Links for October 28th through October 29th:
- Roadmap Open Graph API – Facebook Developer Wiki – The Open Graph API will allow any page on the Web to have all the features of a Facebook Page – users will be able to become a Fan of the page, it will show up on that user’s profile and in search results, and that page will be able to publish stories to the stream of its fans.
- Lawyerese Goes Galactic as Contracts Try to Master the Universe – WSJ.com – James O'Toole, politics editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, recently signed a release form for WQED, a PBS TV station in Pittsburgh, before he appeared on a news talk show. The contract allows the TV station to make use of "any incidents" of his life and reproduce his image or voice "throughout the universe in perpetuity, in any and all media now known or hereinafter devised."
Mr. O'Toole, who says he didn't bother to read the release before signing it, took the news calmly. "I'm very popular in some of the far reaches of the Milky Way," he says. Even so, he says, "I don't think I've missed out on a lot of potential income."
Jacquelyn Thomas, general counsel for WQED, says the company has "never gotten any pushback" on this language.
- FT.com / Comment / Analysis – Time to adjust the set – Mr Wurtzel says their mission has nothing to do with killing off Nielsen. As an industry, they are to sift through the deluge of data and methodologies already used by media buyers and sellers. Clients complain that tracking the same audiences with different tools yields different results. Cimm’s goals centre on evaluating the use of set-top box information to measure television viewing and finding ways to track consumers across multiple devices rather than measure each separately. Patti Wakeling, media team leader at Unilever, stresses the need for better tools: “Our consumers don’t consume media in silos any more. It becomes important for us to measure their consumptions across all channels,” she says.
- Advertising – Bold Moves and Crowdsourcing Techniques at Agencies – NYTimes.com – “There are hundreds of agencies in New York, but there’s still a desire for something different,”
- FT.com / Media – Jordan’s business-friendly approach pays dividends – So how is a country as small as Jordan able to account for such a disproportionate share of corporate stars in the region? There are three main reasons for Jordan's fertile corporate environment.Second, Jordan has one of the region's best pools of skilled labour and one of the lowest wage rates for a given level of qualification. Relatively cheap, skilled labour is a competitive edge for an aspiring business hub, especially so when the country has modest natural resources to support business activity.