|
Archives
By Month
By Category
Contact Us
If you know about a story that we should be following, let us know.
Your Take Roundup
Keep Video Ads Brief, Contextual
Online video usage is exploding online, as people watch everything from YouTube to TV shows to sporting events -- but mainly, YouTube. But the question is how sites will be able to pay for all that usage. Most video viewers would prefer not to pay for them, nor watch any advertising either.
more »Your Take
What's the future of wire services in the digital age?
With all the fuss lately around the Associated Press and its legal tussle with Drudge Retort over lifted quotes, there's been a renewed focus on the future of the AP and its role as a newspaper cooperative. The Wall Street Journal noted that newspapers were becoming disgruntled by the high cost of being an AP member and that the AP wasn't providing enough return for that cost. One problem is that AP is putting more efforts into courting digital business and isn't giving enough back to the papers who back it. So more generally, do you think the AP will have role to play in the digital age?
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Quick Video Services Spark Conversations, Boredom
Online video has moved way beyond simple video-sharing on YouTube. A growing number of services are allowing users to make video on the fly and stream their material live or near live to the web or from mobile devices. Instant video content, often just conversations between the producer and his or her audience, or video comments back and forth, is much different from content that is recorded, edited and posted onto video-sharing sites like YouTube.
more »Digging Deeper
Online Video Ads Finally Find Their Niche
The numbers tell the story of the disconnect between online videos watched and online video ads sold: In December 2007, Americans watched 10 billion online videos, according to comScore. For the entire year of 2007, advertisers spent just $554 million on online video ads, according to Jupiter, while they spent $21 billion on all online ads. So many people are watching online videos, but so few advertisers are trying to reach them.
more »Open Source Reporting
Educational Centers for Journalism Experiments
Will print newspapers exist in 10 years? How will we fund investigative journalism in the future? How can journalists learn to do reporting, moderating communities, filtering content, building Google Maps and all the other technical and online duties they will need to know?
more »Your Take
What kind of video advertisements would you welcome?
Researchers have predicted that video ads would explode just as online video audiences have expanded -- but it hasn't happened yet. Longer form video ads that play before videos (a.k.a. pre-roll ads) don't seem appropriate when the video is brief. And marketers are wary about advertising around user-generated videos that have edgy content. YouTube has experimented with overlay videos and...
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
4 Reasons I Don't Use Personalized Start Pages (And 3 Reasons Others Do)
When you open up your Internet browser, what's the first thing you see? Many people opt for personalized start pages, portal-like websites that let you pick and choose the content you want, such as news, weather or updates from social networking sites like Facebook. You can add widgets to your start page, and even create widgets for others to use on their pages.
more »Thought Leader Q&A
Charles Lewis Tries to Solve -- Not Bemoan -- State of Investigative Journalism
The state of investigative journalism in America is in its five-alarm fire phase, with newspaper staffs being severely pared down, and TV news going for flash and celebrity. But Charles Lewis, the godfather of non-profit investigative journalism as founder and former director of the Center for Public Integrity, would rather put out the fire than simply yell "fire!"
more »Legal Drama
AP Badly Mistaken on Drudge Retort
Last week, the Associated Press decided that the Drudge Retort was in violation of copyright laws because it excerpted parts of AP stories and linked to them. The AP legal team sent a cease-and-desist letter to Drudge Retort's owner, the technology book author Rogers Cadenhead.
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Spain's National Obsession with Mobiles, Texting
A few weeks ago I told you about the perpetuation of print newspapers here in Spain, and in that post I mentioned the fact that you don't see a whole lot of laptops being used on the streets of Barcelona or Madrid. One might think that this is an indication of a lack of love for gadgets. Quite the contrary: You may not see laptops, but what you do see are cell phones -- and tons of them.
more »MobileShift
12 Lessons Learned from Locative Media Project at Medill
Lojo Connect, our ten-week project that has explored ways that newsrooms can use location-based storytelling, including online interactive maps and GPS-driven stories, is coming to a close. You can read our previous posts on MediaShift to learn more about our project and limitations we encountered along the way.
more »MediaShift
MediaShift Looking for 'Embeds' at Newspaper, Radio, TV
As the redesign and revamp of the MediaShift site continues apace, I am looking for a few good folks to serve as correspondents for MediaShift, so I can get better insight into industries or worlds that I cover only occasionally. My hope is that with a group of 10 to 15 correspondents, I'll be able to give my community of readers and contributors more food for thought and interaction.
more »Jennifer Woodard Maderazo
Slingbox Lets Me Take Live TV Abroad
Last month, I moved to Spain, and I took my TV with me. Not the actual TV set, but my shows. As I write this, I'm watching a live episode of "Larry King Live," where politicians and pundits are discussing the implications of the Obama victory. It's 9:00 in the morning here in Spain, and even though I'm having breakfast, late-night Larry King and everyone else is truly live, thanks to Slingbox.
more »Digging Deeper
'Technology Sabbath' Offers One Day to Unplug
Lately, I've been experimenting with taking one day each week away from work completely. You might think this would be an easy task as there's a "weekend" each week that allegedly offers up two full days of rest. And yet, as I work at home, the shiny big screen of the iMac beckons at all hours, and I am often in front of its white glow the first thing every morning and the last thing at night.
more »Your Take Roundup
People Get Picky on Adding Friends on Social Media Sites
There comes a time in every person's online life when they have to make a decision: to add or not to add a "friend." I put friend in quotations because that's usually the problem. Is the person a friend, a real friend, or someone who wants to be a friend? Should I add them as a friend because it's polite, or ignore them because I want to protect my personal information?
more »Your Take
Can newspapers rejuvenate or reinvent classified ads?
American newspapers are hurting for a number of reasons -- loss of readership, the rise of cable TV and online media, and a business model in transition. Many people point to newspapers' weakness in classified ads as a fatal problem, with revenues lost that used to help support reporting. Now journalist/entrepreneur Steve Outing is helping launch a new site called...
more »Tags
Best of MediaShift
