The iPhone & the Viral Video

News reporting appears to have reached a new milestone, made clear by how a few videos posted to YouTube drew enough attention by mainstream media to help drive down the stock price of one of the world's biggest corporations.

The reporting over "bendgate" has cooled off quite a bit thanks to what may be more level-headed analysis, including that from Consumer Reports.  It's analysis shows the bending of phone casings is not unique to the iPhone 6 Plus.

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2014/09/consumer-reports-tests-iphone-6-bendgate/index.htm

The videos and a flurry of comment in forums and on social media, as well as the release of a flawed update to the phone's operating system, are credited with helping force Apple's stock price down by nearly 4% at one point on Friday.

Forced to Respond to "Extremely Rare" Problem

Apple says the problem is "extremely rare," even going so far as to invite reporters to its testing facility to show off just what the company puts its products through before release.

http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-apple-responds-bending-iphones-20140925-story.html 

As of this posting, Apple stock has largely recovered with analysts saying the lower price represented a great opportunity to buy up its shares.  Attention can now turn to this new phenomenon we now know as "viral videos."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-09-26/apple-s-global-iphone-rollout-back-on-track.html

There's no doubt we're in a new age where anyone can play reporter with a quick post to any one of a dozen social networking sites.  We put the question of just what it takes to make a video go viral to one of these new "stars" of the Internet, Ti Stewart.

What it Takes to Make a "Viral Video"

Stewart is one of a new breed of performers who says she makes several thousand dollars a month just by regularly posting commentary to her YouTube channel.  With some 90,000 subscribers, she's had her share of videos that have gone viral.  It's anybody's guess, she says, as to what drives tens of thousands of people to watch and then share a video:

http://youtu.be/UqPaDeJ1_sg

There's no doubt that the intense interest surrounding the highly anticipated release of the new iPhones along with news of the Apple Watch helped feed the desire on the part of people to search out independent news about the products.  The question becomes just how much you want to trust what you're actually watching on the Internet.

We should note here that consumers started getting the majority of their information on major news stories from the Internet back in 2009.  Pop Star Michael Jackson's death prompted so many people to search his name that Google thought it to be a bot attack.  It was only a day later that we learned more people searched the web for news of his death than those who got it from mainstream media, a first for a major news story.

New Technology, New Era

I draw some parallels from this era of information technology to the introduction of the printing press in the mid-1800's.  It wasn't long afterward that the term "yellow journalism" was coined, a reference to how cheap paper turned yellow after a few days.  Some, like William Randolph Hearst, became rich with sensational coverage of stories which contained little fact.

It might be worth pointing out here that YouTube is owned by Google, one of Apple's most fierce competitors and the originator of the Android mobile operating system.

Google's Great Search!

Another one of Google's secret projects is being scrapped. This time it's those barges the company built, one on each coast:

USA Today on Google's Barges

Nationally, USA Today apparently was only able to pick up the story after good old-fashioned journalism from the Portland Press Herald in Maine:

Press Herald Coverage on Google's Barge

I say "good, old-fashioned journalism" because this is the way stories should be covered. That's with community members alerting beat reporters to new developments and then the media outlet putting resources on the story and revealing the details.

From my experience covering Silicon Valley, Google can be less than forthcoming.

But my concern is not just over some empty shipping containers floating in our bays and harbors.

This time it involves health issues. Mine, yours and possibly everybody else's.

You see, Google, with the help of some major University researchers, is getting ready to track the human genome.

This will be the company's third foray into the medical field. Don't expect an announcement from Google on this until the chiefs in Mountain View can spin it into whatever kind of story they want.

This time the details come from the researchers:

Google's Next Great Adventure

Did you see there about hundreds of volunteers willing to offer themselves up as guinea pigs?

True, the project undoubtedly offers the prospect of tremendous advances in healthcare. Bravo! But what can we say about a company that appears ready to delve into anything without fear of oversight?

My experience is one in which people are eager to give things a try in the hopes of catching the next big wave.

Take my colleague here, enamored with Google Glass, even though we hardly know how it is really playing out in the marketplace right now:

Google Glass Demo

But in all seriousness, one has to be impressed by Google's unflinching quest for that next big thing.

I'm submersed, for example, in the company's YouTube crusade. I've got my own "channel." That last link I included is from my company's channel, courtesy of YouTube, a Google subsidiary. I've also got a personal "channel."

"Subscribe" and Google AdSense can populate my videos with their commercials, and I might get a few dollars if I play my cards right.

But to be fair, here is my Google promotion, courtesy of one of my favorite news sites:

Google+ and Google Photo

Good work Google! I'm on the edge of my seat, waiting for more developments out of Mountain View.

I love how your tentacles seem to break off and form ever more divisions, although I cringe at the thought of how things can get messy when you've got your fingers in so many places.

Truth: The First Casualty

As the heat gets turned up on Moscow in its latest military foray into another neighboring country, I'm reminded of the first casualty of war:  The truth.

An American friend of mine who is married to a Russian and used to do business in Moscow and in Eastern Europe laid it on the line with me this morning.  I'd been sparring with him about independent polling that's reported to show Russians supporting Putin's assertions with regards to Ukraine.

"All Russians have been trained that when somebody you don't know asks questions, it's a KGB plant.  I lived there and I knew that.  Everybody knows its a police state.  Why pretend otherwise?"

The comment came in response to me pointing out that "new research by the independent Levada Centre polling group shows 64 percent of Russians blame the West for the Ukrainian conflict, 61 percent are not worried by sanctions and 63 percent think Russian media coverage of the crisis is objective.:

Putin & the Point of No Return

I mention this on hearing that the new European Union sanctions against Russia may actually, in some cases, go farther than those imposed by the U.S.  This is a big about-face, especially by the Germans who get around a third of their energy from Russia.

German public opinion shifted after the shooting-down of the plane over Ukraine, with 52 percent now in favor of tougher measures toward Russia, up from 25 percent in March, according to a TNS-Infratest poll commissioned by Spiegel magazine.

Today’s EU move was “inevitable,” and “additional steps are possible,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a statement. “It’s now up to the Russian leadership to decide if it wants to follow the path of de-escalation and cooperation.”

It's important to point out that Germany's "Iron Lady" undoubtedly has a greater understanding of what's going on in Moscow under Putin.  She grew up in the former Soviet satellite state of East Germany and speaks Russian, just as Vladimir Putin speaks German following his stationing in Berlin during the cold war while working for the Soviet secret police, the KGB.

Aereo and the Battle Over the Future of Television

While the U.S. Supreme Court considers a historic case involving technology and television, the company at the center of it all is going on the offensive.

In case you're new to the debate, Aereo streams over-the-air content it intercepts via antennas.  The company argues it's doing nothing you couldn't do yourself, and so therefore it doesn't owe broadcast companies anything.

Aereo just released this new video explaining just how its service works:

Company Produced Video: How Aereo Works

Broadcasters say Aereo is in violation of federal copyright law.  At issue is whether Aereo's service qualifies as a public or private performance.  If the Supreme Court rules that Aereo's service is public, then it won't be able to charge for it and its business model goes down the drain.  If the service qualifies as private, then it could be able to continue as is.

In another development, Aereo's TV-streaming service is now available for Google Chromecast players.

This is a significant development in that this is now another player in a lineup that includes iOS devices, Internet browsers made for Macs and PCs, Apple TV as well as Roku.

Subscribe to The Ah! Channel for updates on this and other important stories.

More on the Gravitational Shift in Media

Teenager rockets to fame using a cracked iPhone 

The latest evidence of the blazing speed at which traditional media and the entertainment industry is being upended by technology.

It comes from a Minnesota high school senior who wrote a song in just 15 minutes.  She then propped up her cracked iPhone on her great-grandmother's out-of-tune piano and started playing.

The result?  Here it is!  A world-wide hit, with more than six-million views in nearly 200 countries:

"His Daughter" By Molly Kate Kestner

Kestner had been using YouTube to post the more than one-dozen songs for family members.  But "His Daughter" apparently struck a chord with web surfers after being posed this past Easter Sunday.

The response, Kestner says, has been overwhelming.

The young lady's rocket ship appears to be just into its first stage.  Next up?  A spot on ABC's Good Morning America, admitting in a post on her Facebook page that she's "loving" her first trip to New York City.

CicLAvia Success

Angelenos appear eager to challenge their "car culture" by closing one L.A.'s most vital arteries to automobile traffic for a day.

Tens-of-thousands participate.  Bicyclists, rollerbladers, runners, walkers and even unicyclists take over Los Angeles' unofficial "Main Street" for a day.

Here's some video just as the seven-hour closure of Wilshire Boulevard got underway:

L.A.'s Wilshire Boulevard closed for CicLAvia

And it only got more crowded from there.  Throngs turned out to enjoy a six-mile stretch of the iconic boulevard, free of cars!  Major cross streets remained open with traffic controlled by police, but they closed off most smaller streets.

The official CicLAvia web site

Wilshire Boulevard seemed mostly stress free for the event, but surrounding streets became clogged with cars.  Traffic control involved funneling cars across Wilshire via only major arteries, leaving long lines of vehicles waiting on side streets.

The next CicLAvia is planned for October 5th.

Retweet Record during the Oscars! "Something is technically wrong!"

Ellen DeGeneres brings down Twitter with a retweet!

The host of the 2014 Academy Awards crashed the social networking site with her selfie taken during the show, causing Twitter to throw up a screen saying "Something is technically wrong."  

Twitter users overwhelmed the social networking site as Ellen DeGeneres careened from one surprising skit to another during the Oscars.

Midway through the telecast, Ellen DeGeneres, abandoning the stage to walk the theater isles, asked actor Bradley Cooper to take a picture.  The Academy Award nominee gleefully complied.  The result is a "selfie" stuffed with some of the most famous people in the world.

Repeat Oscar-winner Meryl Streep can be seen grasping DeGeneres' right shoulder as she struggles not to be blocked out fellow award-nominee Jennifer Lawrence.

Julia Roberts, a nominee herself and one of the highest paid actors in the world, laughs as she almost seems to pile on top of her colleagues, with fellow mega-millionaire actor and multiple Oscar-winner Brad Pitt looking as if he doesn't know quite what to make of what's happening.

Kevin Spacey, another multiple Oscar winner, can be seen mugging for the picture between the two of them, with fellow nominees on the left and right struggling to get in on the shot.

When DeGeneres posted the picture, Twitter promptly crashed under the weight of millions of retweets.  Users of the site ended up seeing this screen for a period lasting up to 20 minutes:

DeGeneres' picture had been retweeted more than two-million times by midnight, breaking a record set by the U.S. President Barack Obama with a picture of him hugging First Lady Michelle Obama after his re-election in 2012.

DeGeneres' stunt came during a show in which the movie "12 Years a Slave" won best picture and "Gravity" pulled down seven Oscars, including a statue for Alfonso Cuaron who becomes the first Latin American filmmaker to win the Oscar for directing.