PimpMyNews is a new, free service allowing you to hear the latest news from your personally selected mix of news sources and blogs. Anyone with an MP3 player and Internet access can use it. CEO John Atkinson will be speaking at the next Cincinnati Social Media Breakfast* so we did a quick Q&A with him to give some background on the event’s special guest.
1) PimpMyNews is a great name and service. What’s the inspiration behind each?
My Co-founder Roy Georgia and I used to always struggle to keep up with news and current events. Before starting PimpMyNews, we were both “road warriors” in our previous jobs and we could never find the time to read newspapers, or to tune into scheduled TV or radio news broadcasts. And, using the Internet for news and blogs required us to be at computers- searching, sifting and reading. So, we came up with the idea of a service that would automatically find breaking stories from your favorite sources on the Internet and read them to you wherever you happen to be – kind of like TiVo for news and blogs.
Our users say that the strongest benefit is the “productivity benefit” of being able to get current on their favorite news and blogs by listening on-the-go, while they do other things like, drive, workout, ride the train and more.
After considering over 200 different names, we chose “PimpMyNews” because we feel that it conveys the “personalized news” aspect of the service – and because it seems to get people’s attention
2) How do you determine which news sources you cover?
We pride ourselves on PimpMyNews being a source of solid, trusted and obscure news and blog content.
There are so many news and blog sites out there that “information overload” is a real issue. Technorati reports that it tracks over 112 million blogs world-wide. To arrive at the roughly 1,200 sources we have in PimpMyNews, we reviewed tens of thousands of the world’s most popular blogs and categorized the blogs that passed our editorial review into 59 unique categories. So whether you’re interested in Technology, Politics, Business, Sports, Entertainment or something else, there’s a good chance you’ll find it on PimpMyNews. We also receive a lot of suggestions from users. Anyone can suggest a blog by emailing Feeds AT PimpMyNews DOT com.
3) What’s next for PimpMyNews? Scoble dubbed PimpMyNews as one of the best iPhone apps prior to the 3G release. Any plans to offer PimpMyNews as an application?
Because of the uniqueness of our service, we’ve received a lot of press, for which we’re very thankful. Our current iPhone Web Application works on all iPhones and iPod Touch devices, including iPhone 3G. Anyone with a computer or an MP3 player can also use the service. (Our full site can be accessed at http://PimpMyNews.com , and our iPhone Web App is at: http://PimpMyNews.com/m).
Our goal is to continually increase the mobile platforms we run on. In the near future, we’ll be rolling out a native iPhone application that will be accessible through Apple’s App Store, as well as applications for other mobile devices.
4) What do you think the news landscape will look like five years from now?
There’s never been a more exciting time, or a more volatile time, in the news industry than right now. According to Pew Internet, nearly one-third of Americans now use the Internet for news. Ten years ago, only two percent of us used the Internet for news. The trend of people shifting from “traditional” news sources to “new media” sources will continue and accelerate. Personalized, mobile, social news is the new frontier, and we think that the smart phone explosion – sparked by the iPhone – will bring the market to a “tipping point” in the next couple of years.
Mobile “applications” (versus “sites”) will instantly deliver the exact news you care about from thousands of sources – in the format you desire, no matter where you happen to be. Publishers who have great content and who embrace new digital distribution methods will thrive.
5) What are your personal favorite news sources? Same applies to gadgets (top 3 favorites).
I have the following sources in my PimpMyNews Playlist – I listen to them every day.
TechCrunch – A great source for news on Web 2.0 startups.
Mashable – I love their focus on social networking & social media.
My number 1 favorite gadget is the iPhone – no surprise there. I’m curious about all of the alleged “iPhone-Killers” being rolled out by the wireless carriers. I’m also intrigued by the Amazon Kindle, but I haven’t purchased one yet.
Come to the second Cincinnati Social Media Breakfast to listen, share, network and learn along with other area marketing and new media professionals.
Making communications more effective with multimedia is the theme of the free morning event as the definition of content continues to morph and include everything from 140-character Twitter bursts and Flickr images to Flip videos pushed to YouTube and of course the social media news release.
Our special guest is PimpMyNews CEO John Atkinson. PimpMyNews is a free service bringing you news in audio format. Anyone with Internet access or an MP3 player can listen to thousands of breaking text news and blog stories. Users create podcasts pushed to them daily based on their customized profiles.
Attendees will also be registered to win a copy of Pete Blackshaw’s new book “Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000: Running a Business in Today’s Consumer-Driven World.”
Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, from 7:30 to 9:30 am Location: Rookwood Pavilion First Watch on 2692 Madison Road, Cincinnati, OH 45208. Cost: Free thanks to our sponsor, Marketwire. RSVP:http://cincysmb2.eventbrite.com
Questions? Contact Kevin Dugan via prblog AT gmail DOT com
or
Daniel Johnson Jr via danieljohnsonjr AT newmediacincinnati DOT com
Join us to network and chat about using social media and social networking tools in your business and careers.
Our fifth gathering will be at the beautiful Minneapolis Central Library in the Doty Board Room. They’ll be plenty of room, Wi-Fi, and lots of coffee and pastries (thanks to our generous sponsors!). What a perfect opportunity to show off your new 3G iPod!
Agenda:
Special guest speaker: Jon Gordon (@jongordon onTwitter, Public Radio Tech Reporter and host of “Future Tense“)
Special guest speaker: Paul Saarinen (@taulpaul on Twitter – talking about “How online gaming taught me everything about social media”)
Presentation on how Hennepin County Library uses social media by Meg Canada and Jody Wurl (@MegCanada & @Jodyth on Twitter)
Review of PublicRadioCamp
SMBMSP logo review
Open discussion (Anything left over from last time, or things you want to see addressed, or things you had heard in conversations on Twitter, Plurk, Friendfeed, Identi.ca etc.)
We had so much fun last month, we’re doing it again! Here are the details:
When: Tuesday, July 15, 2008, from 7:30 am to 9:00 am
Where: Overlay.TV’s office located at 80 Aberdeen Street, Suite 401 (There will be chairs!)
What’s the Ottawa format?
We’ll keep the event to within 90 minutes, focusing on people meeting each other with the guest speaker telling a story to spark conversation and discussion.
7:30 am Arrival, breakfast and networking
8:00 am Guest speaker
8:10 am Questions
8:20 am Announcements, thank yous & more networking
9:00 am We’re done! On with your day . . .
Who’s Speaking?
This month’s speaker is Rob Lane, CEO and Co-founder of Overlay.TV.
Rob’s main responsibilities include being Overlay’s chief evangelist and community listener. With this input, Rob sets Overlay’s direction and creates an environment where the team can excel in the ever-changing space of video commerce and interactions.
A marketer at heart, Rob has built and led teams at both start-ups and blue chip tech companies in Europe and North America.
What’s Rob going to talk about?
Rob will cover two main topics:
The first will focus on video as a social utility using case studies from Overlay’s client base. The discussion will illustrate examples ranging from large agencies such as JWT to individual UGC producers at the other.
The second part of the discussion will focus on how Overlay is using social media to build its community and business.
Special Guest
We’re pleased to welcome Social Media Breakfast Founder Bryan Person! Join us in showing him some Canadian hospitality!
There was another great turnout at last week’s Social Media Breakfast 8, with around 90-plus people joining us at Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge. SMB8 was all about video and using video to engage and build communities.
The lineup for the panel discussion part of the breakfast gathering was:
The presenters repeatedly mentioned authenticity when discussing why video is one of the fastest-growing media used in social media community building. It’s hard to fake being genuine and transparent when trying to connect through a visual medium. People can see through scripted, over-produced, and controlled messaging. They want to be engaged through raw, honest, passionate and creatively captured and shared moments on issues that they connect with and interest them. It’s important to remember, first and foremost, that consumers and communities are not demographics, markets or influence groups – they’re people.
Thanks again to Rob Lane and Overlay.TV for sponsoring the breakfast. (Want to create your own overlay for a video? Here’s how you do it.)
For a nice synopsis for each of the presentations, please check out Just Kate’s blog post.
Links to online conversations and mentions of SMB8
Also, Len Edgerly, one of New England’s finest podcasters, featured SMB8 in the most recent episode of his Audio Pod Chronicles podcast: “Breakfast of Videos.”
What’s next?
We’d like to keep the conversation going. How are you using or seeing video used to engage and building communities? Share examples of great works and good deeds in this area with us.
And of course, independent of the tools or media, what other community-building initiatives are you seeing that inspire and interest you? There are enough examples and time spent on programs gone wrong, so let’s focus on sharing initiatives done right.
Share your examples in the comments section below.
