On May 18, I posted a blog about the
Mobile News Incubator program at the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism. In short, 17 students in teams were dropped into four news organizations—
The Associated Press,
Variety,
KCRW-FM, and
La Opinión, the largest Spanish newspaper in the U.S. Their mission? To develop new mobile app products that would revolutionize journalism. I’m happy to say that
every team succeeded beyond all expectations.
Associated Press’s global director of entertainment and lifestyles product development, Michael Dutton, thought the product his team produced definitely hit the mark. The “AP Fizz” app is designed to better manage the “fire hose” of information that floods the entertainment wires by enabling the user to decide which celebrities, artists, and movies they want to track. The app will push to them only relevant news in their designated areas of interest. AP Fizz also has a benefit for the AP reporters because now they will have an easier time becoming the trusted authority on a particular artist or topic and they can develop their own fan following.
The team that worked on
KCRW FM in Los Angeles and created KCRW Connect took on the particularly challenging task of finding a way to foster a community of listeners who would be loyal to its programming using a mobile platform. They finally settled on a way for users to “clip snippets of audio” in real time that they can then share on their social networks. Users can also see who among their Facebook friends might be attending a KCRW event and be encouraged to attend themselves..
One could argue that the examples I gave are hardly revolutionary in their scope, and certainly their applications employ technology already in existence. But, it’s important to remember that the four companies looking for solutions are part of the long-standing media establishment. Their existence has always been predicated on business models that are now being shattered by new media and a surge in citizen journalism. The fact that these venerable organizations were willing to let university students peer objectively inside their operations, no holds barred, to understand what their real needs are is a testament to their willingness to adapt to face a new reality that isn’t going away. The revolution that these teams launched in just 9 days was, in fact, much more than delivering a new product. It was about getting traditional media organizations to look at their businesses in a new way. It was exciting to watch, and we were all very proud of the teams. If you want to read more about the other teams and see some photos, click here.
