The BlogTalkRadio Blog

BlogTalkRadio’s Media Lizzy to Host Show Based on AOL Political Machine Blog

BlogTalkRadio (www.blogtalkradio.com), the first citizen broadcasting network, and AOL News (news.aol.com), have created a daily online talk radio show focusing on AOL News’ Hot Seat question of the day. The show, called AOL Hot Seat Question of the Day, will be available to listeners on BlogTalkRadio, (www.blogtalkradio.com/AOL-Hot-Seat), and AOL’s Political Machine blog, (news.aol.com/political-machine). BlogTalkRadio’s Media Lizzy will host the daily program along with a Political Machine Hot Seat blogger of the day. Listeners can call in and join the conversation.

Hot Seat is AOL News’ syndicated political widget featuring daily political poll questions from some of the biggest political bloggers across the political spectrum, including The Huffington Post, Time’s Mark Halperin, Slate’s John Dickerson, Politico, Crooks & Liars, Power Line, The Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan and Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey. The questions address current political issues and events as a way to stimulate a dialogue between voters, pundits and politicians.

“The Hot Seat polls bring together various opinions from syndicated content across the Internet and provides an outlet for the public to discuss breaking political news,” said Coates Bateman, Executive Producer, AOL’s Political Machine. “By adding the BlogTalk Radio component, we are providing users with additional insight into the Hot Seat blog posts.”

“As politics is the most popular content category on BlogTalkRadio, we are happy to partner with AOL News and its outstanding Political Machine blog,” said Alan Levy, CEO and co-founder of BlogTalkRadio. “John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama’s campaign have all utilized BlogTalkRadio to communicate their messages to the masses and interact with voters on a one-on-one basis. This agreement with AOL News furthers BlogTalkRadio’s commitment to inform the public about this year’s presidential race and encourage listeners to lend their voice and share their opinions on the election and future of the United States.”

In addition to AOL Hot Seat Question of the Day, Elizabeth “Media Lizzy” Blackney also hosts BlogTalkRadio programs Heading Right Radio and The Media Lizzy Show. She is a political communications strategist, author of Sex, Lies & Politricks, and the founding publisher of TMK Books.

About AOL
AOL is a global Web services company that operates some of the most popular Web destinations, offers a comprehensive suite of free software and services, runs one of the largest Internet access businesses in the U.S., and provides a full set of advertising solutions. A majority-owned subsidiary of Time Warner Inc., AOL LLC and its subsidiaries have operations in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Asia. Learn more at AOL.com.

Martin Varsavsky is hosting his second Menorca TechTalk this weekend. Among the who’s who on the roster is Alan Levy, BlogTalkRadio CEO.

Alan, who wrote a post earlier this year about Martin, will be attending the four day event with some of the web’s greatest minds. From Martin’s blog post:

Last year we celebrated our first Menorca TechTalk, a gathering of Tech Entrepreneurs at my farm in Menorca. It was fun, relaxing, a great learning experience for all of those who participated and for those who attended the TechTalk itself…The gathering starts on Thursday morning and ends Sunday evening.

Some of those attending include Om Malik (Giga Omni Media), Andrew Mclaughlin (Google), Loic Le Meur (Seesmic), Jennifer Schenker (BusinessWeek), John Markoff (The New York Times), Joi Ito (Creative Commons, Six Apart Japan, Investor) and many more.

You can read the entire list of tech gurus on Martin’s original post.

WNBC’s technology reporter Sree Sreenivasan reviewed BlogTalkRadio during his Tech Report this morning on WNBC.

His entire review was posted on the WNBC.com site and the video can be seen below:

Immediately following his WNBC broadcast, Sreenivasan hosted a special interactive talk show entitled “Tech Chat with WNBC Viewers” on his own BlogTalkRadio show, Sree Tips, to discuss the BlogTalkRadio platform, as well as new and emerging technology trends. They had such a good response, they’ll be doing it again next Thursday, May 1 from 7-8am ET, as well. Join them live at http://www.blogtalkradio.com/sreetips/

This is the first use of BlogTalkRadio as an extension of a television news broadcast. BlogTalkRadio has been used as a discussion tool for major U.S. Newspaper articles with live interactive call-in shows between author, source and the larger community, but this is the first major television venture.

Sreenivasan, is the tech reporter for WNBC-TV, Dean of Student Affairs & professor at Columbia Journalism School and author of SreeTips.com and the New to Sree blog. Sree uses BlogTalkRadio with SAJA, the South Asian Journalists Association; his SreeTips.com tech tips site; and, more recently, to extend the reach of the Columbia Journalism School.

This testimonial from a host demonstrates how BlogTalkRadio provides more than just a platform for speakers; it also provides a place where listeners can get what they are seeking.

My life has changed a lot since I decided to do a show on BlogTalkRadio a couple of months ago. I will admit I was a little apprehensive because I came from a blogging community. I didn’t see how the blogs I wrote could be transferred into a radio show format. Not only that, I wasn’t much of a public speaker. Or at least I THOUGHT I wasn’t much of a public speaker.

Being on BlogTalkRadio has affected more than me. It has affected the people who have listened to my shows. My show is based around giving insight on love, life, sex and relationship from a man’s point-of-view. It has affected a lot of people because of the emails I receive after I do a show.

I received an email from a woman who didn’t have the courage to face up to her family about her herpes status. But because of the show I did on herpes she was able to face them with some confidence. I received another email from a woman who had issues moving on in life after breaking up with her boyfriend. But because she listened to the show about my break-up experience she was able to not internalize her situation and deal with it for what is was. I received another email from a man who said he was able to start talking to his child’s mother after years of not speaking to her after listening to a show I did on single fathers. The list goes on and on.

My life has changed because I receive a number of emails on an every day basis from people who are looking for answers in the matter of the heart. I stay up until the wee hours in the morning answering these emails because they trust me to give them answers they seek. People need an impartial, outside point-of-view and it makes me feel good to know I was able to help them in some way. I know if I can help them…they in turn will help someone else in their struggles.

When I do a show I have only one purpose. If I am able to change ONE person’s life by something I said, I accomplished what I set out to do. Judging from the emails I receive on an every day basis…I think I am doing okay.

Thank you, BlogTalkRadio for allowing me and all of the other hosts an opportunity of getting their voice heard.

The Luvologist™
http://blogtalkradio.com/luvologist

Congratulations to our hosts as BlogTalkRadio hit 70,000 shows earlier today.

How many have you listened to? How many are yours? The future looks bright for BlogTalkRadio and its hosts. Thanks everyone!

If you haven’t already voted for BlogTalkRadio in the Webware 100 Awards, then do so right now - only 5 hours left! Voting ends at 3pm ET today, so no more procrastinating!

The Webware 100 Awards honors the greatest social media tools on the net – like BlogTalkRadio. If you’ve already voted (and it seems many of you have, the Webware site reported on Friday that they were approaching 2 million votes!), thank you. If you haven’t voted yet, do so right now! Click here to vote or click the badge!

Voting ends Today and winners will be announced April 21 - we hope with your help that we’re one of them. Thanks for supporting BlogTalkRadio!

Congratulations goes to BlogTalkRadio guest John McCain as he seals the GOP presidential bid.

McCain’s campaign went through some rough times last year and many counted him out. But he always found a voice on BlogTalkRadio. After all, that’s why we’re here.

During his three visits to BlogTalkRadio, Senator McCain had this to say:

• May 29, 2007 - McCain: “We…unfortunately, pay way too much attention and I plead guilty first, pay too much attention to a lot of the polls; a lot of them are conflicting. And as you know polls are less, much less accurate than they use to be due to the advent of the cell phone”
• July 19, 2007 - McCain: “We’re gonna spend a lot of time in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina doing what I do best, and that’s the town hall meetings, face to face, unfiltered communications with people, that’s the way I won back in 2000…I can convince people that I’m the one that’s qualified, I’m the one that’s experienced, and I’m the one that’s prepared to meet this great challenge we describe…”
• October 15, 2007 - McCain: “We just came back from New Hampshire last night…I’ve been in this business long enough to detect enthusiasm. And the town meetings have been great…we’re in good shape and there is a lot of interesting things happening as people start to really begin to focus on this race.”

Reviewing these quotes today gives one a different perspective on how political races are won and how experience and determination can drive a person to victory over time. Congratulations, Senator McCain, we look forward to having you and your campaign back on BlogTalkRadio.

BlogTalkRadio is pleased to announce today the hiring of Kris Smith as Vice President of Product Development. Smith is a new media, RSS and podcast expert with more than eight years of experience in online media and marketing.

In his new role, Smith will be responsible for BlogTalkRadio’s product development and user interface advances to increase the experience for the site’s hosts and listeners.

“Kris’ solid background in social media, online marketing and programming makes him an optimal choice. He will be instrumental in helping BlogTalkRadio take our innovative technologies from the development stage to their implementation, all to further enhance the BlogTalkRadio’s user experience, ” said Alan Levy, BlogTalkRadio CEO.

“BlogTalkRadio is a revolutionary and disruptive platform that’s changing the way individuals and companies communicate to their audiences online,” said Smith. “With my background in emerging media strategies and implementation for Fortune 500 companies, I am eager to help grow BlogTalkRadio into a powerful new media company.”

Prior to joining BlogTalkRadio, Smith was the Vice President New Media at Room214, a search marketing and social media agency. Smith also founded Palegroove Studios, the world’s first podcast production company. He also co-hosts and produces the 400-plus episode Croncast podcast. Additionally, Smith developed Castlock, a robust new media management and RSS metrics platform to manage large libraries of content and maintain statistics privately.

We welcome Kris to the team and look forward to his input shaping the future of BlogTalkRadio. You can see Kris’ own post about joining the team here.