Black Twitter and TV.

Google + is the new watercooler

Facebook is where major life events are being recorded. The new timeline has facilitate all Facebook users to memorialize events like weddings, births, new jobs,

OWN most popular show is Sweetie Pie’s  which is not your typical Oprah fare. It is a reality show, but it is not about famous people or self-help gurus.  It is  about a former Ikette, Robbie Montgomerey, who runs a soul food restaurant with her son in St Louis. My friend Nicole said, “Positive, funny, tons of food porn and showing black folks in a positive light.” The show premiered October 15 and in less than two months and no big promotion, it is the highest rated show on OWN.  Now, OWN has to do something that they have been dragged into doing–market the show and network to African American audiences.  Oprah has always sought to transcend color in the programming of her shows and this is a big opportunity. This is a chance for OWN to be a Lifetime Channel for African American women. This is a way to bring family entertainment to a diverse audience.

Martha Stewart has a niche that has not been fully leveraged, the convergence of lifestyle content with technology. Martha is a twitter whiz, loves gadgets,  blogging and has launched a few iPad Apps. She is the OG of lifestyle content.  The people who love technology are not watching the Hallmark channel.  Martha should consider either syndication again (either with Hulu or Netflix) or have her full shows available for streaming. People who love Martha would pay.  Also, there’s should be more integration of Martha Stewart radio.

What’s the takeaway from this? Marketing strategies have to change when you go from general market to niche market. Cable television is niche.  Just ask anyone at SyFy channel.

For blogging, I plan to play around with Bubble.ly  Pixable and Zemanta. The presentations that wowed me  are Shapeways, Kogeto and Livestream.

Shapeways is a 3-D printing online marketplace.  So much has progressed with 3-D printing in only two years. I remember when Bre Pettis first presented the MakerBot at the Cupcake Social in May 2009.

Livestream used to be called Mogulus and I am so glad they changed their name.  Livestream is the mogul of streaming live events and the latest iteration makes covering live events even better.

Kogeto makes a DOT camera which is an “app-cessory”.  It is a 360 camera for your iPhone that creates panoramic video that you can embed into Facebook or website. Their motto is “Put down the camera and enjoy the party”.  Coincidentally, Kogeto is a sponsor for the iPhoneography Group Show which is December 16th. I am doing event publicity for the event which is being produced by FX Photo Studio and Soho Gallery For Digital Art. Kogeto is giving away 5 Dot camera to the top five winners.

Good has a usually open-minded bent to their articles, but I am honestly disappointed in an article that painted a group of lifestyle bloggers as some sort of “Mormon Mom Blogging Cabal“.  I read the article objectively and didn’t know that someone I  know would be featured until I scrolled down.  I met  Gabrielle Blair about four years ago, and I am a casual reader of  her blog, DesignMom, but I didn’t even know she was Mormon.  I don’t know the religious affiliation of most bloggers I read because that is not in the forefront of their content.    One demographic bit I noted  in the article is,  ”According to the Pew Research Center, 38 percent of Mormons are middle-income, as opposed to a third of the general population.”  Is being middle class relevant?  I don’t think so.

Bottom line:  People (bloggers, Mormon women, African Americans, Atheists) are not a monolith.  I know stereotypes are a shortcut, but we can’t afford to be so lazy.

Pinterest is still pretty new and reminds me of Tumblr, but the engagement is more democratic. You don’t have to be a blogging rock star; you just have to curate good content.   Pinterest can grow since it is not fully open to the public yet.  Get in now and build your audience.

This marks Flipboard’s first and only shopping feature, and not only provides stories, delicious recipes and innovative videos, but also offers users the ability to purchase the ingredients they’re reading about with a few simple touches.

With this being the first content plus e-commerce site on Flipboard, it has the potential to leapfrog ahead all the traditional magazines who still haven’t figure how to make money with their content on iPad and other tablets.

FoodPress is a hand-curated collection of food-related posts from across the WordPress.com network. Using the tagline, “serving up the hottest dishes on WordPress.com,” FoodPress will be updated each weekday to offer excerpts and links to the latest food-related posts, photos and recipes on WordPress.com. Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, has partnered with Federated Media to handle the publishing, and, we assume, advertising opportunities for FoodPress.

I am interested to see how the content is curated.  I personally am always on the hunt for great food content.

Nicholas Callaway, the application creator, told website Slashfood the new app is “like a cookie runway; we’re treating cookies like high-fashion models. It’s got a great search-and-shuffle function.”

Other highlights include “a roulette-wheel-style cookie-recipe finder that lets users choose by ingredient, type, flavor or cooking tool.” There is also a direct link to department store Macy’s online in the event your kitchen is not stocked with the requisite tools.

I wonder if a cupcake app is next.  Hope that Martha contacts me to consult.

Update from Paid Content:

The Martha Stewart Makes Cookies App is available for $7.99. MSLO’s new app is intended as both a recipe book and a cookie gift guide bakers in time for the holidays. It features 50 recipes, shopping lists, and 11 “how-to” videos. The app is expected to be updated with 50 more recipes in January, timed for Valentine’s Day, and comes as MSLO is preparing additional apps.

Eventbrite, which lets people set up pages to promote their events and also sell tickets, has raised $20 million in its fourth round of funding. The new cash comes as the company says it has already brokered the sale of 7.5 million tickets this year and expects more than $200 million worth of tickets to be sold on its site by year-end, double last year’s total.

BTW, I have used all of these services over the past couple of years since I have planned and hosted several events. Here’s a rundown of options for sending out an invitation.

Eventbrite is great for conferences, public events, seminars.  You can customize the URL and the page.

Evite is dead.  The only people using that are people who still cling to their MySpace accounts.

Most people are inviting friends to events using Facebook events, but it is not good when sending out invitations to lots of people.

If you already have a group on Meetup, you can take payments on Meetup and handle RSVP.  I love the automatic waiting list feature.

Pingg.com, a local NYC start-up that got Martha Stewart’s attention and money, is a contender but it is not for large events.

Paperless Post lets you create elegant e-invitations on nice stationery.  Iomoi missed out on  being the lead in that area.