Interesting stuff I saw online, Jun. 1 to Jun. 8
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Jun. 1 through Jun. 8:
- Boston Police Would Tweet A Zombie Attack | NewsTechZilla – "I love things like this; when an organization or company I assume is otherwise faceless is able to properly use social media (by, gasp, being social), it always kind of makes me happy."
- ConvoTrack – Loads comments from Twitter, digg, etc. on any page – "This simple bookmarklet will load comments from Twitter, FriendFeed, Digg, Reddit, HackerNews and any blog mentioning the article and will load it in a handy sidebar."
- 50 Great Examples of Data Visualization – "Below are 50 of the best data visualizations and tools for creating your own visualizations out there, covering everything from Digg activity to network connectivity to what’s currently happening on Twitter."
- Is this useful? An account of how I started blogging and how it changed my journalism – "Pete told me this was known as “crowd-sourcing” and had a wide range of potential applications for newspapers. I can not stress enough how helpful it was to have someone that I could call to have coffee with and pick their brains on how the web “worked”. I started to look at journalism in a new way through Pete’s explanations of blogging."
ASNE: How to make story comments better
This is my column for the Winter 2009 edition of The American Editor, the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ quarterly magazine. As of now, it’s not posted on the ASNE’s site, but the magazine is out. It’s now posted here. I will join Saundra Keyes, journalism professor at the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, in hosting a webcast about story comments on March 31.
Saundra’s cover story for the magazine was headlined, “Fiery Forums: Anonymous comments drive traffic to newspaper Web sites and generate news tips, but with embarrassing flame wars and damaged credibility, is the price too high to pay?” I’ll link to it when My item is available here.
I didn’t write this column by myself. But we’ll talk more about that later.
For now, let’s acknowledge that the news industry has experienced several spasms of doubt over the inclusion of readers’ comments on stories. Read more
Interesting stuff I saw online, Feb. 26 to Mar. 3
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Feb. 26 through Mar. 3:
- Coverage Plan: The San Francisco Post-Chronicle – Fascinating. Via Journerdism.
- How The Globe and Mail uses social media to engage its audience – Mathew Ingram at the G&M: "That means I am trying to think of — and follow through on — as many different methods of creating, enhancing, fertilizing and connecting with communities of readers around various topics as I can."
- Digg Is Working On a Toolbar To Go After StumbleUpon, TinyURL, and All The Rest – From TechCrunch: "A super-secret Digg toolbar has been spotted in the wild. We tracked down a beta tester who gave us the skinny on its features. The toolbar lets you Digg or Bury the page you are on, and shows how many Diggs it has already received." Plus, it includes tinyurl-like functionality and a random feature like StumbleUpon.
- 15 Useful WordPress Tricks to Make Your Theme Even Better – From ForTheLose.org: "Here are only a few of the many great snippets of code that will take your current theme creation and make it that much better."
14 great sites about branding your own journalism
The idea of creating a “brand” around yourself and your work has typically been anathema to most journalists. It’s an attitude that should change for a few reasons.
1) We can use the skills of personal branding to enhance our value to the organizations for which we work.
2) Audiences can relate as easily to an individual who produces good content as to a “corporate” brand — perhaps more so.
3) Journalism isn’t a one-way street anymore (if it ever was). Build a network and be consistent with your content and your identity. That’s a brand.
4) Younger people get this instinctively; they’ve been weaned on it.
Here’s 14 links I thought had something helpful to say about creating that personal brand. Among the most important: Creating an area of expertise and creating content regularly; and becoming involved in an authentic way in social networks — rather than just becoming a self-promoter. Read more
Interesting stuff I saw online from Sep. 20 to Sep. 28
Here’s some of the stuff I thought was interesting while stomping through the Internet from Sep. 20 through Sep. 28:
- Journalism.co.uk Editors’ Blog » Blog Archive » Was the Scotsman right to sack Nick Clayton for blogging? – "Journalism.co.uk tried contacting the Scotsman…but received no response to the following: does the Scotsman have a set policy on staff writing for external websites? and are journalists aware of this?" The Post-Dispatch has a policy about blogging outside the newsroom by staffers.
- Buttry: Finding our way in social media | GazetteOnline.com – Cedar Rapids, Iowa City – Good strategies and ideas for how to engage audiences from the newspaper newsroom in social media.
- Digg aims to raise its profile – San Jose Mercury News – "Digg's traffic is showing signs of plateauing," Malik wrote this week. "What's troubling is that a mere 1 percent of its users (who can be labeled addicts) are generating 32 percent of the visits."
- Are We Ready for Citizen Journateerism? | PBS – "Basically that means ordinary folks leveraging social media tools to help people in need. I'm not talking about political or community-relevant reporting and opinioning, which is certainly a kind of volunteer community service, but about the re-purposing of citizen journalism tools in response to life and death issues on the ground."
- Interview with Ron Sylvester about using Twitter as a reporting tool | BeatBlogging.Org – Yes! “For traditional print, it kind of puts us back in the game,” he said. “It allows us to cover the courts live.”
- Citing abuse, Maui News kills online story comments – Pacific Business News (Honolulu): – How 19th century! "Instead, publisher Joe Bradley said readers would be directed to submit letters to the editor that could be printed in the newspaper or online. Submitting a letter requires readers to leave their names and contact numbers."
- ThePort helps clients, users interact on Web | ajc.com – Yeah. OK. Whatever.
Kurt's Tweets- Why is this not a national story? Maybe I missed it. Appalling. Disabled woman was tortured and held as a sex slave http://ow.ly/2CiAq
- Bravo. RT @pwthornton: "Banning unsigned online comments undermines the media’s role as a forum for debate.” http://bit.ly/bmZsOn
- I would like to just take the two steps forward and skip the one step back. How about that? Would that be OK?
- Still seeking talented journalists to run #Patch sites in two south St. Louis County communities. Know anyone? http://ow.ly/2Axnv
- Waiting for a listings collector to give her more #Patch marketing cards. The work never stops.