Thank goodness for Google Alerts. Not only do they bring home just how often the word “MacGyver” is used to refer to someone other than the tv character, and keep me up to date on what other Meachams around the world are doing, but they inform me when my website is featured on a local cable news broadcast. Why would an amateur project be featured on the Albany Time Warner Cable news channel, complete with on-screen scrolling that proves to viewers that it is indeed a “Web Site,” best viewed on “The Internets” ? A good question.
But Noah Robischon, technology reporter for Entertainment Weekly, chose to spotlight my Photo Booth Directory on the December 14 edition of the Entertainment segment of the news. Thanks to my Google Alert for “photo booth,” I found this page with a transcript of the report and a link to a Windows Media clip of the report. The report shows a number of pages from the site and gives the URL; it also follows a couple of the other photo booth sites I have links to. The owner of one of those sites sent me an email today letting me know he’d heard about the report; strangely enough, he sent me a link to the report on a different channel, New York City’s NY1, also the Time Warner Cable 24-hour news channel. The report is the same, but the better-quality RealPlayer file shows a version of the clip with the URLs printed on screen for easy jotting down or typing in.
The reporter (a writer for EW, Time, Popular Science, and other publications) also gives a personalized sign-off “for New York 1.” So I guess the clip aired on Time Warner Cable news all over New York, at least, if not further afield. Coming on the heels of the site being the Yahoo! Pick of the Day on December 8 – who knows, maybe that’s where Noah picked it up – the site is seeing some increased traffic all over the place. I’m in good company; some of the other reports had titles like “Silly Inventions Find A Home On The Internet,” “Take Kermit-Guided Tour Of Muppet Studios Online,” and “The Legend Of Mr. T Lives On In Cyberspace.” I’m honored.
