaven I switched to a certain global monolith that provides internet access AND free ESPN360.

In the space of the last six months, the entire landscape in college sports broadcasting has changed. And no, it's not just because Will went over the wall from spin.

The Olympics have shown that IPTV is now a reality. That the consumer does want his MTV. And his syncro diving. And he wants it now; unless now is five hours from now when he gets off work and for him, time stands still.

CBS is streaming the SEC. NBC will stream the NFL. MLB and NBA will stream locally (which, when you think about it is absurd -- the people who want it are ex-patriots living in other markets -- perhaps it won't take 25 years before Sunday Ticket gets reinvented on-line).

Back to the school's channel. I've been surprised by the amount of ferocious shelling we've taken the past two weeks from folks who want Razorback football streamed. Other schools do it, why don't you? On the surface, a legit question. The main reason -- no offense to others -- but our games are monetized with contractual value. Even when NBC "gives away" NFL streaming, it's still commercially supported and while free to the consumer is not free by any means.

Thus, smaller schools and less popular sports can continue to give away video streaming because it has not gained the popularity yet to have serious commercial value. That is no slap to those others, in fact, it should be an encouragement.

NCAA men's basketball did not become anything important until ESPN, then CBS, took the flyer to run every game and create a sensation. Ask any aspiring band, you make the MP3s, you put them on the podsafe network and you hope that by building popularity someday you get paid.

The same is true for college sports. Women's basketball, softball, baseball and other emerging sports have a real future on-line, but only if schools are attentive to the hoovering contracts of the content providers. While picking up the fully-commercial properties of football and in some areas men's basketball, they seek to lock up other sports or entire schools and conferences. The goal is to create excess inventory to float against advertising sale, or simply to put content on the shelf as an exclusive.

Here's where schools must insist on the A & the B. If you want to take it all, you must pay a price that will counter-balance the recruiting blow that unavailable (or subscriber based) content inflicts. Think about it. This is a national recruiting market. If proud parents know they can remain virtually linked to the kids -- streaming video, a quality website, solid communications avenues -- they'll let them go anywhere. The schools where that isn't available are at a disadvantage. That's where the B comes in -- if they don't insist, don't give away any more rights than necessary.

Or one day, you discover you can't stream you own stuff outside your own state.

More Streams Join the Fray

First, it was NBC with the Olympics. Then MLB and the NBA joined in with local streaming. Last week, CBS announced it would provide free live streams of its SEC game of the week.

Michael Hiestand has a great review of this in Wednesday's USA TODAY. He repeats the argument taken as conventional wisdom -- free streaming of content available concurrently through advertising support on television only widens the audience.

The payoff quote:

And networks are being convinced online simulcast won't cannibalize the big bucks tied up in TV, figuring you'll watch online only if you can't get to a TV set, or you'll log on as you watch TV.

Sounds familiar to this space.

Live Blog Impacts

Some things we attempt on faith, and creating a game-day live-blog for your primary sports on first blush seem like a leap into unproven territory. Is it worth the time? What happens when things go bad for your team? Will fans find it useful?

Several schools go before us, notably our colleagues at Wisconsin, with highly successful game-day blogs. Our began with a somewhat quiet launch -- no promotion, just a part of the game-day fan instruction page and a link from the front page.

Week One -- the football blog was the No. 3 story in unique viewers, second only to the post-game story and an extremely popular story on the release of the new uniforms. There were some questions about the efficacy of doing the blog, particularly when some unfortunate computer issues led to interruption of live stats. Why waste time blogging while the live stats are dead?

Two quick answers emerge. First, the live blog allows fans to jump across to a stream of information that is agile and able to get through FTP and connection issues. So it plugs the gap. The second reason is far more important.

Right along with encouraging two-way conversation with fans -- which, quite frankly a game-day blog is not about -- the most important thing a website can provide is value-added content. Here is the true value of the live blog. Yes, stat-heads like myself enjoy reading the stats and seeing the play-by-play transaction. What fans want are description, interpretation.

One of our coaches on the road told me how convenient it was to keep up with the game in an airport on his mobile device. A fan that was hearing impaired, thrilled to be able to read color commentary that was never available before. Another long-time follower of the website, keeping the stat viewer and the blog open, as he described it, getting his play-by-play (the raw stats) and his color (the blog).

Week two saw the number jump three times -- the game-day blog in 24 hours became the No. 1 story on the site, with the post-game story at number two. Both of our non-conference games, not exactly traffic drivers, now set the stage for a big number with our first SEC game in two weeks.

For the media relations office, again, why range off into the land of bloggers? It's about content, and the ability of the institution to bring an official account of the event for its fans. How different is this from radio play-by-play? The beauty of the blog is the ability to interject other details that perhaps radio or TV can't, or no longer will, relay. The reaction of the crowd to plays, the songs of the halftime band set, the names of the captains, the little side notes.

We'll open up a little more in two weeks, looking to add more fan-based details. I did get my first tailgating photos, which one managed to be added to the blog. With any luck in the pregame portion, we'll add more of those kind of interactions. Perhaps not to the extent just yet of some of the pro venues and some colleges that are encouraging the use of camera phones to send in fan shots during the game, but we're working on getting there.

Twitter -- coming in the near future.

And You Were Thinking What?

More tales from the Dark Facebook side: Kutztown University senior Adam LaDuca is forced to resign as the head of the Pennsylvania College Republicans because of an ill-advised description of Barack Obama. We'll not repeat the line, but here's a shock -- "a comment he later said he regretted."

OK, let's concede the future will be filled with soon-to-be middle-aged politicians who will be haunted (and forgiven due to the ubiquitousness of the medium) by stupid jokes and statements of their youth.

Still, how many more examples do you need to get the idea: post nothing you wouldn't expect to be read by your worst enemy, your current or future employer, your current or future spouse/partner.

Plenty of Labor Day

Sorry about the pace of posts here; it's been packing and moving time for the realignments at Arkansas. So on this Labor Day, it was moving day. With any luck, the pace will return later. Until then, for the rest of you, enjoy your day off.

All The News Fit to Browse

Peggy Drexler gives us a chilling take on the mind-set of the American journalism consumer with her McClatchy-Tribune distributed column. The gist of the Cornell psychology professor's column is that the cloud that is the media provides everything to the reader -- but not in the best of ways. It becomes incredibly easy to tune into the news that you want, rather than at times the news that you might need. Pointing to the political situation, it is easy to descend into a worm hole of reinforcing coverage to one's preconceived notions. Think Barack Obama is getting poor treatment because of race; there's a blog for that. Think Hillary Clinton is getting the shaft on gender; plenty of news coverage there. Think John McCain's getting the short end of opinion; lots of that too.

Where Drexler goes with this is a bit difficult to accept. The point is this new "mob" of media is bad, and that somehow we may be at fault. Can't agree. America's journalistic past was once dominated by the "party" press; newspapers funded by and supporting particular political groups or points of view. This is as old as our free press. The difference is the ease with which it may be started, and the low barrier to entry. From her column:

How can we blame The Media for stepping out of bounds when the lines have been washed awy like sidewalk calk in a rainstorm?

Better to say that the rain -- in the form of new technology -- has removed the artificial lines created by the professional media.

I Could Not Say It Better

This post dates to late July, and came out as a part of a news feed in early August. For those trying to understand the end of the sports journalism world as we know it, this blog entry at From the Bleachers says it all.

Titled "Exodus," it chronicles the departure from ink-and-paper some of the key sports journalists and their re-emergence (and some would say re-invigoration) in the all-digital world.

One of the focus points is Tony Barnhart. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist -- and past-president of the Football Writer's Association -- is more active, timely and relevant in his on-line work for the AJC blog. Not in the FTB blog, but this was most evident as Barnhart broke details about the two huge SEC TV deals, telling many of us in the schools more about what was happening than we were picking up through official sources.

Postscript: If you didn't believe in the end of the world, not two weeks after his blog entry that focused on Barnhart -- the venerable columnist takes a "voluntary" buyout to leave the AJC.

New Media is Not a Zero-Sum Game

My favorite icon of mediathink to bash is the zero-sum game. If you allow choice, it will dilute the product. If you provide what is seen as competitive content, it will destroy the share and ratings. If we chose this method of delivery, we must exclude all others.

The new media is a firehose, and guess what NBC is now learning? The same lesson CBS figured out during the NCAA Final Four. Interestingly enough, more is actually . . . more.

This just in from NBC Universal: ratings are going up. Up for the traditional network broadcast window. Up for the ancillary network delivery. And astronomically up through new media.

This space has been harshly critical of NBC's handling of past Olympics as they sought to bring in more views by taking the sports out and putting the human interest in. Someone caught the clue that after Athens that A) the sappy, super-saccharine soap-opera approach was neither bringing in the female demo they were touting in 1996 and 2000 (no one wants to watch the whole event, just the highlights); and B) those darn internets were providing the spoiler role to time-delayed sports.

Since the internet genie wasn't going back in the bottle, NBC has embraced the horror and gone uber-geek. Their play is paying dividends. According to AP, NBC Universal has reported 1.7 million video streams off USA's frog-squashing int he 400 relay alone; plus another 1.5 emailed to friends of the same.

Why?

It's not supply and demand; it's creating demand. You can watch almost anything, at any time. TiVo, meet Silverlight. NBC figured out that given the choice, fans will opt for their HD TVs and the Nielson book over their computers or phones. But for those that need that option, instead of shutting out the other content vehicles, NBC is now seeing a half-million phone downloads the first two days. Small, yes. Fantastically beyond estimates? Oh hell yes.

And the money quote:

NBC Universal worried in past Olympics years that its decision to air much of the events on cable outlets like CNBC, MSNBC and USA would siphon interest from prime-time, which is still where the network earns the bulk of its advertising revenue. But the opposite proved to be true and, this year, the same thing has happened with the digital content, said Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics.

The takeaway lesson for college sports? Don't restrict yourself based on the old-network paradigms of zero-sum gain. Exclusive partners within a medium? Certainly. But don't let one medium exclude the other. Fan choice for interaction is driven by circumstance. Most would rather buy a ticket and be there. If not, they'll watch TV. If not, they'll watch streaming video. If not, they'll take audio by phone. And so on.

And every one of those modes serves a different audience, with a different price point. It can all generate both interest and profit.

However, somewhere, out there, the 21st century embodiment of H.L. Mencken's Puritan waits to lock down new media based on the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, might not watch the TV.

Unrelated? I Think Not

Gannett announced it was calling for 1,000-person reduction in force nationwide today. That's about 15 per editorial staff if I'm averaging the math right across the chain. Obviously, it won't fall equally on papers, but that comes a day after WEHCO, the corporate owner of the major paper in our state and others, would be freezing salaries. Those two tie together how? Aside from speaking to the trend in traditional journalism of economic woe, the last time WEHCO held the line like that? According to the current media reports, that was when they were starting their battle with Gannett in the Little Rock market back in the late 70s, early 80s.

And speaking of the late 70s, Russia is bringing back a golden oldie -- Evil Capitalist Plot To Subvert Will Of Workers. The Times (UK) has this delicious article about the party line from the Kremlin going retro for the Georgian invasion. You see, Comrades, it was really Vice-President Dick Cheney's conspiracy to prevent the election of Barak Obama. Seriously. I wouldn't kid about a Soviet, excuse me, Russian news item. Ah, for the days of Pravda.

So who is providing the Truth in Russia. Those pesky internets are at it again. Of course, the Russians launched their cyberattack on the Georgian domains right along with their tanks rolling into the country. Google stepped up to help out the Georgian government with some server mirroring to thwart the DoS attack -- and at the close of business that day GMail went missing for 90 minutes. Coincidence?

I digress. So how does this Russian load of high quality propaganda sync with the loss of American journalists jobs? Goes back to the old Citizen Media quandary. Who will pay for the journalism we need? The good news -- the media is evolving, and many of these journalists are going over the side into independent production. The bad news -- we may have fewer people to stay vigilant on the little stories. The ones that blossom into big significant ones. Like this break in at DNC headquarters. Or some FOIs. Or some missed minutes from a meeting. Why are those things potentially missed? Cause the papers are busy giving us what we want, which of course is more coverage of Angelina's twins.

For the college PR business, it will put even more emphasis on a Fan First approach. If the paper's cutting back, who will cover the volleyball team? If the TV station is consolidating staff and coverage into buying syndicated programming at 5 or 6 pm rather than local news -- forget local live event production -- it puts even more value on new media operations that can produce IPTV streams. Well, unless you sold those rights away.

A Pair of Privacy Issues

A pair of media outlets bring us two very private sets of details, but both invasions of privacy were self-inflicted.

The more salacious is today's Deadspin, and relates to a pair of athletes discovered modeling. That's nothing new, Gabbe Reese. The fact they were nude -- ah, that's new. One wonders what these Division I BCS conference athletes were thinking. That no one would notice?

The second relates to HIPPA, and the couple of very important exceptions to that reasonably draconian rule. The feds can rain down very significant fines on health care workers, and those who handle health care records. Group A that is totally immune -- the media. While it may seem an invasion of privacy, there is nothing that prevents them from printing health-related information. Group B -- the person who's health is being commented upon.

So, when The Sporting News texts directly to a BCS football athlete to confirm his torn ACL, and said athlete texts back confirmation -- nothing can be done.

Don't Let Your Mouth Write a Check Your Relay Can't Cash

NBC's swimming analyst Rowdy Gaines erupted, "Who's talkin' now?!?"

Heading into the men's 400-meter freestyle final, there was the distinct odor of upset in the air, courtesy of French world record holder Alain Bernard.

"The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for," Bernard said.

Bernard had the race. He had the lead. Unfortunately, USA had the motivation.

"We don't say anything until it's over," Cullen Jones said.

"The Frenchies were talking stuff, and we just took care of business," anchor Jason Lezak said.

Now, Bernard goes into the history books for perhaps the most ill-advised trash talking. Ever. Of course, Michael Phelps came very, very close to his own moment -- first with his Speedo body suit hanging dangerously low, then second when his gutteral yelp of victory appearing to start with a "fffuuu," then appears in the slow-mo to quickly transition without the golden image killing consonants into a yeaaaaaahhhhh.

And, slow motion reveals all -- including the final five meter look over by Bernard at Lezak. Lezak trailed by a half second starting the leg. Lezak looks back, and it's like he's showing the Frenchman his still-beating heart before touching the wall and smashing the tricolor.

Did I Mention How Cool Silverlight Is?

For the past half hour, I've sat and watched men's individual epee. Who knew? Who cared?

Thanks to this streaming content, I'm mesmerized by watching these two guys go at each other in what seems more like barroom brawl -- the lighting is dark and spotlight. They scream. They taunt. They yell. The crowd has airhorns.

The beauty of this stuff is the cameras -- very crisp, 16x9 ratios and I'm guessing high def capture. It streams well, even for something like epee that has fast moving fine details. But, I think one of the really great things is the cinema verite of the nat sound from the arenas.

It was the same on Russia-Iran men's basketball. No overblown American announcers. Just squeaking sneakers, thumping dribbles and the occasional cheer.

Another brick in the network wall is coming down.

Kudos to NBC

The Olympics show us the future of sports media production. Silverlight is all it was hyped up to be. The key is bringing the sports to the fan and giving them the ability to choose and manage.

Today, I've spent time watching the NBC soccer and basketball channels on my DIRECTV, where I have a special interactive menu. Until figuring this out today, I was at a confused loss for what was on when. With the 12-hour time difference and the usual feature approach by NBC, I was ready to just take a pass.

Not any more. After enjoying several looks at things I'd have never watched -- who knew that Becky Hammons was now a Russian, the New Zealand team darn near didn't advance, Germany's got great women's soccer possession skills, and there's the President at beach volleyball -- I'm currently taking in the live feed of Iran versus Russia men's hoops via Silverlight.

Given the right tools -- Tricasters and broadcast cameras -- plus Silverlight, there's no reason why every school can't be its own network via IP.

Simple Explanations are Always the Best

Caller to the Dennis Miller Show this Friday:

"I had a thought, that became a rumor"

And thus, the genesis explanation of more than a few internet news items.

Rapid Response Engagement

Referencing back to the CoSIDA presentation, here is a perfect example this past week of the marriage of monitoring and engagement. This is a real world, real name situation. In the course of the relaunch of our website, it has drawn new attention to all things Razorback. Two days ago, a moderator of the largest fan board made a post around 6:50 p.m. that a link on the Razorback Foundation pointed to a former coaches' now closed website. I picked it up while reading through boards around 7:30, and forwarded a note to those who needed to know. Within 30 minutes, one of the people commenting on the board took it direct to the AD.

In the past, a letter or even an email might linger. With the speed of the 'net, that's just not going to work. By 8:40, I'm emailing this person to thank him and assure him that we were making contact with the vendor to correct it. At just after 9 p.m., a segment of my email is quoted out on the board and after that the thread petered out with generally positive comments that the department was reacting to the error.

There are a host of the old lessons within this event:
Turn the speech into a conversation -- by listening and responding, we gained positive credit.
Digital assets are incredibly portable -- as I've always tutored our athletes, staff and coaches, anything digital -- in this case an email -- is very easy to cut and paste anywhere.
Rumors move at the speed of light -- no telling how this morphs if ignored, as it was heating up within a couple of hours.
Public schools are glass houses -- every email, every call, every detail is publicly available and subject to review.

Not 24 hours later, we had an all-blog event where one prominent statewide news blogger picks up just a part of a bit on one of the statewide radio shows. He riffs on what was said, and doesn't pick up until the next day that it was a practical joke played by one host on the other. But, the first part related to our football press guide, and it launched a thread on a pair of boards. Again, fast emails to the host and the board admins discovered the truth -- the fact it was a joke -- and that got posted on the boards. This effectively shuts down the thread, and the boards move on.

The lesson once again -- you must stay involved with all of your communities: physical and virtual.

Update on the Oklahoma Hoax

About a month ago, James Conradt thought it would be a really cool idea to manufacture an elaborate hoax against two Oklahoma football players. He crafted a quality fake -- complete with the graphic look of the Daily Oklahoman, the newspaper of record for OU sports and the state of Oklahoma.

Immediately, all sides pounced on Mr. Conradt, who claimed he was really, really sorry and shucks, it was just a joke.

No one is laughing. Not college athletics. Not the media. Not the internet intelligencia.

Conradt now faces a 10-count lawsuit from the Oklahoman's corporate owners.

Tony Barnhardt at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution provided nice perspective, a good update and a quality payoff quote:

Here’s why this case is important. Because of the freedom of the Internet, some people are lulled into believing there are no rules and no accountability. Some people believe there is one set of rules for sports fans and one set of for everybody else. This case will prove that is not true and that is why I expect the Daily Oklahoman and their lawyers to make an example of this guy.

Tony is dead on. I've said here, I've said on B&B, I respect the opinion of fans, and their right to scream and yell all they want. I'd like to see a little more transparency from fans -- have the respect to put your name on your opinion -- but accusing a college student of cocaine usage is, well, criminal.

If Conradt was a "regular" journalist, he'd be on the docket for liable in a heartbeat. What all those defenders of the "satire" are missing is they are citizen journalists when they do this kind of reporting, and the rules apply to them just the same as Tony Barnhardt.

Dr. Smith, Meet Dr. Horrible

In case you missed it, last week's Entertainment Weekly carried a story about the phenomenal success of the Dr. Horrible Sing-Along Blog project. As a way to kill time during the writer's strike, Joss Whedon came up with the high-concept, internet-only story, and enticed the likes of Neil Patrick Harris to get involved.

The money quote, provided by Felicia Day, who played Penny in the "series":
"There are a lot of things that Hollywood doesn't understand about the Internet. It's kind of the reverse of mainstream media: You don't want to aim for everybody. You want to aim for the target audience, and that passionate audience is going to spread the word. Clearly, Joss got it. Dr. Horrible was all word of mouth."

This plays on so many levels. Whedon and company proved once again, quality content can go direct to the consumer. No studio. No production house. Just a great concept and solid . Think I'm making it up -- read the master plan. Tell me again, with the right equipment and commitment, an athletic department creates live game content direct to it's fan base -- that's bad why?

Pick up a copy of the Aug. 1 EW issue (Batman's on the cover) and read how the story is presented. It is nothing more than a stream-of-consciousness-meets-chat-room article. Instead of a piece of C2S paper, I can easily imagine the character's back-and-forth with flickering cursors on a flat screen. All that's missing is the comment box.

But wait -- if you read the story on-line it is six pages long (not the one and a half in print) because they have the "expanded oral history" right here. They. Get. It.

And now, who's laughing all the way to the bank? Dr. Horrible DVD with extras. Dr. Horrible movie deal. Dr. Horrible sequel. Let me think, who owns the rights to that . . . . . oh yeah, none of the studios, that would be whedonesque.com.

By the way, when it first launched on its own website, Dr. Horrible racked up 200,000 views per hour and crashed the server farm while it was free. That part ended July 20. If you want to check out the sensation, you'll have to give up a little kwan and purchase the episodes at iTunes. Again, who's profiting by giving it away? That would be Whedon.

What if a major university decided to start it's own production unit . . . .

Sports and Politics Don't Mix

After religion, the two most passionate interests of human beings are sports and politics. It can be a dangerous tail when the two mix. Anyone remember Richard Nixon weighing in about who the number one team in the country should be? I'm not saying that caused Watergate, but the facts are Joe Pa is still the head coach at Penn State and Dick was run from office.

Here's the latest entry in the bad things happen when you let the glycidyl ether mix with the curing solution -- you get an epoxy that sticks like nobody's business:

"I spoke with Matt maybe three days ago," Jaguars running back Fred Taylor said. "He's a man. Like all of us, we're all human. I'm pretty sure a few of you guys voted for George Bush. In that breath, a few of you guys are probably [ticked] off about gas prices, too. We all make mistakes is what I'm trying to say. The thing is you can't do it twice."

Let's parse that out. Fred Taylor is right about second chances and learning from mistakes. He's speaking of teammate and former Razorback Matt Jones' arrest recently. The insertion of politics in the middle, well, it's pithy. It's even clever. In the end, Taylor's politics will override his message of support for his teammate. Jones gets an unintended national bounce for his problems into a whole new group of media, courtesy of his teammate's well-intentioned attempt at defense.

My personal advice in these situations for sports figures is you can not win at politics. Sports remain one of the few places in American life where the Blue and the Red states can really become Purple. Everyone U.S. Senator wants Redskins tickets -- it's neutral ground. In an election season, commenting about your personal vote should be off limits. Don't answer that question is my advice to athletes.

I will admit that my feeling about voting is colored by personal experience. One of my high school teachers, Mr. Dunn, said it best. He was one of those inspirational teachers, so of course I remember important things he said. In Louisiana, the governor's races are off-set one year from the presidential cycle (we always had to be different). One of the students in American History ask Mr. Dunn who he voted for.

A little background. Mr. Dunn was a former haberdasher in the truest sense, and was a gentleman's gentleman in the classroom. Here's a guy who was extremely even keeled. Nothing flustered him. Picture Ben Stein as your high school civics teacher.

Mr. Dunn wheeled on the student who asked, and for the first time -- and the only time I recall -- there was fire in his eyes. "You don't ask people who they voted for," Dunn snarled. "That's personal, and there is nothing more personal in America." He went on to explain how you should never, ever give up to anyone what happens in that voting booth. That it was a sacred thing.

I've wondered in years since what make him so sensitive to the question, but on a societal level he could not be more correct. The ballot might be Australian, but there was nothing that changed American politics more than the implementation of the secret ballot. I suspect Mr. Dunn is spinning in his grave at the thought of exit polling as it is used today.

Meanwhile, back at the point -- Mr. Dunn is right. I don't know who Taylor voted for, but he's given us a pretty good indication. In turn, he's singled himself out. He's made himself a story that he probably didn't intend.

I return to my No. 1 technology advice: Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should -- and putting your politics into sports quotes certainly qualifies for that maxim.

How Could You Forget the Chiefs?

While working on some new facility pages, Maxine Nightengale reminded me of a horrible mistake. No, not the roughly 27,459 typos in the website (I kid, only 7,459), but of a social networking error. In the course of updating the profile here on the the blog, I can't believe I overlooked perhaps the greatest sports movie in the history of cinema.

I speak, of course, of Slap Shot.

Sure, I remembered Rollerball, which I find to be an incredibly powerful social commentary that speaks to us today (the Jimmy Cann original, thank you). But how could I overlook the Hansen brothers?

I grant you that for SIDs there may not be a better movie than Bull Durham. The references are now ancient for the current generation, but Nuke LaLoosh's media training at the hands of Crash Davis and the rookie's growth from mere meat to major leaguer remains the gold standard.

Back to the Valley of the Razorbacks.

Blocking Bloggers

We've spent our share of time commenting on the fact that you can restrict, but you simply will not be successful in blocking a determined blogger. There's also no better way to exacerbate a public relations problem than daring the B&B crowd.

The rules change, however, when you are a government -- oh, say China -- or if you are a media organization -- in today's case, the Los Angeles Times.

Those darn internets strike again as Slate's website hits LAT square in the face with a memo distributed to suppress the mention of a certain National Enquirer story about a certain Democratic politician. I'll be coy too; not out of fear of the editors but out of respect for the person involved.

This sets up a classic new vs. old media battle, and one that just might be inside the house. It cuts to the heart of what journalism is becoming today.

Is the Enquirer a "legitimate" media in the old-school sense?

Is it appropriate to gag your own staff?

With a multitude of sources, does the LAT do itself a disservice by not participating in the frenzy surrounding the rumors? In a business sense, a huge YES. They are driving readers away to find the story. In a reputations sense, an undecided maybe. If the Enquirer proves wrong, the LAT gets the kudos for holding back. If the rumors are true -- and other news organizations now jumping on this are finding independent verification -- it is another blow to the reputation of the LAT.

There are no Secr3ts

Kudos to the posters on Hogville and Woopig for slipping under the splash screen covers. I hope the house wasn't too messy in the last 24 hours before launch. Reminds me of the day I just walked into the open door of Starbucks in Fayetteville on the Wednesday before it opened -- here, have a cup of coffee on us.

Again, thanks to those who did a little unofficial testing (yes, we needed to fix that pre-production banner Razorback, and seriously, thanks for reminding me).

Never amazed, but some of the folks I work with wondered who leaked the URL. It was a live server build -- no real shock here.

Over the next few days, I'm anticipating lots of corrections. This was not only a complete redesign -- including some new coding in the database -- but a merger of two distinct data bases (that's a first for our vendor). It went pretty smooth, and looks reasonably clean.

In the meantime, don't be a stranger with the error reports. Let's call it, cloud proofing.

Bonus points today for the movie reference in the title.

It is Done

Note the time stamp. Last parts in that can go in before tomorrow -- strike that, today's -- launch. I'm going for a nap. With any luck, regular postings will resume Tuesday or Wednesday. Thanks for the patience of readers while we finished out ArkansasRazorbacks.com.

The Not So Anonymous Internet

This story set will lead to further posts, but I'm marking it for readers right now. In case you missed it, a Nebraska fan decided to get even with some message board posters by creating a fake story about the arrest of some Oklahoma players.

Thanks to solid Photoshop skills, the faked story and front page image of the OU student newspaper website was too good. The hoax got out of control in a hurry, and now James Conradt faces the very real prospect of legal action.

Coverage in the Oklahoma newspapers and a very solid commentary from the NCAA's blog.

As Drudge would say, developing . . .

End of Days

This week's TWIT repeats a story -- too good to perhaps not be apocryphal -- about the press room reaction to the last round of firings at the Tampa Tribune. The remaining staff was told bluntly to stop thinking of the website as the adjunct. The print edition was now the adjunct to the website.

At the Houston Chronicle, mentioned earlier with their on-line database of salaries, the writers are instructed to use their blogs to do their primary work. In other words, it's news -- the textual equivalent of 24-7 cable news channel.

You Must Find Your Own Path

Yes, Grasshopper, the path to enlightenment is the walk, not the answer. As your university decides how to engage the blogosphere, remember that your answer may be to not engage. From our good friends at WOMMA, and their on-line daily feed, comes this very good pitch from Search Marketing Gurus about not blogging.

Databases: Even More Fun than FOI

The Houston Chronicle posts a search engine that can be used to search the salary of every public employee in the city and county. If you really want to know, click here.

No longer need to file the FOI. Don't even have to go to the public library. The public records on your desktop.

Colleague at a public school remarked this wasn't fair. How can they get phone records? How can they see salaries?

Until you go to work in the private sector, guess what -- "they" are the people, and "they" pay the bills.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

If you keep up with Arkansas you know we started the countdown clocks on our current men's and women's athletic websites. The new ArkansasRazorback.com starts July 21.

It's the next evolution for our school, and I hope the fans and media find it useful. There are some lofty goals set -- more streaming, broader gameday presentation, quicker stories -- but we hope that we can become the place fans look to first. Comments after? Well, that's up to them.

For the regular readers, I will beg your indulgence over the next two weeks. Posts here will be less frequent. Anybody want to build some HTML nested tables for fun?

It's About (Your Other) Family

As we get back into the grind after the holidays, I'm reminded once again that it's important to have friends and a good support system for this kind of job. Tonight is Monday, and when I'm in town, that means calling the weekly county weather spotters net.

Couple of the folks on that net had commented to me during the annual Field Day how much their ham radio family meant to them. None of the folks involved in storm spotting here are really into the Razorbacks, or athletics for that matter. But they wanted to know how it went in Tampa, because I'm part of their family.

Jack Buck, Jr., really got shelled by the national media for saying he was more into checking out The Bachelorette than whatever MLB game was on TV. On the one hand, Jack, you probably shouldn't have said that out loud. In this business, they don't take kindly when they think you might have other interests -- Jack just found that out.

But you need something that isn't college athletics. Some place where everybody knows your name . . . or in my case, your callsign.

Happy Fourth of July

While you're enjoying the firecrackers, we'll be taking 360-views of athletic facilities for the new Arkansas Razorback website. Oops. Did I say that out loud? Delete that. Instead, enjoy a quick take on Fan First philosophy and how that relates with the presentation earlier this week at CoSIDA.

The internet is a community, and the community grows through sharing. At the same time, through sharing others may profit from our creative work. Protecting digital rights and monetizing the eyeballs are the immediate goals, but if we place too many restrictions between our institutions and our constituents we stand to lose more than a few bucks in on-line memberships.

Who do we want to win? In a free market, the consumer wins. In a restricted market, the producer wins. Here’s the problem – tribal loyalties aside, the internet is never a zero sum game. There is a delicate balance between being first with information, becoming the messenger your fans trust and come to first, and shutting out others in exclusivity agreements that alienate the media. The corporate media made sports what it is today by using it as a vehicle for commerce, but it is not permanent. A century ago, professional bicycle racing was among the great spectator sports and an African-American cyclist, Major Taylor, was the highest paid athlete in America. Half a century ago, professional basketball was nothing, a fringe small market entity. A quarter century ago, who paid attention to stock car racing outside of the deep South. A decade ago, a half-pipe was something you bought at the plumbing supply – now it’s an Olympic venue.

Nobody said we couldn’t compete with the media. Actually, I have heard leadership of the major sports writer’s associations make the claim that because most of us work for state entities we should not be allowed to sell advertising and break stories against their newspapers. Nevertheless, the very heart of our business is competition. As athletic departments, we seek to win games, to sign recruits, to hire and retain the best coaches, to build facilities – why don’t we compete to make sure our fans read our copy, view our shows, listen to our broadcasts.

Crickets

I'll open the comments while I'm airborne for home. Interested in feedback from other SIDs on the presentation.

Key Terms for the Future

If I haven't already, I'm putting my copyright marker down on these concepts:

B&B -- That's message boards and blogs, the heart of the new media group that we are trying to influence through our efforts. They are drivers of opinion, both fans and media.

"Not since the invention of written language has the barrier to mass communication been lower in human history" -- Quote me on that. "This is a fundamental change in communication theory, one that we struggle with on a daily basis."

Not exactly the shortest concept, but one of the keys for tomorrow:
"It is written, it is spoken, it is visual – it exists in all three planes at the same time. That’s a paradigm shift in the classic sense, but the shattering of the barriers to entry into the mass media to the general public results not in change but destruction. When the medium becomes so pervasive, so complete, what differentiates one entity from another – it’s the message. The thermonuclear impact of this mode of communication effectively turns Marshall McLuhan’s great parable on its head: He who controls the message controls the medium. McLuhan imagined a global village led by tribalism, but messengers rule in the new medium. By not engaging the B&B, we concede the control of our message to others."

Happy trails to all as I head back home to Fayetteville. Let's root for no storms and not another voyage on the SS Minnow.

Pot, Kettle; Kettle, Pot

Rolling through the post-event comments, one of note was a pretty strong shot at Spencer Hall for sitting at the dias and blogging while the session went on.

Well, he's a blogger. What did you expect?

Here's the hook. The comment on Spencer's blog started with, "You're so unprofessional for blogging . . . ."

A) I think Spencer made it very clear, he gets paid for blogging -- ie, he is a professional -- but by no stretch of the imagination did he claim to be a professional journalist.

B) Um, why are you sitting in the audience reading a blog while we're at the podium making a presentation that your institution is paying for you to attend. And posting on it.

One of the very interesting side notes -- there were at least four persons in the room, fellow SIDs, that were posting to Spencer's blog during the event. In a way, that speaks to the coming change in events.

In answer to the worries about the transactional blogger violating the rights agreements of our various companies, ponder that exchange. I know it is almost impossible during time outs at Razorback football games to send or receive texts. In large part, its friends commenting to each other about the last plays. Once again, a digital community within the real one.

As we see broader roll-out of 3G and Edge devices, more and more text becomes descriptions of the events. Instead of worrying about whether this undercuts the rights holders, maybe the rights holders could sponsor community groups to engage that discussion. And sell ads.

One of the running comments during the week on other panels went something like this: I don't know who those people are who are playing along with TV on their laptops . . . or I don't know who those people are answering the surveys during the commercials on TV.

Entertainment networks wouldn't take the time to create those interactives if they weren't capturing time and views for ads on those pages.

It's something to think about. Hello, Stat Crew? Yes, could you rebuild the media view with a chat window and port it to Windows Media 6.0 and iPhone SDK . . . .

By the way, my intellectual property attorney would like you to know that by that statement I have claimed initial patent on the concept of any statistical presentation of college sports linked with the idea of chat windows for interactive fan communities at the games, and those mated with targeted advertising based on existing profiles, cell phone number and SNW harvested data.

No. Seriously. I mean that.

No, Thank You

The presentation is over, and I'm a little disappointed I didn't make to the room faster.

My great thanks to Dan Gillmor, who I think everyone could tell just how sick he was from the audio, and Spencer Hall, who is really a human being, for participating.

The goal was to create discussion. That's why we spoke short, and we're looking to get the questions going. I think one of the best follow-ups I had after the fact was from one of the questioners, a major conference office rep, who said that it was a bit scary.

Yes. It is. The new world order in this completely open posting word is, well, new. It's a jarring, system-wide change. We must evolve to respond to it, both as an organization and as institutions.

Let me repeat what I said at the podium -- this is a community. We must have discussions; among ourselves, with our fans, with our administrators.

I can't stress this point enough: have the conversation internally about what you will do to engage with the B&B world. Know that the answer for your institution may be we are not going to interact with them. That's OK -- it is your message and your school.

That, however, is the key. You must be the master of that message, the conduit through which the message flows. It is our future.

Don't fight the future. Never really worked out for Fox Mulder.

And lets see how many of you are reading -- the password is Afghanistan Banana Stand

Shhh! Don't Tell Anyone Else

Here's a little langiappe that isn't going into the presentation or the handout. Just for the cool kids here on the blog:

If you want to know what the impact of technology is having on the creative business, consider the release of Radiohead’s latest album. They made it a free download, pay what you think it is worth. They made about $1 million off the release. Sure, not everyone paid; but many paid more than if Radiohead had distributed it by disk or other on-line services. That fact is well noted in the on-line business community. I have another take not spoken. To me, it’s less about the giving up of control over the price or the digital rights management. It’s the fact Radiohead could create and produce its own album without the need for the record label, and distribute it through their own marketing channel. There is a reason why the networks, the providers – cable, satellite and IP-based; and the conference offices are racing to sign up athletic departments and lock away content for big money and very broad control rights. They know it too. My prediction: the schools that retain control will make the Notre Dame move to become Team NBC in the 1990s incredibly small potatoes.

Why Bother with the B&B Anyway?

The fifth and final W in the Rules of Engagement

Why engage? Call this the Jesus effect: you go where the sinners are. If a group is spreading misperceptions about the coach, a player or a situation, often the best way to deal with it is by direct discussion. Just over a decade ago, SIDs sat round and complained about those non-journalists on the radio, fomenting trouble, reporting rumor and, gasp, letting callers on the air to say whatever they wanted. Today, would anyone let a sports call-in host run without challenge? And how many encourage the talk radio host through press credentials and access? The Southeastern Conference established Radio Row at football and basketball media days. Why? To organize the growing numbers who wanted to just show up and grab interviews, but there is no small extra benefit of bringing them inside the big tent of “respectable media.” Plus, if you don’t think the sinners and the saints are together on the boards – ask one of your board owners for a demographic of the membership. Chances are very good that some of the highest level donors to the program are hidden in those screen names. Even if your administration does not believe these are good reasons, here’s the kicker: the media reads it. Let me introduce a side concept – force multiplier. One reporter can sit in the office and scan the information just as easily as you can. No need for dozens of beat reporters when you have hundreds of citizen journalists out there. Gannett calls it crowd sourcing; Dan Rather calls it unemployment

Listening to Others

I've got this quote on my coda sheet tacked to the wall over my computer that says what you think of on your own is at best monotonous. You learn from taking your thoughts and meshing them with what you learn from others.

Listening to Michael Moran, the Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society at Penn State, talk about the once upon a time relationship of the SID and the young media person. The SID was a mentor, explaining the rules, helping guide the newbie along. It wasn't manipulation, it was vested interest. The school doesn't want uninformed opinion in the paper. Newspapers didn't want to have to clean up stupid mistakes that made it to print.

Let me take Michael a step further -- interacting with the B&B community can be the same. Many of the board owners do not have a good understanding of the legal nature of athletics. NCAA rules are often misunderstood. HIPPA and FERPA even less. Sometimes, explaining why things can't be said is as important as saying things.

At the end of the day, most of the people in the blogs are fans. They may have less tolerance for error, they may be essentially darker in their outlooks, but they want to help. They want to be a part of the program. Not unlike the good old days and the cub reporter on the beat, we need to find ways to relate to the B&B.

There are Some Signs You Don't Expect

This sign was found:

A) Yosemite National Park
B) Devil's Den State Park, Arkansas
C) Lookout Mountain, Tenn.
D) Lighthouse Park, West Vancouver

The answer, disturbingly, is D. Yes, and the neighbors in the very urban parts of West Vancouver -- we were all of 15 minutes from downtown -- are constantly worried about the bears coming down to hit the garbage cans.

Frankly, I think this is terribly cool. It reminds me a bit of Fayetteville, a town that while quite small urban is still very much a part of the Ozarks and is maintaining that nature feel.

When Libby and I moved to Fayetteville, one of the stories in the paper was about a Black Bear cub that was hitting the dumpsters on the main road, obviously separated from its mother. That was 1989. Guess what -- we had bears in the city limits just last year.

And for those traveling, Lighthouse Park is second only to the world-famous Capilano Suspension Bridge Park. Both feature old-growth trees, but I really liked Lighthouse for the quiet trails. Of course, the sign was cool too.

Here's a glimpse of the lighthouse of the part of the same name.

And -- a Happy Canada Day to my colleagues in BC that were so helpful this year on our "foreign" tour and my good friend Jack at University of Calgary. We'll all miss you today in Tampa at convention.

Where to Engage?

The fourth W in the Rules of Engagement

Where will you engage? There are several angles here, each with its own strength or weakness. Consistency is important again in whichever approach is taken. There is a certain power in doing the work directly on the offender B&B. While it does inject you into their area and bring a certain credibility to them by your appearance, it has two important benefits. First, it places your correction of fact or message right next to their original misperception. Second, it provides clear evidence that you are watching, and listening to what is said. Remember, the two-way communication is a hallmark of Web 2.0. Making the response through your own on-line vehicles helps drive traffic back to the official web site, and can be considered an important factor in a Fan First philosophy. Links to the response can always be posted on the original board or blog. Statements to the traditional media can be used. There remains tremendous power in the press release in print or on the 10 o’clock, and in some ways turns the traditional media against the new media. Before pursuing a divide and conquer strategy, understand there is a considerable risk involved.

Laugh 'Cause Crying's Not an Option

This one from the sign collection actually was given to me by a colleague. He snapped it at the press conference of another school.

And for those who have never made this kind of mistake, you shall cast out the first typo.

Lord knows, I've done as bad and worse.

An Open Letter to Mr. Cheers

Once upon a time, I was you. Hard charging, up in the gate agent's face. Working the phone; working the angles -- by God I wasn't going to be left behind.

Let me share something with you -- the flight to Tampa was full. Full even before the weather put things behind. Full before your agent told you they put you on the flight an hour ago.

Good work, you got the gate agent's name. And you've mocked her sufficiently and her ethnicity to whomever you're browbeating on the phone.

At the end of this day, you'll be right with the rest of the chumps who didn't take the time to try and fight their way on the the last flight to Tampa: stuck in Atlanta.

Oh, there's one difference -- the rest of us have seats tomorrow. Don't know about you. Probably because we took care of business earlier, or didn't scream and yell.

The college student who shifted nervously, pitifully back and forth, worrying quietly if she'd get on the plane to catch up with the voice on the other end of her almost out of battery phone -- guess what, she got on the plane. And, Mr. Cheers, because she was so obviously upset yet maintaining a level of dignity, I'd have given her my seat. In fact, several folks would have. You? Good luck with the concierge level as we'd each stride onto that last middle seat.

So when Delta gets that report about the gate agent at A17, remember there was another side to that story.

And seriously, dude, Cheers was done before you were born. Chill.

When They Zig, Unfortunately I Zag

From in the air to ATL

Today’s long trip to Tampa is another lesson in adaptation. The whole thing starts with an afternoon flight to allow me to complete volunteer work on Field Day. Seemed simple enough. Event ends at 1 p.m.; flight at 4:15 p.m. – no significant committee since the bids have really made our choice for the upcoming CoSIDA Convention.

Arrive at XNA and at the check-in kiosk – do you want to travel on an earlier flight? Hmm. It’s through Cincinnati, leaves an hour earlier but only gets to Tampa 35 minutes earlier. Don’t know, it seems counter-intuitive to reach west central Florida via the Ohio Valley rather than Atlanta. Oh, and it will cost you another $50.

OK, goes against my travel sense. Why rack up another $50 particularly with a new sheriff in town. I’m good; plus I can watch most of Stacy Lewis in the US Open at what goes for a bar at XNA.

I zig. Unbeknownst to me, the world just zagged. This is the way everything has gone the past three or four months.

Who knew a massive line of thunderstorms from Birmingham to Atlanta would force my flight to be delayed five hours. Miss any kind of connection. Miss the last event of the day at the convention. Miss the chance at a decent night’s sleep to make up for the weekend.

As a side note, the farce of loading the plane twice was relieved by the work of the gate agents for Delta at XNA. I’d seen the radar picture on my phone, but the agent was insistent that I come around to look at his station to look at the browser to prove it wasn’t because the flight was half empty and Jet A is through the roof. The other passengers in line were leaping to that conclusion. He sensed it, countered it and won some respect for his crisis management.

Come to think of it, he employed his own aggressive disclosure. Here’s the radar, here’s when we’ll give you the next updates (a schedule he kept during the whole five hour delay), here’s the scoop on your next flight you can’t make, here’s the best I can do for you. A grim smile and a “good luck” on boarding, but the kind that gave away a to-those-about-to-sleep-in-the-airport-we-salute-you attitude.

Contrast that with the 13-hour odyssey last year heading to San Diego for convention. I’ll skip the airline name, but that was nothing but a rude rumor-fest as the whole family was left to fend for itself. Nobody likes to be treated that way. That’s one of the points for Wednesday’s presentation – Fan First Philosophy, who’d you rather have explaining your bad news to the fans – you or the media?

Riding through the chop now over B’ham I know I’ll be lucky to find a room, if not sleep on a bench in the airport tonight. But I am on the way, and that was more than it seemed like it would be earlier. Another grinder day in which sheer determination is required.

At this point, fatalism takes over, a sense of God’s will. Either this trip will work out, or it won’t. The presentation will go off, or it won’t.. Even Field Day turns out that way with some of the worst operating conditions in my eight years of events. We came up four contacts short of equaling last year’s total, but the sheer effort it required – long, painful work to get those 256 contacts – made it seem like we’d scored 500. Still, the score will be down.

Sisyphus will now pick up the rock, and start to work it back up the hill. Wish him luck.

Who Engages?

The third W in the Rules of Engagement

Who will engage? Here a department should have very specific rules, and enforce them without a lot of flexibility. If only the head SID, or only the sport contact are cleared to engage, they are the only ones. If student workers in the office are not allowed to post, remove them when they are discovered violating the policy. This will be a tough discussion with administrators who do not value the existing impact of the internet on shaping public opinion or worse, those who “don’t care” what the media says. The counter argument will be “you are giving credibility” to the B&B. Refer back to the chart on public trust; the bloggers already have it.

More Flooding Bad News

If the 1-5 inch warning sign was tough, how'd you like to have this on your residential street. Found while on the way to the original Taco Cabana location in San Antonio Texas.

And yes, that's measured in feet.

What to Engage?

The second W in the Rules of Engagement

What will you engage? This is an area of great variation. Some advise challenging everything. Others consider acknowledging something exists on the internet as giving credence to all rumors. My rule of thumb is when factual errors exist that are significant it is the responsibility of the public information officer to step in and correct those errors. The added benefit is when factual errors are embedded in opinions that are driving misperceptions about the situation. This will undercut the opinion without directly attacking it, and it reinforces the authority of the spokesman.

When to Engage

First of the five W's from the Rules of Engagement of On-Line Media

When will you engage? Here there is a reasonably clear rule of thumb: as soon as humanly possible. There may be legal obstacles to overcome, but consider that lawyers often do not consider the public relations impact of their advice. Rapid response means that a monitoring system is in place. If you wait until the problem has reached the point the media or an admistrator is bringing it to the media relations office, the high likelihood is the Golden Hour is missed and the public opinion is already formed.

And It's Not Just Because He's the Boss

Today, Arkansas announced a new men's track coach. It was not the current assistant that a group of Razorback athletes started an on-line petition to support. Nor was it the person that board posters were pushing, using the student-athlete petition as underpinning support.

Jeff Long got asked earlier in the week by one of the local papers about the athlete's on-line effort. He stepped right up, and answered. Today, the other local paper took its turn.

"My decision out there was to hire the best coach for those student-athletes," Long said. "Was I concerned they started a Web site? No, I wasn't concerned as long as they represented their thoughts and feelings in an appropriate way. And they did."

Long's been consistent on this, and the key thought is right there -- as long as they represented their thoughts and feelings in an appropriate way. That's a welcome, forward approach to the brave new Web 2.0 world we live in.

Whole stories from today's hiring in the Morning News and the earlier story about the petition from the Northwest Arkansas Times.

The Rules of Engagement, Part Deux

More thoughts -- these from the conclusion of next week's CoSIDA presentation:

The key is engagement, not enforcement. There is a certain amount of policing of basic copyright. It is established that rights holders can claim the performance as their intellectual property, including the statistical representation. Here is where the real-time internet policies simultaneously get it and miss it. While for some it is about access and credentials, for the vast majority it is not. The greatest enemy? Maybe Steve Jobs and the iPhone – a dedicated transaction blogger only needs to see what is happening. A ticket and a 3G data plan takes care of that; or in the case of one prominent on-line media and the 2008 NCAA Indoor Track Meet, a free video stream and a couch. Commentary is the coin of the relm, and the B&B crowd want to express their opinion about events. The real power of the boards and blogs: amplification. Who’s message do you want to reinforce?

If I can encourage one thing, it is a frank discussion with the administration about the rules of engagement. Define them now before the opinion crisis begins. Consistency in using whatever policy is created is important. This has a legal component as well as a public relations component. There aren’t a pair of stone tablets with 10 rules to lead the athletic department. The solutions created when I was with the Arkansas women’s athletic department are not the ones that fit your athletic department. In building the system that works at your institution, consider the old five W’s as the guideline.

Well, There's Some Media Parking

I'll leave the school nameless, but the signage that greets media.

Not sure if its a statement or not.

Starting the Conversation

I mentioned this a few weeks ago, and will bring it up again at the panel. Every institution will have a different approach. Some will be direct. Some will use WOMMA-style groups. Some will continue to not engage. But even the decision to not allow your staff to officially post information or return "media" requests from citizen media is a set of rules of engagement.

In drafting your own rules, here are some parameters to consider:

Monitoring -- yes or no. For heaven's sake, I hope we've reached the point now where this really isn't a question anymore. The media reads it. The fans read it. Why on God's great internet would you want to be ignorant? This runs back to the old school thought that if we just don't acknowledge it, we won't give it any credibility. That didn't work with talk radio. It really isn't working with B&B. Perhaps the larger question is will you publicly admit your read and monitor the B&B. Better say yes -- any of those boards that require registration have your IP address (see posting for more).

Posting -- yes or no. If yes, will you post "in the open" under your own names. I have an opinion here -- my screen name is Bill_Smith. The reason? The smart B&B crowd already know your subnet. If they're FOI fiends, they probably have your IP table anyway. The likelihood of you being revealed as SuperHogDude is extremely high. When they do, it will shred the credibility you may have built up.

When and what to post. My personal policy was to only engage to answer a direct question (is there a press conference today? what time is the game tonight? did we sign anyone today?) or to correct an obvious factual error (no, the current coach's record against school X is not worse than the previous coach). I never, ever, tried to sway opinions. If I can correct factual errors that are underpinning poor opinions, that will achieve the goal. More important, it's they're opinion and fans are entitled to have them.

Credentialing. This is the next great hurdle. Tread with care. SuperHogDude is the correspondent for HogDudes.com, but he just might be a lawyer (or have lawyer friends as board members). Consider that the metrics are changing. Consider that you may want to have a blogger box or blogger board (as in group).

Consistency. The most important part of how you engage (or not engage) the B&B. Whatever you decide, stick with it and enforce it evenly.

Plain Language Signage

The door sign for room 1021 at Beard-Eaves-Memorial Coliseum.

Also known as the main basketball court.

Simple. Straight forward.

How Can You Keep Up?

More small chunks of thought going into the CoSIDA presentation:

Community is the essence of Web 2.0, and the same applies to monitoring. Building your athletic department’s community starts with trust. While there are legal limits even in a public institution, the more information that is shared the better educated both the monitors and the fans will be toward the athletic department. The insider group is a prime example. Not only can they share and support the message of the department, they can watch and listen for problems, particularly with the fan base. Tap into the sport staff. At most schools, the coaching staff is charged with monitoring the social networking activity of student-athletes. There is no need to duplicate that function within the media relations office as long as there is trust that the coaching staff will alert the SIDs. Here’s a hint for the coach: there’s no such thing as you caught that Facebook post in time. Poor Andy Robinson at University of Buffalo found that out the hard way. Same can be said right at home when Patrick Beverly made a wall post that he was thinking about leaving Arkansas.

The key is distributed monitoring. No single person can keep up with every sport at your school, but as a part of the individual sport contact’s duties they can monitor what’s happening within that sport. This is more than checking the local boards that follow the institution. Encourage them to know where the national and regional boards are about their sport. Frankly, the less visible the sport the more important these communities are to the participants. Everyone wants media coverage, and absent traditional brick-and-mortar sportswriters the vacuum will be filled by pro-ams.

The End for Old Media

Continuing on the early previews of the presentation for CoSIDA:

The current business model of traditional journalism is gone. The iceburg was struck two years ago, and only now are people beginning to understand the ship is sinking. Newspapers are slashing editorial positions with literally hundreds from some of the brand names of the business: New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times. In the past month alone, the local news operations of one of the fastest growing segments – Spanish language television – were shut down by one of the largest Univision conglomerates. Layoffs and non-renewals of experienced, high-salaried television talent is a weekly event. In June, U.S. News and World Report announced they were going to a biweekly format, with daily reports on the website. Closer to home, the very next day, Sporting News announced they were going to the biweekly format and a Digital Daily.

Meanwhile, the unemployed are not going away. They are going on-line. The fired lead meteorologists in Minneapolis and Charlotte created local webcasts to compete with their former employers. They join the Multi-Medias that were already there, making the most of their brand by selling it on the internet while keeping primary jobs in the traditional media and talk radio. This complicates the job of the media relations director. How? More traditionally trained journalists interested in upholding standards on the internet is a bad thing?

This comes back to the legitimacy question. Since the beginning of Audit Bureau and Nielson, the importance of a media outlet was easily defined by common metrics: circulation and viewership. Both were functions of capital. Increasing either measure required lots of money. For decades, press credentials were dolled out based on this pyramid of importance: national dailies, statewide dailies, circulation over 10,000, and so on. What is the measure of internet legitimacy? Click through, page views, unique visitors, persistence on page – each has its place but none are universal. As a result, the blogger or board owner that builds up substantial numbers not only presents a threat to the institution’s reputation, they can make a serious legal case that they have similar audience standing as the traditional media sitting in the press box. Consider that the last time our hometown newspaper reported circulation to the ABC it stood at roughly 15,000; this year the leading message board had over 20,000 members.

OK, Choose One

The latest in the Road Sign series: A confused set of warning signs in the downtown Lexington, Ky., area.

More on the AP War

Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine.com was pretty clear in today's Washington Times:

"Back off, AP. Because we won't."

The blogosphere was set on fire by AP's plan to require pull quotes to be paid for by on-line media. In the Washington Times story, there are some more details on how the one-time alliance between new and old media has broken down.

But as always, the best stuff is the mudslinging. Michelle Malkin looked as the schedule of payment and estimated AP owes her just over $130,000 -- yes, that's six-figures. DailyKos labeled AP idiots. Back to Malkin: AP's "heavy-handed attempt to bully bloggers is schadenfreude-licious."

Oops. I guess I owe somebody about $10.75.

If back in the day, we once counseled coaches and ADs to avoid pissing battles with people who buy ink by the barrel, perhaps the traditional media should take the Dan Rather warning and not jerk around the mass that is the new media. There's a heck of a lot more of them than you.

Maybe I should recast that metaphor -- the AP just rolled into the Little Bighorn Valley.

One Line Says It All

Finding ideas that reinforce your own is great. Sometimes I worry that this becomes one of the dangers of the internet -- if your physically immediate community doesn't agree with you, you can always find someone out there that does. Thus, the strength of the Web 2.0 SNW world -- the very Second Life aspect -- which leads to a weakening and fracturing of local communities.

That dark thought said, here's a perfect, one-line summation of the communication change. I discovered it while listening to one of my favorite podcasts, WeatherBrains. It's a podcast for weather geeks, but the guys that run it are very cutting edge when it comes to new media. A recent guest is the living embodiment of the problems with traditional media's financial model. He was let go as the staff weather guy in a major cutback due to falling revenue. As the highest paid, first to go.

Sounds pretty bad, yes? Not for him. He gets it, and was discussing that the future for weather in the media was directed content and on-line presentation. He's moving on, and had this very prescient comment:

Find ways to turn a speech into a conversation

V-8 moment. This is the essence of Web 2.0. It dovetails nicely with my posts (there's that reinforcement thing), but expresses the point better.

Some Local Press on the SNW

One of our local newspapers, the Morning News of Northwest Arkansas, ran a sports enterprise series this past weekend on social networking websites and college athletics. There are some very good stories for others to note. Ryan Malashock came up with one that was new to me that I found very important. University of Buffalo basketball player Andy Robinson made a one-hour mistake on his Facebook, frustrated over not getting an assignment done. Read the impact here.

You also get to see the impact of small Facebook changes, like the firestorm set off by one of our own basketball players making a post on his wall. The last part covers how new athletic director Jeff Long and men's basketball coach John Pelphrey are well in tune with the impact.

Some Signs are Just Unfortunate

I got nothing.

Actually, in fairness to Vandy, this is part of the sleep disorder center co-located in the Marriott near the athletic facilities.

This is reminiscent of one of the greatest directional signs of all time. It no longer exists, and the facility is now closed. At Florida, the original university-run hotel had a basement level that connected out to the parking deck. It was little more than a long, windowless narrow hall terminating in an elevator. Very Steven King.

Directly across from the elevator, where you could not miss it every time you got out, was a sign:

"FORENSIC PSYCHOLOGY DEPARTMENT"

Parse that for a minute. It's late. It's dark. Maybe it's even stormy outside. Now, you've got to walk down this service hallway. The lights occasionally flicker. You're hoping that they're not working on Jason or Freddie.

When Words Cost

Associated Press is already backing away from an attempt to become the text version of the RIAA -- charging bloggers by the word for excerpts posted by non-AP members. Recall earlier we had AP making a deal for a new direct to iPhone service -- to which I immediately said, "and who pays for it?"

So in a pretty blatant attempt to crush fair use in the pursuit of the desperate need to pay for the services of AP, we get a rate card that calls for bloggers to pay a floating scale depending on how many words they use. Obviously, you get a heck of a discount when you buy over 251 words, a mere $100. A short quote is pretty pricey -- 5 to 25 words go for $12.50.

As a result, AP as served some cease and desist letters, and pulled them back according to the New York Times.

At the risk of blowback, here is the money quote from the NYT story, quoting Jim Kennedy, the VP and "strategy director" of AP.

“We don’t want to cast a pall over the blogosphere by being heavy-handed, so we have to figure out a better and more positive way to do this,” Mr. Kennedy said.

I can tell you where this is headed. Universities will begin to lock down the use of press releases by the B&B community. Pro sports have already broken the seal on these kinds of content restrictions on the argument that they "own the performance." That, after all, is the SOP in the entertainment community.

The end result -- everyone loses. Content gets locked up in digital gated communities. The free flow of ideas and information is lost. In the gap, cascades of fark and propaganda fill the vacuum.

It may not be a total loss. The Web 2.0 community might just take a page from the history books and employ an island-hopping campaign against the established media. Simply go around them and leave them to their own little domains, left to starve as their resources are cut off.

The Jesus Principal

Mark 16:15 tells you everything you as the sports media relations person needs to know about dealing with the bloggers and boarders:

Go into all the world and preach the good news to every creature

Now, I'm not about to put on a rainbow afro wig and start showing up in the endzone waiving a Mark 16:15 sign. Truth be told, I had to google it.

That does not make this point false: Jesus went to where the sinners were.

Simple. If you are concerned about what the B&B world is saying, you've got to do the dirty work and reach out to them. Every day I read or hear of another SID who has hardened his shell against the slings and arrows of the internet, and dismiss the people who make the posts as hiding behind anonymous postings.

This comes from experience. If you step into the room and turn on the light, the cockroaches will scurry and the angry dogs will growl. Very, very few dogs were born mean. Somebody had to make them that way.

Angry B&B traffic more often than not comes from a lack of information. Withholding information only makes it worse. And the only thing worse than that -- excuse-making spin.

In my classes -- both the SID one at UA and my history ones at NWACC -- I use Richard Nixon as the perfect example. In domestic policy, Nixon probably did more to shape the country we live in today than any recent president. He certainly did the same in foreign policy.

But Nixon lives in infamy because he screwed up massively in trying to game the system to his advantage then cover it up when his people made mistakes.

Ask yourself this question: Did Nixon get run from office because a bunch of over-zealous staffers broke the law, perhaps at his direction? Or did he lose his job because he worked overtime to cover it up?

Back to the B&B's. If you have owners that routinely allow false information to remain on-line, pick up the phone or send an email to politely correct the false information. Talking to these potential opinion shapers is no different than trying to correct errors with the traditional media. More times than not, they just want to be heard. Some of them won't listen, but the ones that do will become your allies -- your WOMMA group -- to help do battle with the fringe.

Our business has always been, and shall always be, about relationships. Even with Raman noodle and Cheeto dust sinners. So go forth and tell the good stories of your athletic department to every form of media.

Another from the Bellows Beach

This was also at Bellows Beach in Hawai'i -- great personality to the oops guy on the warning.

There's also a lot of truth to this. We'd stopped at another beach on the way, and the locals said, listen mainlander, you might want to pick another beach because of the same warning sign. Except at that beach, they'd had a pretty regular run of broken bones from people crushed against the rocks and sea floor with the shore break.

We splashed a bit, got whipped by one of those breakers and decided yep, time to move on.

On the way back, we saw the rescue crew at that beach -- the sign was right.

Vaulting Well is the Best Revenge

I get the same question from coaches and athletes, both at Arkansas and at other institutions: what do I do about negative message board posts? My firm belief is it's hard to openly battle opinions, but you can correct factual errors. Otherwise, let your performance speak for you.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Katie Stripling, Arkansas pole vaulter. Two weeks ago, a horrible day at the regionals left one of the nation's top vaulters out of the NCAAs. Then her coach, Brian Compton, recognized a rule that could put her back into the nationals. He used it. She advanced. And the howling began, notably on one national vaulting message board.

Katie and Compton were called everything in the book. All on line. All for the world to see. Did they strike back? Not on the internet, but in Des Moines. From today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette story:

"They were pretty angry," Stripling said, referring to some posts on the Web site PoleVaultPower. com. "It gave me more determination and motivation to prove people wrong. I used it to help me."

Here's a tip to the B&B crowd: Remember what you're high school coach said -- don't give them any bulletin board material. Instead of making Katie curl up into a fetal position with their stinging riposte, these anonymous writers inspired her.

Before we go much further, for those not up on NCAA pole vault marks, Stripling had the nation's No. 2 mark at 14 feet, 2 inches heading into the meet. That speaks less to the argument an obscure rule was used to advance her to the national championship than to the painfully obvious fact that it's not really a fight for the best in the nation if someone who was ranked second during the year was left home.

Stripling got the cold shoulder from competitors; she let her pole do the talking. Her coach added the punctuation. Again from the ADG:

"She shut the critics up on the pole vaulting Web sites and blogs," Compton said. "They don't understand the rules. If they knew them, they would have used them, too."

Let's parse it out. Stoic athlete ignores the jeers of the crowd on her way to success. Great, that's pretty classic. Why not take the full high-road approach and not even acknowledge the message boards? Even better, why pay any attention to them?

Because this is 2008, and that approach is not functional. First and foremost, the athletes read everything because they live in the highly integrated socially networked world.

When I'm asked by shocked colleagues about why I spend a portion of my day -- and encourage our staff to do so in their specialty areas -- reading what is out there, this is the perfect example. It's really not an option because the media is reading it. The B&B (boards and blogs) are a force multiplier for the ever shrinking manpower of the newsroom. I encourage the pros reading this blog to take in the full story at the ADG. The athlete and the coach didn't make the blog posting important, the media did when they asked them about it. And on this day, it became the story -- the headline was Stripling's Effort Answers Criticism.

16th century Welsh poet and clergyman George Herbert may have first penned the phrase "Living Well is the Best Revenge," but Katie Stripling's all-American third-place performance at Des Moines certainly updated it for the 21st century.