(iverson's) old currentbuzz

Where is currentbuzz.org ?

2007-04-13T16:56:00.000-05:00

Move with me to my new blogging site. You can find my archives here, but my new stuff is at currentbuzz.org If you live around Chicago or are interested in community and citizen journalism please take a read at CreatingCommunityConnections.org a site developed to publish local and hyperlocal stories about all of Chicago's great neighborhoods. No money stipends for writers (yet) but it is professionally edited. We invite photos, stories, news and schmooze.

For Web 2. presentation

2007-01-09T15:16:00.000-06:00

My blog is currently suffering from a technology problem -- I can't convert it to the new blogger beta and I haven't had time to get a new version up and running, but the URL will be the same when it is functional once more. So, for today, let's check out Web 2.0 by starting with jeteye and a jetpak I have been creating.

Reuters on trust and citizen journalism

2006-12-18T16:54:00.000-06:00

News organizations must realize everyone is both a potential partner and competitor. A 19-year-old sitting in a dorm room cranking out gossip, a well-established journalist blogging for her news organization, or a respected academic all have equal right to have a voice. Whether they have an equal voice is another matter.

How do we know what it "real" and what we can trust? Even Reuters has been fooled by photogs who re-touched work. The key is to "triangulate" and locate several views or sources. The echo-chamber nature of blogs means you have to look to where someone got information so that you aren't just reading the same post as repeated by many cut and pastings. Reuters relies on "Reuters Trust Principles of independence, freedom from bias, and integrity are at the core of what we do and what we believe in" and they fell back on them when the doctored work was discovered. They are working with software companies to better detect fraud mechanically, but the blogosphere (I think they mean "transparency, openess") and trusting their viewer/users can be correction control mechanisms.

Trust and Citizen journalism. One view from Reuters.

2006-12-18T16:44:00.000-06:00

Reuters CEO Discusses 'Trust' and Citizen Journalism

News organizations must realize everyone is both a potential partner and competitor. A 19-year-old sitting in a dorm room cranking out gossip, a well-established journalist blogging for her news organization, or a respected academic all have equal right to have a voice. Whether they have an equal voice is another matter.

Journalism Education --perspectives from students

2006-12-15T17:56:00.000-06:00

Rebecca McKinnon at Berkman at Harvard gives an "unlecture" on what should journalism education and schools be teaching. She asks, what do j schools do in terms of "added value?" Can j schools innovate and teach new skills and then not frustrate students who end up in news orgs where the CMS is old and there is a bias against innovation. J school might be a "sandbox" where experimentation and trying out new things is a good role for school, even if it will cause cognitive dissonance in the students. The teaching needs to go beyond just e-reading. Students need to be constructing experiences by connecting sites they read and using them, not just reading. How can journalists resolve the tension between the old journalism of me the author and expert with today's conversational style of communication? When everyone lectured, then lecture worked. When people start interacting and involving community, then lecturing won't work. "You will have to less of a prima dona about everything going through you." So, going into journalism to be famous or important is not an effective plan, especially in the networked world. Public wants journalism to serve public discourse by getting information the public needs. Do you serve by lecturing or by presenting voices and information and facilitating the discussion by the community? In China, the pro journos who are censored will work with bloggers who can bring attention to things in MSM. This is journalism for the right reasons even if it isn't the way things have always been done. As a professional, she didn't find much value in j ed and what it added. Now as journalism educator, living in a working world where hires are young web savvy techies or seasoned pros, and the middle group is out of luck and being overlooked by news organizations. News orgs are hiring j grads who have the web savvy and web experience, from making web pages to having exp'y writing online. Journalism educators say they are training young people with serious news orientation, including a sense of ethics and news values but these people get hired to do fluff infotainment. In the world of citizen journos, bloggers, and new media, is there a role or what is the role of professional journalists? Suggested roles for Journalism education: Research & development, experimentation -- McKinnon calls news that corporate news media won't touch but is news, "low-hanging fruit" ripe for student journalists to pursue. J schools can go after the low-hanging fruit in novel ways as through citizen journalism or blogging. J schools need to address how students can work as entrepreneurs, but this is difficult and not traditional McKinnon's master's students will blog, but must get others to link to their site. They must look at each other's work and react to others' work as well as just writing or broadcasting without regard to interactivity or feedback aka community online. News orgs now have really good Web 1 sites -- but now we are in a Web 2.0 world. She notes that Word Press CMS is more flexible than Reuters pro system. Web employees of media companies may be stuck in a pre-RSS, UGC world.

from Jeff Jarvis via Guardian

2006-12-08T17:08:00.000-06:00

"A thousand monkeys may end up typing Shakespeare, but they won't film
The Godfather. So I am coming to believe that the medium itself will be a filter for talent and substance."

Jarvis comments on trying out video making and YouTube and how the difficulty of doing broadcast well may be a natural filter for content overload

Tags: DIY+journalism

Clyde and MyMissourian makes an impression

2006-12-08T17:02:00.000-06:00

Clyde was part of a panel in the UK and explained the hybrid model he has been working on. The big points are 1. journalism students have to be guides as well as writers 2. economics dictate a print-online strategy if you want to make money 3. it isn't about what you , as in traditional journalist, thinks is important.

RSF offering blogspace

2006-12-08T12:25:00.000-06:00

Reporters without Borders is offering blogspace for a 30 day free trial. If you blog about global issues you might want to check this out.

"Help yourself" to news

2006-12-07T18:38:00.000-06:00

Editors not needed? Danish online version of computer magazine just uploads stories with timestamps. You pick the order and which stories you read. Is it a model for all publications? I don't think so, but I might like to be able to view a publication this way on occasion and view an edited layout another time. How deeply do you want to dig for content? What's the value of an editor? The ball is still in play, isn't it?

Reuters Paying for "UGC" user-generated content

2006-12-04T13:16:00.000-06:00

User-generated content is starting to generate some attention and some money. It will be interesting to see what deals are negotiated when Reuters starts to pay up. UGC

Social media spam

2006-12-01T10:56:00.000-06:00

Sites that elevate news items on a page by reputation-ranking and number of hits are apparently being spammed or tricked by ad sites, reports a blogger.spambots

(iverson's) currentbuzz

2006-11-30T11:56:00.000-06:00

I finally have time to talk about what has been happening with currentbuzz.org and why I've not been posting. It's obvious if you read it, that I haven't been posting for a couple of weeks. First, the server that hosts currentbuzz went down. Then it was fixed, but the some directories were changed. I understand why my guy did that, but as anyone who has maintained websites over time knows, it means a world of pain as far as updating all the references to the old directory paths. So that took me a couple of days. At the same time, blogger.com began to move stuff to its beta (ha, but currentbuzz apparently can't be converted for the time being.) They somehow changed their feeds and connection information. I post throughout the day, and I use lots of different computers to post, some of them are public lab computers, so I don't want my password all over. I like to use tags, so I had developed a collection of "helpers" like Writetomyblog, nowpublic, performanicing, and even the formerly trusty "blogthis" to avoid using the regular but kind of time consuming posting through blogger. Oh, and I forgot to mention that Firefox came out with an update as well. As you can now anticipate, all of my autoposting helpers were FUBAR with the various directory path, new software and new feed api configurations. And, as anyone would, I have been obsessing about getting everything working again, and not just posting. The latest, is that I got one of posting helpers to work but now my template is askew. I know exactly enough css to complicate my search for a good look to my blog. So, thus, currentbuzz hasn't been up to snuff with information on technology and journalism or media or anything else. I have gone to the best source of help a teacher can contact -- students, and my other Chicagobloggers and I am looking at going to WordPress or another software for my blog. I hope you will bear with me and that I will back up and blogging in a day or so. This happens to all bloggers I expect, but as is typical, I just didn't think it would happen to me...

Did you cybershop today?

2006-11-27T18:00:00.000-06:00

Today is supposed to be cybermonday but CNet for one is downplaying its retail importance. Did you shop today via your computer while you were at work? From AP's Joyce M. Rosenberg via the Chicago Tribune comes an interesting story that suggests that giving employees control over their time results in higher productivity. So, if we did shop on Monday, on Tuesday we will probably make up for on our time....

"The more an employee feels contented in the workplace and believes in management, the more productive they'll be and care about the goals of management," said Frank Kenna, president of The Marlin Co., a workplace communications consulting firm based in North Haven, Conn.

2006-11-27T16:55:00.000-06:00

When did a Peace Sign become Satanic or why I hesitate to move to a condo

2006-11-27T16:54:00.000-06:00

http://www.popandpolitics.com/2006/11/26/merry-xmas-you-satanic-hippie/ A woman puts up her peace sign wreath and gets totally hassled. The interesting thing from the Chicago Trib's version (really an AP story) is that the condo board refused to bother the woman but the Condo President fired them and continues to rant.

tags technorati : peace satanic antiwar

2006-11-25T16:05:00.000-06:00

HBO is maybe thinking that lots of young people just watch and don't care whether it's on TV or Internet.HBO to launch a broadband channel? | CNET News.com

Al Jazeera English reviewed. - By Troy Patterson - Slate Magazine

2006-11-22T11:55:00.000-06:00

Well, you can watch it for yourself for free for 15min. per day, or you can subscribe via Internet. Interesting.Al Jazeera English reviewed. - By Troy Patterson - Slate Magazine

High School journalists doing real world work

2006-11-22T11:23:00.000-06:00

There was mischief in the No Child Left Behind Act and a couple of high school students are getting to experts on FERPA and trying to change a bad provision of NCLBA.‘Privacy’ policy under attack | LJWorld.com: "Buried in the 670 pages of the federal No Child Left Behind law was a requirement that high schools provide lists of students’ names, telephone numbers and addresses to military recruiters."

Knight Brothers 21st Century News Challenge | NewsChallenge

2006-11-21T17:17:00.000-06:00

Journalists, writers, citizens and entrepreneurs-- check out this cool RFPKnight Brothers 21st Century News Challenge | NewsChallenge

CUNY Graduate School Of Journalism Awarded Knight Foundation Grant To Teach Law To Bloggers

2006-11-21T17:11:00.000-06:00

From Media Bloggers Association's Robert Cox via Internet: What’s New ? Blog Archive ? CUNY Graduate School Of Journalism Awarded Knight Foundation Grant To Teach Law To Bloggers

Bob Garfield on Video-sharing and the future of TV

2006-11-21T16:52:00.000-06:00

Bog G. is good. Her nails the trends and links up disparate stories to point out what is really happening. Here I think he is on target as he links up the "meaning" of YouTube, "I post, therefore I am.' or Constituo, ergo sum" and why Google was willing to pay so much for it. Advertising is fleeing television as the eyeballs blink open on niches and avoid commercials like the plague. For the "digital natives" video is video. There is no television video and Internet video. If you don't believe me or Bob Garfield, watch some 12 year olds watch TV/computer. Jeff Jarvis calls thei "exploding TV" and Garfield goes further, with "Monkeyvision...the demand side of the equation -- monkey see, monkey use -- foreshadowing the future of media, already in progress." But where is the revenue stream? And what does a distributed network that promotes "massness" mean?

tags technorati : media blogs, journalism, MBA

Advertising Age - YouTube Grows Up -- But What Does It Mean?

The Tribune - Virtual Greality - Chris Cobler

2006-11-21T16:33:00.000-06:00

The Tribune - Virtual Greality - Chris Cobler

A new NYTimes media blog

2006-11-21T11:03:00.000-06:00

The lede looks like a media review blog. I like the way it aggregates external blogs that talk about the subject at hand.

About The Lede In the news business, the opening sentences of a story are referred to as its "lede" -- spelled that way, journalism lore has it, to avoid confusion with the lead typesetting that once dominated newspaper printing presses. Although a tightly focused narrative typically follows the lede, every sentence in a news story has the potential to spiral off in new directions, and each paragraph leaves behind unexplored angles. That's where The Lede's mission begins.

I am in the process of writing a bit about "portfolio management" and blogs thanks to a discussion I had with Robert Cox of the Media Bloggers Association.

tags technorati : media blogs, journalism, MBA

2006-11-21T10:20:00.000-06:00

They read -- but onlineCollege students are still reading their college newspapers but now they spend more time reading it online.

Saying "No" to boxed software

2006-11-17T22:07:00.001-06:00

Web 2.0 is the darling of the moment. CNet has a new site that is meant to track all the new apps coming out. If you haven't gotten used to Widgets, check them out and more at this handy blog.

Tags: web2.0

I go for the Treatment.

2006-11-17T17:06:00.000-06:00

The Scoop » Blog Archive » The Scoop gets The Treatment Derek Willis is a journalist who keeps track of good investigative work and CAR stories. Recently his site, The Scoop, got a makeover into a more utilitarian style as he turned to Django to let the user search the stories on the kinds of selectors he or she might want to use.

Comic Book Renaissance reflects audience mindset

2006-11-17T15:18:00.000-06:00

What are audiences looking to find in comic books? Super-heroes and super-powers. So, advertisers are trying to figure out what that means for them, and for their business models.

Gmail - OnlineSpin: The Comic Book Renaissance

Ad biz gets disruted by technology like news biz

2006-11-16T10:46:00.000-06:00

The same pressures face ad execs and firms as attention becomes the currency, time is money and we slip into the world of the long-tail.[tagname]

Zune -- what's the fuss?

2006-11-15T09:05:00.000-06:00

If you want "cool" stick with iPod. Like video? Go with Creative Zen's Vision:M. Want really connectivity and performance (connect to Internet, not just other Zunes) go with Archos 04 series.

Gannett's Information Centers and how that changes the workplace

2006-11-12T16:53:00.000-06:00

Poynter Online - E-Media TidbitsAmy gives particular attention to how more and more working journalists have come to accept that training is part of their job. This comes up in a discussion of how the new Gannett workplace makes more work, changes work, but is still a move in the right direction for now.

currentbuzz was down

2006-11-10T14:33:00.000-06:00

Things should be back to normal now.

Technology is not neutral. Politicians implement policies that make tech political. Read about this one.

2006-11-06T11:24:00.000-06:00

Wired News: Techie Faces Orrin Hatch Nov. 7

Pete Ashdown: I find it interesting that Republicans like Senator Hatch repeatedly want to deregulate businesses but regulate the individual and it proves time and again that this is not the government conservatives espouse as being small and limited. It's "We want to be in control of your daily lives to the extent that we're watching what you're doing on your computers, we're watching whether you're violating any corporate copyrights. We're going to be the unpaid copyright police for the corporations." WN: So it comes down to individual rights versus corporate rights? Ashdown: Yeah, and I think it comes down to civil rights as well. The erosion we've seen of the Bill of Rights over the last couple of years regarding American monitoring -- the Patriot Act, the Detainee Act that came out in the last couple of weeks. (It) brings government into our own homes and allows them to monitor what are doing and (what) we see. There are other abuses as well, like the call-records monitoring by the NSA and the tapping of international calls without warrants.

Online Journalism Blog: Five reasons why newspaper blogs exist

2006-11-05T21:59:00.000-06:00

Online Journalism Blog: Five reasons why newspaper blogs exist

Photoblogging the Mid-Term election

2006-11-05T21:45:00.000-06:00

Don't forget to bring your phonecam to the polls . The AIGA, a photographers group is sponsoring a photoevent in polling places on Tuesday.

Tags: elections+blogs+photoblogs

Odeo doesn't record for us anymore.

2006-11-05T17:06:00.000-06:00

Look, the "digital native" issue comes up as an offshoot of the Odeo buy back story . Here it is couched as the under 40s vs. the over 40s. Interesting.

The biz view of the Odeo story and Om Malik's take on it.

Tags: odeo+web2.0+evhead

Omnibus post

2006-11-03T09:11:00.001-06:00

I'm going to string together several notes and links in this post to save time. Things are popping in terms of "social networking" and it seems that MSM organizations are finally catching on to how being linked to people who are in touch with scads of their friends via Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, etc. is a good way to build up an audience for content. Facebook is offering publishers a button they can put on their site to link content to eyeballs via the Facebook grapevine.

The details of Jay Rosen's new project are getting spelled out . The new words for describing the hybrid journalism that Rosen (and Suzanne McBride and I here at Columbia in Chicago) are exploring are useful in helping those who aren't familiar with all that the web affords in terms of being connected and in setting up contextual networks of people and information understand the potential and mechanisms of "pro-am journalism"

Business models and economic questions arise as the promise of new media technology comes face-to-face with corporate capitalism in the short-term. Ohmynews, which has been profitable may not make money in 2006 . Thus business writers are proclaiming that its model doesn't work, etc. My take on it is that global economics is in turmoil as corporate capitalistic systems like the one in the US (especially as our economic policies are formed with help from policy decisions by agencies like FCC, rather than in a rational or technologically determined manner) bumps up against new forces like reputation-ranking and gift economies. I'd be hesitant to condemn a project as soon as it encounters a bit of difficulty. I say give it a few years. How Ohmynews will make money is still in flux I think as is the path by which the NYTImes or BBC will make money, but it seems to those companies that UGC or user-generated content is a key element and Ohmynews has been developing UGC for some time.

Tags: facebook+socialnetworking+publishing+journalism+Ohmynews+bizmodels

Teaching Online Journalism: The insidious effects of advertising

2006-11-01T09:10:00.000-06:00

Mindy McAdams writes about the impact of ads on the independence of blogs. This is a good point to keep in mind. Advertising exerts a similar impact on any media it enters, not just big media or MSM.Teaching Online Journalism: The insidious effects of advertising

When We are Old and Infirm

2006-11-01T08:05:00.000-06:00

For all the focus on the 18-24 year-olds, let us not forget that there are lots of Boomers and we have lots of money. As Boomers age, will they sit home when walking around gets difficult? Will they use canes and crutches? I suspect not, and here is why. Watch the CNet video about a personal "car" that is like a seg-way or three wheel vehicle made for urban street use.

Tags: geriatrics+boomers+transportation+cool

Back in Chicago

2006-10-30T06:36:00.000-06:00

My flight back to the states was delightfully uneventful. I am not too lagged (yet?) and will be back at Columbia later today. I'll be writing more about what I learned in Dublin as I get some time to reflect. Thanks to all at DIT for a wonderful and interesting visit.

Tags: DIT+Exchange+CCC

Leave the States for a minute and look what happens: Bush Signs Bill Enabling Martial Law

2006-10-29T03:28:00.000-06:00

This is from slashdot and I haven't had time to vet it the way I usually do. I am getting ready to fly home from Dublin, so I leave it dangling here for someone else to check out and comment.Slashdot | Bush Signs Bill Enabling Martial Law

More from New Orleans conference

2006-10-29T03:24:00.000-06:00

Look at these comments and think about who might have written them : • We post news as soon as we have it, not when it fits our daily print schedule. • Our photographers are posting online many more photos than we have room to print. • We’re rewriting job descriptions to reflect the Internet responsibilities of every journalist in the newsroom. • We’ve allowed readers comments on news articles for about five years. • We’re training all of our journalists on multimedia skills. • We have our reporters blogging to help them understand the Internet audience and to help build our online traffic. • We have online readers vote on tomorrow’s front-page news. • We’re working a complete redesign of our Web sites to make it easier for our readers to contribute photos, stories, blogs and other material. • We’re learning to do broadcast news. This week, our company broadcast its first live video. We showed our online viewers a hotly contested congressional debate. Newspapers have the opportunity to be online TV and radio stations. This is particularly exciting in community markets like mine that have traditionally been under-served by broadcasters. They come from an online piece Away in New Orleans: When Cultures Collide Virtual Greality by Chris Cobler who writes an Online Publisher's Blog for The Tribune from Northern Colorado. He is reporting from the same conference referenced in my last post.

NOLA.com: NewsFlash - Panel: Rise of citizen journalism brings challenges

2006-10-28T17:53:00.000-05:00

A good read about citizen journalism efforts that are underway already. It touches on the "how much editing" issue and training and recruiting cit js. NOLA.com: NewsFlash - Panel: Rise of citizen journalism brings challenges

Wisdom of Crowds, literally. "Crowdsourcing"

2006-10-25T04:26:00.000-05:00

I follow the advertising and marketing news because those industries are blantantly bottom line and you can see that wither goes the ad business, so might go the news business. This is the first time I have noted "crowdsourcing" used as a verb, but I don't think it will be the last. If Procter & Gamble can trust the crowd, why not everyone?Advertising Age - Who's Ready to Crowdsource?: "Crowdsourcing was coined by Wired magazine earlier this year. It's a process where businesses faced with tough challenges don't try to come up with all of the answers themselves. They tap into the collective wisdom of millions of amateurs around the world to come up with a solution. Naturally, they use digital technology to do so"

I Wanted News Now, I Got It the Next Day

2006-10-25T02:33:00.000-05:00

Here's a first hand description of how news organizations miss the boat in an area that might be called "service" or civic journalism. He details a threat to the local school that is reported to parents via and email from the principal. However, the note is sketchy and so he turns to the local news organizations -- via their websites -- for more information, only to find that none of them has covered the event in a way that helps parents or families of affected people. The editors are still thinking about writing stories, not providing information in the most efficient way to their audience. It is a good read that makes some ideas about journalism today move from abstract discussion to concrete example.I Wanted News Now, I Got It the Next Day

Digital native, digital immigrant issue goes front and center

2006-10-21T17:06:00.000-05:00

Mark Glaser reports on McArthur Foundation, Pew, and other research efforts and investigations into what social networking and being adolescent and online means for those who are growing up connected and the rest of us.MediaShift . Media Usage::Finding Balance in Teen Use of Social Media | PBS

Center for Media Research - Daily Brief

2006-10-21T16:23:00.000-05:00

Interesting evidence that teens are shifting from IM to SN (social networking) as their preferred way of staying connected to each other all the time. Interest in icons down.Interest in social networking site templates up.Center for Media Research - Daily Brief

My visit to DIT - a photoset on Flickr

2006-10-20T12:02:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to some of my photos from my visit to DIT and Dublin. My visit to DIT - a photoset on Flickr

Dateline: Dublin : Teaching Moments

2006-10-20T06:40:00.000-05:00

I just finished doing a teaching session with the "First Years" here at DIT. It was fascinating. After an introduction to blogs and terminology, we did a "hands on" session with blogger. The presentation I gave included a set of screen grabs that show the steps to setting up a blog on blogger. In the past, I would have taught this the way I like to be taught. That means a thorough linear, text and talk based step by step explanation. Today, I prefaced the set of screens with a comment about how "digital natives" don't like the "show me, then I will do it" approach, and then I just kind of breezed through the explanation and step by step. Dang, those students had their blogs up and running faster than I remember any class doing so. With this "N" of 1, I can't overgeneralize, but I am going to begin to re-design my explanatory sessions with this in mind. These students use Bebo which our students in the U.S. don't use (ours use Facebook or MySpace.) What was really interesting to me, is that as soon as they created their blogs, they asked me how to find their friends blogs. You can't do that easily with blogger. It is set up to create individual blogs which are then picked up by search engines. The whole search focus in Blogger, is on content in the posts and comments -- not on the "who" of the blog creator. These young people are thinking of the social networking first and view it as odd, almost as if something is broken, when they can't orient themselves in a FOAF (friend of a friend) sort of network.

The Netherlands: NRC Next – cool to pay for a newspaper - Editors Weblog- Analysis

2006-10-19T13:04:00.000-05:00

This story talks about a news organization that is selling a new news product that integrates web into the lifestyle of its readers. It is attracting the young who haven't been newspaper readers. It struck me that this effort sounds like it is implementing what Amy Gahran and I were talking about in terms of collaborative news, distributed coverage, and giving readers more than the simple "facts" which they probably have heard/read/seen on other media. The Netherlands: NRC Next – cool to pay for a newspaper - Editors Weblog- Analysis

Potential bad news for Flickr and del.icio.us users--the dreaded "M" word comes up

2006-10-19T10:09:00.000-05:00

M does not mean "mother" here but "monetize." I'll be burning my photos to disk and ready to jump to tabblo with my photos.Slashdot | How Will Yahoo "Monetize" Their Social Networks?

A bad chat experience leads to attack in the real world.

2006-10-19T10:05:00.000-05:00

A bad chat and perceived insults led a man to trace someone from a chatroom to his real home. A fight with knives and an axe ensued. I would have cooled down before I drove the miles to hsi house.BBC NEWS | England | London | Internet user admits 'web-rage'

A couple of simple ideas that could transform news for the better

2006-10-18T17:37:00.000-05:00

Amy Gahran pulls together a couple of recent threads from around the world of journalism and comes up with three ideas that could make for a new kind of reporting: --news collaboration --distributed reporting --collaboration on coverage to leverage strengths and resources She is saying that professional reporters could collaborate with bloggers, and different news organizations could split up the work of covering aspects of a story to produce layers or a range of coverage on an issue. I think the young audience, digital natives, care less about which news organization gets a story but they do like to get the kind of layered coverage that results from collaboration, distributed reporting and leveraging resources to really cover a story. If the technology is around now to embed "E-T call home" capability in our stories and media elements like John Perry Barlow suggested in "Old Wine in New Bottles" in 1992, then some of the problems of credit and attribution could be taken care of in a "Holovaty-esque" manner.

Fox Uses Smartphone To Transmit Live TV News - Digital-Lifestyles.info

2006-10-17T05:15:00.000-05:00

NO it wasnt' citizen journalism, it was a good example of what Jeff Jarvis has been calling "networked journalism," referring more to the method of getting the news out rather than focusing on who reported the news. After all, if it's journalism, what does it matter who reported it or how they got the news out?Fox Uses Smartphone To Transmit Live TV News - Digital-Lifestyles.info

This is a tool you need to check out

2006-10-16T18:38:00.000-05:00

I have experimented with several Firefox extensions that provide a space for you to create a blog entry and then easily upload it, but so far, this looks like the best so far. The spellchecker is a welcome addition and there are more tools here than I would generally need during a blog writing and posting session.

The "post from Word" command is brilliant as my students or the journalists I work with often do not quite get that Word in its generic form has lots of hidden characters and commands that can make posting problematic in say, Typepad.

A possible disadvantage to writetomyblog is that its speed depends on your connection speed and the number of other users.

Already, I like it.

Tags: blogs+tools+web2.0apps

? Journalism 2.0: News or chatter? | Digital Micro-Markets | ZDNet.com

2006-10-16T15:35:00.000-05:00

Here is a look at the professional vs. amateur news reporter and writer issues that takes two extreme but expressed positions. Too bad it degenerates into a name-calling orgy against any public figure that seems to have suggested any model or idea that wasn't based on the distorted capitalism practiced in the USA today.? Journalism 2.0: News or chatter? | Digital Micro-Markets | ZDNet.com

Nora French, Head Department of Communications & Barbara Iverson, Columbia College Chicago

2006-10-16T11:42:00.000-05:00

First Meeting.JPG
Originally uploaded by biverson.

Currentbuzz is on the road for a couple of weeks visiting at Columbia College Chicago's partner school in Dublin, DIT (Dublin Institute of Technology.)

I will be posting about my visit and various teaching/learning experiences that come up while I am here instead of my usual kind of posts about tech news and journalism news.

I'll be available via the comment feature if you have questions or comments. I've only just met some of the DIT staff and don't have much substantive information to post at this time.

I am listening to RTE, radio Ireland, and so far, it has had very good local coverage (of a protest at a Shell Oil refinery or pipeline) and interesting international news, in this case about the Malawian baby that Madonna is trying to adopt.

The Nation acknowledges "citizen journalist" contributions

2006-10-14T18:44:00.000-05:00

In this case, it is photos of the Pask River, near Ayutthaya province in Thailand. What I noticed was the insensitivity of "robots" that put up context specific ads. In this case, the story is the plight of Thais who got flooded, but the Google context sensitive ads tout "Dreamhouses in Thailand." Presumably these are not near the river.It is Charlie's turn

Vincent Maher - Media in Transition ? 11 tips for managing a good blog entry

2006-10-13T17:20:00.000-05:00

Pretty basic tips, most of which I never wrote down, but someone had to...Vincent Maher - Media in Transition provides 11 tips for managing a good blog entry

AdamMaguire.com - Blog

2006-10-12T22:54:00.000-05:00

A young Irish blogger who is a journalist. Perhaps we'll have time for a chat when I'm in Dublin.AdamMaguire.com - Blog

Who do you trust? Lexis survey of consumers shows "traditional journalists" still trusted.

2006-10-12T13:47:00.000-05:00

From the Center for Media Research's Oct. 2 brief:

Mainstream Professional Journalists Trusted Most to Report Pandemic Events According to LexisNexis U.S., when consumers are faced with major events that significantly affect their lives, such as a pandemic or an ominous hurricane, their trust mostly remains with traditional media, such as professional journalists at mainstream newspapers, magazines, television and radio, versus emerging media sources including Internet-only publications, blogs and podcasts. Findings show that: * Half of those surveyed said that they would turn to network television for immediate news information * The next most popular source was the radio (42%) * 37% of consumers would use daily local newspapers * 33% cable news or business networks * 25% of those interviewed would rely on Internet sites of print and broadcast media * 6% would turn to Internet user groups, blogs and chat rooms On average, says the report, consumers are four to six times more likely to feel that traditional media is more trustworthy than emerging news sources for news they feel is most interesting. Top news topics of interest (each selected by approximately 1/3 of the respondents) included entertainment, hobbies, weather, and food/cooking. Following closely was sports, selected by roughly two-in-ten consumers. For entertainment, consumers most often picked traditional lifestyle media as the most trusted source. However, Internet blogs, user groups and chat rooms were selected next most often, followed by weekly or monthly general interest and news magazines. The survey identified that food was selected as a topic of interest nearly twice as often as politics/elections (29% vs. 15%). Additionally, popular entertainment was selected as a topic of interest five times more often than personal finance, which received the lowest proportion of interest ratings among the 21 categories included in the survey. 52% of the consumers surveyed anticipate they will continue to mostly trust and rely on traditional news sources. However, 35% expect they will trust and rely on both emerging news and traditional news in the future, and 13% anticipate they will trust and rely mostly on emerging media. In this study traditional news is defined as professional journalists at well-established, popular and mainstream newspapers, magazines, television, radio, etc (and their Internet sites). Emerging or non-traditional news is defined as citizen journalists, pundits and organizations who create alternative or Internet-only publications, blogs and podcasts, often with a personal or particular point of view. The accuracy rate of the survey is +/- 2.5 to 3.5 percent margin of error at 95 percent confidence for total sample

Digital natives are restless

2006-10-11T10:07:00.000-05:00

My liveblog of a panel with young people who were representing digital natives has begun a very interesting discussion. My students in one class are currently doing a survey of digital natives, interviewing digital immigrants, and writing news stories for journalism teachers. I will share our findings and some of the stories as they come in. In the meantime,I got an email from a young journalist who said

I am a 27-year-old Communications Coordinator/Web Developer based in Springfield, Mass...I know how to write a feature story on home insulation for the middle-aged homeowners who subscribe to the Daily Hampshire Gazette, but I don’t know how to write a story that could capture an audience my own age – perhaps because, instinctively, I know that they’ll probably seek home insulation information out on the Web.

What are we teaching young reporters and thinking about ourselves? I guess it's not what goes on in the minds of young people.digitalnatives

Gaming "coming of age"

2006-10-11T09:49:00.000-05:00

Well, at ONA Nora Paul and I had an interesting discussion about a game that would teach journalism students, law students and history majors that we may work on together. I think the time for more gaming as education is now or even yesterday, and these stats seem to indicate that gaming isn't just for kids anymore.U.S. Gaming Audience Spans All Consumer Segments, Representing Key Opportunity for Marketers

tags technorati : gaming education simulation

There's no place like a home page - Internet

2006-10-11T08:19:00.000-05:00

There's no place like a home page - Internet: "Who wants to jump from one Web site to the next just to check your e-mail, scan the morning headlines, and get driving directions for an afternoon meeting? Instead, you can pack all that onto a single Web page and sign in to see it all from any Web browser. We've reviewed four such services that take just a few minutes to set up and can save you lots of surfing time over the long haul. Scroll down to compare the features." Here is a useful review of Web 2.0 apps that can make you more productive.

tags technorati : personalproductivity

Mn Journal

2006-10-10T20:49:00.000-05:00

If you were interested in the "digital native, digital immigrant" panel of young folks who spoke about media use and such at ONA, I urge you to read the comment by Michael who is 21. This is a link to his blog. Media types need to be reaching out to voices like this and taking heed of what they say about "their generation." Mn Journal

The Daily Show is as substantive as the "real" news

2006-10-09T20:55:00.000-05:00

A new research study found that traditional news broadcasts, including "World News Tonight" and "CBS Evening News" (gasp, Ed Murrow is spinning in his grave) feature no more substantive news than the Daily Show. IN fact, the stories from the MSM outlets were actually shorter in duration than Stewart's coverage on the Daily Show. Ask yourself--which are YOU watching regularly? Then leave me a note with your answer and also how old you are. If folks respond, I will collate and publish the results. The Daily Show is as substantive as the "real" news

ONA session on digital "natives"

2006-10-07T09:00:00.000-05:00

I'm here in the session on "how young people use internet," at Online News Association 2007. The moderator makes a joke, "we won't ask them waht they do and how to monetize it." Each of millenials talks about what they do with media: Older college girl--Slate, Google news, listens to podcasts when jogging ("anything under 5 mins." "Very rarely do I go to a newspaper's website, its so easy to get news elsewhere." "Slate gets it, takes the best part of Bob Woodward's book and makes little subheads and paragraphs so it goes by really fast." Jordan (a guy)-check weather and Google RSS feed or other convenient feed. They like the headline feeds with 30 or so stories. Play games, talk to friends, do homework. "Anything I do on the computer is right there--convenient and quickly." Girl HS age-- gets online in school and writes for school paper. Goes on her yahoo homepage and reads sports, entertainment and news. As a HS journo--her job is to skim "big world" and find out what to tell the HS kids. At home its all about Facebook and IM. Email once in a while. Alex, middleschooler--In the mornings I have to go to school and can't do anything on computer. When he gets home, looks up stuff on Wikipedia, "its addicting [wiki]." Play games, watch youtube movies while listening to iPod, play games, check email. "Email is too slow. If we do use email, we all use Gmail." Then she noted that she reads the news that is contextualized for her in Gmail. TV: never watch in real-time. Wanted not watch TV "when it is on." He wants to watch comedy central news "fake news binge", when he wants. HS girl likes TiVo for its rewind and skip commercials, but likes to watch when big premieries come out like "Lost" Middle school boy has a "cheap" videotape camera. Likes to video his brother and the dog--makes video with friends. When he finishes the video he just shows it to his friends. Sometimes he'd tape birthday party and show it to friends later. College girl noted that some kids video impromtu stuff, upload to youtube and says "21 year old guys like this." HS Facebook user notes that she can keep up with friends via Facebook. Good to keep in touch with friends about their lives. "MySpace is a little scary to me because its not just students. I think Facebook is a lot safer because you can just look at profiles of friends." post.com has story about the page who emailed Foley -- called the MySpace a post and she noted that calling it a post was "lame." What about news of the weird? Love to pass it on to friends as sort of a passtime. On her yahoo feed she gets this kind of news--example, people have sex while driving, and she said she had just been in an accident and was wondering about that... HS boy like RSS because he doesn't have "filter through what I'm not interested in."Her uses WaPo, NYTimes and CNET feeds. He uses WaPo feed because that was the paper he read as a kid. NONE OF THEM READ PRINT. IT GETS HANDS DIRTY. The college-age girl talked about the preying mantis sex story and all her friends liked it. It wasn't dumbed down, but it got popular with their friends. "I sold magazines, but I don't read them." "If my mom buys a magazine I'll open it if I'm not at the computer." "When I read a magazine, I always wish it had the "find" command" Do they bring their media with them? College girl--Blackberry always with her because she can always get to the Internet. HS boy doesn't bring stuff with except for phone. 3 out of 4 don't wear watches because their devices tell time. The HS girl does text messaging, and says it is "like a diary of her life." Texting is really fun and I do it when I'm bored. They text from their purses and kind of hide texting when they are bored. Do they help the adults with tech at home? Install software for mother. Helped dad with video camera. All mom can do is email. I had to help her get directions to get to the hotel and session. Young do not "get" why old people don't know how to use computers and use Google. We don't know why. When is multitasking too much? When it breaks down. I do it until I break down. One game, talking, and looking up stuff isn't too complicated because stuff isn't instanteous. The ability to find out what I want when I want it is key. I don't have to go to a library, I can just find out what I need to know at my pace. "Unless it overloads your computer its never too much" At the beach she wasn't connected to everything and got a new perspective on being connected. Its just nice knowing you are connected to everyone all the time. "Visceral drive" to be connected all the time. college girl "When your computer breaks down, your life shuts down." Questions from audience: Get news from message board in games. Middle schooler uses message boards in this games. What about blogs? HS boy doesn't read blogs because he doesn't know how reliable they are. HS girl--blogs aren't accurate. I use blogs for entertainment news cuz who really cares if its real. What defines credibility for you? NYTimes over Joe Schmo. Must link to MSM story in your blog to get credibility. For primary news, still go to MSM. In blogs, Wonkette, snarky blogs and Smoking gun (because of primary source documents.) Registration and ads: do they stop them? Hate full-page ads. Registration don't like it. "Certainly not going to pay for something online." HS BOY on registration: age restrictions are stupid because no one checks. He resents a registration with age requirement, especially if the age isn't related to content or site. Need for speed: What would make you click through and read the whole thing? "Read the whole thing?" Break text up into small graphs. Include explainer to provide context--200 wd. backgrounder so story makes sense to a reader not familar with all the stuff about the story. Don't dumb down content. In-depth detailed info is okay with teens. How do you discover new news? "The point of RSS feeds is that I'm trying to get what I want to know about" HS boy. Uses homepage of yahoo or google to get exposed to new news. HS girl has set up her homepage with categories to show her the top 3 in each of the categories. "Its a let down to click on a video and you get an ad" College girl. Ads can be more relevant online -- HS boy How much do kids talk about "big issues" offline? Would they like a story told from perspective of teenager? Yes to second question--tell story through the person living the problem. Telling the story with a teen hook would be more interesting to kids. HS girl HS boy Teen perspective makes them relate more, but that alone won't get someone read a story. Put all info in the same place. How can you keep integrity and make a lot of people read your site. Privacy concerns? Worry about getting too much spam--have a separate address for spam and real email. HS girl likes email news she asked for from Newspaper sites. Is there any one way of learning about a story you prefer? HS boy--Likes news in text form. Doesn't like TV news because its not in-depth. Middle school boy--likes text for news, because if you don't get something you can read it again. HS girl--text College girl--slideshows need optional audio because they use them at work. Read about digital natives. Personal, Portable, Pedestrian about "keitai" which is something they carry and the mobile phone/alwarys connected society.

Sitting next to Jeff Jarvis

2006-10-06T13:36:00.000-05:00

Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine and I were sitting togehter in the Mark Cuban talk because we were using the same electric outlet to recharge our devices. You can compare our live blog posts about Cuban. Jeff had a very nice device that produces a wireless network via bluetooth that looks like it would be handy. Jeff got up and asked Cuban a couple of questions, most notably about selling short as the sleuthshare investigative story went online. ONA2007

What is Mark asking Mark?

2006-10-06T13:20:00.000-05:00

Will you buy the Cubs?
Originally uploaded by biverson.

Mark Cuban at the end of his address to the Online News Association in Washington, D.C.

Mark Hinojosa, Chicago Tribune is talking to Mr. Cuban.

Icerocket

2006-10-06T12:57:00.000-05:00

This is the blog search engine that Cuban is backing and that he uses. He described how he uses Internet tools like rss and search tools to keep track or information. How can you build RSS readers into your site? He holds up his cellphone and asks "How can you get people to go to your site?" RSS is an enabler and a big part of his daily routine. Muni WiFi will enable wireless watching of TV and movies--will it hurt TV? "NO" says Cuban. He claims there is already a daypart of all the people that watch video during the workday. He thinks the devices will not replace but will supplement existing TV. You didn't plan on buying a computer, but when the price point is right, and so the hi-def TVs will sell. Broadband will be a complement to hi-def. He doesn't see any big change in broadband infrastructure soon. 19.4 stream of video, 10-19 bits of streaming info is hi-def. Our job is to put the information into complementary formats for the USER. It is not about the Internet or broadband--its about the USER. Internet is "old news." No is surprised by digital information now. "Work backwards from your customers." You can't ask the customers -- its your job in the business to experiment and try everything out. "Be transport and format agnostic." MarkCuban ONA

Live Blogging from ONA -- Mark Cuban

2006-10-06T12:46:00.001-05:00

Mark Cuban explains the site saying "We just present the facts." Financial industry don't think there is anything wrong with Cuban selling short based on the investigation. Cuban claims the info will be the same whether he makes money off the site or not. Bloomberg news reporter who worked for a hedge-fund for years and says that what Cuban did, "wouldn't pass the smell test." If you advance trade on a research report, there is nothing wrong with that. Acting on the information in advance is okay, according to Cuban, because he isn't charging for the news. If its a research site for your own personal business and you can read it openly, then he says the transparency is the protection of the journalistic merit of the work. MarkCuban ONA

Didn't you know this without a study?

2006-10-03T17:28:00.000-05:00

Gee, traditional news sources are more trusted by folks than are blogs or UGC (user-generated content.) It seems people see the web differently than some media strategists.Blogs Suffer in Poll On Preferred News Sources

Gee, technology is disruptive. But it didn't mean to be.

2006-10-03T10:36:00.000-05:00

Look to yourself and how you live today. Where do you go to find things to do, to be entertained, to meet up or talk to your friends? Even if you are older, you are doing things differently than we all did 5 years ago.... Center for Media Research - Daily Brief

One threat to reputation ranking schemes

2006-10-03T09:30:00.000-05:00

I was trying out Naymz, the new service that is supposed to let you create an organized profile of links and information when you are googled, and it seemed like a good service. I was put off a bit by this email request from Naymz. This is what I was cautioning PR folks against. By the way, I looked at digg.com (I am a digg'r) and no one had posted the story. Good for digg'rs and let's hope that this kind of faked bragging and promotion stays a "no, no" on the Internet.

Little old Naymz has finally hit the big time! We had an exclusive interview with the Chicago Tribune which appeared in today's business section. Here is the online version of the article. To view it you may need to sign-up with ChicagoTribune.com. It's free if you are not yet a member. The Trib, as we like to call it here in Chicago, has a readership of nearly 2.5 million. Thanks to Eric Benderoff for doing an awesome job covering the issue of online identity management and Naymz as a potential solution. Thanks to all of you who have signed up and supported Naymz since we launched in June. Over the last few months we have collected feedback, changed our site based on your great advice, worked through some bugs and we now feel ready to really get the word out about Naymz. Anything you can do to help spread the word would be appreciated. If you have a free minute today please go to Digg.com and vote (aka "Digg") for today's trib article. The more votes it gets, the more the article will be read by millions of Digg users. This could really help put us on the map which in turn will allow us to make Naymz a better product for you. As always, let us know if you have any ideas on how to make Naymz more useful. Thanks again! Best Regards, The Naymz Team

[tagname]

A new "_gate"

2006-10-02T20:03:00.000-05:00

House Republican leaders react to the Foley e-mails. By Roger McShane - Slate Magazine

Tit for Tat?

2006-10-01T22:43:00.000-05:00

U.S. games have featured attacks on Iran. Now the tables are turned as this Iranian game lets players attack oil tankers, at least virtually for now.Iranian video game targets U.S. tanker | CNET News.com

Engagement: How researchers working in advertising see the future of consumer-company relationships

2006-09-29T12:29:00.000-05:00

Engagement here refers to consumers and the "brand experience." If you are a teacher or someone in a media content industry, engagement is something you need to be concerned with. You can listen to the video and substitute "student" or "viewer" for "consumer."

If we don't engage our "other" their attention will go elsewere.

The almost e-paper is here

2006-09-28T10:16:00.000-05:00

If you follow currentbuzz, you know that one of my "holy grails" is e-paper and the portable read everywhere document. Sony is moving closer with its new device. It can store ebooks you buy, but it can also let you read .pdfs, blogs, etc. and it can play unencrypted MP3s. I am thinking this is my dream device for reading graphic novels, but I am going to try one out in person and follow up on that. The e-ink concept means better readability than an LCD and less battery use. They claim you get over 7000 page-turns per charge. Current price: $350.00 I am still thinking on it, but it is more tempting than previous products. ebook

MSM discovers what the Cluetrain told us ten years ago

2006-09-27T10:56:00.000-05:00

My gosh, a blog that is honestly written by a company employee can enhance business and customer relations. Better late than never, I guess. As for the lawyers' opinions and the dangers of blogging, maybe the need for lawyers will fall off as people can connect and communicate more easily...Blogging the Hand That Feeds You - New York Times: "Rather than fight this trend and quietly hope that employees don’t reveal trade secrets, many companies are welcoming business blogs. They are betting that the medium can actually enhance a company’s reputation by providing an opportunity to build informal relationships with customers"

Technology Brings Family 2.0 Closer

2006-09-26T08:20:00.000-05:00

This is news. Multitasking apparently allows people to actually fit 43 hours of activity into a 24 hour day. Now I know why I feel tired all the time. Families communicate more via instant messaging and it seems that family decisions are made more democratically. Father no longer knows best. Technology Brings Family 2.0 Closer

Movies, social tagging, Web2.0 and a 15 year old

2006-09-24T19:50:00.000-05:00

Post from Slashdot. Movietally lets users tag movies they watch and then in Web2.0 fashion, they can get recommendations. The programmer details his work as classic Web2.0, but he is only 15. What are you thinking about these days? Slashdot | Movietally and Understanding Web 2.0 Design

Blogs everywhere, even Space.

2006-09-24T19:34:00.000-05:00

The business woman space tourist is blogging. I guess that makes sense. Why not. So far, whe can't get to a browser, so she can't interactive too much with readers and comments, but I have to say, I am not totally cynical about this. I can imagine being 8 or 9 and reading here entries and getting fired up about being an astronaut. You go girl.The Trip Up « Anousheh Ansari Space Blog

The news is that users don't want to be couch potatoes anymore.

2006-09-23T17:52:00.000-05:00

In the UK, at least, the fastest growing sites are wones with UGC (user generated content) like Wikipedia and MySpace. " Collectively, the leading UGC sites draw more frequent visits than non-UGC sites (4.2 vs. 3.5 average usage days per month), longer periods of engagement (79.9 vs. 33.2 average minutes per visitor), and more pages viewed (217 vs. 52 average pages per visitor). Users of the top social networking sites demonstrate particularly high levels of engagement, with visitors to MySpace.com and Bebo.com averaging at least 5 usage days, 2 hours of use, and 300 pages viewed per visitor during July. " Gmail - Research Brief: UK User Generated Content Sites Growing Fast, Engaging More

Placeshifting: How to watch live TV over your handheld

2006-09-23T17:28:00.000-05:00

Gmail - Video Insider: Video-On-The-Go--Or Placeshifting? What a cool device. It is only $40 and let's you "forward" TiVO or satellite signal from your home to your laptop or smartphone. If I travelled more, I'd probably set this up for my devices.

Cardinal blogs his Vatican experience | CNET News.com

2006-09-23T12:39:00.000-05:00

Cardinal blogs his Vatican experience | CNET News.com

One reporter's view on emails from PR folks -- send RSS instead.

2006-09-23T12:35:00.000-05:00

I spoke on a panel at Ragan Communications' Strategic Media Conference on Friday about Journalists who blog (I think I was a stand-in for Charles Madigan of the Trib.) We discussed whether PR folks should try sending email pitches. I think I actually agree in principle with Amy Gahran who engages in a near-rant against email PR. She doesn't say she "no" to PR, but rightly proposes PR RSS feeds, so the journalist gets control over the "when" and "where" of checking out PR releases. I said that PR folks shouldn't just send out broadcast PR emails, but if they knew a journalist, then they could email out targeted news releases that fit the reporter's beat. Looks like there's a good amount of discussion generated here, so read on if this is something that comes up in your business.Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

tags technorati : PR journalism RaganCommunications bloggin

Jeteye :: Workout on the Web: Personal Productivity Training for Journalists

2006-09-21T23:07:00.000-05:00

I am speaking on a panel today at Ragan Communications Strategic Public Relations conference, and some of the things I will discuss are social networking and reputation ranking and economic models emerging from the assumptions underlying open source kind of models, web 2.0 apps, and blogs and journalism. The link here to my "jetpak" will point to useful sites and sites I refer to. Jeteye :: Workout on the Web: Personal Productivity Training for Journalists

Marketing guy "gets" what academic says. When will newsmedia folks read so carefully?

2006-09-20T12:28:00.000-05:00

Gmail - OnlineSpin: Recommended Reading: Convergence Culture

...our current marketplace is one where a lifestyle that resonates with a group of consumers, however small and tightly knit, will be shared and spread through digital media. As convergence gains more steam and permeates your day at an increasing level, it becomes even easier to share the ideas that shape your culture and affect your lifestyle. As convergence continues to evolve your daily life, it weaves into your culture and the immediacy of sharing an idea or an experience with others increases, until the culture itself becomes one of sharing and exchange.

Al Gore’s Current TV Joins With Yahoo for a Video Venture - New York Times

2006-09-20T10:11:00.000-05:00

One section, called Current Buzz, will feature segments related to the news.

So, Al Gore is working with Google and with Yahoo to put his user-generated content channels online. In fact, it comes to you today with the name current buzz. Of course, current buzz is my domain name, at least for the currentbuzz.org. Will this increase my hits? Hmmm. Will wait to see. Al Gore’s Current TV Joins With Yahoo for a Video Venture - New York Times

tags technorati : currentbuzz currenttv algore barbarakiverson

New media means new economic models

2006-09-20T09:59:00.000-05:00

I do think we need to start looking at the explosion in venture capital. The one true impact of the much-fabled Web 2.0 is that companies don’t need as much money, which means that VCs can’t invest big buckets of bucks in a few plays, which means that lots of plays are getting money but it’s much harder for the good ones to stand out.

Jarvis' BuzzMachine has a great post about economics, media and new markets. This is important to you because we are now living in the world of "people formerly known as the audience" -- but the media business is not there yet.

Poynter Online - Narrating the Recent Past: Docu- or -Drama?

2006-09-13T11:58:00.000-05:00

ABC went and aired its 9-11 docudrama. Having a family member who was living on 14th street during the real 9-11, we did not want to re-visit or re-live or voyeur any of the incident. But lots of people did or at at least media companies were betting that folks would want to be titillated by the horror again. This is a great discussion of what the heck a "docudrama" is and what it could or should be. Entertainment is fine, and it is more educational to be entertaining than boring, but this brings up important core issues of how we tell when something is doc and when it is drama.Poynter Online - Narrating the Recent Past: Docu- or -Drama?

Poynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

2006-09-13T11:52:00.000-05:00

Okay, we have Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia squaring off against Encyclopedia Britannica's Dale Holberg in the WSJ in a big debate. Amy Gahran notes that Jeff Jarvis suggesed they collaborate and create the greatest knowledge compendium known to the people formerly known as audience. All the links are in Amy's postPoynter Online - E-Media Tidbits

Catching up with an omnibus post

2006-09-12T22:53:00.000-05:00

School caught up with me, and my blog got neglected. Here goes an omnibus because I visiting NYC for a couple days and won't post until the 18th of Sept. The Senate passed the "Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 and Bill Frist thanked bloggers and citizen journalists for its passage. Read what Amy Gahran says in Poynter.

Ethics and virtuality

2006-09-05T18:21:00.000-05:00

Is a crime a crime if you do it in one of your MMOG worlds? Read on and you will see that is not as trivial as it might seem on first glance.612 Lawns | Gamers With Jobs

Back to school tools for kids of all ages

2006-09-04T10:14:00.000-05:00

Cnet's Karen Spiegelman tried with a collection of back-to-school software for kids, teens and college. If you are PC based, go for these. At my college, however, most students go for the discounted Macs they can purchase and finance through the school. Funny, not one of the Cnet softwares I looked at worked on Mac. So, I did located "Call for Help" with Leo Laporte. Here is a slist of all kinds of free software and it labels it by OS or browser. I has academic stuff and just tools and utilities. I'd try that list first... Call for Help Free Software Downloads and Software Reviews - Download.com

2006-09-03T09:34:00.000-05:00

Craig talks about Internet and people:
"One of the upsides of the Internet is that there are brave people willing to stick their necks out and speak truth to power. For example, people on the Net spread around Stephen Colbert’s talk to the White House press corps, and that was a big, big hit. It wasn’t reported accurately (in the mainstream media). It was picked up by ordinary people who were impressed by some genuine heroism."

MediaPost Publications - First on the List -

All the news that someone pays for...

2006-09-01T12:31:00.000-05:00

Wired News: Time to Rake a Little Muck And it is time to begin to write and call for media break-ups and alternative funding models for investigative reporting.

Can traditional news organizations cope with a Craigslist media world? - Examiner.com

2006-08-29T10:32:00.000-05:00

To paraphrase poet Robert Byrnes, what a business edge it is to be able to move out our own comfortable point of view and to take the perspective of "other." I have one foot in the world of journalism and a virtual toehold in the world of Internet and the hidebound "haughtiness" (as Jeff Jarvis describes journos) of those in the news media regarding changes in their business model and in how people communicate in our society,is stunning to me. Though I run it into again and again, I always think, "how can such smart people be so blind to reality?" Media Blogger, and writer (and colleague of mine) Robert Cox writes about this in very concrete terms here, noting that while you fiddle, Rome burns on. McLuhan always had to remind folks that he was only observing the way things were happening and not putting value judgments on the nature of the change. Bob is teetering on the edge of becoming a journalist himself, but I hope he can maintain the ability to take a perspective and see things as the "PFKAA" or people formerly known as audience do. His observations are useful to those in the media.Robert Cox: Can traditional news organizations cope with a Craigslist media world? - Examiner.com

tags technorati : newsbiz newmodels economics futureofnews

R.I.P. Peer-reviewed journals

2006-08-28T15:44:00.000-05:00

NatureWired 14.09: START has gone to the wisdom of the crowds in vetting articles about science. What a fascinating idea and what a change just in my lifetime. My early articles were submitted, read by experts, and then published after months had passed. I think this will have a postive effect on writing style.

Computer Envy

2006-08-28T14:00:00.000-05:00

Yes, it is true. I love my Mac, but if it ran OSX, I would be an Alien user. Watch the video as the nearly slavering intern unpacks and describes what comes with his new Alien Aurora.Watch some soft computer porn.

Citizen Media/journalism trends in blogosphere.

2006-08-28T11:11:00.000-05:00

The ups and downs of "Citizen Media" and "Citizen Journalism" in the blogosphere: