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Buzz Watch: Google Current TV and NYT Popcast

Authored by Jay Baage on September 8, 2006 - 9:06am.
New York Times PopcastThere is a lot of experimentation going on about what content works and what doesn’t work on new media platforms. Unfortunately, it seems like the majority of content does not work. But when it works, it works exceedingly well. Here are two good examples: Google Current TV, basically a short web TV news program based on what people are searching on, and NYT Popcast, a weekly audio guide to new music by the pop critics and writers from the New York Times.

For those of you who read my blog regularly, you know that I am a big fan of looking at quantifiable “buzz” on the Internet as one of the best ways of measuring what people care about, as well as the true impact of marketing. After having spent many years in “old media” newsrooms, where almighty editors tell reporters and the audience what they should care about, it is really refreshing to see more and more examples of citizen journalism.

Along those lines is Google’s experiment with Current TV – a newscast based on what people are searching on using Google’s search engine. This is how the program is described on the website: “Google Current airs every half hour on Current TV and provides a look at what the world is searching for on Google. From hybrid cars to human-animal hybrids, from Paris riots to Paris Hilton photos, your searches guide our stories. There's nothing like it on television.”

If advertisers already have understood that the future of advertising is in its accountability - which is one of the main reasons behind the success of Google - it will not be long until news junkies will do the same. This is also one of the reasons that the evening news on the major television networks has seen such a major decline in the last years. First, people get their news from the Internet and other sources during the day. Second, an uptight “voice-of-god” anchor in a suit and tie is not what young people want to see when they get home after a long day at work when kicking back. Did you know that the average viewer of the evening news is over 60 years old?

Another, perhaps unlikely, new platform favorite of mine is New York Times Popcast. This weekly guide to new music has become something that I look forward to every week. It is one of those things that should not work - old newspaper writers talking in a monotonous tone about young and hip pop music. But it does work and it is great! It is quite a treat to hear a Times critic discussing and analyzing Beyonce’s lyrics or Jessica Simpson’s new style of music and how it relates to her break-up with her ex-husband Nick Lachey.

Related Links:
http://www.current.tv/google/GC01934
http://www.nytimes.com/services/xml/rss/nyt/podcasts/musicreview.xml



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