Last Thursday, I tagged along with Rakesh Agrawal (CEO of SnapStream) to introduce TV search to the regional PIO Network meeting held at the Texas Department of Transportation. I'll tell you, public information is A LOT to keep up with, especially with all the mutations of social media multiplying every second.

There were all sorts of PIOs represented, from city offices to the Coast Guard. It was cool to see all of these diverse officials gathered with their common, collective concern for public knowledge, safety and health.

The meeting kicked off with Chuck Wolf, an integral media consultant in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill response, which is now transitioning to the gulf restoration response. (Woohoo the well is capped!) At the Joint Information Center headquartered in New Orleans, Chuck and his team dispense a mind-boggling amount of documents--fact sheets, press releases, media advisories--on a 24-7 basis.

“A Joint Information Center is a co-located group of representatives from local, state, federal and private organizations designated to handle public information needs during an incident or event.”

BP has put together quite the team to handle the world's largest oil spill response. You can see who's involved at this page of deepwaterinvestigation.com.

Having a tough act to follow, we were the closers in the presenting line-up. (In baseball, that's a very important job!) Rakesh led the presentation about SnapStream, joined by the insights of Rosie Torres, Assistant PIO, Harris County Office of Emergency Management and Dinah Massie, PIO, Houston TranStar.

At the Harris County OEM, the PIOs recently monitored flash flood warnings during Hurricane Alex. Meanwhile, the Houston TranStar office continually tracks local television news to verify and enforce correct attribution for traffic footage. Those magic words, "courtesy of Houston TranStar" must appear. (Or else, major traffic jams will incur!)

Lastly, we learned the telling results of a media monitoring survey conducted among the Houston-Galveston group. Two major stats to highlight:

That's what makes SnapStream incredibly relevant for this group. Since many of these municipal agencies share LAN connections, they can pool together and utilize one centralized SnapStream Server to access TV Search and disperse actionable news quickly to their departments. Wouldn't that be something?

In case you missed the vital information contained in this webinar, watch the House of Representatives webinar on SnapStream's YouTube channel.
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With midterm elections* around the corner, and all 435 of the House seats up for grabs, the news media will continue to play a critical role in shaping public opinion. As candidates are preparing to hit the ground running on their campaign trails, we're hosting a webinar this Thursday, July 22 to address the political advantage of TV search for tracking issues, competition and appearances.

The reality is, between now and November 2, candidates who practice proactive media relations (as opposed to reactive) will have increasingly better odds at sweeping victory over their districts.

To control messaging and earn the public's confidence, parties with take-charge leadership will capitalize on the media as a direct channel to reach their constituents. The public relations route leads to organic credibility that complements the value of sponsored ads.

Now, this might sound like a no-brainer for political strategy, but you'd be surprised to learn how many people aren't maximizing on this in a smart way. Paying for a clipping service or subjecting interns to full-time TiVo duty--probably not doing your cause much justice.

Alternatively, we've seen this formula work for our TV-hungry customers across city, state and federal government:

1) Dedicate a SnapStream Server to a trusty staff
2) Instantly search, clip and record TV
3) Launch game-changing campaign tactics

Sign up for our webinar to learn how to:
• Search by keyword across news networks
• Pinpoint mentions in seconds
• Create clips and download transcripts
• Receive real-time TV alerts
• Gain competitive intelligence
• Verify advertising
• Monitor public appearances
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*Also up for election: 36 United States Senate seats and 37 out of the 50 United States Governors seats.

What I love about working at SnapStream is getting to see what people DO with our software. Here, Daniel Freed shows us a bona fide example of user-generated content. You have to watch the introductory video (below) that he recently put together using SnapStream.

For the past few years, Daniel Freed has been honing his skills at harnessing SnapStream for comedic purposes while working at Current TV's clip show, infoMania. As the show's supervising producer, he figured out how to integrate the technology into the clip show's workflow.

The tagline for infoMania says it all: "Chewing up the week's media so we can regurgitate it, half-digested, into your mouth." Mmm, Yummy. But before the pundits can chew out the media, they have to first find the hot trending topics.

During that process, TV Search technology becomes a rich source of inspiration. It's like giving squishy Play-Doh to a young child and saying "make something."

In the hands of talented writers, and producers like Daniel, the editable, linkable and clippable substance (of television) can be played with and molded.

But to these creatives' credit, you won't find imagination for sale on our products page.

Currently, Daniel is looking for work on other shows, and he says if SnapStream is involved (or even potentially), he would love to continue creating fresh content with this technology. For a knee-slapping good chuckle, check out some more of Daniel's work, on his page and on Hulu.

Keeping our good word and following up from this previous post, we're giving you the replay of our J-School webinar featuring Content Supervisor Paul Hitlin at the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Paul Hitlin joined us on 5/26 before a virtual group of university educators, all eager to learn about fresh methods of conducting research, as well as sources for funneling data-rich content into their institutions of higher learning.

Catch a glimpse into PEJ below. The clip illustrates how they've incorporated SnapStream into their quantitative research process, which is quite systematic. Visit our YouTube channel to view the remaining chapters of the webinar, including further insight from Paul on how they used to do things pre-SnapStream.

Top 10 things you didn't know about PEJ:

10. Under the umbrella (not Rihanna's)
It's one of seven projects under the umbrella of the Pew Research Center

9. Defined by what they're NON
"NON partisan, NON ideological & NON political"

8. They're not a think tank, but
A "fact tank," navigating the information revolution

7. You'll never guess their claim to fame
The largest human coding news organization in the U. S. of A

6. Get this, they even have human bots
Well, kind of. 15 full-time coders that scour 52 media outlets daily

5. On a mission that's possible
To evaluate and study the performance of the press (via content analysis)

4. Historically speaking
It started 9 years ago in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism

3. Serious news flash and power
News coding research began in mid-2006, with DVD burners and manpower

2. GRANTED for curricular support
Stony Brook University gave PEJ a grant to fund the SnapStream Server

1. Searching TV is a snap!
The team upgraded to SnapStream in January 2010

Anaheim is the home of Disney Land, nestled in California's vibrant metropolis of Orange County. With over 3 million people residing in the O.C. and the constant influx of tourists, the Anaheim Police Department works diligently to keep citizens safe, informed and protected.

Sergeant Rick Martinez and Sergeant Tim Schmidt, the primary PIOs at Anaheim PD, have deeply integrated and ingrained SnapStream into their everyday line of duty. From talking with Sgt. Martinez and Sgt. Schmidt during our PIO webinar on June 3, we learned about their applications of the SnapStream Server. And to our delight, we discovered there's much more than meets the eye.

At the core, Anaheim relies on SnapStream chiefly to search across TV and to create clips for archival references. But interestingly enough, the police department is also capturing video evidence from news broadcasts and deploying it to support criminal investigations. You wouldn't believe the number of witnesses who divulge information to the news media, when instead they should be reporting valuable tips to the police department.

“ We're now gathering evidence that we were not necessarily getting before. We're more efficient because of that [TV search]. ”
- Sgt. Tim Schmidt, PIO, Anaheim PD

In any case, Anaheim PD can now masterfully rope in testimonies, some with dead-on implicating statements, from television news sources, and in turn, utilize these broadcasts in court. Sgt. Schmidt says that the inherent value of a news clip has extremely powerful conviction playing before a jury.

So now, we are helping police departments do more than monitor media because:

• They know about evidence that otherwise, they wouldn't be aware of, if it weren't for the channeled pulse of TV search.
• They can avoid issuing subpoenas to new stations, which slows down the progress of a case while it's hot. (And forget about paying for clipping services.)

Catch this snippet of insight from Anaheim. For the whole story, the full-length Anaheim webinar is available on our YouTube channel.

Publishing widely regarded content analysis, the Project for Excellence in Journalism serves an important role: keeping the industry in check.

A non-profit, non-partisan organization under the umbrella of Pew's Research Center, PEJ is a vital resource for journalists and citizens dedicated to the study and reflection of the press.

With teams of analysts watching and dissecting broadcast news on a daily basis, the Project makes great use of the SnapStream Server to capture traditional television and stream recordings right from their desktops, all in the name of empirical research.

Speaking to the Project's Content Supervisor, Paul Hitlin, I gathered that this type of technology has made their workflow become much smoother; they were able to eliminate the hassle of burning DVDs and bringing them to their work stations, not to mention keeping them organized!

What they find useful about going digital: they can directly play back content and archive it. This makes it easy to handle simultaneous things--like side-by-side comparisons of news outlets and writing up research findings--all in one place, from the PC.

Paul Hitlin has graciously agreed to share his insights from the front lines, covering the bases of broadcast news analysis. On the horizon, he sees vast potential for the PEJ to expand the scope of quantitative trends they can isolate in the media from the source of TV search technology.

For professors and professionals in journalism and communications, there's so much you can learn from Paul and what PEJ is doing. I hope you'll join us next Wednesday, May 26 for a live webinar and interactive question and answer session.

The jig is up, people. The contest to name the 50-channel, world's largest DVR wrapped on Friday, April 30. We reviewed your entries until our bellies ached with laughter. We loved your creativity. But, there is only one iPad up for grabs.

And the winning entry is...

"The Kraken"

Congratulations to Andrew Brack for submitting this fantastically fitting name.

His accompanying explanation for this name read:

This mythical beast was supposed to be so large it could be mistaken for an island. Seems appropriate for a DVR of enormous proportions. Besides, the 'We've released The Kraken' headline for a press release sort of writes itself, right?

We cast our votes and this imaginative idea soon emerged as our favorite. When I asked Andrew how he thought of the name, he explained how he had just rewatched the original Harryhausen Clash of the Titans a few weeks earlier.

"I came up with the name by thinking of the biggest monster I could think of from mythology and of the two or three contenders, 'The Kraken' was the one that sounded the most awe-inspiring," Andrew said. "It all just seemed to fit."

Andrew lives outside Atlanta, Georgia with his wife and enjoys reading, travel and watching movies (new and old). His favorite shows currently on TV are Mad Men, True Blood, Friday Night Lights and Doctor Who. (I'd say it's evident that his acquired taste for film and television paid off quite nicely, here.)

Congratulations again, Andrew! Enjoy your brand new Apple iPad in good health.

P.S. We recognize that there were multiple entries of "The Kraken," but Andrew was the first.

Spring is in the air, and it's the perfect time for road trips. This month, we're leaving Houston in the rear view, touring to Kansas, Georgia and Ontario to convene with three different government crowds. The schedule of events is leaning towards public safety, information and communication.

Along our way, we'll pick up our friends from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Johnson County Sheriff's Office, Overland Park Fire Department and Plano Police Department.

Once we're cruising, we'll get to talking about television monitoring, workflows and best practices, all from the PIO's point of view. (PIO = public information officer)

First stop, Kansas

KAPIO | Lawrence, KS | Thurs. May 13, 12 pm

SnapStream, I've a feeling we're not in Houston anymore. We're hightailing it to Kansas for the first, ever, statewide gathering of PIOs, not to mention officers from surrounding states like Missouri. We are thrilled to be a part of the Kansas Association of Public Information Officers' inaugural conference, where we're hosting the headlining educational seminar.

Panelists: Tom Erickson, president of KAPIO and PIO for Johnson County Sheriff's Office, and Jason Rhodes, PIO of Overland Park Fire Department

Next up, P-I-O' Canada!

IACP PIO | Toronto, ON | Fri. May 21, 8:30 am

The week after KAPIO, we're trekking to Toronto for a friendly meet-up with our neighbors to the North. American and Canadian public information officers will come together at this joint event between the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) and the Ontario Association of Chiefs of Police (OACP) for an open exchange of information and training across borders.

Panelists: From the Royal Canadian Mounted Police - Steven Lusignan, Media Monitoring and Analysis Unit of Public Affairs and Communications Services, and David Patterson, Operational Readiness and Response Coordination Center

A Peachy Finish

IACP LEIM | Atlanta, GA | Thurs. May 27, 10:15 am

Last in the lineup, we head to the Peach State for the 34th annual IACP Law Enforcement Information Management (LEIM) training conference, where we'll learn about the technology that battles crime and helps departments run at tip-top speed.

Panelists: From the Plano Police Department - Rick McDonald, Public Information Officer, and Heather Bowden, PIO Coordinator

Oh, the places we go! That wraps up the trips for May. Thanks to everyone who's coming along for the ride.

The team jetted back from Vegas at the end of week before last, in a total whirlwind. We had a real successful showing at the
National Association of Broadcasters conference. At our booth, we had the 50-channel DVR on display and ramped up for active demos and got to meet tons of interesting people in the entertainment industry.

We were in South Upper Hall, a lively, active spot. Passerby came over to enter our DVR contest, which is still going on until the end of this week (April 30), if you haven't entered. But man, did we get some funny names and reactions at the booth!

The Broadcast Education Association had a co-located conference that Thursday (April 15) where our CEO Rakesh Agrawal participated in a panel along with other news assignment editors and journalism professors. The panel explored adapting news video for the Web.

For those of you who couldn't make it and requested the rebroadcast, we've clipped out Rakesh's portion for you to watch. (It's on our YouTube channel.)

All in all, definitely a great show. This was SnapStream's fourth time, my third, and I know we'll be back to kick it again next year.

Several of us from the SnapStream team are in Las Vegas right now at the National Association of Broadcaster's event (we're in the south upper hall #SU2707-- if you're here, stop by and say hi). One of the questions we get a lot of is, simply, "What is SnapStream?"

It's probably fair to assume that many of you here on the blog share this question... so let me answer that question here.

So, what is SnapStream?

You probably search the web every day with search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. SnapStream delivers a similar search experience for traditional TV shows -- you know, the stuff you get over-the-air, cable, or satellite. That's to say, SnapStream makes it possible to search TV shows from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, ESPN, Comedy Central, CSPAN, or anything on network television.

Here's an example of the kind of search results that we deliver for traditional television:

How does it work?

SnapStream's TV search technology uses closed-captioning (that's included in almost all TV content in the U.S. and Canada, here in the U.S. it's mandated by the FCC) and program guide data to power it's TV search engine.

Our customers purchase a turn-key TV search appliance (a piece of hardware) from us. It's delivered pre-configured, making it easy to setup and install. This SnapStream TV search appliance can record up to 10 channels at a time and then our software, running on this appliance, indexes those recordings and makes them searchable.

Here's a video demo'ing our TV search interface:

So there are the basics. Have any other questions? Post them in the comments and I'll answer them!