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Archives for October 2015

Another top politico joins the tech ranks; Blumenthal to SurveyMonkey

October 26, 2015 By WHC Insider

Mark Blumenthal will leave his post as senior editor at The Huffington Post to join SurveyMonkey as its first head of election polling.

via politico.com:

“The move is a sign that, amid a period of intense change in the way pollsters collect data, SurveyMonkey — which began as a simple online survey tool — is beefing up its political polling.

“SurveyMonkey has spent the past few years trying to leverage the millions of people who participate in surveys on its website — with clients from Little League coaches to large corporations — into the political space. At the same time, as traditional telephone polling has faltered following the growth of cellphones and Americans’ increasing unwillingness to participate in polls, online surveys are more accepted now than they have been in past election cycles.”

“I’ve known Mark for a long time, and the opportunity came up to have him spearhead our efforts,” said Jon Cohen, vice president of survey research at SurveyMonkey. “Mark has been the foremost chronicler over the past decade of the changes in our industry.”

“We’re investing in elections by leveraging the unique data sources that we have, and how we can parlay that into changing survey research more broadly,” Cohen said.

Read more via politico.com: SurveyMonkey swipes HuffPost’s Blumenthal to expand election polling

Filed Under: 2016 election, News, News Media

Young French designer Millinsky on the styles of Trump and Reagan

October 23, 2015 By WHC Insider

In a recent interview for the Volta Insider podcast hosted by Rachel Greenberg, young French designer, Millinsky, discussed what he thinks about Donald Trump’s campaign hat. “I think it’s funny that he’s doing a hat. It’s not really cool that he’s selling it. But yeah, I think he’s kind of copying what Ronald Reagan said in his campaign, like, ‘bring America back.’ It’s kind of the same vibe. I mean, if you copy someone, that’s not really creative, so I do not support that a lot. But as long as he’s doing it, if he likes it, whatever, I mean, go for it, Donald.”

He went on to explain that he doesn’t really follow American politics, but “the only thing I really follow is Ronald Reagan…To me he was like a living rock star, literally. He invited Michael Jackson to the White House. He was chill.”

When asked how he came up with the name NASASEASONS for his fashion line, Millinksy said that he wanted “a cool name. Something people knew about, but not related to the original thing.” He thought relating NASA and rockets to a clothing brand would catch attention, but was told he couldn’t use the name NASA on its own, so he came up with NASASEASONS instead.

Download this episode of the Volta Insider podcast on AudioBoom or iTunes. And follow @VoltaInsider on Twitter.

Filed Under: News, Volta Insider

Zignal Labs Closes $15 Million in New Funding

October 21, 2015 By WHC Insider

Zignal Labs, the world’s leading realtime cross media analytics company, today announced the completion of a $15 million round of funding. The round was led by existing investors Andy Ballard of Figtree Partners; Mitch Cohen of Ross Investment Associates; and Jim Hornthal, co-founder and Chairman of Zignal Labs. The company will use the funds to continue to expand their sales, product and engineering operations.

Since 2011, Zignal Labs has continued to outpace the competition through rapid growth and product innovation. The company recently announced the launch of a new product, Zignal Command Center, a multi-screen display of the company’s realtime, cross media intelligence platform. Zignal Labs enables customers to see relevant stories and insights unfold with visually stunning analytics, spot trends and immediately take action with unprecedented accuracy.

“With this latest round of funding, we’ll be expanding our team and scaling our best-in-class technology that allows a wide range of industries such as global consumer brands, financial institutions, PR agencies, media outlets and political organizations to gain actionable insights across the media spectrum,” said Josh Ginsberg, CEO of Zignal Labs. “Through our breakthrough technology, the only realtime cross media analytics platform, our customers can confidently make data-driven decisions like never before.”

Filed Under: News

Volta Insider interviews fashion designer Millinsky

October 20, 2015 By WHC Insider

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The latest episode of VOLTA INSIDER podcast features an interview with Millinsky of NASASEASONS.

Millinsky is a young influential who transcends stigma and stereotype, redefining what it means to be creative. His artistic vision resides in the meeting place of streetwear and couture, and has captured the hearts of those who follow his work.

This interview was an insightful look into the world of today’s young innovators.

Download the podcast on AudioBoom or iTunes. And follow @VoltaInsider on Twitter.

Filed Under: News, Volta Insider

Shailagh Murray at Washington Women Technology Network Lunch

October 15, 2015 By WHC Insider

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Washington Women Technology Network hosted a special lunch featuring an off-the-record conversation with Shailagh Murray, a senior adviser to President Obama. Co-host Karen Appleton, SVP of Box, welcomed the crowd which included women CEO’s and executives in Washington for Fortune’s Most Powerful Women conference which ended earlier in the day.

Shailagh Murray, a former Washington Post and Wall Street Journal reporter is a veteran of Vice President Biden’s office before she moved to the West Wing earlier this year. Washington Women Technology Network was founded by Connie Milstein, Tammy Haddad and Hilary Rosen to bring together women leaders in technology, politics and media.

Previous guests included Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Amy Klobuchar, Kara Swisher, April Ryan, and Megan Smith.

Tech guests included Google’s Niki Christoff and Twitter’s Jenna Golden. Traditional media guests included Betsy Fischer Martin, Trail Talk, Lisa Sherman, CEO of Ad Council, Carol Melton, Time Warner, Shelley Brindle, HBO, Robin Sproul, ABC News, and Nick Massella, NewsHour.

Other special guests were Kara Goldin, Hint Water, Kelley McCormick, SKDK, Wendy Clark, Coke’s Sparkling Brands President, and Juleanna Glover, who needs no title.

Filed Under: News, WWTN

Analyzing the #DemDebate with Zignal Labs

October 14, 2015 By WHC Insider

Analytics platform, Zignal Labs, provided analysis of last night’s Democratic presidential debate hosted by CNN.

Tracking more than 2.2 million mentions during the two-hour event, following is Zignal’s breakdown of mentions by candidate.

zignal1

The following chart reveals some of the highlights from the evening.

zignal2

Republican candidates couldn’t resist adding their commentary to the online debate. Donald Trump earned the most attention of the GOP hopefuls with his live tweeting:

zignal3

While #BlackLivesMatter was the most tweeted about issue of the night:

zignal4

The following graph shows the most frequently mentioned foreign policy issues across social and traditional media among those writing about the debate through the first segment.

zignal9

And the following map shows how Twitter exploded with Bernie Sanders mentions after he addressed the question of whether or not he was a socialist.

zignal10

Read More:
Bernie Sanders got more online buzz than any other candidate in Democratic debate
The Daily 202: Hillary Clinton won the debate (and six other takeaways from Las Vegas)

Filed Under: 2016 election, News

James Carville Steps Up For Hillary

October 13, 2015 By Tammy Haddad

James Carville threw his support behind Hillary Clinton with a fundraising email sent to supporters in advance of tonight’s CNN debate featuring Democratic presidential candidates.

The number one thing us Hillary supporters need to do to get ready for the first debate is let her know we’re with her.

Donate $1 or whatever you can to become a Debate Donor and join the group of folks who pledge to stand with Hillary during this important moment in the campaign. No flash cards or policy prep-work required.

Filed Under: 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, News

Zignal Labs reports decline of Trump media attention

October 7, 2015 By WHC Insider

trmpAn article in the New York Times reports on the recent decline of media attention for GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump:

“When Donald J. Trump responded in July to criticism from one of his Republican rivals, Senator Lindsey Graham, by publicly releasing the South Carolina lawmaker’s cellphone number, the public and the press could not get enough of the jaw-dropping stunt.

“But on Monday, when Mr. Trump sent a case of Trump brand bottled water to Senator Marco Rubio’s campaign office — poking fun at the Florida senator’s sweaty debate performance and penchant for chugging water — the prank fell notably flat.”

According to San Francisco-based media analytics company, Zignal Labs, the water prank generated only 7,500 mentions in print, broadcast and social media compared to 34,000 mentions garnered by the previous cellphone gag.

“It’s kind of a like a season of TV shows — eventually people burn out on them,” said Erick Erickson, a conservative commentator who runs RedState.com. “We’ve had a season of Trump and the plot hasn’t changed, there’s no new twist, and people are starting to move on to other TV shows.”

Zignal Labs also found that “as Mr. Trump’s share of media attention declined, both Mr. Carson and Mrs. Fiorina saw their shares increase.”

“It’s an interesting question of who is losing who,” said Josh Ginsberg, chief executive of Zignal Labs. “Are voters reacting off of conservative media, or is conservative media reacting off of voters?”

Read the article on nytimes.com: Donald Trump’s Bombast Seems to Be Wearing Out Its Welcome

Filed Under: 2016 election, News

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Exploring “behind the scenes” of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

We track the White House Correspondents’ weekend and all the activities around it, from journalists and media companies to the White House and politicos.

Tammy Haddad is Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief of WHC Insider and CEO of Haddad Media.

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