Top IT News Picks of the New York Tech Crowd

Posted on August 31, 2016 by rgeller

Someone posted the question “HELP! What are the top sites where you get IT grid-1511497_1920news?” on the NY Tech Meetup mailing list last week. This prompted a frenzied exchange of emails. I chimed in, and followed the conversation with great interest.

Why is it at all interesting what a few NYTM members think about IT news? First, I find it challenging to get any useful feedback along these lines – and this can be frustrating for someone whose job is to get clients PR results. When I ask what people read, and how they get their tech news, I often get shrugs and blank looks (probably because they are getting news from social media, where the original source can be obscured). So it is a step forward when people loudly and passionately name their choices.

Also, the NYTM crowd is a nice microcosm of the tech startup world as it includes programmers, project managers, CTOs, entrepreneurs and investors in NYC, a hot bed of innovation second only to Silicon Valley. They’re great folks to ask about this.

The Thread

The fun started when, Gartner Webinars Host Nancy Northrop emailed:

So, my boss just asked me to come up with a top 10 list of websites where IT people get their news and info. Can you help me out? Where do YOU get your news?

I was one of the first to reply:

Happy to help but need more info – by “IT news” do you mean B2B, enterprise IT?

There are tons of blogs and sites for IT tech and many good ones – some like TechCrunch cover startup and Silicon Valley news – others cover specific segments like big data, ad tech, fin tech, IT strategy (like CIO), etc.

Others cover developer topics and others, still, the data center, cloud, OSS, etc.

As the responses started coming in, she explained further:

I would say large and enterprise IT. CIOs, CTOs, CDOs and other leaders (or future leaders). Can be B2B or B2C. What these people add to their Flipboard/check daily, etc. Thanks everyone! Getting really good ideas.

TechCrunch, or not TechCrunch?

Back in the day we used to joke that every startup just wanted to be in the Wall Street Journal. These days, TechCrunch stands out as the top pick. So I was curious to read the thoughts here. Of course, I called TC out in my initial response.

There were mixed opinions. One person wrote: TechCrunch.com the one and only.

To this, another replied: First off, I wouldn’t have a single source of tech news as “my one and only”, and especially not TechCrunch.

Popular Picks

There were only a small number of names consistently cited:

  • TechCrunch
  • CIO Magazine
  • The Verge
  • Stack Overflow
  • Hacker News
  • Tech Smash
  • Network World

The top picks were otherwise all over the place. The next section has examples.

The Lists

I checked with each person for permission to report their top choices; the unnamed ones below could not be reached or requested anonymity.

Anonymous (Instructional Technology Specialist)

  • Wired News
  • Mashable
  • CIO Magazine
  • CNET News
  • CNET Reviews
  • Computerworld
  • DMNews.com
  • E-Commerce Times
  • Information Week
  • InfoWorld
  • Network Computing
  • NetworkWorld
  • RCR Wireless News
  • SearchITChannel.com
  • SiliconValley.com
  • Sys-Con Italia
  • Tech Republic
  • Techzone360
  • TMC Net

Miles Rose (of SiliconAlley.com fame)

  • Stackoverflow
  • Ars technica
  • Quora
  • Check Apple News and see what comes up under IT

Guillermo Garcia (founder of Vinter.tv)

  • The Verge (nicest to read, the one I start with)
  • Crunchbase (acquisitions, investment rounds…)
  • Techcrunch
  • Hacker News
  • Some Reddit channels
  • Stack Overflow (coding wouldn’t be what it is without this)
  • Venture Beat

Anonymous (developer)

  • Reddit
  • Hacker News (but not nearly as much as Reddit)
  • Network World
  • The Register aka “El Reg”
  • BBC
  • xda-developers
  • Drupal.org and Planet Drupal
  • Boy Genius Report
  • To a lesser extent newspapers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal
  • A whole bunch of people on YouTube including

Niche News

A couple of emailers cited Apple and Android-related blogs, like MacSurfer, and a digital media workflow engineer highlighted the importance of security tech: A lot of what enterprise IT needs is SECURITY. I didn’t see anything specifically addressing how enterprises can keep up with appropriate countermeasures. My goto is the Content Security and Security Association (CSDA) and their Cyber Security News…

Influencers

Influencers can guide you to the important news items, and sometimes also produce editorial content.

Edward Potter shared the names and Twitter tags of the following, and wrote

..Can branch off to their followers. Not where you’ll find a review of new routers, more like what life will be like in 2750, tech focused. 🙂 The 1000 mile high view people:

Non-news News

Many mistakenly throw other types of sites into the “IT news ” mix. For example, one emailer mentioned a vendor site (Cyware). Another cited Twitter as his primary online news source. Yet another called out this type of misunderstanding:

…although they’re definitely useful in other ways, I personally wouldn’t consider StackOverflow or Quora as a “source for tech news”. They’re sources for tech answers

 

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Lessons in Tech Branding from Rock Icons

Posted on August 23, 2016 by rgeller

Inspiration can come from funny places – if you are in tech marketing, perhaps you’ll like rock-2099_640the following story about branding, which offers lessons from the world of rock music.

The Music and Branding Connection

I am a big fan of podcasts, and like listening to them while jogging. I’m also a music lover. A few years ago, I discovered Sound Opinions, a superb forum in which rock critics Greg Kot and Jim DeRagotis discuss music news, interview bands, host impromptu performances and dissect new album releases. They cover pretty much all genres of popular music, and it’s a great way to discover up-and-coming artists, niche players and forgotten classics.

After I heard their latest and ran through much of Sound Opinions’ back catalog, I was in search of another music-related podcast and stumbled upon My Favorite Album, hosted by Aussie Jeremy Dylan. He’s a music industry filmmaker and journalist who invites noted musicians into his studio to discuss records that greatly influenced them.

Recently, talented sideman Mike Bloom (who plays guitar for Julian Casablancis of The Strokes fame) was on to discuss Jimi Hendrix’s Axis Bold as Love, the classic that included the song Little Wing. This inevitably got to how Hendrix was perceived and classified.

Here’s an excerpt:

Dylan: He’s not just a raucous, incredible guitar player … It’s so far beyond that, and probably gets a little bit lost…. There is a tendency to put a reductive label or classification on any significant artist just because it’s easier…

Bloom: To brand…

Dylan: Yea… I remember reading a Taylor Swift interview when someone asked “Aren’t you pissed off all these people think you’re just some girl who just writes revenge songs about her ex-boyfriends all the time?”

She said “People are busy… Most aren’t playing that close attention. They can only hold maybe one idea or a couple of adjectives about some celebrity they’ve never met in their head at one time.”

So with Jimi Hendrix, the version of that is… Jimi Hendrix, wild man who set his guitar on fire and played it with his teeth and behind his head, and was the loudest, most raucous electric blues rock guitar player of all time… and that’s his theme, so that’s what most people think Jimi Hendrix is.

In the same way, Paul McCartney is upbeat, silly love songs

Bob Dylan is lots of words and vaguely political stuff

Bloom: Of course everything needs to be distilled down to a way it can be consumed I guess…

Dylan: Yes, even though there’s massive contrasts, contradictions and nuances and other dynamics to their art, and them as people, but there’s the one thing, idea that most people have about then.

Similarly, tech companies have “many contrasts and nuances”. Yet the famous names conjure quick associations (e.g. Apple is the stylish design-driven leader in consumer tech. IBM, the Big Blue diversified IT tech nerd, etc).

What words do people associate with your brand? Do you agree with them? Would you prefer other words?

Bucket, Bucket, Who’s Got the Bucket?

Of course tech is big, growing, generally very competitive, and this makes it harder for new entrants to get recognized and build brands. Even established companies sometimes need to rebrand. The NY Times covered this in the article When Every Company is a Tech Company does the Label Matter? The story said that GE, an old line diversified industrial and financial services company (until recently), now wants to be known for advanced research and technology.

Doubtless, a lot of this gets to opportunism and money. Categories and labels have their own brand associations and perceived value. The markets reward companies in hot areas like tech (and trending segments like Big Data) with higher valuations.

Within tech there are many categories and sub-categories, as mapped out by the Gartner Magic Quadrant reports. There are many genres and sub-genres of music, too – about 1,400, according to this NY Times article The Psychology of Genre. It says:

“We listeners are endless and instinctual categorizers, allotting everything its spot like bins in a record store… Categories help us manage the torrent of information we receive and sort the world into easier-to-read patterns.”

It goes on to further describe perception vs. reality and what happens when there is a disconnect:

“This ‘categorical perception,’as it’s called, is not an innocent process: What we think we’re looking at can alter what we actually see… When we struggle to categorize something, we like it less,” due to something researchers call “cognitive disfluency.”

Does your company fit neatly into an established category? Are you disrupting an existing space or is the technology a totally new “species?”

It’s important to carefully think through these things, as there are pros and cons to just fitting in vs, trying to blaze a new trail.

Additionally, tech can also be used to generate revenue through concerts, events, gigs, etc. You may have to adjust your budget and find out what ticket price would maximize revenue to benefit you. You can use software and other resources to monetize your artistry and plan your live music performance. It is essential to explore the various facilities tech can provide to accomplish success in the music industry.

Conclusion

In a noisy world, the brand is an immutable concept, shorthand that can help you be understood and recognized. But first, it needs to be known.

The branding can just happen (like your name, everyone has one) but given its importance why not decide what you want it to represent, and proactively build it?

It’s easy to get distracted, and taken in by the latest shiny new marketing toy. Writing for TechCrunch, Samuel Scott urged marketers to look past trendy concepts and embrace the cornerstones. For example instead of focusing on content marketing, they should “practice real marketing and brand building.” Absolutely.

But what do you do when your company doesn’t fit neatly into an established category? After all, isn’t technology constantly changing, rendering segments obsolete and spawning new ones (Facebook’s motto is “move fast and break things”)?

I include a couple of my earlier posts, on this topic below, and welcome a conversation with you about this – please comment or click here to learn more.

Assume the Positioning: Words that work in Tech PR

Cracking the Quadrant: Confessions of a Former Gartner Analyst

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Huffington Goes Viral with Data Science – You can Too

Posted on August 9, 2016 by rgeller
Cross posted on Hack the Feed

My recent posts have explored how publishers are working with social platforms to expand audience and IMG_2875adapt story telling formats (see Publishers & Platforms In a Relationship, and Platforms as Publishers: 6 Key Takeaways for Brands). They reported the experiences of social teams and editors at some of the largest broadcast, print daily and native web outlets.

Those featured, however, didn’t go into detail on the role of advertising to boost reach.

At last week’s NY Data Science Meetup (at Metis NYC) we learned how the Huffington Post, the largest social publisher, is using data science to better understand which articles can benefit from a promotional push. Their efforts have propelled merely popular stories into through-the-roof viral successes.

The meetup was about Data Science in the Newsroom. Data science is certainly a hot topic with many asking what is a data pipeline or what is a data engineer? Geetu Ambwani, Principal Data Scientist at Huffington Post, recalled the days when their editors monitored searches trending on Google to inform content creation and curation. Since then it is a new game, as more people are discovering and consuming news through social media.

In an age of distributed news, HuffPo needed a new approach.

Data across the Content Life Cycle

Geetu discussed the role of data in the content life cycle spanning the creation, distribution, and consumption. For creation, there are tools to discover trends, enhance and optimize content, and flag sensitive topics. Their RobinHood platform improves image usage and the all-important headline.

Geetu’s favorite part, she said, was exploring the “content gap” between what they write and what people want to read. It’s a tension that must be carefully considered – otherwise writers might be tempted to focus on fluff pieces vs. important news stories. It’s an interesting field to go into and many people are considering data science careers nowadays, especially as it looks as though it’s going to have a long and prosperous future.

When it comes to consumption, data can even be used to improve the user experience – e.g. via recommendations and personalization. Correspondingly, using data analytics tools (take a look at the site here to learn more) to parse customer data can allow sales and service teams to gain in-depth insights into consumer trends and behavior patterns, which could allow them to predict the results of future marketing campaigns and provide clients with up-to-date information.

Project Fortune Teller: Data Predict Viral Success

Geetu and her team turned to data science to help with distribution. “The social networks are the new home page – we need to be where the audience is,” she said.

Only a small percentage of their stories get significant page views on the web. Performance on social often varies by platform. The team honed the content mix for each to improve engagement. Part of this was determining which articles out of the 1000 daily stories should get an extra boost.

Geetu wondered if they could mine data to spot the ones that have “legs” beyond early popularity. With this info in hand, they could promote these with high value ads, and populate Trending Now and Recommendation widgets to further boost sharing and reach.

And thus , Project Fortune Teller was born. The team looked for winners according to a range of data such as web traffic growth, and social consumption and sharing. But it was no easy task. There are many variables to consider. They needed to determine the optimal time window, as some articles take a bit longer to start to trend. Finally, they intentionally excluded hot news stories, instead focusing on evergreen content that was resonating.

Geetu and her team mined historical data, using time series analysis to build a model (for more details, see this SlideShare presentation). They notified the content promotion staff when there was a likely winner. The resulting quick action turned popular articles into viral successes.

Do you want to achieve data-driven content marketing success? Click here to find out how.

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Facebook Calls the News Shots, Upending Media and Marketing

Posted on July 14, 2016 by rgeller

I generally don’t chase breaking news stories – my posts come once or twice a week at most. This may stormy-1472633_1920seem a disadvantage in the fast moving world of social media. But the slower pace affords some perspective – I try to look beyond the quick headline, see the bigger picture and connect the dots for readers.

And experience has shown that if I miss one news cycle, there will be another right around the corner.

For example, in just a few short weeks, Facebook drew fire for apparent bias in their Trending Now feature. Research came out confirming that it is the number one social network for news – and the chief way many of us get our news. The company changed its algorithm, decreasing the organic reach of publishers. And just this week they’re again catching flack – this time, for not seeming to think through implications of Facebook Live, as citizen journalists broadcast raw footage faster than Facebook can filter the streams (see Farhad Manjoo’s NY Times piece).

On the one hand you have admire their continued innovation. Facebook never stands still, always seems ready to shake things up to keep users engaged and coming back. On the other, you wonder how much they’ve thought through all the implications. It’s a little like the proverbial dog chasing a car. Facebook has caught the news “car”, now what does it do?

They seem to be playing all sides, trying to make everyone happy while increasing their influence. There have been the predictable media responses about impact on journalism, echo chambers and trivializing of news.

The reality is, news is is in the eyes of the beholder – and in a content and algorithm-driven world, Facebook – increasingly the arbiter – says News with a capital N needs to get in line.

Meanwhile, media should adapt their strategies, as it is clearly a mistake to focus on Facebook and platforms at the expense of cultivating other sources of traffic and attention.

Marketers go where media and users do – so they need to take a fresh look and revise their play books.

As to the impact on users, and society at large? There, I am not so concerned. We continue to have endless choices of info, news, opinion and analysis.

If people want to rely on Facebook to stay informed, that is their prerogative. If they want to ignore news and spend their time with baby pictures, that is fine too. These are likely the same people who looked no farther than the bridge of their nose for other views before Facebook.

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Israeli Startups Join Axis Innovation at NYSE

Posted on June 27, 2016 by rgeller

I had the great pleasure of attending an event hosted by Axis Innovation this IMG_2843morning at the NYSE.  It featured presentations from nine hot Israeli startups and culminated in a visit to the floor of the exchange, where we watched the opening bell ceremony.

Axis is an advisory firm that connects investors and corporations with tech startups. The event was part of a road show to investors, and one of many that Axis hosts in  cities around the world.  The company is based in Tel Aviv, and also operates in NYC.

According to their website, the NYSE session front-ended a  two day event that includes “leading Israeli series A tech startups and US VCs, angels, and corporate investors… to develop business opportunities and ultimately make deals.”

Below I share highlights of each presenting company.

Datomia

They redefine how data is stored and transferred in the cloud, to maximize security and throughput.

Eco-Fusion

Eco-Fusion’s app personalizes digital medicine to assist in preventing and managing chronic diseases.

Fringefy

They’re developing the next generation of visual search for mobile and connected devices with advanced computer vision tech.

Medivizor

They are an antidote to our tendency to consult “Dr. Google” – Medivizor tailors personal health info and updates, based on the specific of each medical situation in an easily understandable and actionable way.

Optibus

Optibus enables a better public transportation system through efficient and real-time scheduling and control.  It dovetails nicely with trends like urbanization and self-driving vehicles.

Pocket Cause

Pocket Cause makes it easy to donate from your mobile device, and integrates with charitable websites. They are seeking to disrupt and improve the $26B online donation industry.

PrivatEquity.biz

It’s a global online platform where investors can access the securities of pre-IPO companies from employees, former employees, founders and other shareholders.

ScanTask

They have developed a field-proven Saas agronomic platform that mitigates agricultural risks and improves farmer profits while giving corporations, governments and FIs ways to track and benchmark remote growers.

SecBI

Unsupervised machine learning tech that outwits the hackers and mimics an expert cybersecurity analyst. SecBI reduces breach response time and optimizes mitigation.

The Catholic Charities rang the opening bell; in a bit of gallows humor, one person wondered aloud whether last rites or a sermon might be more appropriate, given the concerns about the markets’ continued reaction to the Brexit vote.

Posted in Events, NY Tech, PR, PR Tech, Public Relations, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

“Buzzword Bake-off” Reveals the Most Hyped Tech Terms

Posted on June 22, 2016 by rgeller

Although we use lots of buzzwords in the tech industry, we don’t often consider how and why. My story in MarketingProfs examines their importance and role. It drills down on Big Data and compares related hype to other buzzed-about topics, like IoT and Virtual Reality.

Is it true, as Data-Driven NYC Meetup organizer Matt Turck said, that Big Data sounds “increasingly three years ago?” Was Gartner Group correct in retiring the term from their 2015 Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies? Which topics come out ahead in the buzzword bakeoff?

The MarketingProfs article takes a data-driven approach to answering these questions, relying on powerful software from NewsWhip, which sifts media and online buzz to see which come out ahead. Data from the NewsWhip report was used to generate the Infographic, which was produced by Venngage, with assistance from Nadya Khoja.

 

“Big Data” Birth And (Reported) Death Of A BuzzwordInfographic

 

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1 More Reason for Media to Hate Tech; Thanks Peter Thiel

Posted on June 8, 2016 by rgeller

Long time readers of this blog may recall my Extreme Media Relations series, about those wordcloud (2)who go overboard to sway the press. It’s been years, but I thought I’d post another just for Peter Thiel.

In case you’ve been living under a rock, he recently proudly admitted to underwriting Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit against Gawker for their publishing of a sex tape featuring the wrestler. The suit resulted in a $140M judgment against the blog.  Thiel was settling an old score, as Gawker outed him as gay years ago.

Internet billionaire, champion of odd causes, Trump delegate, comic book superhero – say what you want about Peter Thiel – he went ahead and made the situation just a little harder if you are in tech marketing and PR.

There’s already been a pall over the tech industry. The negativity emanates from Silicon Valley but extends well beyond.  It’s been fueled by perceived entitlement of the Valley’s denizens, and questions about absurd unicorn valuations for tech startups.

Throw into the mix concerns that tech is eating media’s lunch. The social networks’ news clout is growing (recall the recent flap over apparent bias in Facebook Trending Now), while media properties are struggling and journalist jobs are declining.

Then a swashbuckling Internet billionaire comes along and crushes a well-known blog with his wallet, threatening free speech and the hallowed halls of journalism.

Well, not exactly. The judge ruled that Hogan’s video was not protected journalism. But I’ll let you guess (or just do a Google search) as to the tone and sentiment of resulting press coverage – it has been overwhelmingly anti-Thiel, by my reckoning.

So you have all the ingredients for a press corps that is generally paranoid and burned out on tech. The poisoned atmosphere causes collateral damage for those nowhere near the Valley or elite VC ecosystem.

This NY Times article title captures the discord: Tech Titans Raise their Guard, Pushing Back Against News Media.  And here’s a quote from this NY Times article that caught my attention:

“Silicon Valley likes to keep the media on a tight leash. Tech executives expect obedience, if not reverence, from reporters. They dole out information as grudgingly as possible. Sometimes they simply buy a chunk of a publication, a time-honored method of influencing what is deemed fit to write about.”

Really? Puh-leeeease. I’d love to hear from my friends and readers, especially the ones who work in tech and promote companies from Silicon Valley and other locales.

Does this sound like the world you know?

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No Accounting for Bias?

Posted on May 17, 2016 by rgeller

There’s one thing that could put the whole Facebook Trending News bias controversy to monkey-236864_1920rest – but I haven’t seen it yet.

In case you are not familiar with the story, Gizmodo ran this piece last week: Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed Conservative Views. The story hit a nerve, given election season timing and concerns about the growing influence of Facebook and other social networks.

To quell the controversy, Facebook made a number of statements and released details of their process for how the trending news “sausage” is made (which was a real page turner for news feed geeks like me).

These moves did not settle the matter.  The major news organizations covered the details – but predictably and ironically from their left and right leaning perspectives.

The New York Times story by Mike Isaac saw no evil; he covered the checks and balances, implying that these filter out biases:

While algorithms determine the exact mix of topics displayed to each person… a team is largely responsible for the overall mix of which topics should — and more important, should not — be shown in Trending Topics.  For instance, after algorithms detect early signs of popular stories on the network, editors are asked to cross-reference potential trending topics with a list of 10 major news publications, including CNN, Fox News, The Guardian and The New York Times.

But the Wall Street Journal’s Deepa Seetharaman saw something more insidious:

Facebook researchers last year ranked 500 news sites based on how popular they were with the social network’s users who identified their political alignment as conservative or liberal. According to those rankings, eight of the 10 national news outlets that play an outsize role in determining trending topics are more popular with liberals.

I’ll leave the topic of Facebook’s response to a crisis for another post (they broke the first rule: don’t piecemeal information, that just prolongs the issue).

It seems to me that there must be some unstructured text mining tech that could settle the question.  Isn’t it possible to analyze Facebook Trending News stories to find and tabulate the ones with a slant – and compare the numbers for left and right-leaning stories?

It is no simple task, given the complexities of how this all works. Facebook’s document reveals the processes, which blend human and machine effort.  Even after the algorithms and editors pick their shots, the feeds get further tailored based on user preferences and actions.

But the bigger question: Is it really even possible to edit or curate without bias?

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Hannah and Her Sister Disrupt PR with Babbler

Posted on May 12, 2016 by rgeller

We started getting calls and emails from an interesting French startup called Babbler a couple of months ago. I agreed to meet with CEO Hannah Oiknine to learn more, as we like to be on top of the latest developments  here at Fusion PR.

She explained the system, which turns the traditional model of media relations on its 20160502183906-hannah-oiknine-sarah-azanhead. Rather than assume that media are the quarry, to be hounded by PR, Babbler envisions that press will gladly opt in and connect with brand content online.

It seemed like a bold bet. But I was taken by Hannah’s enthusiasm, and the demo was impressive. They’re funded, have built a solid team, and a growing user base in Europe. Babbler now has their eyes on the US market, and recently opened a New York office.

I agreed to take a closer look but got caught up in other priorities. Then, I saw the following headline just the other week: “2 Sisters Raise $2M to disrupt PR Industry.”  The news was about more funding for Babbler. It reminded me of the meeting and the inspiration for the system, which sprang from the experiences of Hannah’s sister Sarah Azan (the one on the left), who comes from a PR background. It prompted me to revisit Babbler and gave me the idea for the title of the post, based on the Woody Allen movie.

So I got back in touch with Hannah and conducted the following email interview.

What is Babbler?

Babbler rethinks the way companies interact with the press to help them be more successful. We created the only opt-in social media network that lets media and PR pros instantly share news, content and messages in a single platform.  We have a matchmaking algorithm that connects brands with the most relevant reporters.

Babbler is focused on providing the best engagement tool in the world. By moving PR out of the inbox and into a conversation-driven platform, we are helping journalists and PR professionals connect and engage in a meaningful way.

We back this up with powerful reports and analytics, giving your brand the actionable insight to improve your PR Strategy.

Thinking “out of the inbox” does sound interesting, but can you really say that the service disrupts PR?

Today, the only channel of daily interactions between PR pros and influencers is emails of reporters turned public and accessible by anyone who pays for a media database service. The consequences are that:

  • Reporters receive hundreds of email pitches / day, and 90% of them don’t match their interests or coverage areas.
  • It is hard to engage them, and they answer only 1% of what they receive.
  • PR pros spend hours filtering lists and updating them, time that could be used to create engaging stories.
  • PR pros are seen as pushy rather than effective sources.
  • It’s way too impersonal and mostly irrelevant!

By getting out of the inbox, we simplify interaction, provide a sourcing tool for reporters and the best distribution and engagement tool for PR pros that allow them to create, entertain and engage media communities in a single place.

Also, by knowing what engages media communities, PR pros can focus on creating relevant stories for each one they target. Because media don’t all want to same content or to be pitched the same way.

Why will journalists opt in? Don’t they already have access to lots of content, and PR connections ?

Reporters love Babbler for several reasons. Existing channels don’t solve the problem; emails are not opened or targeted, B2C social networks are not dedicated to PR / media pros and don’t allow you to build conversations exclusively with the press, exchange files or measure the press engagement.

With Babbler, the press can choose to follow PR pros/ brands/ agencies they are interested in, ONLY. For free, 24/7.

But they can also request information, download files they need or directly chat if they have questions. We built dedicated features for both communications and media pros to help them communicate in a smarter way. For example, reporters can post a PR request or book an interview in just one click!

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Check out Geek Art & Design at Creative Tech Week NYC

Posted on May 4, 2016 by rgeller

My local tech networking and meetup wanderings took me to a cool destination last night – the opening party of Creative Tech Week, at the Clemente Center on the Lower East Side.

I had been invited to CTW and did not quite know what to expect. What is all this about a mashing up creativity and tech? Do we really need another dot dot dot Week? According to the website:

From VR, 3D printing and hackathons to fashion tech, data visualization, digital art, interactive installations and STEAM, Creative Technology is front and center in innovation success stories across the corporate and non-profit landscape. Creative Tech Week… is a crowd sourced festival created to showcase the cutting-edge research, art, media, and community initiatives being generated in the field of creative technology.

The evening’s speakers broke it down further. Founder and President Isabel Davis spoke about the festival, and how it all came together over the past year. CTW It is an extremely ambitious undertaking, spanning ten days, two boroughs, and hundreds of lectures, satellite events, demos and art installations.  There is an expo, and three hubs: Community, Arts, and Industry (all explained in the About page).  The Expo and Community hubs are in Brooklyn; Arts and Industry, in Manhattan.

See this link for more about the impressive team behind CTW. After Isabel spoke, we heard from Asher Remy-Toledo and Mark Bolotin, directors of the Art Hub. They explained their roles, and ties to Hyphen Hub: a center (Hub) that encourages connections (Hyphen) between art and tech.  CTW Co-founder Dawn Barber (also co-founder of NY Tech Meetup) said a few words, before Paolo Antonelli of MoMA took the stage and delivered a great keynote.

In between the talks I had the chance to check out the exhibits at Clemente Center Arts Hub.  I was curious about how Arduino, big data visualization, and 3D printing can help create to art.  My eyes got wider as I checked out Arduino-driven hammers that smash plexiglass;  computer-driven musical instruments, sculptures, videos and images.

If it all sounds a little gimmicky, the results were anything but; they were IMG_2749stunning and brilliant, as you can tell from the images.  One of the most eye-grabbing (some might say shocking) was a wall of what looked to be ghostly white PVC plastic phalli that go up or down based on the price swings of associated stocks (it looked to be a heavy trading day).

It is not just about eye candy or art; there are many weighty topics and impressive speakers throughout the festival (which started 4/29 and will end this Saturday), addressing subjects that aim to connect art, design, community, tech and industry.

Here is the schedule.  I will try to get to a bunch of the sessions over the remaining days, and encourage you to check it out; there is just so much good stuff here.

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