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4MR

4 Minute Roundup: NYTimes.com Charging?; AP's Sotomayor Blog

Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the latest move by the New York Times to survey print subscribers to see if they will pay for access to the website -- on top of what they're paying for the print edition. Plus, the Associated Press launched a Twitter feed and blog with... more »

From Idea Lab

How My 6-Year-Old Became a Citizen Journalist

Idea Lab is a group blog of Knight News Challenge grant winners.

Underwritten by John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

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MediaShift tracks how new media -- from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism -- are changing society and culture.

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Weblogs

Some Bloggers Welcome FTC Scrutiny for Paid Reviews

When it was reported in 2006 that the FTC would begin forcing word-of-mouth companies -- which paid people to hype products to their peers -- to disclose their marketing campaigns, Brian Clark predicted at the time that these rules would apply to bloggers as well. Now it looks like his prediction is coming true -- and bloggers are taking the... more »

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5Across

The Importance of Free Speech Online in Iran, China, Kenya

In a crisis, governments will often curtail freedom of the press, censoring or shutting broadcasts and newspapers. But blocking websites, slowing the Internet or cutting off SMS messaging can be harder to do. Stopping the flow of information online can be a difficult task, as the Iranian government has learned over the past few weeks, as protesters have posted images...

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NewspaperShift

5 Ideas to Transform Newspaper Sites

I sometimes wonder whether we are held captive by old school thinking. At our newspapers at Mediafin, we are in the process of integrating web operations with the print publication, a move which I fully endorse. There's one major risk to this: that we might end up seeing the web as just another way to distribute newspaper articles rather than...

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Thought Leader Q&A

Edelman's Steve Rubel Switches from Blog to Lifestream

I spoke with Rubel a couple months ago when he was visiting San Francisco for the Ad:tech conference. We met at B Restaurant near Moscone Center and I interviewed him with my Flip camera. We talked about his balancing act as a blogger/journalist/PR person, how PR is shifting with the advent of social media, and what lessons Edelman and Edelman's client Wal-Mart have learned from previous missteps online.

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Weblogs

Newspapers Try Again with Local Blog Networks

Recently, those who visited the front page of the Miami Herald's website began seeing a sidebar item labeled simply "Your Blogs." If you clicked on the link it would take you to a page containing a series of headlines and little snippets of opening paragraphs in a news feed format. If you clicked on one of the links, it would...

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World View

Brave Citizen Journalists Provide New Images of Iranian Life

Like many people, I have been watching this so-called "Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, [Insert New Media Application] Revolution" unfold in Iran from the comfort of my own home. Watching the dizzying and horrifying images that have emerged on the Internet has triggered a whirlwind of emotions and thoughts. I was shocked and outraged by the death of Neda. I felt a...

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Weblogs

Zombie Bloggers Create Communal Horror Stories

On June 13, bloggers around the world imagined they were under attack by the living dead, writing short horror narratives for the annual Blog Like It's the End of the World Day (which was especially appropriate for me since it fell on my birthday). But there are some bloggers who blog as if everyday were the end of the world:...

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4MR

4 Minute Roundup: Michael Jackson's Death Rocks Web; Guardian Crowdsources

Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the way Michael Jackson's death yesterday played out online, going from TMZ to Twitter to the LA Times blog. Yesterday was a record traffic day for Yahoo, and Google News reacted like it was under a hack attack from the huge jump in search queries...

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World View

How Will Iranian Protests Change Twitter?

There's been much ado about Twitter's role in the political protests in Iran, and for good reason. With the Iranian government expelling foreign journalists, outlets like CNN scrambled to uncover sources where they could. They found these sources among the din of unverifiable messages surfacing on Twitter. It's been fun reading mainstream media accounts of how Twitter is, in a...

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MusicShift

The Time is Right for Direct-To-Fan Marketing of Music

As the music industry continues to evolve and search for a sustainable and profitable business model, the direct-to-fan (D2F) approach is making great advances, from artists just starting their career up to superstars with massive fan bases. Artists marketing and selling directly to their audience is not necessarily a new or revolutionary concept -- one can find examples of artists...

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AdvertisingShift

Will Digg Users Bury New Digg Ads System?

Since its launch in late 2004, Digg has tried its hand with several outside advertising networks, going from an off-the-shelf Google AdSense arrangement to working with Federated Media before finally signing a deal for Microsoft to deliver its display advertisements. But in April of this year, Digg announced it would end its deal with the software giant in favor of...

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Featured Comment

Improving community interaction is a great way for newspapers to cement themselves in place and increase their online audience -- which many of them are doing with the simple steps of open forums and story comments.

Matthew Caylor
5 Ideas to Transform Newspaper Sites

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Upcoming Events

July 16, 2009

Small Business Marketing

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This is a live webcast of presentations by marketing experts, with advice and case studies concnerning social media marketing tools for small businesses.

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