By now, most of you (especially the mac-ophiles) have probably heard the anecdote of Obama’s new media team entering the White House faced with 6-year-old versions of Windows, nary a laptop in sight, and no social networking tools in place. More than giving me a chuckle and pause – and encapsulating the huge technological overhaul ushered in by the Obama team – the story points up a new dilemma for an administration that’s carving a niche of not only being ultra-current, but more importantly, who is claiming to be transparent.

So, what’s the dilemma? Well, it’s actually more of a fear than a dilemma. I worry that bloggers (from either side of the fence, to be fair) will criticize the Obama team for not treating the new WhiteHouse.gov blog as a traditional blog (or, rather, how we’ve come to define a traditional blog… with open comments, strikethrough edits and the like). I anticipate that closed comments, highly-filtered info, and heavily-edited prose may be thrashed by critical eyes (and countered with unforgiving keystrokes).

I hope this fear is unfounded. I hope that the blogging community can accept that the use of social networking tools in this capacity must be politicized (such a gloppy, misused word anyway). This is not a case of the Obama team trying to talk the talk and tripping over their own priggish walk… They get it; it’s clear from how they ran the campaign that they get it. I just hope that the community takes the social networking and blog push from the Obama team for what it is – a measured, accountable, pulling-back of the executive curtain in a fitting way – and not for what it’s not and never can be…

This ain’t no JenniCam on the WH Master Bedroom, folks. Media transparency in the White House is (and needs to be) a relative term.

So, a toast to you, Obama New Media Team… Here’s to responsible openness within a rapidly changing mediascape:

(Amazing pic courtesy of Boston.com’s Big Picture feature)

Just a quick LocaModa shout-out for Stephen’s quote in AdAge today:

Boon for Billboards: Digital Leads Growth for Out-of-Home Ads

The article cites some staggering numbers for DOOH growth in 2009 and beyond (”finishing 2008 with an 11% increase in ad dollars”), but I’ll throw in a caveat:
Unless those digital out-of-home screens are part of a larger picture (yep, I’m going to mention the New Media Triad again), those numbers attenuate pretty darn quickly…

Ever wonder what an engineering meeting looks like at LocaModa?
Well, a little like this (and, no, I’m not being hazed… well, not really)…

And when we’re not doing as many push-ups as we can before our face turns red and we collapse on the carpet…

We’re encouraging you to read this great blog post over at Advertise Here. Rob Gorrie discusses the transition from old media to the New Media Triad, a shift we’ve been championing for years.

To quote Rob:

“Network TV isn’t going away any time soon (ever) but it’s not that hard to understand why certain brands/products are getting antsy about continuing to use a medium that doesn’t come with the measurability of other, newer mediums, is the most expensive product on the market and is losing audience at an astounding rate without the reflection showing up in pricing at the same pace.”

In sum… as we say ’round these parts, “Undivided attention is so last year.”

Rob has a great discussion going, so I urge you to toss in your two cents. Tell him the girl with the lame push-up form sent you…

I came across this amazing excerpt this morning on Smart Mobs, which quite elegantly sums up the integrated, convergent vision of LocaModa and The New Media Triad.

The passage, taken from a longer work by Teemu Arina, explores How Mobile is Changing Our Society:

I have a feeling that the question we pose today is wrong. It’s not about mobile anymore. For some people, mobile means the devices that we carry around as we move, usually hooked up to a cellular network. The truth is, the activities we go through online with computers and what we do with our “mobiles” cannot be seen as separate anymore. This convergence means our language needs to change or our culture will never understand its future. . .

The mobile is like the horse wagon. If Henry Ford had asked people what they wanted, they would have said “faster horses.” It’s the language and our experience of the past that limits our understanding of the future of “mobile.”

Arina’s Mobile Monday Amsterdam event sold out its 400-seat capacity in 2 hours.

I’m not surprised.

[flickr cred]

Tired of industry buzzwords?

Tired of “buzzword” as a buzzword?

Tired of lame images of bees used in every blog post about buzzwords? (I would never…)

For those of you interested in emerging media, digital signage, and all things mobile, check our the newest addition to the blog: The DOOH Dictionary. While you’re at it, check out the books and blogs we’re currently digging over on our Resources page.

Oh, the magical land beyond the landing page!

[img cred]

Another app hits the big screen…

Working with the good folks over at ObamaMinute, we’ve launched Obama Wiffiti in Times Square!

This will be running 24/7 through the election, so crank up your texting to show your support! And, if that’s the way ya swing, head on over to ObamaMinute and register to be part of “An Obama Minute” on Monday, October 6th at noon. They’ve been a wonderful group to work with!

You can also embed this screen into your own blog or website and spread the love (it’s just a quick copy/paste of code at the bottom, just like you’re embedding a YouTube vid).

As you can see, Steve King, our VP Sales, is in NYC today and wasted little time making his presence known… :)

Can’t get enough of the parallel pommel horse, synchronized fencing, marathon ping pong, and that random USA swimmer dude that keeps winning gold medals every four seconds? (Oh Michael, I kid, I kid…)

So hey, you’re not alone. As a collective audience, you’re reportedly using new media more than ever before.

According to NBC, “about half of the people who are using mobile phones to pull down video or information about the Olympics have been trying out that technology for the first time.” [continued after the jump]

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