FPAC-TV rebrands itself as ''Access Framingham'' and will use new logo (above) and new website address: www.accessfram.tv
FRAMINGHAM, MA – At Monday night’s Annual Meeting of Framingham Public Access Corporation, FPAC members heard about the successes of the past year and challenges to come for Framingham’s Community Media Center. Then the board and staff added a surprise announcement.
Beginning this week, FPAC will operate with a new name and logo, one that FPAC officials believe will reflect the organization’s mission to engage, serve, and enrich the community by developing programming by and for the people of Framingham, providing educational opportunities, and facilitating the exchange of information through traditional and new media.
The new name for the five-year-old organization will be “Access Framingham“.
Access Framingham will remain committed to the promise of (more…)
Why is ''Patch'' trying to get people to believe they are a local website and hiding the fact that they are AOL ?
FRAMINGHAM, MA – AOL, the online service that so many people loved to hate, is rearing its ugly head again.
AOL, a company whose corporate ethics are virtually non-existent has been the object of thousands of consumer, employee and investor complaints and lawsuits due to; unfair consumer practices, consumer privacy violations, unfair labor practices and securities law violations.
The company was been the target of (and lost) one of the largest class action lawsuits in history.
One class action lawsuit should be of particular interest to anyone considering “volunteering”, “contributing”, or responding to offers for paid work at AOL’s Patch. That lawsuit had to do with thousands of people who were effectively unpaid or underpaid “employees” of AOL — although the company called them “community leaders” and denied they worked for AOL.
Framingham company Correlsense awarded 2010 Red Herring N. American Top 100 Finalist
FRAMINGHAM, MA – Correlsense, a Framingham based business transaction management software and service company today announced another key strategic partnership. London based Fusion Business Solutions, an IT management systems integrator will provide “a qualified local presence in the sales and support of Correlsense’s SharePath”.
This is just the latest in a chain of good news for the Framingham company.
On June 15, 2010 Correlsense was selected as a finalist for the Red Herring North America 100 award — a prestigious award by a top internet media company whose mission is to “cover innovation, technology, financing and entrepreneurial activity“. Simply being named one of only 100 finalists in a field that spans (more…)
FRAMINGHAM, MA – Ever since Community Cablevision came to town in the 1970’s, one-by-one, most people took down the rabbit ears or roof-top antennae and ran coaxial cable into their homes instead.
Framingham Community Cablevision, logo, (1979).
Today there are several options available to Framingham residents in regard to how they obtain “tv signal”.
Choices range from using a digital converter box connected to those old rabbit ears or aerial antennae, by “cable”, by satellite — or a popular choice lately: foregoing traditional formal television programming and watching news, entertainment and other forms of video on an internet connected device.
Cable providers have long realized that improvements in speed and quality of online video transmission would make people less dependent on traditional television as a media source and today cable tv is usually bundled into some form of broadband cable access.
Framingham’s cable t.v., internet and residential phone needs are served primarily by three companies; Comcast, RCN and (more…)
FRAMINGHAM, MA – Urban blight. Billboards. Downtown Framingham has billboards and most in town would like to see them gone. The majority of the billboards are owned and maintained by Clear Channel Communications, (www.clearchannel.com).
The problem for the Town is that the billboards are “grandfathered“, meaning they were erected when no sign bylaws prohibited them, so the Town can’t just order them removed.
(Contributed by Greg Martin, FPAC Production Technician)
FRAMINGHAM, MA — It has been a busy time lately for FPAC TV programming. We have many new specials, public service announcements (PSAs), and a lot of exciting new series shows. We’re stronger and better than ever before, and as always offering the most unique, fresh, and sometimes controversial programming you’re likely to see in Framingham.
In related news, FPAC is in the process of purchasing and installing a Video-On-Demand (VOD) server from Tightrope Media. You may ask, “What does this mean for Framingham television?”
Until now, FPAC’s fine programming was available only to the residents of Framingham. At FPAC, we felt that we were depriving the rest of the planet’s 5 billion inhabitants of the educational, funny, and unique programming that we show here, unavailable anywhere else. With the addition of this server, FPAC shows will be available 24 hours/day, 7 days/week, 365 days/year, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.
The Cablecast SX VOD server makes our content available for viewing on demand over the Internet, to anyone, at any time. When a digital file arrives at FPAC, we will automatically transcode it for viewing and podcasting and then make the file available though the FPAC website.
FPAC will become global in reach, offering viewers up to 30,000 hours of programming at the click of a mouse. Viewers can receive automatic notifications of new content via RSS feeds, and can download programming to and iPod, iPhone, or similar mobile device for viewing on the go. So get ready, Framingham, for some international exposure!
FRAMINGHAM, MA – Do you have photos, publications, or records that depict the people and places of the textile industry in Framingham?
The Framingham Historical Society is looking for images for their upcoming exhibit, The Fabric of Framingham. Rather than donate your images, the Society would just like you to share them by allowing it to scan them.
The Framingham Historical Society & Museum is holding a scanning party on Saturday, February 11 from 10a.m. – noon at the Edgell Memorial Library. Refreshments will be served.
Trish Barber, (left), representing AOL’s Digital City project and Scott Cohen, Content Manager of The Boston Globe’s website gave overviews of their company’s internet strategy and fielded questions from the audience.
CAMBRIDGE, MA – The rumble of heavy equipment was felt on the information superhighways of eastern Massachusetts as key players from The Boston Globe, from Fidelity’s Community Newspaper group, and from AOL and Yahoo!, along with local webmasters, internauts, and media types gathered at MIT for the (eastcoast) November Meeting of The WebMasters Guild.
The meetings, chaired by Mathew Cutler, eastcoast chairman of the WMG, was presented as a forum where panelists each gave a seven minute synopsis relating the local content and community aspects of thier websites (or plans for websites in some cases).
Athough terms like “grassroots efforts” and “community building”, were present in the panelists messages, that fact that advertising revenue and media control are the real issues was obvious to most in attendance.
While the thought of putting a “community” online is not a new one, major online service providers are just starting to realize that while the internet allows anyone global information access, most users want a place to call home.
The focus of the forum, local content, was taken a step further by Paul DeBraccio whose GeoCities website provides users with themed communities… virtual topic based destinations where personal pages are set up by homesteaders who’s interest relate to that area’s topic. DeBraccio, a former ad man claims millions of hits and has partnerships with Lycos, Planet Direct, and T.V. Guide.
Trish Barber, a Regional Manager for Digital City, Inc., (an America Online Company), described how AOL plans to open up 20 metropolitan based citys on the web by the end of the year, and how the AOL cities are currently available only to members using AOL’s client software, but that the new model will be HTML based and open to anyone with internet access. The Digital City plan was more focused on major metropolitan regions, and did not appear to threaten the existence of (smaller) town or city sites, in fact Barber explained that links to the (non-AOL) city and town sites would be included.
Paul DeBraccio, (left), of GeoCities talking with Mathew Cutler of The WebMasters Guild.
Webmasters who run sites for or about individual cities and towns in the greater Boston area attended and listened closely as the online power players discussed issues that many felt could overshadow the efforts they had made in bringing their community online. While some of big guns explained how they do plan to operate at the city/town level, not all speakers came accross as the type of competition the locals envisioned them to be. Scott Cohen, Content Manager of The Boston Globe’s popular boston.com site explained how his organization works with museums, theatres, media outlets, and others, many times providing links and even entire web sites when the mix is right “with no money changing hands”. The Globe’s plan appeared to be more regional, with metro-region themed pages and entertainment and dining directories, but did not plan to be covering news and events town by town.
Charlene Li, Multi-Media Director for Fidelity’s CNC newspaper group, a collection of daily and weekly papers with reporters and salespeople in nearly 120 towns and cities in the New England area gave contradicting statements; at times saying they were looking forward to working with the local webmasters, and at other times saying the group, owned by the massive Fidelity Investments company wanted to “keep the money in the family”. Already stepping on people’s toes, the Fidelity group has put up pages for towns where others have already established a town website — none of which are mentioned anywhere on the CNC pages. Li’s comments of “working together” did not ring true, and a general mistrust and dislike of the company was expressed by many we talked with. Some are questioning the ethical implications of a company like Fidelity’s CNC having such financial interest and media control in a single market, and what conflicting issues relating to securities and newspaper operation will be applied to the their activities online. It appears that local webmasters may not have as much to fear from the Fidelity/CNC group’s sites where pages they’ve put up already contain material outdated by over 30 days. The Fidelity/CNC group’s mandate to control the web as they have controlled the newspaper market in the region seems doomed to failure due to the freewheeling nature of the web and the market-control tactics and attempts to eliminate competition by CNC.
Elizabeth Collet, (left), of Yahoo!, David Yip of Boston’s South End E-ssociation, and Charlene Li, (right), of Fidelity’s Community Newspaper group.
Only one speaker, David Yip of Boston’s South End E-ssociation, had a mission that did not include big-money interests. Yip’s site, the only non-profit “.org” site represented in the panel focuses on local crime reporting, and was admittedly started as a tax write-off for Yip’s commercial operation which sells sneakers over the internet.
Yahoo! felt the meeting was significant enought to send Elizabeth Collet to describe the web-indexing company’s Yahoo! Communities (local directories), and Neighborhood Yahooligans. Unlike most other web services, Yahoo! provides very little in the way of content. The company, started by two Stanford University students who were only trying to index webpages and sites in a searchable format but became one of the hottest services on the net, is now one of the defacto links on most web sites. Yahoo!, and it’s new pre-adult counterpart Yahooligans, plans to set up local directories where basic town or city information will be provided, along with searchable links to other local sites.
Many may wonder why so many are clamoring for the local market on something so hyped for it’s global qualities, the reasons usually fall along two lines; community building and advertising sales. Web companies who balance both are most likely to succeed, while those who focus on only one of the two may be bulldozed off the information superhighway by the competition.
This article was written by Randy M. Harris, Owner/Operator of Framingham Online, who has been involved in the online information industry since the 1980’s.
