What a tragedy. What was once one of the most important information portals on the internet, @BreakingNews, has now become a tepid news pump that dumps out stock MSNBC and AP news blurbs. How sad. I actually used to rely on the Twitter account for the hottest cuts of news from all over the world.

I can’t knock Michael van Poppel of BNO News for selling the account since I am guessing he made enough off the deal to be able to retire. It just means that I now have to go dig around for another reliable news source. When will management at big news orgs get wise to the fact that their methods aren’t working? A fire hose of information has just had its main valve shut off.

The only good I can see coming from the sale of @BreakingNews is that there is now an opportunity for some young gun to come along and out sling MSNBC. Amazing that one person can do what thousands can’t.

No related posts.

I am not sure if you have been following WIRED’s Terminal Man series on their Autopia blog but if you have you’ll recognize these two:

Josh and Dan DuVall Photo: WIRED/Brendan Ross

Josh DuVall (@JDDuVall) has been following Terminal Man (aka Brendan Ross/@Flyered) on Twitter and when he saw Brendan was headed for Charlotte, NC he offered to buy him lunch at his family’s airport restaurant, the Stock Car Cafe. As a result Josh and his dad Dan had their photo taken by Brendan and included at the bottom at one of Brendan’s posts. The DuVall’s are living proof that southern hospitality is alive and well.

Odds are most people won’t remember to stop by the Stock Car Cafe next time they are passing through the Charlotte, NC airport but for those that do it would be great if they sat down and had a proper meal so that the DuVall’s good deeds don’t go unrecognized. I tried to do my part by giving @Wachovia and @Ask_WellsFargo a heads-up about Josh’s additional offer of assistance:

@Wachovia employee @JDDuVall taking initiative to provide customer service to @Flyered. Maybe some kudos for this guy, @Ask_WellsFargo?
4:27 AM Sep 20th from twhirl

Josh works part time as a customer service rep at Wachovia and had just offered to help Brendan out with his banking needs if he ever found himself dealing with Wachovia. Wachovia picked it up and sent this reply:

@fogcitymedia Thanks for the tip. We’ll look into it! ^IM
about 10 hours ago from CoTweet in reply to fogcitymedia

Hopefully, Josh will get some recognition for his efforts and this whole thing will come full circle. What strikes me most about this experiment is that it seems few, if any, businesses are taking this opportunity to show the kind of hospitality that the DuVall’s were able to serve up. A little kindness would probably do their bottom line some good.

While I am sure the DuVall’s would love to welcome a few more visitors I bet they would prefer that folks lend a hand to Brendan who is still out there flying around the friendly skies. I would hope that at least @Peets_Tweets (Peet’s Coffee) and @Starbucks would offer him a free cup of coffee. Perhaps @AAirwaves (American Airlines) could comp Brendan a free pass to the Admirals Club for a day so he could take a proper shower. I recently flew American home for a visit and their lounge in Chicago looked pretty nice from the outside.

Terminal 5 at JFK has a dozen eateries and various shops all of which could have stepped up and Twittered their offers. I am also a bit surprised that no NY news outlet and/or publication has at least sent someone down to the JetBlue terminal to meet up with Brendan. While I wouldn’t expect Conde Nast, which owns WIRED, to send a GQ or Traveler writer down to Terminal 5, I could envision a local TV network arranging an interview. (I don’t have any @’s for local NY news so please pass ‘em on if you do.)

The point is Brendan is out there sleeping on benches and living on burritos. I don’t think it would be too hard for a marketing department in a hub city to show Brendan a little hospitality and maybe even buy him a new sleeping pad, which he seems to be in need of. Those who do manage to treat Brendan to a meal might be able to convince him to send out a courtesy Tweet to his 2,687 followers on Twitter and maybe even give them an honorable mention on WIRED. While I am pretty sure the DuVall’s never had that intention it might turn out that thanks to their kindness their restaurant becomes one of the more popular stops in Charlotte. If not, at least their hospitality is now well known.

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I realized that every company is now a media company. It doesn’t matter if it makes network gear or diapers, every company needs to publish to its various communities, its customers, its staff, it’s neighbors. It needs to know how to produce compelling content, great video, podcasts, etc. And now with this emerging two-way Internet it also needs to learn how to listen, how to get involved in online discussions, how to behave on Facebook or Twitter. Every company needs to master the media technologies of RSS, blogging, and more.

-Tom Foremski via ZDNet and Silicon Valley Watcher

Related posts:

1. My Love/Hate Relationship With Advertising
2. Media Bundling – Putting Apture To The Test With TCHO
3. One Of The Best New Media Video Advertisements I’ve Seen This Week

I think Apture is a great idea for several reasons. The first is that it makes generating a post dead simple and thankfully you are not locked into using only Apture recommendations. The ability to embed videos, upload files, and link to just about any content gives you the freedom to customize the content to better suit your audience.

The other advantage of using a tool like Apture is that it allows you to bundle media. All content is pulled around one center which always stays above the fold and the variety of content you have to chose from is impressive. While I would like to see more content along the lines of Vimeo, Flickr slideshows, etc the embed option makes this not such a critical issue.

Media bundling, if done well, could make generating traditional blog posts a thing of the past especially if Apture enables the option to pull from you own media library. What I think Apture should do is allow us to generate text boxes on the fly so that we can dynamically link content with text.

I chose TCHO because it is a very hip boutique chocolate company located near where I used to work in San Francisco. I figured they’d have a wide variety of media available and thankfully they did. Apture not only shows you what is available, it also shows you what is not available, so you need to pick your subjects wisely.

My final comment is that Apture needs to put some serious effort into overhauling their look. They need to look a lot less YouTube and much more Vimeo. A little more sex appeal would suit them well.

Related posts:

1. Every company is a media company
2. My Love/Hate Relationship With Advertising
3. What the F**K is Social Media: One Year Later