NPR writes about the digital revolution
Posted by Jason Kandel in Going Digital on July 29, 2010
Illustration courtesy Flickr user Giddy
You say you want a revolution …
NPR today breaks down the publishing race to go digital.
Programmer or journalist?
Posted by Jason Kandel in Uncategorized on July 28, 2010
For those of you who spend time thinking about a career change …
Photo via 10000words.net
Make a mobile plan for emergency news
Posted by Jason Kandel in Tactics on July 15, 2010
Photo courtesy of Nokia Siemens Networks
Smart news agencies gear up for the worst every season – hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and fires.
But do you have a mobile plan?
Michelle McLellan over at the Knight Digital Media Center‘s News Leadership 3.0 blog makes a good argument for making mobile a key part of your emergency news strategy.
Servers will get slammed from a spike in Web traffic. People will be using smart phones big time for information. Telephonic communication will be unreliable, McLellan says.
Text messages and WAP sites require less bandwidth and power than voice calls, so they’re often the channels of choice in an emergency.
The post also suggests setting up a special Twitter account for occasional, high-priority alerts and resources. But even that is not a silver bullet because Twitter could go down.
Shoring up as many of these channels as possible before the big news breaks sounds like a good plan. Starting tomorrow …
Checking out Twitter Media
Posted by Jason Kandel in Resources on June 30, 2010
Image courtesy of Flickr user jez`
If you’re operating in media or interested in seeing how the media is using Twitter, check out Twitter Media. It’s billed as a place of “Knowledge and tools to help you use Twitter to transform TV, entertainment, and journalism.” Interesting post on how Huffington Post is using Twitter lists:
HuffPost uses the List API to extract the accounts from these lists and load them into a custom list-management system. There, they filter the tweets through keywords based on the news of the moment. So, for instance, HuffPost can track what tech journalists are saying about the iPhone 4. Or, conversely, they can track what they’re saying about everything but the iPhone. Or they can track what they’re saying about the iPhone or the EVO 4G or the Droid X.
What new ways have you seen Twitter being used by the media?
More, better website comments?
Posted by Jason Kandel in Tactics on June 27, 2010
via niemanlab.org
In my last post, I asked what the biggest downside to putting up more walls for comments was.
Gawker Media CTO Tom Plunkett says that after his site put into place a tiered system to manage comments, he’s seen more and better comments.
We believe pruning, and a commenting platform as we have implemented, will lead to increased participation, while at the same time encouraging quality.
How do you handle your website’s comments?
Posted by Jason Kandel in Uncategorized on June 24, 2010
Image courtesy of Flickr user San Diego Shooter
Do anonymous bullies take over your website’s comments? Do you want to get rid of them?
How is your news org handling this stuff? Boston.com tackled the issue with Inside the mind of the anonymous online poster:
… many websites are grappling with right now over what to do with anonymous comments. At many of these sites, executives have begun to ask themselves: How did we get into this thicket, and is there a sensible way out? But a more basic question needs to be answered first: Who are these people who spend so much of their days posting anonymous comments, and what is motivating them?
Newspapers find themselves in a strange position. People wanting to have a letter to the editor printed in the paper have long been required to provide their name, address, and a daytime phone number. Yet on the websites owned by these same newspapers, all it usually takes to be handed a perpetual soapbox is an active e-mail address.
After years of letting anonymity rule online, many media heavyweights, from The Washington Post to The Huffington Post, have begun to modify their policies. The goal is to take the playground back from anonymous bullies and give greater weight to those willing to offer, in addition to strong views, their real names.
Like many, we have an open commenting policy at kpcc.org. What do you do? What’s the biggest downside to putting up more walls?
5 tips for good blogging
Posted by Jason Kandel in Resources on June 24, 2010
Image courtesy of Flickr user thorinside
Found this helpful tipsheet on blogging … The five pillars to a successful blog.
1. Linking to sources
2. Updating information
3. Continuous dialogue with readers
4. Active promotion of own your content
5. Embedding relevant content from other sources
More from BetaTales.com
YouTube offers new cloud-based editing tool
Posted by Jason Kandel in Uncategorized on June 17, 2010
YouTube is testing out a new cloud-based video editing tool.
What a concept!
Tried it out a little bit – intuitive, but haven’t dug in to see how much control over edits you can have. It’s probably really good for quick-hit work.
Here’s what it offers:
- Combine multiple videos you’ve uploaded to create a new longer video
- Trim the beginning and/or ending of your videos
- Add soundtracks from our AudioSwap library of tens of thousands of songs
- Create new videos without worrying about file formats and publish them to YouTube with one click—no upload necessary
Anybody used it? If so, would love to hear your thoughts.
What the best blogs offer …
Posted by Jason Kandel in Tactics on June 16, 2010
Flickr photo courtesy user alphadesigner
My rant of the night, from What Makes for a Good Blog? over at the 43 Folders blog.
The best blogs:
- Have a voice, identity, personality
- A focus
- Organization, continuity – “Blog posts are written, not defecated.”
- Style, curation
- Quirks – “Blogs make fart noises and occasionally vex readers … ”
- Are infectious
- They try
- Good blogs know when to break their own rules.
Can news media temper the ‘ecosystem of interruption technologies’?
Posted by Jason Kandel in Uncategorized on June 16, 2010
The way this article slices it, we’re a nation of ADD.
There’s little chance that technology will reverse course. With the growing popularity of instant social media services like Facebook and Twitter, the Web is rapidly moving away from “the page” as the governing metaphor for the presentation of information. In its place we have “the stream,” a fast-moving, ever-shifting flow of bite-sized updates and messages. Everything we’ve seen in the development of the Net and, indeed, in the development of mass media indicates that the velocity of information will only increase in the future.
If serious journalism is going to survive as something more than a product for a small and shrinking elite, news organizations will need to do more than simply adapt to the Net. They’re going to have to be a counterweight to the Net. They’re going to have to find creative ways to encourage and reward readers for slowing down and engaging in deep, undistracted modes of reading and thinking. They’re going to have to teach people to pay attention again. That’s easier said than done, of course—and I confess that I have no silver bullet—but the alternative is continued decline, both economic and intellectual.
So how about after reading this one, taking some time to check out some longer-form journalism online?
My Flickr Photos
KPCC News- Scientist Watches Glacier Melt Beneath His Feet September 5, 2010Scientists collecting ice cores from Indonesia's Pancak Jaya say they saw the 16,000-foot glacier drop 12 inches in just two weeks. Puncak Jaya is one of the few tropical glaciers remaining in the world, and it's especially vulnerable to climate change. This makes it especially important to researchers. […]
- Indonesians protest Fla. church's Quran-burning day September 5, 2010The Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla., said it will burn the Islamic holy book to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Religious leaders in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, have appealed to U.S. authorities to stop the event. […]
- Thousands of returning soldiers face a new enemy September 5, 2010The legacy of one of America's longest combat missions will continue to affect the thousands of troops who came home suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries. […]
- Water valve failure sends city fire tankers to La Tuna Canyon September 5, 2010City fire tanker trucks were sent to a dry, brushy canyon Saturday in the eastern San Fernando Valley because a water pumping system failed, taking fire hydrants out of action during a wildfire alert. […]
- LA man booked in death of father found in storage September 5, 2010Authorities say a 24-year-old man from Hollywood has been arrested on suspicion of killing his 62-year-old father, whose body was found in a storage facility east of Los Angeles. […]
- Pulitzer-winning cartoonist Paul Conrad dies at 86 September 5, 2010Paul Conrad, the political cartoonist who won three Pulitzer Prizes and used his pencil to poke at politicians for more than 50 years, has died. […]
- Mental stimulation postpones, then speeds dementia September 4, 2010Keeping an active mind helps stave off the development of dementia. But being mentally active might speed up Alzheimer's once it hits, according to new research from Chicago's Rush University Medical Center. […]
- On jobs, U.S. now ranks worse than similar nations September 4, 2010The U.S. unemployment rate surged far higher and has remained higher than in other major industrial countries. It's now at 9.6 percent. The big shift came when American companies cut workers more aggressively than foreign firms in the face of the financial crisis. […]
- Calif.'s first senator served just six months September 4, 2010September 9 is California’s 160th birthday. One of its first senators is a familiar name: John C. Fremont. […]
- Now We Are Alone: Living On Without Our Sons September 4, 2010A year ago, the author and his wife were part of a happy family with a bright future. Then their two sons were killed in a car crash. Now they feel a certain bond with other parents who understand that children die a second time "when no one speaks their name." […]
- Scientist Watches Glacier Melt Beneath His Feet September 5, 2010