Mediaboss Marketing

MIAMI (CBS4) – Social media is the new way companies are getting buzz on their products.

Businesses are bringing together social media users for impromptu parties as a marketing tactic.

The lesson is not just about makeup. It may be a MAC makeup master class, but the students may be the ones doing the teaching.

“I love communicating and sharing information. It is just a way to connect with other people,” said one party attendee.

About a dozen women came to Bloomingdales in Aventura to spread the word about MAC makeup through constant updates on their social media outlets.

“People think you have to dedicate a lot of time to tweeting, but when you are used to it, it becomes second nature after a while,” said one woman at the event.

At the head of this class is Social Media Expert Jewel Figueras who selected each of these powerful women.

“It has been said that most consumers would like a stamp of approval from a friend and someone they trust,” said Figueras to CBS4’s Jorge Estevez.

“We are sharing it with millions of people not just thousands. We are tweeting and we all have a large follow base,” said one woman.

All that influence is nothing to brush off during times where every sale counts.

“We really are able to reach so many different outlets it is efficient and instantaneous,” said Eileen Alkabes, who works in the marketing department at Bloomingdale’s.

So will it work? The ladies’ tweets were seen by 250,000 people before the event and after that number is expected to double.

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Social Media Meetings: The Next Best Thing In Marketing

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Barney Rosset paid $3,000 for Grove Press in 1951. Then he used the company to help tear down American obscenity laws of the 1950s and '60s.

Jim Cooper/AP

Barney Rosset paid $3,000 for Grove Press in 1951. Then he used the company to help tear down American obscenity laws of the 1950s and '60s.

This interview was originally broadcast on Apr. 9, 1991.

Publisher Barney Rosset, who championed the works of beat poets and defied censors, died Tuesday. He was 89.

Rosset's Grove Press published some of drama's most famous names — including Beckett and Anton Chekhov — and was known for printing books that other publishers wouldn't touch, from uncensored versions of Lady Chatterley's Lover and Tropic of Cancer to a highly profitable line of Victorian spanking porn.

To publish them, Rosset became a crusader against American censorship laws, challenging Postal Service confiscations and fighting obscenity charges all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. His landmark legal cases opened doors for other publishers when he won.

In 1991, Rosset joined Terry Gross for a wide-ranging discussion about his years in the publishing business.

"When I started publishing, I most definitely would have liked to have published Hemingway and Faulkner and Fitzgerald," he said, "but they were already published."

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Barney Rosset: A Crusader Against Censorship Laws

AMERICANS pride themselves on a sense of fairness. When one side of a controversy gets to articulate a point of view to the public and the other side doesn't because of lack of resources or access to media, we conclude that the "marketplace of ideas" has broken down. On the other hand, we also believe that government should not intervene to control public debate over the issues of the day. This is particularly critical in the realm of elections, both local and national.

This past August, the "Fairness Doctrine" was expunged from the Federal Register. From 1949 to 1987, the Fairness Doctrine required radio and television stations to offer a "range of opinion" on public matters in their broadcasts. Although no station ever lost its license for failing to comply with this regulation, broadcasters perpetually claimed that the doctrine was burdensome and restricted their First Amendment rights.

Television and radio are still the primary sources of news for most Americans, and it is vital that the broadcasters who enjoy the license of this public resource — the radio spectrum — serve the public with news coverage of the critical issues of the day. Because the spectrum is licensed on a geographic basis, more than 1,700 television and 14,000 radio stations serve the U.S. population.

These stations both compete and cooperate with cable- and satellite-television networks, which are required to retransmit local television programming to their local service areas. Most TV viewers don't know that their local ABC station pays a license fee to use the airwaves, while CNN does not, because both pure cable and old-fashioned broadcast stations appear equally on their cable or satellite TV menus.

In the changing media landscape created by the explosion of 24-hour cable networks and millions of websites since the 1990s, the Fairness Doctrine went the way of the dodo bird. With saturation coverage of presidential elections and national issues on the Internet and news networks, it became harder to argue that the public wasn't exposed to a wide range of views.

Yet, the gaping hole in the new media universe is coverage of local controversies, elections and mundane matters such as the activities of city and county governments.

According to the Pew Research Center, the number of daily newspapers declined from 1,800 to 1,600 in the two decades between 1990 and 2010. Pew further reports that this 20-year view shows a steady slide in paid circulation. Daily circulation, which stood at 62.3 million in 1990, fell to 43.4 million in 2010, a decline of 30 percent. Sunday circulation held up slightly better, declining by only 26 percent.

With fewer newspapers serving communities and broadcasters freed of responsibility to cover civic affairs, how will people keep up to speed with salient topics facing their communities? While the cost of local transit projects or waste-treatment plants is not as entertaining as the peccadilloes of presidential candidates, one could argue that local projects, funded by local tax dollars, have a more immediate impact on people's lives than a national candidate's vision for moon colonies. Although a few promising local websites have emerged to cover local matters, they reach only a small fraction of the regular radio or TV audience.

I propose that we bring back the Fairness Doctrine, specifically for local matters defined by the service areas of licensed radio and television stations. Local broadcasters, for example, should be required to devote at least five hours of programming per week to areas such as public education, city and county services and taxes. Citizens deserve to know where their tax dollars are going and how local agencies are managed. Local elections deserve more coverage than 500 word statements printed in voter guides.

While broadcasters will complain about the "unfairness" of this new Fairness Doctrine, it would be a small price to pay for coverage of local issues and elections. Public-affairs programming, as evidenced by first-rate local programs like KIRO's daily radio program, "The Newsmakers," and King 5's "Up Front," can make for engaging programming when addressing topics that impact Seattle and King County. In the age of global communication, it's time to reestablish the primacy of issues that are close to home.

Alex Alben has worked in broadcast journalism and the high-tech industry. He is writing a book about digital culture. His email is alexalben99@yahoo.com

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Media and democracy: It's time for a new Fairness Doctrine

First came the wax cylinder, followed by the LP, eight-track, cassette, CD, MP3, and now the digital stream. While most of the types of media on that list have dedicated players, the last two have sort of floundered when it comes to dedicated "in-home" players. USB DACs and iPod docks have been a stopgap solution, but they added unnecessary steps between your music and your ears.

Digital music players such as the Logitech Squeezebox Touch and now the Pioneer Elite N-30 Network Audio Player aim to make your music accessible, whether it's your own or from one of your favorite streaming-music services. The Squeezebox is not inexpensive at $299, but the Pioneer ups the ante by coming in at $499, and the step-up model, the Pioneer N-50, is even dearer at $699.

It's rarefied air the N-30 breathes, competing with hi-fi players such as the Cambridge Audio NP30 and Marantz NA7004. Does the Pioneer do enough to justify the expense?

Design
When you're listening to an audio device, how much of an issue is industrial design? In most cases, none; it could look like a busted UFO and still work fine. But with the Pioneer N-30, the design of the case actually detracts from its usability in a meaningful way. While the blocky casing is a little on the boring side, the brushed-aluminum finish does add a small touch of class.

It's the screen that's the letdown here, as it's only 2.5 inches across. Anyone remember Microsoft's "social" phone, the Kin? Silly question, no one does. This short-lived phone had a too-small screen that was--you guessed it--2.5 inches, but at least this was meant to be held close to your face. The Pioneer is designed to sit in your home theater about 8 feet away! But help is at hand: if you have a smartphone (not a Kin!) you'll be able to control the N-30 through a dedicated application, though as you'll soon see, not that successfully.

Is a 2.5-inch screen too small?

The N-30 comes with a brushed remote that is reassuringly heavy, as an audiophile might say. However, it's the same model that's used for the N-50, and so buttons such as "DIG IN 1" remain tantalizingly dormant. (The N-50 includes digital inputs, while the N-30 does not.)

Features
The N-30 is a music-focused network streamer with an Internet radio app. Last year, I wrote a manifesto on the 10 "must-have" features of a media player, and the Pioneer is one of the few players that comes close to fulfilling this vision, with six of the boxes ticked. Some of these pluses include simple navigation via the front panel, USB playback of mobile devices, and excellent format support--at least on paper. The N-30 supports most file types, which includes support for most music types up to 24-bit/192KHz, and this includes WAV, FLAC, MP3, WMA, AAC, and Ogg Vorbis.

I'm also disappointed to note the lack of streaming services, the provision of Net radio notwithstanding, and think that the smart consumer will at least want access to Pandora or Spotify. The days of downloading and keeping your music stored at home are coming to a close, and with recent changes to Spotify, entire swathes of 320Kbps MP3s are available over the Interwebs.

However, the N-30 does include Apple's AirPlay, and as such it streams not only your iTunes library via Wi-Fi but also compatible apps such as Spotify. Internet connection down? Spotify now lets you store Starred songs on your PC or mobile device.

The proprietary Wi-Fi adapter costs $150.

The device also comes with a dedicated iOS and Android controller app you can use to turn the device on and to pick content from the various network sources. It's free to download.

Of course, to use the streaming functions you will need an Internet connection of some sort, and the N-30 uses an Ethernet port. If, like the rest of the modernized world, you use a wireless router then you will need to plump down an extra $150 for the proprietary AS-WL300 wireless adapter. Bluetooth too is optional and costs an additional $99. To put it into perspective, the Wi-Fi adapter alone costs $50 more than the excellent WD TV Live and the BT adaptor and Wi-Fi together cost as much as the Logitech Squeezebox Touch.

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Pioneer N-30

Brent Bozell, the founder and president of the right-leaning Media Research Center, has decided to cancel the contraception coverage currently included in the company's employee health insurance plan after reportedly being "horrified" to discover those benefits were included in the wake of the debate surrounding President Obama's recent healthcare mandate.

In a staff-wide e-mail acquired by the Web site The Jane Dough, Bozell allegedly wrote that the company is working with BlueCross, its insurance provider, so as not to comply with the "disgusting mandate."

"[We] are working to change our insurance policy so as not to have to comply with this administration's disgusting mandate to provide contraceptive, sterilization and abortifacient services," wrote Bozell, who said he would have never approved the insurance policy in question if he had known that coverage was included.

Bozell then encouraged employees to refrain from using their birth control coverage until he is able to sort through the necessary paperwork to institute the policy changes with BlueCross, although he acknowledged he cannot force them to comply with his request. However, he added that not complying with it "is to commit a mortal sin."

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"Do not avail yourselves to these ... services, not through the MRC. They are evil, and I am unequivocal about this," Bozell wrote.

The birth control mandate, a provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, requires all employers to provide contraception coverage as part of their health insurance coverage. Although churches and church-sponsored organizations were exempt from the rule, religiously-affiliated organizations -- such as hospitals, universities and charities -- initially were not.

After an uproar from conservative Republicans and Catholic Church leaders who claimed the mandate violated those organizations' religious liberty, the Obama administration consented to a compromise. Now, employees who work for religious institutions that object to contraception coverage can obtain it, still free of charge, directly from their insurer.

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Media Research Center to Eliminate "Evil" Birth Control Services from Company Health Plan