medi8

Editors’ Forum
World Association of Newspaper’s Emma Heald heralds Rupert Murdoch’s plans to start charging for online news – CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, counter-claims it won’t work. “In general these models have not worked for general public consumption because there are enough free sources that the marginal value of paying is not justified based on the incremental value of quantity… So my guess is for niche and specialist markets … it will be possible to do it but I think it is unlikely that you will be able to do it for all news.”

http://www.editorsweblog.org/multimedia/2009/09/google_ceo_says_paid_online_content_wont.php

Personal Tech – NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/technology/personaltech/index.html
A blog on “crowdsourcing” by David Pogues caught my eye, see Tech Ideas From Twitterland. The term was coined by Jeff Howe and Mark Robinson of Wired and means: “the act of a company or institution taking a function once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call”. Here Pogues muses about how tech wizards come up with the good ideas.

“I don’t know how they usually do it, but I know how they should do it: by crowdsourcing. Thousands of times a day, all over the world, ordinary people remark, in restaurants or offices or living rooms, “You know what cellphones really need?” — and never suspect that they’ve just struck commercial gold.”

Soundslides
As an off-campus student, forgive me for adding an ARTY blogs worth monitoring.

http://mcgoffs.net/hidden/august-30th Keith McGaughran has put together a trial show using his own terrific Sydney photos. I’m jealous. The music’s a bit overpowering but I will look for more from him. My own effort (see Personal tab) is primitive … but I felt I needed to give this a go in a Multimedia unit!

A top blog and heading the list of “Industry Blogs Worth Monitoring” is published by Juan Antonio Giner. http://www.innovationsinnewspapers.com/ . His own BLOGS WORTH MONITORING are supplied in a long list of links, from … Adrian Monck, UK / AFP-Media Watch, France TO WAN / Xocas.com, Spain

Giner reports happily that President Obama favours newspapers and regards journalism as “critical to the health of our democracy”. Right on, Mr President.

I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding [President Obama]

Professor Jeff Jarvis of http://www.buzzmachine.com/ was apparently not impressed with Toni Collette as Best Comedy Emmy winner. Although he is using all sorts of now media himself, his blog needs a bit of reorganising. Columns overlapping and a messy arrangement of information put me off exploring too far. His personal page is whimsical and entertaining however.

This best-of- British site, http://www.journalism.co.uk/ has current industry information and job vacancies for freelancers world-wide. You can tap into a course in SEO (search engine optimisation) or navigate the blogosphere. There are courses on just about anything. This map shows freelancers affiliated with their website.

http://www.journalism.co.uk/5/articles/535758.php

From this week’s reading and the clever metaphorical device Matt Pressman employed in selecting a dinosaur category for each publication, I am forced to wonder about some of my favourite sites, e.g. Salon.com, The Nation, Crikey.com.au.

Checking in with each site I find there is plenty of introspection going on, e.g. The Nation with it’s forthcoming forum: http://www.symphonyspace.org/event/5961-what-will-become-of-the-news .

I homed in on these websites when Bruce Shapiro, Tuesday night regular on Phillip Adams’ LNL on Radio National, transferred from Salon to contribute to The Nation, plus heading the well-respected Dart Centre for Journalism & Trauma. For years Shapiro has represented for me “The Voice of (sane) America”. An example of Shapiro’s contribution on Late Night Live covers Obama’s policy on health and the legacy for America of 9/11 on the eighth anniversary.

Bruce Shapiro is an eloquent commentator:
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/latenightlive/stories/2009/2682446.htm

On The Nation’s website there are links to all the humour worth watching, I hope it survives!
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-16-2009/back-in-black—angry-outbursts

As for the technological revolutions discussed in the lecture, I related to the last one, i.e. “Would you take a job as a newspaper compositor in the 1990s?” I worked briefly in Perth as just that for a now defunct magazine called Garden Monthly. I agree that innovations are acknowledged in hindsight but I felt so worldly-wise and important at the time.
morepork2

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2004/02/17/business/18WIRE.chartA1.jpg.html
This photo, captured via mobile and published on February 17, 2004 made front page news in the New York Times, marking a $41 Billion Dollar media deal. The image is hard to find now but CYBERJOURNALIST.NET noted the milestone:

“This picture of Mr. Zeglis signing the (Cingular-AT&T Wireless) merger agreement in New York was taken by Joseph McCabe Jr., AT&T’s chief financial officer, using his cellphone’s camera. A good lesson for those naysayers who believe cellphone photos will never be useful for the media because they aren’t good enough quality.“

Although a 21st Century story, so much has changed in image capture techniques since 2004. Naturally the media reported the merger but the means of capturing the image went pretty much unheralded. Today with a smartphone and software such as Qik, a story can be broadcast from the field in a matter of minutes (Quinn : 2009).

Fleet of foot mojos, or slightly more burdened VJs, are pioneering today’s multimedia world we take for granted. Citizen journalists only need to access some basic tips (on YouTube) to become a mojo.

Imagine how mojo technology would have enhanced Bob Woodward (of Watergate fame) and Carl Bernstein’s reporting skills in those heady 1972 Washington Post days which altered the course of political history. But speed isn’t everything. This story from Woodward on his early reporting days is a cautionary tale re checking for accuracy before publication!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKGUctuoXE

Al Jazeera reporters restricted to using Nokia phones to report from Niger and Mali did a fantastic job (Quinn : 2009). Their journey can be mapped using the same technology – a future OH&S safeguard for reporters carrying the means of pinpointing their position when they are in trouble.
http://labs.aljazeera.net/content/sahara-journey-through-tuareg-rebellions-niger-and-mali
Mojo potential is indeed unlimited!

Our focus this week reinforced that Asia is the economic powerhouse in “now” media. That acronym STOMP for “Straits Times Online Mobile & Print” sounds mildly alarming. However the reality is that in just three years of operation it runs on 75% of user generated content. That’s great in my view. They don’t abdicate editorial responsibility either – articles are polished, perfected, double-checked with the source and published. Citizen journalism certainly does get things done in Singapore (Quinn, S : 2007) .

Our local newspaper has recently taken to offering its readership a say: WHAT DO YOU THINK? SMS us on …… Then in the next issue, WHAT YOU SAID … There’s no editing, other than filtering out obscenities as far as I can see. I’m irritated by lack of capitals, poor spelling and text-type code such as “gr8”, “m8s” “we r made 2 …” littering my newspaper pages.

It’s an instant success though (with the local news staff at least) and a ready source of filler material, whether newsworthy or not.

STOMP greets the viewer with life and colour. The Happy Journey page is a nice touch:

Check out “Quiet Please” by Tan Liqing Vivien with its typically Singaporean courtesy reminder. Sg courtesy

Inquirer.net in the Philippines, takes on weightier topics when necessary, such as full transcripts of political promises. Checking out their angle on the Noordin Top story, I found he had been trained in the Philippines.

Before I knew it however I was suddenly involved in a “How intelligent are you?” contest and had entered into an iphone competition without reading the small print! Two texts from GREAT later, I had to opt out and mercifully my mobile was told: “You have ended the service, no further charges apply”.

http://answers.wikia.com/wiki/wikianswers

This week’s reading is another brave new world. These Wiki questions are stunning in their specificity aren’t they? e.g.

Replace starter 1998 accord?
What is lil chucky real name?
How long does it take to fly from Germany to Colorado?
Show the video of handcock?
Poker face lyrics?

My favourite:

HOW TO CHANGE THE PARKING LIGHT BULB FOR 2001 HONDA CIVIC?

Gmail via google and Picasa are useful resources no doubt but involve yet another Login and I have Photoshop which I’m happy with already… I am yet to be persuaded on this one. Skype sounds great and I plan to check that out pretty soon…especially if the sound quality is o.k. Tweetdeck (pity about the name) I will hold off on for a while until it is revised and refined.

Noticed today that Telstra has hopped onto the Twitter bandwagon, gulp…

Telstra on board

Jason Weeks, of Telstra’s social media team, said today “We had a team of five handling the BigPond, recently we have been up-skilled to handle all of the Telstra products. Essentially, it is still exactly the same team but we have branched out. We sit at the same desk and help each other out,” said Weeks. [itnews article Aug 28, 2009]

“Weeks said Telstra decided to expand its Twitter presence because of responses to a customer survey carried out by the company late last year.”

http://www.itnews.com.au/news/154233,telstra-turns-to-twitter-for-customer-support.aspx

Twitscoop.com seems a useful tool to me, but you’ll be asked to allow “Lollicode” to add its application so you can join the scoop-set. Having killed off two Trojans this morning I am averse to any further vulnerability today, maybe tomorrow!

Love the flutter spoof -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=belzcy-_m3s

… no vowels, mmm – it’ll never catch on.

bulk carrier

The Pasha Bulker image after I messed it up in Photoshop! Hopefully the altered image was one of the earlier non-attributed ones, but I must acknowledge smh.com.au, Reuters, Newcastle Herald and Peter Stoop who has a similar picture credited to his name in later updates.

Oh, all these WONDERFUL TOYS… I have gone from one amazing url to another until I looked at the time and realised several hours had gone happily by. Thank you for all these new reporting tool demonstrations. Maybe reporting won’t come into it for some of us however – these are in the realm of NEW, FREE, T O Y for me.

Of all these exciting sites I enjoyed WORDLE the most, being addicted to online Scrabble.

Feinberg

Jonathan Feinberg has a GREAT invention in Wordle but guards his privacy pretty closely. He knows you’ll keep googling him until you find a personal image so he’s made himself unrecognisable! I LIKE that, and the fact he gives credit to IBM Research for allowing him to experiment on their time. blog.wordle.net/ is his own and as far as blogs go it gives me heart to see how dead PLAIN and basic it is.

Not everyone likes Wordle; one blogger noted that Wired magazine used Wordle to analyse political speeches – Feinberg says it’s just for FUN.

http://www.designlessbetter.com/blogless/posts/is-wordle-good

Feinberg is going to have to get used to publicity – check out his Five Word Speech -

5 wordle award

CoverItLive gets my next vote and the Geelong siege story is intriguing to follow online.

The only negative in this Week 6 was learning about “Twitterature”, where classic novels are condensed into about 20 “tweets” – each post being a “tweet” of 140 characters. Oh dear.

Is this the face of OhmyNews International?

http://english.ohmynews.com/sub_form/column_list.asp?article_class=36

Eric Shackle a writer since his cadet/cub reporter days in 1937. Now 90, he is OMNI’s oldest reporter. Back in February this year Eric Shackle was second place getter for his article: Former Pin-Up Girl, Now 102, World’s Oldest Columnist

columnist 100+

http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=384822&rel_no=1

Two years ago 85 per cent of South Korean households had broadband, the highest number of connections per capita in the world. Legislation prohibits any one company or individual from owning a newspaper and a television station so no-one holds a News Limited style monopoly. It’s a scenario ripe for citizen journalism, with 60,000 citizen reporters submitting about 200 stories a day in 2007. Understandably, with CJ sourcing, content involves a lot of soft stories.

There’s also a culture of inclusivity which stemmed from the values of the founder of OhmyNews. At his speech to the Harvard Law School Oh Yeon-ho, now CEO of OhmyNews, said “I wanted to say that the motivational power of Korean Internet users came from the endless love for their desolate motherland.”

From our powerpoint we know it’s not all about soft stories – the anti-impeachment rallies are proof of that. Today the focus is not just user-generated content but on “empowering audiences” (Jean Min, director of OhmyNews International).

Among global media to sit up and take notice are TIME, The Financial Times, The New York Times, CNN and the BBC. OhmyNews has no print counterpart and the traditional Korean newspaper world has had to rethink their “shoveling” practices (from print to online) since that practice proved ineffectual.

As OhmyNews makes about 70 per cent of its revenue from advertising, other media has been forced by the bottom line to transfer more ads from print to the Internet to compete.

FREE? … well almost. Wired guru Chris Anderson pulls no punches about the world of “content” today. In 2007 Jaron Lanier had this warning re FREEbies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/20/opinion/20lanier.html

Anderson’s view that give-away products go “viral” whereas charging even one cent will see you struggling, could be challenged by what Telstra’s been up to for years with their 1 cent texts.

On the topic “Freemium” (free to whom? Users of the basic version), Anderson demonstrates this is now common practice and widespread usage of Flickr or Limewire, means one per cent of users CAN support all the rest. I’m happily in the latter category (too cheap to mention!)

Making money online demands innovation – but the onselling of lists of consumers interested in certain products or subjects is a worry. Unsolicited mail is reasonably easy to deal with when it arrives as a “fishing” exercise via Australia Post, and I can cope with unwanted ads rolling out of my fax machine while I’m at work. Similarly opting out of telemarketing lists is a cinch with www.adma.com.au .

However popups remind you your every move is being monitored online. It’s not as serious as Phishing which is the endgame of the criminal element, but some advertising methods trespass in privacy terms. Yes, I know – there has to be a downside to Anderson’s “free” world. Wonder how Rupert Murdoch plans to charge more for online.

When Chris Anderson was interviewed by Frank Hornig, Anderson was dismissive of newspapers, preferring to receive news from trusted Twitter sources! Hornig was aghast – citing the 140 character limit factor and questioning Anderson’s actual reliance on Twitter when Wired is respected as producing quality content itself. (Anderson conceded on this argument, but not much else.)

Cheer up with this Twitter spoof :
http://carpefactum.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451fc5a69e201156e50da86970c-800wi

The alternative reading on AUDIENCE GENERATED CONTENT or user generated content tells how 23 journalists in the BBC’s multimedia newsroom “mine” incoming emails, videos, Twitter, tipoffs etc. for verification, editing and eventual publication online, or on TV and radio.

What a massive change – desk jockeys sitting waiting to be fed user generated content to use as raw material. Perhaps the most promising journalism careers will be in sub-editing this avalanche of information?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/default.stm is the HAVE YOUR SAY link and it certainly is global – the Beeb attracts good content and the article reinforces that there’s a genuine knowledge exchange going on.

Checking what’s there today, SHOULD THE GOVERNMENT BE ON TWITTER? drew 388 comments (311 published) with 60 waiting in the Moderation Queue.

The topics:

Should armed forces payouts be cut?
Will strategy change secure Afghanistan’s future?
Can Obama improve ties with Muslims?
Is your broadband up to speed?
Are you concerned about swine flu?

For comparison, a look at www.reuters.com bullet point list reflects U.S. concerns and the headlines come under 10 different news categories. There’s a scrolling marquee for breaking news and left of screen some more enticing menu items including Oddly Enough.

For example TOURISTS MISS ISLE AFTER GPS BLUNDER

http://reuters.com/article/oddlyEnoughNews/idUSTRE56R2LJ20090728

All this begs the question, how much of what turns up on BBC and Reuters is user-generated content? Contributors have the satisfaction of seeing their tipoff go viral, sometimes within minutes; but the essence of multimedia content should still be quality uncompromising journalism.

People trust what ends up on bbc.co.uk and reuters.com but there are many solo operators doing the multimedia hard yards and providing interesting commentary too.

Stumbled on Mike Elgan today – elganmedia.net/ Check out http://elganmedia.net/2009/07/does-mobile-tech-breed-narcissism.html Entertaining and thought provoking.