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Media Usage
Raj Lal, a senior engineer for a mobile phone company, checked his iPhone at the dinner table before getting a searing look and some strong words from his wife in the middle of a romantic restaurant. It was their 10th anniversary. Lal, 34, said he felt embarrassed about the scene, but more so that he didn't even think about it... more »
Who We Are
MediaShift tracks how new media -- from weblogs to podcasts to citizen journalism -- are changing society and culture.
AdvertisingShift
Google Touts Promise of Targeted Political Ads, Despite Turning Off Voters
Last week, Google's "Politics, Elections and Public Sector" team unveiled a "Four Screens to Victory" infographic that highlights new trends in how Americans gather political information. The folks at Google suggest that television may be losing its primacy in the world of campaign advertising, and they hope that political campaigns will begin to shift their ad spends online. But can these...
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5Across
5Across Classic: Olympic Athletes on Social Media
We decided to pull up this 2010 episode of 5Across about athletes using social media because of its relevance to the current 2012 Olympics, especially as the roundtable includes two U.S. Olympians: Natalie Coughlin and Donny Robinson. Not much has changed in the last couple years, except that even more athletes are on social media -- and more are connecting...
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Social Media
London 2012: The Thrills (and Agony) of the Social Olympics
It's an Olympic achievement. Not just the London Games, but the social media infrastructure behind them. People definitely engaged online during the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. But new apps, better mobile devices, and an Olympic policy encouraging athletes to use social media mean that fans will have more access and interaction with Olympians than ever before. An International...
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Technology
Need Help Cutting the Cord to Cable? This E-Book Will Guide You
We have never really liked our local cable company. Over the years, many of us have wasted time waiting for the cable guy to show up to install or replace the box that doesn't seem to work or been placed on eternal hold while customer service takes its sweet time. And to add insult to injury, every year our basic...
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Philosophy
My (Thwarted) Plan as the New York Times' Public Editor
About six weeks ago, I got a phone call out of the blue from a New York Times editor who told me that I had been recommended to be a candidate for the open Public Editor job at the Times. My first reaction (outside of shock) was to be honored that they would consider me, but I also felt pretty...
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Culture
Young People Who Tweet Are Young People Who Vote
Nearly 7 million young people will be newly eligible to vote this November. And contrary to what most might think, a recent study of how these voters engage in politics using new media shows they're paying close attention. "A lot of what we're trying to understand is the way in which [using new media] might be related to the ways...
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Technology
How New Internet Domain Names Can Shake Up Your Web-Browsing Experience
One year ago, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers launched a program designed to transform the appearance and infrastructure of the Internet as we know it. The new generic top-level domain program invited the world to apply for new gTLDs , also known as domain names, or the .com, .org, .net parts of the web address. Last month,...
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MovieShift
An Actor's Life in the Digital Age: Trying to Make New Media Pay
I went to my first movie at 4 years old: "Mary Poppins" at the Sycamore State Theater in Sycamore, Ill. It was one of those large theaters with lots of character about it. Beautiful blue lighting glowed along the ledges and pointed to the lavish velvet curtains that surrounded the screen. Dick Van Dyke, who played Bert in the movie,...
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Your Take
Poll: How Often Do You Take a Break from Technology?
All week long, PBS MediaShift has been running a special series Unplug 2012 about our need to take breaks from the immersion of technology and media in our lives. As much as we love having smartphones, tablets and always-on access to our favorite TV shows, podcasts, blogs and social streams, we all need a break at some point. So how...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #52: Special Edition: Unplugging from Media and Technology
Welcome to the 52nd episode of the Mediatwits podcast, with Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali as co-hosts. This week we have a special edition of the podcast dedicated to unplugging and taking breaks from media and technology. We are immersed in a world of technology, with smartphones at our fingertips, texts and status updates waiting for us at all...
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Media Usage
5 Tips to Prevent Digital Burnout and Maintain Good Mental Health
The Internet's reach is so pervasive, it feels as though it has always been around. The reality is that the web is still in its infancy, and we don't really understand the risks it poses to our mental health. In fact, various experts, such as Larry D. Rosen, a psychologist and author of "iDisorder," believe that personal gadgets are...
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Media Usage
Why We Need a Technology Sabbath
I only have to look at my 3-year-old to see the impact of my use of technology. He walks around the house saying, "Where's my iPhone? I have a call in a minute." And he has two toy phones he carries around in his pockets in case an "important call" comes in. I know all too well whom he is...
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Media Usage
In Political News, There's a Fine Line Between a Well-Informed Public and an Overwhelmed One
As a political blogger and commentator, I try my best to stay up-to-the-minute with the most current campaign news. Working with the 24-hour television news format and instantaneous blogging platforms, it's easy to get anxious that the information I have may be stale or incomplete. After all, I've been taught that information is the currency of our political economy,...
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Media Usage
Our increasing connectedness -- the always-on smartphone, the ever-present social networks, the daily media deluge -- is affecting our lives in ways we can't even yet fathom. So this week, as summer kicks off across the U.S., MediaShift is looking at how and why people are choosing to "unplug" from technology. And within that scope, we'll be exploring how our...
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Media Usage
'Hands Free' Parenting: How Much You Gain When You Unplug
Two years ago, I was in what I considered to be the best years of my life -- a solid marriage to my college love and two beautiful, content young daughters. From an outside perspective, I effortlessly juggled family responsibilities with volunteer activities for my church, community, and my daughters' schools. I was constantly asked, "How do you do...
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Your Take
Poll: How Often Do You Want to Read Your Local Paper in Print?
It's an idea from another time, another era: getting a print newspaper delivered to your home or office so you can keep current on news. As noted newspaper consultant Ken Doctor recently wrote: "By 2020, we'll be used to a few days a week of print, or maybe just 'the Sunday paper,' and wonder why we chopped down whole forests;...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #51: Kramer, Rosen on Future of Print Papers; Brian Boyer Moves to NPR
Welcome to the 51st episode of the Mediatwits podcast, with Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali as co-hosts. This week we take a deeper look at the changes at various local newspapers in North America, lowering their print frequency from daily down to a few times per week. Is this an alarming trend or a natural evolution of newspapers as...
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Free Speech
Citizens Get Conflicting Messages About Their Right to Record
This month, federal agencies and local officials sent two powerful but conflicting messages to the American public about our right to record. On May 14, the Justice Department submitted a letter to the Baltimore Police Department providing in-depth guidance on citizens' right to record. The letter was submitted as part of a court case that dates back to 2010. The plaintiff,...
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Your Take
Poll: How Much Have You Given to Crowdfunding Projects?
We've all heard the heart-warming stories of inventors and creators who couldn't get their ideas funded, and then turned to crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter or Indiegogo to raise the money they needed. And then there are the other-worldly stories like the Pebble smart watch that raised millions on Kickstarter. While you might kick in some money for a promising...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #50: Facebook Face-Plant; Craig Newmark + Poynter; Crowdfunding Bible
Welcome to the 50th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, with Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali as co-hosts. The joy of the Facebook IPO was quickly replaced with disdain as the stock nosedived and lawsuits ensued. We run down the headlines, including the New Orleans Times-Picayune and Oregon Daily Emerald killing daily print editions for thrice- and twice-weekly editions, respectively....
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #49: Facebook IPO Mania; Internet Week; 16th Webby Awards
Welcome to the 49th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, with Mark Glaser and Dorian Benkoil as co-hosts. Today is the day for the Facebook IPO, so we've got it covered like a wet blanket. Special guests Debra Aho Williamson of eMarketer and Troy Young of SAY Media talk over the ins and outs of Facebook as it soars into the...
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Your Take
Poll: What Do You Think About the Facebook IPO?
Now we have a date (May 18) and a price range ($28 to $35 per share) for what could be the biggest initial public offering in the history of tech stocks: Facebook. The company has grown by leaps and bounds since it was born in Mark Zuckerberg's dorm at Harvard in 2004, and now could make Zuckerberg richer than Microsoft...
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Media Usage
Infographic: Moms Hold Big Influence Online
This post and infographic originally appeared on the Nielsen blog Nielsen Wire here. It is reused here with permission. Moms are often at the center of their family's offline life, so it's little surprise that they're also at the center of many of the biggest trends online as well. Whether to look up the latest product reviews or to connect...
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Legal Drama
The First Amendment Should Protect Everyone's Right to Record
Since September, police have arrested dozens of journalists and activists around the country for the "crime" of trying to document political protests in public spaces. People using smartphones and mobile devices are changing the way we record and share breaking news. In return, police have targeted, harassed, and in many cases, arrested those trying to capture images and video of...
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Your Take
Poll: What's Your Philosophy on Paying for Online Content?
Pay walls, metered walls, subscriptions, micro-payments. There are so many ways that online publishers are considering charging visitors for content. While most content online was free in the old days of the web, more publications are following the lead of WSJ.com and NYTimes.com and putting up some kind of pay wall -- leaky or not. So what's your philosophy on...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #48: Yahoo CEO Under Fire; Pros and Cons of Metered Pay Walls
Welcome to the 48th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, with Mark Glaser and the Rafat Ali as co-hosts. On this show, we turn to the chaotic soap opera that continues at Yahoo, once an Internet darling on its umpteenth remake. Its new CEO Scott Thompson appears to have padded his bio with a computer science degree that he never received....
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #47: Positively Dan Rather; Future of Facebook; Rise of Snip.it
Welcome to the 47th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the Rafat Ali as co-hosts. On this show, Rafat had the honor (and early-morning wakeup call) to interview news icon Dan Rather at 7 a.m. while Rather was traveling by train to Washington, D.C. Rather has a new memoir out, "Rather Outspoken," and talked to...
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Your Take
Poll: Where Are Your Favorite Places to Share Photos?
You recently went on vacation to an exotic and new locale and you want to show people your great photos from the trip. So where do you post them online? Are you a fan of Flickr or Facebook? What about Instagram? Or perhaps you're part of the thriving photography community on Google+. And let's not forget the old school folks...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #46: Photography Special: Creative Commons, Cameraphones, Instagram, Google+
Welcome to the 46th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the Rafat Ali as co-hosts. Rafat is celebrating his birthday, we're not sure how old he is, but we know that he loves photography. So this week we are celebrating his birthday by doing a special show focused on photography in the digital age....
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MovieShift
'Carnivàle' Creator Bypasses Hollywood, Launches Transmedia Story 'Haunted'
Discovered on the Internet and known as a storyteller with a unique vision, writer and producer Daniel Knauf, best known as the creator of "Carnivàle" on HBO, has ditched Hollywood and struck out on his own to mine the field of transmedia. With a beta project made public called "Haunted," Knauf's new company, BXX, is jumping feet first into the...
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Europe
Spain's iPad Mag, Vis à Vis, Shows Growth, Points to New Path
In a small office in Alcala Street, in the center of Madrid, a team of seven young entrepreneurial journalists are working overtime to produce the next issue of digital magazine Vis à Vis. Conceived exclusively for the iPad and launched in January, Vis à Vis is an interactive, visual and modern publication that wants to reinvent journalism. The first...
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Culture
Governments Increasingly Targeting Twitter Users for Expressing Their Opinion
This piece is co-authored by Trevor Timm. In its six years of existence, Twitter has staked out a position as the most free speech-friendly social network. Its utility in the uprisings that swept the Middle East and North Africa is unmatched, its usage by activists and journalists alike to spread news and galvanize the public unprecedented. As Twitter CEO Dick...
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Your Take
Poll: What Would You Do to Help Pay for Quality Journalism?
Quality journalism, hard-nosed reporting and analysis, is something we count on to keep a check on politicians, to deliver important breaking news from faraway places and to help us stay informed as citizens. And yet, as the business models shift for traditional journalism outlets, the foundation to support quality journalism gets shakier. What can we do as a community of...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #45: Rafat Returns!; Cord-Cutting Rising?; Google Surveys Instead of Pay Walls
Welcome to the 45th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the Rafat Ali as co-hosts. That's right, Rafat Ali is back in the saddle after a nearly three month trek to India, Burma and Iceland. And he's back just in time to talk cord-cutting once again, this time after new research showed that cable...
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EducationShift
Why We Need to Teach Mindfulness in a Digital Age
Think of sitting quietly in a spartan room. There are no TVs, computers, smartphones, books, magazines or music. If you're like most people, this probably sounds like a recipe for boredom. In our culture, we avoid moments of "not-doing" because we don't associate boredom with having any value. And our aversion to boredom and not-doing have been amplified in our...
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Social Networking
Online Privacy: Kids Know More Than You Think
Much of the anxiety around tweens and social media lies in the fear that they don't care about or understand privacy settings. Parents worry that kids will either willingly or unintentionally expose themselves to dangerous anonymous predators, or that they don't fully understand that the information they share about themselves can be used against them. But tweens are much more...
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Your Take
Poll: How Is Social Media Changing Activism?
How do people end up in the streets protesting something? What motivates them to take action, even when that action could lead to their arrest? Last year, Facebook and Twitter played major roles in helping organize street protests during the Arab Spring, to the point where dictators were focused on either blocking the services or using them to spy on...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #44: Social Media's Role in Activism, Trayvon Martin; Pinterest's Legal Drama
Welcome to the 44th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the Rachel Sklar as co-hosts. Sklar is a writer and social entrepreneur, and is filling in for Rafat Ali. This week, we convene a special roundtable to discuss how social media is changing activism, in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, in a...
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Your Take
Poll: How Do You Get Your News On-The-Go?
According to research from Pew, 23% of Americans get their news on at least two digital devices. In the past, most people got their news from TV, radio or newspapers, but that has now shifted to people getting news on tablets, smartphones and desktop computers, as well as the legacy media. So how do you get your news when you...
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Social Networking
Infographic: The Role of Mobile Devices, Social Media in News Consumption
Editor's note: This week, the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism released its annual State of the News Media report. The following is an infographic the organization put together to spell out some of the report's biggest findings and it is used here as a guest post. Click on the image below for a larger version of the...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #43: Pew's State of the News Media; Yahoo Sues Facebook
Welcome to the 43rd episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the Rachel Sklar as co-hosts. Sklar is a writer and social entrepreneur, and is filling in for Rafat Ali. She is back from SXSW and slowly recovering from the interactive, music and film festival. The big news this week is Pew's annual State of the...
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MusicShift
With Rise of Streaming Services, Music Biz Pushes for Metrics
As I noted in the my SXSW Music 2012 post last week, subscription services and engagement apps are quickly becoming core factors driving the music industry and the conversations surrounding them. Services such as Spotify and Rdio are responsible for an increasing percentage of music consumption. And apps, such as Turntable.fm that are focused on engaging fans over simply...
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EducationShift
How Educators Are Using Pinterest for Showcasing, Curation
Pinterest is the "in" site of 2012, and its phenomenal growth has sparked interest among millions of users. It's also spread to journalism educators, who are increasingly experimenting with it in the classroom. The social network launched two years ago, but in recent months has drawn red-hot excitement for its unique visual, topic-based curation approach. While its 10 million users,...
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Philosophy
Pizza With a Side of Attitude: The Rise of Snark Online
On Mondays, when my students ask me what I did over the weekend, I often reply, "read, wrote, and then read and wrote some more." Most of the time, I'm being more serious than they know. A few weekends ago was an exception, at least initially. I visited my family in Pennsylvania, made pizza with my mom, and repaired the...
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Your Take
Poll: What Did You Think of SXSW This Year?
Are you recovered yet? The SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, Texas, was bigger than ever this year, with more parties, more panels, more rain and more controversy than ever. If you braved the lines, the weather and the crowds to learn more about creative culture while networking with friends old and new, you deserve a breather now. So what's...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #42: SXSW Special: Homeless Hotspots; Ambient Apps, CNN/Mashable?
Welcome to the 42nd episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the Rachel Sklar as co-hosts. Sklar is a writer and social entrepreneur, and is filling in for Rafat Ali. This week is a special episode dedicated to all things South by Southwest (SXSW), the media confab covering technology, music and film down in Austin, Texas.
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Collaboration
At SXSW, Austin Alchemy, Creative Culture Lead to Collaboration
One of the highlights of SXSW for me this year was a session called "Everything is a Remix, So Steal Like an Artist," a conversation about remix culture and creativity between artists Austin Kleon and Kirby Ferguson. As the session title indicates, their philosophy is that all artists build upon the work of others -- nothing is 100% original....
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Technology
7 Ways to Get Programmers to Stop Hating You
After almost two decades of working closely with diverse types of techs, I've slowly found myself transforming from a nice, sweet, agreeable person to "Saturday Night Live's" Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy. What I have witnessed has not been pleasant -- grown adults acting like 5-year-old children, and then blaming their techs for responding snarkily. As the digital divide...
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Social Networking
Pew Report Finds Americans Unfriending Over Political Beliefs
As a teenager who was vocally opinionated about political issues, I often heard the cautionary refrain "Politics is not the topic of polite conversation." That counsel must have been lost on me, since I find myself as an adult publicly airing my opinions as both the political correspondent for this blog and as a Democratic analyst periodically appearing on FoxNews.com.
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Your Take
Poll: What Do You Think About the New iPad?
The new iPad has a better screen resolution than most HDTVs. It will have faster 4G connectivity speeds than most other tablets. Its processor will blow away the processor on the last generation iPad. Is that wowing you yet? Are you impressed? Ready to stand in line for the new iPad? Or is it all just a yawner? The new...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #41: 'The New iPad'; Newspaper Culture Clashes; NewYorker.com's New Editor
Welcome to the 41st episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the George Kelly as co-hosts. Kelly is online coordinator at the Contra Costa Times newspaper and is filling in for Rafat Ali. This week we have an action-packed show with a lot to cover. First up is "The New iPad," announced by Apple on...
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Business
Chicago News Co-op Hits Pause Button, Shares Lessons for Foundations
Chicago News Co-op, a 2-year-old non-profit news site, has announced it is suspending publication and re-evaluating its future. While some of the factors in play are complex and not particularly well-explained by the CNC (read editor James O'Shea's letter to readers), what we know so far about the suspension does appear to put into focus some key lessons for funders...
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PoliticalShift
Political 'Matchmaking' Sites ElectNext, iSideWith Help Voters Decide
Despite the nonstop coverage of the ongoing Republican primary battle on cable news and talk radio programs, the American voter remains notoriously ill-informed. While people may be increasing their attention to the high-profile horse race of presidential politics this year, it's clear that most voters' knowledge of local politics has sharply declined. This is doubtless related to the dwindling amount...
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World View
Argentina: Orwellian State or Forerunner of Media Reform in Latin America?
Ten years after the wave of social unrest that set the streets of Buenos Aires on fire, the Argentine government is toughening state control over information made available to the public. "As Argentina enters a period of increasing economic uncertainty, having greater power over the media will allow the government to better control information available to the public and presumably...
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MobileShift
How One Reporter Ditched His Laptop and Covered a Conference with an iPhone, iPad
For the first time in my career last week, I went to work naked. I had the requisite snazzy shirt and tie, but I showed up at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, without my laptop computer and without my camera. I had decided to go all mobile. I'm one of those reporters who usually overdoes it with technology....
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Your Take
What Would You Pay for Access to Your Local Paper's Website?
Does information really want to be free? Or do we all just want to get all the news that's posted online for free? Local newspapers have been struggling to figure out a business model for making money online and in digital platforms -- the main places where their readers want to get news. While the Wall Street Journal has charged...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #40: Pay Walls at L.A. Times, Gannett; TechCrunch Turmoil
Welcome to the 40th episode of the Mediatwits podcast, this time with Mark Glaser and the George Kelly as co-hosts. Kelly is online coordinator at the Contra Costa Times newspaper and is filling in for Rafat Ali. This week the big topic is pay walls, as both the Los Angeles Times and Gannett newspaper chains are planning to charge...
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Philosophy
Data-Driven Investigative Journalism: No Laughing Matter
Jon Stewart is really, really funny when he makes fun of journalism. In "The Daily Show's" parody of the broadcast and cable news product, the show's writers and producers skewer not only the gloss, polish and stilted tone, but also the editorial decisions. But it isn't just TV. The Onion is really, really funny. It makes fun of print journalism,...
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TVShift
A Cord-Cutter's Life: 10 Lessons Learned
I cut the cable cord in early 2006. When I tell friends and colleagues I'm a cord-cutter, the biggest misconception -- beyond initial worries about the phrase involving bodily harm -- is that I don't watch TV. I have a 42" flat screen. I watch TV all the time. I just don't watch regularly scheduled, commercially interrupted, monthly bill-required...
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Your Take
Poll: Have You Cut the Cord to Cable and Satellite TV?
There was a time in America when everyone had a dumb box. A boob tube. A TV that had a handful of broadcast channels, many of them not even programming for 24 hours. But now, we live in an age of TV diversity, when people get their shows through so many alternative channels: Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, YouTube, gray market sites,...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #39: Cord-Cutting Special: Comcast Streampix; Google Fiber
Welcome to the 39th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Brightcove's Eric Elia, who is filling in for Rafat Ali. This week we convene a special roundtable to talk about one of our favorite subjects: cutting the cord to cable TV! We had hoped that a Comcast executive...
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MovieShift
How New Platforms, Streaming Media Change the Equation for Indie Filmmakers
Traditionally, there were three main types of distribution for the work of independent filmmakers: theatrical, broadcast and straight to DVD. Most filmmakers hoped for a combination of all three. But everything has changed. The digital online world has opened up new avenues of distribution including video on demand, live streaming, and mobile and tablet applications. Indie filmmakers are harnessing...
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TVShift
Dear Cable and Satellite Companies, Hollywood Studios, and the People Who Make TV: The thing is, we love TV shows. We love the comedy, the drama, the sports, the events, and even sometimes what you call "romantic comedy." We remember fondly those days growing up as kids when the family sat around in the den watching our favorite shows after...
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Your Take
Poll: What Do You Think About Pinterest?
Lately, the social network that's been all the rage has been Pinterest, which is a visual look at the things you like. That means recipes, infographics, photos, design and more. MediaShift's Courtney Lowery Cowgill wrote that Pinterest was the first thing she'd been excited about online in a long, long time. So have you tried out Pinterest? Are you addicted...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #38: Online Report from Tunisia; Pinterest Craze; Apple Monitors Factories
Welcome to the 38th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Jillian York, who is filling in for Rafat Ali. First, we get a special on-the-ground report from special guest Mohamed El Dahshan in Tunisia, talking about a ruling expected from the country's Supreme Court about filtering the Internet....
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Legal Drama
Journalists Should Learn Best Practices for Fair Use in Digital Age
As we listened to the 80 journalists we interviewed over the last year for a study, Copyright, Free Speech, and the Public's Right to Know: How Journalists Think about Fair Use, we got a clear message: hard-working journalists are often confronted with copyright questions that threaten to keep them from doing their jobs well. Take these hypotheticals: Caitlin works for...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #37: Merger Mania: CIR-Bay Citizen; GigaOm-PaidContent; Twitter Censorship
Welcome to the 37th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Jillian York, who is filling in for Rafat Ali. It's been a crazy week in media + tech, with important mergers abounding! First up is the Center for Investigative Reporting announcing that it will try to merge with...
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Business
GigaOm + PaidContent = Perfect Sense
When the U.K.-based Guardian Media Group bought PaidContent in 2008, it was portrayed as an attempt to expand into the U.S. market. The Guardian newspaper was a forerunner in its use of the web, and already got a large portion of its traffic from North America. But I had trouble seeing why a general interest news organization, even a forward-looking...
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Business
Bay Citizen, Center for Investigative Reporting Plan to Merge. Now What?
The Bay Citizen and the Center for Investigative Reporting, two non-profit organizations based in the Bay Area, announced formally Tuesday that they intend to merge. Under terms of the agreement, Berkeley, Calif.-based CIR, which also runs California Watch, would take over management of the Bay Citizen, an online publication with a publishing partnership with The New York Times. Phil Bronstein,...
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PoliticalShift
Are You Part of the 2% (of People Who Get Campaign News From Twitter)?
Many of you are, like me, among the proverbial "99%" when it comes to economics and income. But if you regularly learn about the 2012 campaign from those you follow on Twitter, as I do, you're in an elite class of a different sort. A new report out from the The Pew Research Center for The People and The Press...
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TVShift
Spoiler Alert! Tech Is Changing the Way We Even Talk About TV
(Spoiler alert! The following post includes things that happened on "Downton Abbey," "The Sopranos" and "Dallas.") The post to Facebook on a late Monday morning was simple enough. A photo of actor Thomas Howes as his character William from "Downton Abbey," along with the status, "Oh, William. We will miss you." The post was meant to engage, and perhaps commiserate...
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TVShift
How Apps Are Making the 'Third Screen' a Primary Screen for Historical TV
On the last day of the History Makers International conference, a three-day event consisting of award presentations, panel discussions, and master classes for producers and broadcasters, a particular tweet caught my eye: "At third screen panel at history conference. I feel like a dinosaur." The faster-than-the-speed-of-light changes in the digital world may be making many people feel like dinosaurs, but...
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Your Take
Poll: What Will Facebook Be Worth in 5 Years?
They say that history repeats itself, but that's so easy to forget. It was only as recently as 2006 that analysts were saying that MySpace was likely worth $15 billion (and I was spoofing that conclusion). And you can go back to older social networks like Friendster or Tribe.net or America Online's chat rooms... you get the point. So now...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #36: Facebook IPO Fever; Dive into Media; $30 Million to Columbia/Stanford
Welcome to the 36th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Dorian Benkoil, who is filling in for Rafat Ali. It's been a crazy week in media + tech, with Google privacy concerns, Amazon falling short in earnings, and much more. But the dominant news was Facebook filing for an...
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Philosophy
Romenesko Gets His Mojo Back After Leaving Poynter
Jim Romenesko is having a good time. Lately, the "journalism evangelist," "KING of the blogosphere," and "go-to source for news about the news" has been waking up earlier, posting more often, and featuring content he had not felt free to publish for more than a decade. In the wake of his abrupt departure from The Poynter Institute late last year,...
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Hyper-Local
10 Types of Foundation-Led Projects Changing the Local Media Landscape
Local foundations are becoming key players in the emerging local news ecosystem by funding news and information projects or creating their own. Knowing that, the Knight Foundation has distributed more than $16 million to 85 challenge winners to develop projects that inform and engage local communities. The Community Information Challenge focuses on community or place-based foundations because Knight believes these...
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Your Take
Poll: What Do You Think About Apple's Success?
The numbers are staggering. Apple Inc. is now the most valuable company in the U.S. The company made more than $13 billion in profit last quarter, more than Google made in revenues. According to TUAW, the iPhone by itself, in three months, brought in more revenue than McDonald's made in all of 2010. So how does all that make you...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #35: Apple's Boffo Earnings; Get More Clicks Per Tweet; NYC vs. Silicon Valley
Welcome to the 35th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Dorian Benkoil, who is filling in for Rafat Ali. Once again, Apple dominates the headlines, this time for quarterly earnings that blew away Wall Street -- and everyone else. The company made $13.1 billion in profits in the quarter,...
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Your Take
Poll: What Do You Think About the Anti-SOPA Protests?
Can online protests make a difference? In the past, they've had mixed success but with enough people pushing against the twin anti-piracy bills, SOPA and PIPA, the U.S. Congress was forced to pay heed. They have now put off bringing the bills to a vote, while contemplating rewrites and changes to the bills. Google alone collected more than 7 million...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #34: SOPA Protests Make a Difference; Yang Out at Yahoo
Welcome to the 34th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. This week the show is mainly focused on the huge day of protest online Wednesday against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA) before the U.S. Congress. After Wikipedia, Reddit and other...
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Guides
Your Guide to the Anti-SOPA Protests
Today was an important day in the history of the Internet and activism. While the U.S. Congress expected to quickly pass two bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA), mounting opposition online has led them to reconsider. That all came to a head today when various sites such as Wikipedia and Reddit decided to black...
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Your Take
What Do You Think About the Consumer Electronics Show (CES)?
Imagine 150,000 people from 140 countries wandering 1.6 million square feet of exhibit space in search of the latest whiz-bang flat-screen TV, tablet, smartphone or souped-up teched-out car. This is the International CES show in Las Vegas, which has mushroomed from 17,500 attendees in 1967 to the massive techno-hordes of today. This could be either your most incredible dream or...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #33: CES Jumped the Shark?; SOPA Battles; Google+ in Search
Welcome to the 33rd episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. This week we have a special show focused on the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) happening in Las Vegas all week. Apple isn't there and Microsoft did its last keynote presentation there. Is the show losing momentum? Are...
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Futurama
Wearing Our Computers on Our Sleeves
It's natural to imagine our computers as devices that have screens and some sort of keyboard input, real or virtual. Those two design elements constrain the device's form factor because the screens need to be big enough for us to see and the keyboards must make room for our fingers or thumbs. But a number of technological hurdles are being...
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MovieShift
6 Filmmakers Talk About Documentary Films in the Digital Age
Lower costs in pro-consumer digital equipment, the crowdfunding phenomenon, and new online and mobile distribution models have opened the door the past few years to many first-time documentary filmmakers in the United States. Independent filmmaking is on the rise, and with that, a trend for more personalized storytelling. Many of today's documentary filmmakers are making bold, stylistic choices more often...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #32: Yahoo's Mr. Wrong?; Steve Rubel's Clip Book; Fake @Wendi_Deng
Welcome to the 32nd episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. We're back from our holiday break and ready to tackle more media news. The big news of the new year is a new CEO (again) at Yahoo, this time PayPal president Scott Thompson will try his...
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Business
2012: Why the Web Is Not Dead and Other Flashpoints
First the easy predictions for the new year: In 2012 we'll see a rise of politics in the digisphere, along with reporting as if the phenomenon is a surprise; more strum over the Murdochs' drum; and a snazzy new iPad 3. But, there are bigger rumblings afoot in the year ahead, too. Here's my second annual round of predictions for...
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Collaboration
The 5 Tenets of Open Journalism
I'm not a middle-of-the-roader and wasn't aiming for a compromise position with my discussion paper, "The Case for Open Journalism Now: A new framework for informing communities," published early this month by the University of Southern California's Annenberg Innovation Lab. Instead, I sought to identify and propel a culture shift that might build a healthier relationship among those who produce...
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Philosophy
Top 10 Media Stories of 2011: Arab Spring; R.I.P. Steve Jobs; Phone Hacking
Yes, 2011 was another year of massive change in the American media landscape, with newspapers struggling, radio and TV trying to sharpen digital strategies, and magazines prettying themselves for tablets. But more often than expected, we turned our eyes overseas, to the role of social media in organizing protests and revolutions in the Arab world. To the spread of Facebook...
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Legal Drama
Wiretapping, SOPA, Occupy: 2011 Was a Tumultuous Year in Media Law
This piece is co-authored by Jeff Hermes and Andy Sellars. This year turned out to be one that could fit well in a Billy Joel song: peppered protesters, jailed journalists, Internet crusaders ... the list goes on. To recap a year that has been chock-full of shifts in media, we put together a list of the top 10 (plus...
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Philosophy
Special Series: Year in Review 2011
It's holiday time, and that means travel mania, less work and yes, year-end roundups. Yes, they are the lazy way to finish out the year for journalists and bloggers around the world, the ultimate in traffic catnip. But we thought we could take a different approach, doing year-end roundups for each niche we cover at MediaShift, giving our correspondents the...
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Your Take
What's Your Favorite 24-Hour Cable News Channel?
Cable news used to be so simple. There was CNN and not much else. But as CNN proved the case that people did have an appetite for TV news around the clock, more stations popped up on the cable dial, including CNN Headline News and the more opinionated Fox News and MSNBC. You'd think that might be enough, but not...
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MagazineShift
Getting a Tablet Is Easy; Getting Digital Magazines Is a Pain
Buying that new iPad, Kindle or Nook for Christmas is just the first step to becoming a digital magazine reader. While shopping for books and movies is a fairly straightforward process, getting your favorite magazines onto your new e-reading device can be trickier. The ways you can buy a magazine are rapidly multiplying, making it harder for readers to evaluate...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #31: BBC World Invades U.S.; ReadWriteWeb Sold to Say Media
Welcome to the 31st episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. This week we turn across the pond to the U.K., where the BBC is pushing its BBC World cable news channel to an American audience. The BBC recently made a deal with Comcast to increase its...
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EducationShift
Collaboration Profile: A Look at WNYC and NYT's SchoolBook
SchoolBook is an ambitious new web offering from WNYC and the New York Times that provides news, data and conversation about New York City's
schools. The site, which launched just before the start of the school year, has been lauded by members of the education establishment, parents and journalists, and provides an interesting model for other public media stations to consider.
Your Take
What Gadget Do You Want Most for the Holidays?
While it is true that getting the right tech gadget for everyone can be a challenge this holiday season, we all know what we want for us. Wirecutter's Brian Lam created a great gadget guide for the holidays and talked extensively about the pitfalls of buying gadgets for friends and family on the recent Mediatwits podcast. So what gadget would...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #30: Netflix, Time Warner Make Peace?; E-Books Price-Fixing; Holiday Gadgets
Welcome to the 30th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. This week we have an eclectic mix of topics. First up is the UBS Media and Technology Conference in New York, where the talk of the conference was the rise of over-the-top video services and talks by...
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Business
Tear Down the Wall Between Business and Editorial!
For too long, reporters and editors have been unaware, even hostile to the business sides of their organizations. Those attitudes have helped push the news industry into its current dire state. And that's why I say: Tear down the wall between business and editorial. Before you start sharpening your pitchforks, hear me out. I'm not proposing a free-for-all money-grab that...
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Environment
Nobel Prize Winner on How New Media is Democratizing Science News
In his lab, scientist and Nobel prize winner Steve Running focuses on creating and confirming new facts and knowledge about climate change. Running leads the Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group lab at the University of Montana.
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NewspaperShift
How to Transform News Leadership in the Digital Age
Since 2007, Knight-McCormick leadership programs at the Knight Digital Media Center have given me a front-row seat at the transformation of news leadership to meet the demands of the digital age. The more than 100 news leaders who have participated in the programs faced a dizzying array of choices about how to best shape a digital strategy, navigate tricky organizational...
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Collaboration
How Non-Profit, For-Profit Newsrooms Are Working Together
BERKELEY, CALIF. -- As traditional newsrooms shrink and budgets tighten, media outlets have realized they can't do as much investigative, time-intensive reporting. But one solution has been for competing news outlets to begin collaborating, whether working together on reports or with content-sharing deals. And with the rise of local non-profit watchdog sites such as Voice of San Diego and the...
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Your Take
What's Your Feeling About Cutting the Cord to Cable TV?
No one likes the high price of cable TV, but then again, few people like to go without TV. Thanks to streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu, and gadgets like the Roku box and Apple TV, there's more chance than ever to get the shows you want when you want them. But the lucrative cable industry won't go away...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #29: Spot.us Acquired; Buffett Buys a Newspaper; Cord Cutters Rising
Welcome to the 29th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali. This week we get back from the Thanksgiving holiday and find some interesting mergers happening. First, there's the crowdfunding site Spot.us being acquired by American Public Media (APM) and its Public Insight Network. Guests David Cohn,...
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Legal Drama
Copyright Infringement Defendants Turn the Table on Righthaven
Righthaven LLC, which still bills itself on its website as "the nation's preeminent copyright enforcer" is now on its way to a new title. It may soon become the nation's first copyright enforcer to be forced into bankruptcy by sanctions awarded to the targets of its copyright infringement lawsuits. What's That They Say About Payback? Righthaven was formed to generate...
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Legal Drama
Changing Media Landscape Could Topple FCC's Indecency Rules
Since the 1970s, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has regulated indecency in broadcast programming. It has enforced laws that prohibit broadcasters from airing, at least during certain hours, any "patently offensive" sexual or excretory material. And since the 1970s, broadcast outlets have attacked the FCC for doing so. They've challenged the agency's authority, as well as the constitutionality and consistency...
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Philosophy
Why the World Needs Better Science Journalism
If you regularly do a Twitter search for the words "science journalism," like I do, you'll be amazed, amused and sometimes shocked by the amount of bashing science journalism takes in the Twittersphere. It shows that not all science journalism is created equal, and it's a sign of the times, really: Not all journalists who write about science are actually science journalists. They're general journalists who were -- willingly or out of necessity -- given a science story to cover that day.
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EducationShift
What Is a Great Education App Really Worth?
Walk the aisles of any toy store and you'll see miles of shelves lined with $20-$30 board games and toys. We're accustomed to paying that amount because that's where the market set the price years ago. It's predicated on production costs, overhead for toy manufacturers, distribution, and the store's cut of the margin, among many other factors.
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Technology
Public Laboratory: Don't Just Report Science, Do It!
Can you envision an alternative mode of science journalism? Imagine a science journalism in which the journalist not only reports about science, but also gathers scientific data and develops the tools by which the data is acquired.
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MagazineShift
Finding the Right Blend of Print and Digital at Meredith's Recipe.com
I'll take the Florentine lasagna, please, with a 2D barcode and a mobile app on the side. Food magazines pride themselves on delectable recipes and luscious photography. Recipe.com, whose title is also its website's URL, is a new publication from magazine giant Meredith, and while every recipe is indeed accompanied by a photo, the print magazine's content is thoughtfully integrated...
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PoliticalShift
How Bloggers, Occupy Wall Street Have Inspired Each Other
From the very beginning, supporters of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) have touted its decentralized nature as one of its greatest strengths. The opponents of a political movement commonly attempt to discredit them by pointing to outside powerful interests secretly pulling strings, thereby jeopardizing its grassroots legitimacy. We saw this with the Tea Party, whose opponents very early on argued that...
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Your Take
What Do You Think About Journalism School?
There is a long tradition of journalists winning awards but never attending journalism school -- or even college, in the case of the late Peter Jennings. Now, in the digital age, there are good arguments for and against going to journalism school. In the pro camp, journalism schools can provide great training, experience and tech know-how before you get out...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #28: Journalism Education Special with Sree Sreenivasan, Sarah Hill
Welcome to the 28th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Dorian Benkoil, filling in for Rafat Ali. This week is a special edition of the podcast dedicated to teaching journalism in the digital age -- and part of our week-long special "Beyond J-School 2011." How can educators keep up with the changes happening in journalism and keep students ahead of the curve?
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #27: Groupon IPO Mania; Nook Tablet Takes on Kindle
Welcome to the 27th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and entrepreneur Rafat Ali. This week we look deeper at the Groupon IPO, which briefly valued the daily deals startup at nearly $20 billion. Our special guests are Business Insider CEO Henry Blodget, as well as Yipit Data analyst...
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Culture
Cameras Everywhere: The Promise and Peril for Human Rights
When you hear the phrase "cameras everywhere" your first thought may be of ubiquitous surveillance cameras, watching your every move on behalf of the state, private businesses and corporations. On second thought it may conjure up the hundreds of millions of cameras, mobile and Internet connections in the hands of ordinary citizens who are filming, sharing and remixing footage --...
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PoliticalShift
Do the Math! How Reporters Squandered the School Loans Story
When President Obama announced his school loan relief plan at the University of Colorado, Denver, a few weeks ago, the mainstream media's coverage followed three predictable trajectories that, for the most part, failed to accurately report the news for the majority of Americans -- and instead contributed to the collective spin-as-news that's all too prevalent these days. This could have...
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Your Take
Apple has already brought innovation to music, cell phones and laptops. Is the TV set its next frontier? Rumors have swirled for years that Apple would come out with a TV set, but nothing's happened yet. VentureBeat's Dylan Tweney believed there was enough evidence to support an Apple TV set coming out by the 2012 holiday season. Plus, Steve Jobs...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #26: Streaming Video Special: Apple TV Set?; YouTube Channels
Welcome to the 26th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and entrepreneur Rafat Ali. This week is a special look at streaming video services, including the possibility of an Apple TV set and the impending launch of YouTube channels. Guests include tech journalist Dan Frommer of SplatF and Brent Weinstein, head of digital services at United Talent Agency.
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Philosophy
TrueTies Activist Demands Transparency Without Transparency
This piece originally appeared in the Washington Examiner It is reprinted here with permission. An Op-Ed appeared earlier this month on PBS MediaShift that seemed to describe a civic-minded endeavor aimed at increasing awareness of who on the nation's editorial commentary pages was trying to influence public opinion. "Every day, Americans read the opinion and commentary of seemingly impartial 'experts'...
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PoliticalShift
Convergence 2.0: How Public TV Can Save Democracy
This September, I wrote in MediaShift about the unfortunate effects on journalism that the deregulation of campaign financing could have. The article hinted that public media might be able to offset the damage, and maybe even save democracy. This sounds so grandiose that, to explain how and why, we need to back up a few steps -- quite a few,...
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Your Take
What Do You Think About Amazon's Power in Book Publishing?
Bookstores are closing. Book publishers are feeling cornered. Authors are confused. As Amazon becomes a growing power in the book publishing world, where does that leave the traditional players? The Kindle e-readers have revolutionized book reading, with convenience, low prices and portability. So do you think of Amazon as your hero, bringing you more great books at low prices? Or...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #25: The 800 Pound Gorilla of E-Books: Amazon
Welcome to the 25th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and entrepreneur Rafat Ali. This week is the Beyond the Book series at MediaShift, and keeping with that theme the podcast is all about Amazon.com.
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5Across
5Across: Beyond the Book: E-Books and Self-Publishing
Print books have survived the onslaught of so many new forms of media over the years, from movies to television to the Internet. But digital media finally caught up to books with the introduction and popularity of e-books and e-readers, with lower price points and the convenience of the "buy" button and quick downloads. Not to mention: who wants...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #24: Non-Profit News Sites; iPhone 4S Boom; Android's Ice Cream Sandwich
Welcome to the 24th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and entrepreneur Rafat Ali. The hot topic is non-profit news sites and whether they can sustain themselves. A recent study was released from the Knight Foundation about the business health of some of these sites, and noted that they still need to experiment to find the right business model to survive.
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Your Take
How Have You Been Following the #Occupy Movement?
Since Adbusters called for a protest on Wall Street in September, a leader-less group calling itself Occupy Wall Street has been camping out in Zuccotti Park in downtown New York. The group has been calling itself the 99% of people in America who have no power compared to the top 1%, and their protests have spread beyond New York to...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #23: Occupied Wall Street Journal; Netflix Backs Down
Welcome to the 23rd episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and entrepreneur Rafat Ali. The main topic on this show is the rise of the Occupy Wall Street movement, how the media has covered it, and the remarkable "Occupied Wall Street Journal" newspaper. Special guest Arun Gupta is the co-founder of the newspaper and explains the importance of a print publication in political circles.
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EducationShift
How a $35 Tablet Could Revolutionize Classroom Learning
When Amazon unveiled its new Android tablet, the Kindle Fire, last month, analysts said that its price could well make it a viable competitor to the wildly successful iPad. Indeed, while the iPad has ignited great interest in tablet computing, particularly in schools, that interest has really just been in iPads.
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Collaboration
Can Mainstream and Ethnic Media Collaborate?
While investigative collaborations are blossoming in newsrooms across the country, few are taking place between mainstream and niche media. As a result, news organizations could be missing the opportunity to reach a wider audience, tap into reporters' talents, and uncover stories from perspectives not often examined. Niche media include ethnic media and those that publish in a language other than...
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Ethics
TrueTies.Org Wants to Increase Transparency on the Op-Ed Page
The following is a guest opinion from Gabe Elsner of The Checks and Balances Project, which recently launched a new project aimed at increasing transparency at news outlets. Every day, Americans read the opinion and commentary of seemingly impartial "experts" from think tanks on critical subjects in the pages of the nation's newspapers. What these readers don't know is that...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #22: Remembering Steve Jobs with Two Biographers
Welcome to the 22nd episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and entrepreneur Rafat Ali. This week is a special edition dedicated to Steve Jobs, the technology visionary who died on Wednesday. The news spread quickly online and on social media, with so many heartfelt memories, stories and old videos. And of course, in death as in life, Jobs remained a polarizing figure, with so many admirers and so many haters.
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Your Take
What Will You Miss Most About Steve Jobs?
We all knew this day would come, but it still was hard to take. Apple's iconic leader, Steve Jobs, has died. His influence at the company, and in so many industries, will continue to be felt for many years to come. So what will you miss most about Jobs? His trademark presentations? His design sense? Something else? Share your thoughts...
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EducationShift
Learning in a Digital Age: Teaching a Different Kind of Literacy
"Education," scholar and writer Ralph Ellison once said, "is a matter of building bridges." And perhaps, no bridge is more important than the bridge to the future. As educators, it's our responsibility to prepare students for the world of tomorrow. Yet tomorrow isn't what it used to be.
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BookShift
Did Apple Collude with Publishers to Fix Prices on E-Books?
Apple's iBookstore wields enough power to change how electronic books are sold and priced, according to plaintiffs in class-action suits against the Cupertino, Calif., company and several traditional publishers. The complaint alleges that Apple violated antitrust laws by colluding with publishers to keep e-book prices high. Hagens Berman, a consumer rights class-action law firm, filed the original complaint in U.S....
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PoliticalShift
Attack of the Attack Ads: Citizens United and the 2012 Elections
In 2012, two tidal waves will reconfigure the American electoral system and the news media that cover it. A tsunami made of money will buoy up the structure of entrenched political power, while a huge wave of personal technology will disrupt it. I can predict both of these events with certainty because they've happened every election year over the last...
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Your Take
What Do You Think of the New Line of Kindles?
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos had his Steve Jobs moment this week, unveiling a slew of new Kindles, a new Silk browser and even a Newsstand. (Here's a handy comparison chart of the Kindles, and here's a roundup of all the media coverage and analysis.) The big point was that Amazon was offering up a new Kindle Fire tablet that was...
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EducationShift
Class, Turn on Your Cell Phones: It's Time to Text
As we noted in August, cell phones are in the hands of the vast majority of adults, and whether schools like it or not, they're in the hands of most students. While many schools still see cell phones as a distraction rather than as an educational tool, it's hard to deny that these devices are quickly becoming the primary means...
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MobileShift
Best Coverage, Analysis of Amazon Kindle Fire Announcement
Amazon recently made waves by announcing its new Kindle Fire tablet, running a custom version of Android and starting at $199. Plus, there were the new Kindle Touch models in the mid-range and the low-cost Kindle, starting at $79 with ads. We scoured Twitter, tech blogs, Google+ and even Quora to find the best coverage and analysis of the announcement....
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Legal Drama
Colleges Run Afoul of First Amendment in Barring Sports Journalists
College athletics are, in some ways, the epitome of what sports are supposed to represent. In our collective minds, college sports are pure, a reminder that decades ago, we too were once young, agile, and full of potential. Every season, alumni forced to move away from "dear ol' State" descend upon land-grant campuses in a tribal, nearly reflexive migration. But...
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Your Take
Which Social Network Do You Use the Most?
In the past decade, the surest way to start a fight in the tech world was to write a negative story about a Mac product. You'd bring in comments from Mac lovers calling you a heretic, while Mac haters would consider you a hero. These Mac vs. PC holy wars continued for years, with even a funny series of Apple...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #21: Social Wars: Facebook's Timeline, Media Grab; Google+ Dead or Alive?
Welcome to the 21st episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and entrepreneur Rafat Ali. This week is a special edition the war between the social networks, and what that means for the media world.
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EducationShift
Cell Phones in Classrooms? No! Students Need to Pay Attention
In the battle for the hearts and minds of students, the front line for educators has changed over the last couple of decades. Rather than the age-old struggle for access, the foremost concern today is one of attention.
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Social Networking
Google+: Social Media Upstart 'Worse Than a Ghost Town'
I wanted to log on to Google+. I swear I did. But the thought of it made me tired. I recently wrote a piece for MediaShift on the perils of tweeting interview requests. Like I've done for past pieces and many of the posts on my blog College Media Matters, I carried out all the expected social media promotion. I...
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World View
Online Journalism Booms in Egypt, But Not Without Restriction
This post was co-authored by Tanja Aitamurto CAIRO -- The historic revolution in Egypt this spring changed the country's media landscape dramatically. Since the uprising, a plethora of new online initiatives have sprung up. Several citizen journalists have become full-on celebrities. News agencies have started disseminating on Facebook. New TV channels are aired. It would seem then, that freedom of...
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Your Take
What's the Best Business Model for Metro Newspapers?
Metro daily newspapers have been in a long rut in the United States, with many retrenching, closing or flailing for a new digital business model while cutting editorial staff to the bone. Many papers are watching the pay walls at places like NYTimes.com, and the new launch of the pay site, BostonGlobe.com. And what about newspapers like the Guardian in...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #20: Newspaper Special: Boston Globe Pay Wall; Guardian U.S.; Philly Tablet
Welcome to the 20th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali, the one and only founder of PaidContent. This week is a special edition on newspapers, newspapers and more newspapers. First up, the Boston Globe launched its new pay-walled site, BostonGlobe.com, which is free for print subscribers but costs $3.99 per week for non-print subscribers.
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MarketingShift
The Importance of Understanding the Growing U.S. Latino Market Online
Rene Alegria, founder of Mamiverse, a website focused on Latina moms, has heard every possible misconception of the Latino market. For years, these misconceptions kept many businesses from tapping into this fast-growing consumer segment.
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Free Speech
Censorship Prevails in 'New' Burma, Despite Reform Talk
BANGKOK -- A handful of protestors gathered outside the Burmese embassy in Bangkok last Friday to vent their anger against the detention of 17 journalists in Burma, some of whom have been given multiple-decade jail terms for what activists describe as "no more than doing their jobs." The jailed reporters worked for Democratic Voice of Burma, a Burmese media organization...
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Philosophy
September 11th Ten Years On: 'Are You OK?'
There is nothing like an anniversary to force you to notice change. In New York City this weekend, a lot of us are contemplating what's happened over the past decade: to ourselves, to our city, and to the world. One of the most startling realizations is the shift in the role of the media since the attack. We remember watching...
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Your Take
What's the Future for AOL and Yahoo?
This has been a very rough week for the two Internet pioneers, Yahoo and AOL. Yahoo's fiery chief executive Carol Bartz was fired over the phone (who would have the guts to say it to her face?), and co-founder Jerry Yang is taking a role in rethinking the company's direction (again). And at AOL, CEO Tim Armstrong has had to...
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Business
The TechCrunch/AOL Saga Told Through 'Star Wars'
The soap opera that has been going on between TechCrunch's Michael Arrington, Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington and AOL honcho Tim Armstrong has been difficult to explain to people living outside the tech media bubble. How can you capture those personalities and make it understandable to the masses?
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #19: Bartz, Arrington Fired; Swisher Swoons; Google Grabs Zagat
The Mediatwits podcast is sponsored by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, which offers an intensive, cutting edge, three semester Master of Arts in Journalism; a unique one semester Advanced Certificate in Entrepreneurial Journalism; and the CUNY J-Camp series of Continuing Professional Development workshops focused on emerging trends and skill sets in the industry. Welcome to the 19th episode...
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EducationShift
Has Technology Changed the Way Children Play?
Last spring, there was a minor outcry when the Auburn School District in Maine announced that it would be piloting a one-to-one iPad program with its kindergarteners. Part of the uproar involved the cost of the program -- some $200,000. But much of it involved the notion that somehow young children should not be exposed to technology, that somehow iPads and other gadgets inhibit their imagination and make them play less -- or, to slightly modify one of Apple's famous logos, to "play different."
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Europe
Infographic Explains Hackgate, News of the World Scandal
Maybe you're still confused about the whole "hackgate" scandal in the United Kingdom, where the News of the World tabloid hacked cell phone voicemail messages to get inside information. Perhaps our guide to the scandal was just too dense. Well, here's an even simpler proposition: one simple infographic to explain the whole thing. The infographic was created by security firm...
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Social Networking
An avatar, for lack of a better explanation, is our incarnation on the Internet -- the virtual Halloween costume we wear every day. Whether it's an animated alter ego in a game or online community, or a two-dimensional Facebook profile picture or Twitter "Twavatar," your avatar is how the online world sees you. It's also how you see yourself. Researchers...
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Your Take
Poll: What's Your Favorite Video Streaming Service?
This has been a busy week in the world of video streaming services. The new higher rate for Netflix streaming and DVDs just went into effect, just as Starz broke off negotiations with Netflix (meaning, perhaps, less selection of movies on the service). Hulu also made noise by launching a streaming service in Japan that costs more but has no...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #18: CNN Buys Zite; DoJ Blocks AT&T; Starz Drops Netflix
The Mediatwits podcast is sponsored by the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, which offers an intensive, cutting edge, three semester Master of Arts in Journalism; a unique one semester Advanced Certificate in Entrepreneurial Journalism; and the CUNY J-Camp series of Continuing Professional Development workshops focused on emerging trends and skill sets in the industry. Welcome to the 18th episode...
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Free Speech
Free Speech Concerns Could Sink Missouri's Social Networking Ban for Teachers
Last week, a Missouri judge issued a preliminary injunction against the state, suspending part of a law that would have made it illegal for teachers and students to connect via social networks. Section 162.069.4 of the Amy Hestir Student Protection Act -- which aims to protect children from sexual predators -- prohibits teachers from establishing, maintaining or using a "non-work-related...
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Free Speech
Online Comments Run Afoul of Thailand's Laws Shielding Royalty from Criticism
BANGKOK -- As a high profile case against a prominent media campaigner returns to court in Bangkok, it has emerged that the long arm of Thailand's lèse-majesté law has reached into California. On Thursday Chiranuch Premchaiporn of the Thai current affairs website Prachatai returned to court in the Thai capital to face vague-sounding allegations that she facilitated third-party remarks about...
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Media Usage
Traveling Back in (Technology) Time With Hurricane Irene
Hurricane Irene brought home for me how our media technology defines eras. On the eastern end of New York's Long Island on Saturday evening, as the storm approached, my family and some friends were having a pizza party for my younger daughter's birthday at Emilio's, a local restaurant in Greenport. As the technology receded, then came back, intermittently and in...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #17: Ch-ch-changes: Steve Jobs Out; Romenesko Semi-Retires; Shafer Laid Off
Welcome to the 17th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Staci Kramer, editor of PaidContent, who's filling in for Rafat Ali. This show looks at the week's big changes in the media landscape. First, Steve Jobs announced he was stepping down as CEO of Apple, moving into a...
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Your Take
Who's the Winner in the Google-Motorola Deal?
Deals like this don't come along every day. The search giant Google has rarely strayed into this kind of massive buyout in the past (a few billion for DoubleClick comes to mind) and never for something like hardware. But now that Google has announced a $12.5 billion buyout of Motorola, a maker of smartphones and TV set-top boxes, the guessing...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #16: Why Google Bought Motorola; Yahoo Scoops ESPN Big-Time
Welcome to the 16th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali, the founder of PaidContent. This show looks at the week's big news, including the head-turning buyout of Motorola Mobility by Google for $12.5 billion. What was driving the search giant to become a hardware maker? Was...
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Business
3 Ways Google-Motorola Doesn't Make Sense (And 5 Ways it Does)
Google's $12.5 billion deal to purchase Motorola Mobility was foolish, savvy, naive or clever, according to various analysts commenting over the last two days. In fact, it's probably all of those things, and how well it pans out will depend on how it's executed. Let's start with the reasons the deal looks foolish, then some ways it could work. 1....
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TVShift
HBO Go App Shakes Up the Streaming TV Scene
In a second-quarter earnings letter to investors distributed last month, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said the biggest threats to his business weren't the likes of Amazon Prime or Hulu Plus, but applications such as HBO Go. "HBO subscribers can watch HBO on-demand through their MVPD (multichannel video programming distributor) provider web interface (DishOnline.com, say), or through the HBO Go dedicated...
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Social Networking
Overexposed? Baby Photos in the Age of Facebook
From the moment that pink solid line appeared on the pregnancy test, every little decision felt monumental. Home birth or hospital? Cloth or disposable? Co-sleeper or crib? Sling or stroller? With each choice, I did more research than perhaps a person should do and there was almost always more information than I needed. By the time my last trimester...
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Culture
When Should You Introduce Your Child to a Smartphone or Tablet?
This week on MediaShift, we're running a special series exploring the relationship between kids and media. The following piece comes from our partners at PBS Parents. From the time they can grasp an object in their hands, children reach for electronic gadgets of all kinds, particularly our cell phones and computers. When you start noticing more child-size fingerprints on...
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Media Usage
Twitter Chat: How to Avoid Ads for Kids, Share Meaningful Media Moments
As part of our ongoing series on Kids & Media, we had a recent live chat on Twitter with a group of parents to talk about how our kids use media. Special guests included MediaShift managing editor Courtney Lowery Cowgill, Common Sense Media's Caroline Knorr and PBS Parents' Tracey Wynne. I was the moderator, and we had a good...
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Media Usage
Glaser & Son Dissect the Best Screens for Kids
My son Julian was born into a world of screens nine years ago. Being the son of a "mediatwit" means that he was surrounded by screens, small and large. And yet, I've tried to moderate his usage the best that I can, limiting him to an hour of game time each weekday and one and a half hours on...
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EducationShift
The Literacy of Gaming: What Kids Learn From Playing
"When people learn to play videogames," according to James Paul Gee, "they are learning a new literacy." This is one of the reason kids love playing them: They are learning a new interactive language that grants them access to virtual worlds that are filled with intrigue, engagement and meaningful challenges. And one that feels more congruent with the nature...
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EducationShift
The Parent Show: Will Augmented Reality Be Our Kids' Reality?
This week on MediaShift, we're running a special series exploring the relationship between kids and media. In that vein, the following video from our partners at PBS Parents looks into augmented reality and what that means for kids. In this episode of The Parent Show, Angela Santomero (the creator of "Blue's Clues" and "Super Why?"), talks with PBS Kids' Jeremy...
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Media Usage
We've all been there before. Whining kids at a grocery store with their dad, they can't sit still until finally the dad hands over his iPhone, and peace is restored. Kids are growing up with media all around them, from computers to smartphones to tablets to flat-screen TVs. And even in households without as many screens, kids find ways to...
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Media Usage
How to Control (Or At Least Influence) Children's Media Access
This week, MediaShift will be running a special series on navigating the relationships between kids and media. Stay tuned all week as we explore topics like this one. Once you have a child old enough to use a remote, the angst begins over how to control access to media. And absent the will to live a technology-free existence, media...
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EducationShift
Screen Time for Kids: Balancing Fun, Learning, Media Creation
This week, MediaShift will be running a special series on navigating the relationships between kids and media. Stay tuned all week as we explore topics like this one. When it comes to videogames and apps, what’s a parent to do? On one hand, we’re bombarded with messages about the perils of letting kids play with computer games and gadgets....
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #15: Special Cord-Cutters Edition; TV Networks vs. Streaming
Welcome to the 15th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali, the founder of PaidContent. This show is all about cord-cutters, people who like to watch TV without paying for cable or satellite TV (like Mark & Rafat). The big news is that Fox will not allow...
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Your Take
How Do You Like Watching TV Shows?
It used to be so easy. You'd cozy up on a couch, get your remote control (and popcorn) and turn on the TV for a night of vegetation. But now, you have options. So many options. You can watch shows when you want by recording them on your DVR. You can cancel cable TV and use a Roku box to...
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Guides
Your Guide to the U.K. Phone-Hacking Scandal (or 'Hackgate')
From time to time, we provide an overview of one broad MediaShift topic, annotated with online resources and plenty of tips. The idea is to help you understand the topic, learn the jargon, and take action. We've previously covered Twitter, local watchdog news sites, and Net neutrality, among other topics. This week MediaShift U.K. correspondent Tristan Stewart-Robertson looks at the...
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Your Take
What's Your Current Interest in the Phone-Hacking Scandal?
The phone-hacking scandal seems to have everything: tabloids chasing celebrities, celebrities suing news organizations, police getting bribes, politicians cozying up to media moguls, media moguls questioned at Parliamentary hearings, and a media mogul's wife showing off her mean left hook vs. a pie-throwing, tweeting comedian. It has certainly set social media, cable TV (except for Fox News) and mass media...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #14: This Week in Rupert; NY Times' Pay Wall Pays Off
Welcome to the 14th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali, the founder of PaidContent. There's a lot of news to cover in this podcast, including Apple's earnings, Yahoo's earnings, the possible sale of Hulu, and more. But the big deal this week is of course another heaping...
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AdvertisingShift
Search = Content? A Case for Google as a Media Company
With recent reports that Google is in the running to buy video site Hulu, it's getting harder to make the case that the search giant is not a media company. A lot could be at stake for Google in that definition and its ability to co-exist peacefully with media companies that rely on it for traffic from search and revenue...
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Free Speech
Social Media Plays Major Role in Motivating Malaysian Protesters
More than a week after Malaysian police fired teargas and water cannons at thousands of demonstrators seeking reform of the country's electoral system, a Facebook petition calling on Prime Minister Najib Razak to quit has drawn over 200,000 backers, highlighting the role of social and new media in Malaysia's restrictive free speech environment. One contributor to the page wrote: "The...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #13: Smartphone Ownership Booms; This Week in Rupert
Welcome to the 13th episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali, the founder of PaidContent. This week's show looks at a recent survey by Pew Internet that found that 35 percent of Americans now have smartphones, and that ownership is even higher among people of color. Guest...
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World View
Social Media and Satire Fuel Arab Spring in Tunisia, Egypt
Political satire is, historically, a great propeller of social movements. As Srdja Popovic, a leader of Optor, the Serbian resistance movement, said: Everything we did [had] a dosage of humor. Because I'm joking. You're becoming angry. You're always showing only one face. And I'm always again with another joke, with another action, with another positive message to the wider audience....
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Social Networking
How Social Media 'Friends' Translate Into Real-Life Friendships
When social media first gained attention, I heard many people scoff that these online connections couldn't possibly be real friends. Some even used "Facebook friend" as a synonym for shallowness, fearing people might trade face-to-face interaction for a virtual life online. But many years, re-tweets, meet-ups, event invitations and birthday wishes later, the majority of the people I know now...
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Social Networking
How to Correct Social Media Errors
In my job as the social media editor for MediaShift, I'm used to fitting big ideas into tight spaces. But recently, in the fray of 140-character editing, I struggled to condense a curious statistic. Finishing up, I double-checked grammar, the link, and clicked "submit" as usual. It was retweeted more than 100 times (see the tweet at left). And it...
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Your Take
Who Is Ultimately Responsible for the U.K. Phone-Hacking Scandal?
The revelations coming out by the hour in the U.K. phone-hacking scandal are breathtaking. What began as supposedly a rogue operation by a gossip reporter and a private investigator have now allegedly widened to include many more editors, reporters, investigators, bribes to police and the shutdown of the best-selling newspaper in the English language -- the News of the World....
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #12: Facebook Gets Skype Video; Phone-Hack Scandal in U.K.
Welcome to the twelfth episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali, the founder of PaidContent. This week's show looks at the recent launch of Facebook video chat with Skype built in. While Facebook called its announcement "awesome" it was underwhelming for tech and media insiders who have...
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MagazineShift
Golf Digest Adds Interaction, Depth, E-Commerce to iPad App
It seemed like the first-delivered iPad was hardly unsheathed from its box before News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch, apparently unfazed by a rich past of misguided forays into Internet ventures, announced the launch of The Daily, which was immediately labeled the first tablet-only newspaper. And it was mere weeks -- if not days -- after its debut when media critics...
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Your Take
Every few months, a new social network is born, and the cycle begins again. It starts with the emails: "Joe Blow wants you to join his network!" "Jane Blow wants you to join her network!" Then you check it out. Huh. It looks like all the other social networks, except that no one's there yet. Then you have to build...
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MagazineShift
Smartphone Sensors Could Revolutionize Digital Magazines
We've all done those personality and health quizzes in magazines. You know, the ones where you suspect that answer A will categorize you as the personality type you're trying to avoid, so you choose B instead. Everyone does that, right? These evasive strategies for magazine quizzes, though, could be a thing of the past as smartphones and tablet devices evolve...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #11: Can Google+ Overtake Facebook, Avoid MySpace's Fate?
Welcome to the eleventh episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Rafat Ali, the founder of PaidContent. This week's show looks at the recent launch of Google+, a more fully formed social network that is taking on Facebook. Google+ is in an invite-only mode but both Mark and Rafat...
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EducationShift
Virtual Worlds Are Scary for Parents, Liberating for Kids
There are more than 1 billion users of virtual worlds, online communities where people have avatars and participate in various simulated environments. Even more impressive than that number: Roughly half of those virtual world users are under age 15. With a number of news stories lately about kids under 13 on Facebook (violating the social network's Terms of Service), you'd...
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Culture
5 Guidelines for Community Managers to Have Cross-Cultural Fluency
While the behavior of connecting is nothing new, doing it in a virtual environment gives rise to new and sophisticated challenges -- especially when you're connecting across cultures. Knowing how to navigate these challenges is essential to community management. When I first discovered the Internet in 1996, I instantly fell in love. I was a bicultural, New York native who was...
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Media Usage
Silicon Sisters Builds Videogames for Women by Women
The stereotypical videogame player is a young male under age 18, but study after study has shown that the majority of the game-playing population does not fall into that demographic. Only 18 percent of gamers are under age 18, and women over 18 represent a significantly greater proportion of this population (37 percent) than do boys age 17 or younger...
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Collaboration
Dispatch from IRE: Important Lessons from Investigative Collaborations
From the air-conditioned meeting rooms to the muggy poolside bar, everyone at this year's Investigative Reporters and Editors conference was talking collaboration. It seems that our once doggedly independent industry is beginning to embrace a lesson long forgotten from elementary school: how to play nicely with others. And that might be because there are few alternatives. With newsrooms across the...
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Your Take
What Should Publishers Do About Apple's Subscription Scheme?
Online publishers are in a real conundrum when it comes to selling digital subscriptions in the Apple universe. On one hand, there's the popularity of Apple, the App Store, iTunes and the iPad and iPhone -- you can't simply ignore them? On the other hand, Apple is taking a big 30% cut of subscription sales and won't share the data...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #10: Apple Backpedals on iPad Subs; GWU Study on Local News
Welcome to the tenth episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser and Dorian Benkoil, filling in for Rafat Ali. This week's show looks at the changes in Apple's subscription plan for publishers, as they backpedal on the pricing. But still, Apple will take a 30% cut of subscription revenues and...
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MovieShift
4 Filmmakers Use Social Media to Crowdsource Their Stories
The second line of filmmaker Tim Burton's new short story is this: It is, of course, a tweet -- and one that encapsulates a new participatory era where contributions and voices from the public are reflected in all forms of art and storytelling, film included. One of the early adopters of emerging media was filmmaker Kevin Smith, who now has...
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MobileShift
How Publishers Can Bypass Apple with HTML5 Web Apps
When the iPad first arrived on the scene, our Belgian business newspapers, De Tijd and L'Echo, embraced it. We knew tablets, with their lightness and convenience, would become important for our communities, and so we dove into building apps and offering our readers special deals on iPads. Quickly though, we learned that despite the opportunities the iPad offered, there were...
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Hyper-Local
Create or Die 2: Boosting Coverage of Underserved Communities
The Greensboro 52. That's the label a group of journalists, students, educators and community members adopted during the Create or Die 2 conference in Greensboro, N.C., which took place June 2 to 5. The label takes its inspiration from the Greensboro Four, African-American students at N.C. A&T University who sat down at a lunch counter at Woolworth's in 1960. Others...
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Public MediaShift
FCC Report on Media Offers Strong Diagnosis, Weak Prescriptions
A consensus has begun to emerge around the Federal Communications Commission report, "The Information Needs of Communities," released Thursday: The diagnosis is sound, but the remedies are lacking. The 465-page report (see full report, embedded below) is the result of 600-plus interviews, hearings and reams of research conducted over 18 months. It represents the most ambitious attempt yet to come...
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Legal Drama
New Jersey Supremes Take Narrow View Defining Journalists Online
If you're a self-described journalist who posts on Internet message boards, then you're not protected by the reporter's shield law. So says, at least, the Supreme Court of New Jersey. Earlier this week, it handed down Too Much Media LLC v. Hale [PDF file], a case featuring porn, cybersecurity and death threats. (What more could you want?) To unpack the...
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Social Networking
How the Egyptian Revolution Inspired Protests in Spain
Shortly after I moved to Madrid after visiting Cairo, an Egyptian friend tweeted solidarity with the hashtag #SpanishRevolution. A revolution? In Spain? Was this his attempt to make my new home seem more exciting? The link he posted led to video of a packed Puerta del Sol -- a square in the center of Madrid. And so, someone 2,000 miles...
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Social Networking
Weiner Scandal Lesson: Sexting More Trackable Than Real-Life Flirting
My first internship was covering state politics. College parties were nothing compared to the drinking, carousing and eye-opening public behavior I saw during the legislative session. It was the 1970s -- a mere decade after the "Mad Men" '60s. Each week brought a new jaw-dropper, such as when a legislator told me he'd be happy to discuss a bill he...
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MagazineShift
Solving the App Development Conundrum for Small Magazines
Even a small magazine can make a powerful impression with a well-designed mobile presence. In some ways, digital platforms can level the playing field for small publishers wanting to attract readers' attention with innovative content and presentations. But getting onto mobile platforms with apps and optimized websites can be a significant challenge for small publishers. While major magazine companies like...
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Legal Drama
Who Really Owns Your Photos in Social Media?
Twitter CEO Dick Costolo announced June 1 that the company was partnering with Photobucket to make it easy to share photos at Twitter.com. With a "Twitter native photo-sharing experience," he said, "users will own their own rights to their photos." The implication? That this might not be the case with third-party services. Therein lies the real battle over photo-sharing sites:...
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Free Speech
eG8 Fails to Protect Net Neutrality, Online Censorship
The eG8 conference held in Paris on May 24 and 25 sounded promising; it was the first event to gather G8 members (France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and Russia) to discuss views on "civilizing cyberspace." It was also the first forum to talk about the digital economy. At least, that's how it was introduced....
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RadioShift
5 Must-Have Apps for iPhone Radio Reporting
Having the right tool for any job is important, especially when your finished product is due right now. Since February 2010 I've been doing all my field production and reporting on my iPhone for all-news WTOP-FM and wtop.com in Washington, D.C. You can read my in-depth report on how I use the iPhone for reporting in this previous report for...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #9: Twitter Buys Tweetdeck; Facebook's Role in Breaking News
Welcome to the ninth episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show looks at the recent purchase of Tweetdeck by Twitter, and the questions it raises about companies starting businesses on the platform of other companies. If you run an app for...
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World View
Despite Blocked Sites, Digital Media to Play Major Role in Opening China
The Chinese masses never experience major Western websites, thanks to China's Great Firewall (along with linguistic and economic barriers). So the Chinese pass their online lives in a parallel universe in which troublesome terms such as "June 4" (anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests) or "Falun Gong" (the banned movement) are filtered out. But the Chinese government also recognizes...
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Your Take
What Does the LinkedIn IPO Signify?
Last week when business social networking site LinkedIn went public, the stock shot up from $45 per share to more than $90, and even today is trading at $96-plus per share. The company's valuation is more than $9 billion, even though the company had earnings of just $15.4 million last year. That kind of eye-popping debut on the public markets...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #8: LinkedIn's Bubbly IPO; Grueskin on the New York World
Welcome to the eighth episode of "The Mediatwits," the weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show looks at the big IPO of business networking site LinkedIn, with the stock price doubling to more than $90 per share in its first day of trading, valuing the company...
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Europe
In Lithuania, an Overdue Crackdown on Online Hate Speech
Online hate speech is becoming more and more widespread in Lithuania and until recently, comments like, "The world needs Hitler again to do the cleansing job," which was posted on a website called Delfi, or "Expel dirty Roma people out of Lithuania" would have gone unheeded by criminal justice. "Although the Lithuanian Criminal Codex includes sufficient law provisions to prosecute...
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MagazineShift
Children's Magazines Cater to True Early Adopters with Mobile Apps
Digital magazines designed for kids are giving new meaning to the phrase "early adopter." Children's magazines have come a long way from those dusty print editions at the pediatrician's office. While adults struggle to join the transition to digital magazines and apps, their offspring are moving seamlessly into the new age of publishing. Kids now have a variety of digital...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #7: Skype Gets Microsoft-ed; 'Street Fight' Returns Fire
Welcome to the seventh episode of "The Mediatwits," the new revamped longer form weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show looks at Microsoft's massive payout, $8.5 billion, for Skype, a popular communication service that still loses money. Our guest this week is Laura Rich, the co-founder...
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Media Usage
Massive Digital Divide for Native Americans is 'A Travesty'
Perhaps nowhere in the United States does the digital divide cut as wide as in Indian Country. More than 90 percent of tribal populations lack high-speed Internet access, and usage rates are as low as 5 percent in some areas, according to the Federal Communications Commission. Sascha Meinrath, director of New America Foundation's Open Technology Initiative calls it "a travesty."...
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NewspaperShift
No Gloom Here: In Latin America, Newspapers Boom
If you spend much time in U.S. newsrooms these days, you might contract a serious case of gloom and doom. Talk is still focused on declining circulations, aging readerships, and the absence of new business models to pay for the production of quality content. But it would be a mistake to assume that this is the case for the rest...
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PoliticalShift
Burmese Media Launch Campaign to Free Jailed Reporters
Hla Hla Win, Sithu Zeya, Maung Maung Zeya, Ngwe Soe Lin and Win Maw are all undercover reporters in Burma, and all are serving jail sentences ranging from eight to 27 years after being caught in one of the world's most draconian media dragnets. To coincide with World Press Freedom Day last week on May 3, Democratic Voice of Burma...
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Your Take
What Do You Think of Demand Media?
Demand Media has come under fire as Exhibit A in content farming: a large, burgeoning startup that creates massive amounts of content cheaply and tries to capitalize on popular search terms in Google. Though it had a successful IPO, the company was dinged by a recent change in Google's algorithm aimed at featuring higher quality content. So when Demand execs...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #6: Bin Laden News on Twitter; Demand Media Goes Long-Form
Welcome to the sixth episode of "The Mediatwits," the new revamped longer form weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show looks at the way the news of Osama Bin Laden's death played out over Twitter and other new media, making minor celebrities of @ReallyVirtual and @KeithUrbahn. Our...
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Free Speech
Is Non-Profit Journalism A Safeguard for Press Freedom?
WASHINGTON, DC -- Since May 3, 1991, World Press Freedom Day has been celebrated worldwide annually to raise awareness of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their duty to respect it. Marking the 20th anniversary last Tuesday, an international conference was organized in Washington, DC, by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization...
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Your Take
What's the Best Social Media Policy for News Organizations?
So far, most legacy news organizations have been all over the map when it comes to social media policies. The old guard doesn't want reporters and editors to go on Twitter and show bias or give opinions on stories in progress. The new guard wants to mingle with the audience and have some personality on social media. The latest place...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #5: Who Owns Social Media Followers?; Byliner CEO John Tayman
Welcome to the fifth episode of "The Mediatwits," the new revamped longer form weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show is about the various social media policies at news organizations, and how they vary from place to place. Plus, can media companies actually own the followers...
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PoliticalShift
European Council Changes Course on 'Tweetwall' After Berlusconi Insults
The social network platform Twitter broke the one billion tweets barrier as it celebrated its fifth anniversary in March of this year. Since October of 2010, the European Council and its President Herman Van Rompuy have contributed to this record result. Twitter gives politicians a chance to better connect with their voters. Political institutions have also recognized the value of...
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Collaboration
Highs and Lows of "Post Mortem" Collaboration Between Frontline, ProPublica, NPR
Recently at the Logan Symposium at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, Mark Katches, California Watch's editorial director, asked a room full of reporters and editors if anyone wanted to share a "collaboration horror story." There were chuckles, but no volunteers. Horror story may have been too strong a term, but don't be misled by the silence. The thing is,...
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Your Take
What Do You Think About iPhones Tracking You?
There is a bizarre competition among tech firms to see who can creep us out the most. First came Google and its peeping StreetView vans loaded with webcams. Then came Facebook and its "brilliant" Beacon feature that broadcast items you recently bought to your friends. Now comes news from a pair of researchers that Apple has a tracking file in...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #4: Impressive, Creepy Apple; The iPhone Radio Reporter
Welcome to the fourth episode of "The Mediatwits," the new revamped longer form weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show is obsessed with all things Apple -- and iPhone. Apple had a blow-out earnings quarter, nearly doubling its profits and selling more iPhones than ever with...
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Legal Drama
Tasini Lawsuit Against Huffington Post Has No Merit
Jonathan Tasini's at it again. Last week, the writer and labor activist declared war on Arianna Huffington, first promising to make her "a pariah in the progressive community" and then threatening to make her life "a living hell." He went on, in a splendid variation of Howard Beale's "I'm mad as hell" speech, to say that unpaid Huffington Post bloggers...
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MovieShift
10 Big Ideas for the Future of Film
Alfred Hitchcock said a film is made three times: when you write it, when you shoot it, and when you edit it. Today there's a fourth: when you distribute it. With all the new technologies and D.I.Y. opportunities available to reach people with your project in fresh and exciting ways, you get to be just as creative when you take...
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World View
China Makes Global Media Push, But Skeptics Abound
In the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs in early March of this year, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted that her country is losing the "information war," naming China's CCTV, along with Al Jazeera and Russia Today, as key rivals. "During the Cold War we did a great job in getting America's message out. After the Berlin Wall fell...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #3: HuffPost Lawsuit and Grading AOL; 'Write More Good' Author
Welcome to the third episode of "The Mediatwits," the new revamped longer form weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show looks at the recent $105 million lawsuit brought against Huffington Post for not paying its bloggers, as well as our grades for AOL's various business moves,...
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Collaboration
Collective, Non-Profit Investigative Journalism Takes Spotlight at Logan
BERKELEY, CALIF. -- I am back at Day 2 at the 5th Annual Reva and David Logan Investigative Reporting Symposium, a gathering of the top investigative journalists and thinkers at University of California at Berkeley. Day 1 coverage is here, including an appearance by Skype by Julian Assange. Day 2 is shorter, but more focused on new models of journalism,...
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Your Take
Who can forget the good old days of America Online, the company of the mid-'90s that spent a ton of money mailing out CD-ROMs for people to try it. Over the years, it has morphed from a dial-up service to a content company to a mega-merger with Time Warner to a spin-off back into a dial-up service with content. In...
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Social Networking
7 Social Lessons Learned from the MediaShift Mixer
MediaShift has been in existence since 2006, and has a vibrant, engaged community that has grown over those five years. But where is that community of readers and contributors in the real world? How can they connect, get to know each other and network face-to-face? That's been the conundrum for me as the founder and executive editor of the...
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Free Speech
Bloggers, Media Students Push for Free Speech in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA -- A blog criticizing Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Cambodian People's Party (CPP) has been at the center of a recent controversy in Cambodia, shedding light on a deteriorating environment for freedom of expression in the Southeast Asian country. World Food Programme (WFP) employee Seng Kunnaka received a six month sentence for handing out copies of...
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RadioShift
How One Radio Reporter Ditched His Equipment for an iPhone 4
It's been more than a year since I packed away my laptop computer, digital recorders, microphones, cables and cameras, and began covering Washington, D.C. with only my iPhone. When I first came to the top-rated all-news WTOP in 1997, the bag phone I carried weighed as much as a bowling ball. Reel-to-reel tape recorders (ask your parents) were the newsroom...
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MarketingShift
SmashingDarling, 20x200 Push Independent Fashion, Art Online
Trish Ginter is an independent fashion designer who believes in the beauty of handmade garments. In 1994, she co-founded a small boutique, Frock, in Chester, Connecticut. Like other artists and designers who shun modern technologies in the production of their work, Ginter thought she had little use for the online world. She considered the Internet a "nuisance," and didn't even own a cell phone until a few years ago.
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #2: AT&T Buys T-Mobile; 'Tweets from Tahrir' Authors
Welcome to the second episode of "The Mediatwits," the new revamped longer form weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali. This week's show looks at the repercussions of the $39 billion buyout of T-Mobile USA by AT&T. Rafat has had both services and will stick by AT&T, but Mark is...
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MusicShift
SXSW 2011: Music Apps Get Social; Streaming Battle Continues
SXSW is easily the most chaotic experience in the music industry. For the 14,000 people that attend the music conference it provides opportunities to immerse themselves in the ecosystem that powers much of the global business. It is one of the best times to tee up deals and relationships that could power significant developments for the rest of the...
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Public MediaShift
Defunding Public Media Would Stifle Digital Innovation
Political analysts are dismissing last Thursday's House vote forbidding public radio stations to spend federal dollars on content (HR 1076) as little more than red meat for the Republican base. But even if not a single dollar ends up being stripped from public broadcasting appropriations, the current battle threatens to strangle innovation in a sector that was just gaining new...
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Mediatwits
Mediatwits #1: NY Times Pay Wall Blues; Rafat Visits Al Jazeera
Welcome to the first episode of "The Mediatwits," the revamped, longer form weekly audio podcast from MediaShift. The co-hosts are MediaShift's Mark Glaser along with PaidContent founder Rafat Ali, who is working on a stealth startup. This week's first beta show was mainly about the new metered pay wall coming to NYTimes.com and its mobile apps. Special guest Steve...
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Your Take
Will You Pay for Access to NYTimes.com?
The pay wall cometh to the New York Times. On March 28, the New York Times will let you view 20 articles on NYTimes.com per month, and thereafter you'll need to pay for one of their new digital subscription plans. Print subscribers will get full digital access, and you can still view articles for free if you're over your 20-article...
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Social Media
Oversharing, Overstimulated and Setting Boundaries at SXSW
AUSTIN, TX -- By Day 3 of the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, I find that the future's so bright, it kind of gives me a migraine. Inside the Austin Convention Center, where most of the conference was staged, pillars are baroquely barnacled with multiple generations of posters, flyers, and business cards -- many of which sport cryptic QR...
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MagazineShift
Apple Takes Big Bite Out of Digital Subscriptions for Small Mags
With new restrictions on subscription opportunities -- and the large portion of income from them that will now be claimed by Apple (30%), in particular -- some indie magazines are reconsidering their digital efforts, and wondering whether they're still worthwhile.
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Legal Drama
Will Righthaven Copyright Lawsuits Change Excerpting Online?
Editors' note: An update has been added at the end of this article. Is it an infringement of copyright to post an excerpt from an online news article -- including a link to its source -- on a website, a blog, or an online forum? This practice is ubiquitous in online journalism, but its legal status has been in question...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Shankbone's Wikipedia Photo Portraits Spread Like Wildfire
David Shankbone is arguably the most influential new media photojournalist in the world. He has taken over 1,000 portraits of prominent people across a variety of fields for articles on Wikipedia.org and its foreign language equivalents. Because the pictures are copyleft -- or free for reproduction, alteration, and distribution -- they are used by numerous non-profits, schools, authors, television programs...
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World View
How Technology, Social Media Is Making Life Hard for Dictators
This is the third of our on-the-ground reports from Cairo, Egypt, from Jaron Gilinsky. In this video report, Jaron considers the effects of social media on the Egyptian revolution. I wondered how Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak eventually knew about the hundreds of thousands of people in the streets calling for his resignation. Surely, he had many agents on the streets...
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MovieShift
How to Experience the Oscars on Mobile, Social Media
The Academy Awards are less than 127 hours away. While most people haven't seen all 10 Best Picture nominees, the Oscar-nominated reels may still be experienced through the revelry of mobile, digital and social initiatives. For moviegoers who still want the big screen experience of dreams and swans before Sunday, AMC Theatres offers the final chance with its Best Picture...
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MusicShift
4 Insights on the Future of the Music Industry
The music industry is still in tremendous turmoil. Yet it is also full of the kind of discussions needed to remake and rebuild the industry. Fostering those conversations is the purpose of the revamped New Music Seminar (NMS), the most recent edition of which took place last week in Los Angeles. The conference focused on the music industry's evolving economic...
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World View
One Journalist's Survival Guide to the Egyptian Revolution
During the uprising that eventually ended the 30-year reign of President Hosni Mubarak, I became convinced that the most important journalistic work being done today is in those countries where journalists are not wanted. Mubarak and his agents were determined to silence the protesters and their message. But, thanks to the valiant efforts of journalists and the resilience of the...
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EducationShift
Blizzard Builds KOMU Community with Mobile Video, Facebook
I've always dreamed of a time when my community could come together with the help of our on-air and online collaboration. All it took was a blizzard to make it happen. Mid-Missouri was hit with a blizzard-like storm that dumped 17.5 inches of snow into Columbia, Mo., and even more south of the city. The entire viewing audience of KOMU-TV was home and stuck inside.
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World View
Egyptian 'Sandmonkey' Blogger Unmasks Himself in Cairo
CAIRO, EGYPT -- I have been following the Egyptian pro-democracy blog, Rantings of a Sandmonkey, for years now. I have long wondered about the identity of its author, who describes himself as "a micro-celebrity, blogger, activist, new media douchebag, pain in the ass!" on his blog. I contacted him several times on previous trips to Egypt, requesting an interview, and...
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PoliticalShift
WSJ Series Inspires 'Do Not Track' Bill from Rep. Jackie Speier
We didn't plan it this way, but the timing was perfect. Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) introduced a bill today in Congress that would give the FTC the power to create a "Do Not Track" database so people could opt out of online tracking. And her bill comes right during our special series about online privacy, which included a roundtable...
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5Across
5Across: Online Privacy and the 'Do Not Track' Debate
The debate around online privacy has largely centered around advertising that is targeted at people depending on where they have been online. While somewhat creepy, those ads are perhaps the least of our worries. What many of us don't realize is that there are multiple parties tracking our moves online, some harmless and some possibly nefarious. In fact, one...
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Business
8 Ways Publishers Can Protect Users' Privacy
In the digital age, there's an inherent tension between running a media business effectively and protecting its users' privacy. On the one hand, the business wants as much information as possible about everyone it touches. It wants to be able to serve them with the most relevant content, connect them to those with similar interests and affinities and, yes,...
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Media Usage
Special Series: Online Privacy
"All the world's a stage," and even moreso with the rise of the Internet, online advertising and social networking. While there is no American "right to privacy" in the Constitution, there are limits to what we want companies, publishers and advertisers to do with our personal information. Do we want advertisers to serve ads based on our web surfing habits?...
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Legal Drama
Will U.S. Government Crack the Whip on Online Privacy?
This week MediaShift will be running an in-depth special report on Online Privacy, including a timeline of Facebook privacy issues, a look at how political campaigns retain data, and a 5Across video discussion. Stay tuned all week for more stories on privacy issues. Online privacy is the new openness. After years of telling all on the Internet, of tweeting about...
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MusicShift
Silverman: CD Sales to Co-Exist with Cloud, Digital Downloads
There's a growing feeling in the American music business that the future will be in the cloud. No one will need physical CDs anymore, but will listen to music on streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify, which will eventually merge into a grand digital jukebox. But industry veteran Tom Silverman, who founded dance music label Tommy Boy Records in...
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TVShift
The Future of TV (According to Hulu)
Distributors will certainly play a role in the future of TV, but we believe that three potent forces will be far more powerful in shaping that future: consumers, advertisers and content owners. Consumers have spoken emphatically as to what they want and what they do not want in their future television experience.
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World View
Social Media, Facebook Help People Stand Up in Tunisia, Egypt
Even though they're far away from the center of the action in Cairo, Chinese web users felt the impact of the current demonstrations and political change afoot in Egypt. Chinese users searching for "Egypt" on Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, came up empty, and 467 sites were reported inaccessible after a call for a "march of a million" was...
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Free Speech
News Organizations Should Stop Being Neutral on Net Neutrality
Many news organizations have a love-hate relationship with the Internet. While the abundance of free, online news has helped wreak havoc on the industry, the Internet itself has created incredible possibilities for news outlets to expand their reach and spark innovation. Thanks to the Internet, audiences can contribute to reporting and news in ways that would have been unimaginable a...
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Your Take
What Role Did Social Media Play in Tunisia, Egypt Protests?
As the protests are playing out in the streets of Cairo and the rest of Egypt today, I have been glued to the live-stream of Al Jazeera English as well as the Twitter hashtag #Jan25, a top trending topic based on the big protests a few days ago. The Egyptian protests come on the heels of a similar revolution in...
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MobileShift
5 Key Truths About Mobile News Consumers
Smartphones are ushering in the next wave of news consumption. These devices present an exciting opportunity for the news media to go mobile, putting endless information and the possibility of engagement in the palm of every consumer's hand. But what characterizes the new mobile news consumer? How does he or she interact with news? And how can that shape the...
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World View
Will Freedom of Expression Hold in Southern Sudan?
JUBA, SUDAN -- "If someone from southern Sudan trusts you, they will tell you enough to write a book," said Cecilia Sierra Salcido, a Mexican missionary nun turned media entrepreneur who runs Radio Bakhita in Sudan. "We broadcast a special history series, as so much here has not been written or recorded, and so many people have stories to tell."...
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MarketingShift
Teens Turn to Social Coding to Protect Privacy on Social Nets
In certain teen social circles, it's considered a subtle act of arrogance, a signifier of the loner, to use a solo photo of yourself for your Facebook profile. Digital natives may have earned their reputation as the "entitlement generation," but apparently there are some social limits to their unabashed self-regard. In fact, there's compelling evidence the up-and-coming cohort of young...
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MusicShift
6 Predictions For the Music Industry in 2011
The music industry had a wild ride in 2010. Companies came and went, layoffs hit every sector, rapid growth delivered opportunity, and Spotify still didn't launch in the U.S. This year, 2011, should be no different. Here are some predictions and thoughts about what 2011 may hold for the music industry. 1. A Major Label Shakeup Despite all the talk...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: All Hail the Verizon iPhone!
The iPhone is coming, the iPhone is coming, the iPhone is coming... to Verizon. After an endless string of complaints from users about dropped calls on the AT&T iPhone, Verizon finally is offering relief with its own iPhone, due out next month. The downsides of the new Verizon iPhone include that it's on the CDMA network, and not a new...
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Technology
3 Big Ways the People Search Industry Has Changed
Back in September 2007, MediaShift's Mark Glaser examined the emergence and functionality of online people search engines and looked at how they affect your privacy. A lot has changed since then. Facebook has become, in my opinion, the White Pages directory of the Internet age. At the same time, a lot of the people-search engines changed drastically. Many took a...
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Social Networking
Social Media Grows at NY Times, But Home Page Remains King
Lately Facebook has been trumpeting its prowess in driving traffic to news sites. In a blog post a couple weeks ago, Facebook media guy Justin Osofsky crowed that Facebook was now the number one referral site to SportingNews.com and that the Washington Post saw Facebook referral traffic grow 280 percent year-over-year. That's certainly impressive, but the New York Times website continues to get the majority of traffic from its own home page.
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Environment
How Green is Facebook, Microsoft Push into Cloud Computing?
Information and communication technology (ICT) companies already account for up to three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions -- a figure projected to increase as more data centers are built to store the shift of information to the web. During interviews with MediaShift, executives at Microsoft and Facebook said cloud computing could have positive environmental impacts. But analysts and activists have expressed serious doubts about the implications of the coming data-center building boom.
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World View
How Mapping, SMS Platforms Saved Lives in Haiti Earthquake
This article was co-authored by Mayur Patel Tomorrow marks the anniversary of the devastating earthquake that shook Haiti last January, killing more than 230,000 people and leaving several million inhabitants of the small island nation homeless. Though natural disasters are common, the humanitarian response this time was different: New media and communications technologies were used in unprecedented ways to aid...
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MobileShift
10 Mobile Trends in 2011: Android Boom, Tablets Multiply
2010 was an important year for mobile, especially in media, where the announcement of the iPad and other tablets, along with new smartphones, made mobile and tablet apps especially intriguing to publishers. This year promises greater growth and new opportunities for content producers. Here are some of the top trends to keep an eye on as 2011 unfolds. 1. Continued...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Is Consumer Electronics Show a Big Waste?
In this week's 4MR podcast, I consider the gargantuan Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. It offers an orgy of gadgets and new technology, but how much of it is worth our time and will become influential and game-changing? I talked with CNET editor at large Rafe Needleman, who is at CES this week, to get his defense of...
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World View
Vietnam Fighting a Losing Battle Against Free Speech Online
Last October, I had the opportunity to spend almost three weeks traveling through Vietnam, from Ha Long Bay to the Mekong Delta. The breakfast rooms I dined in were always stocked with copies of the government-run English-language daily, the Viet Nam News -- and on its sunny front page, the news is always good. One typical issue heralded plans from...
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Social Networking
Are People of Color Missing in New Media? A #MediaDiversity Chat
How many times have you been to a technology or media conference and noticed the dominance of white male speakers at the podium or the room? That's what Arizona State University professor and media veteran Retha Hill saw when she attended the recent NewsFoo conference in Phoenix and the ONA conference in Washington, DC. She wrote about the diversity problem...
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Media Usage
Top 10 Media Stories of 2010: WikiLeaks, Facebook, iPad Mania
This year has been all about privacy, or lack therof, online. Time magazine named Mark Zuckerberg as their Person of the Year, while the popular vote went to Julian Assange, the founder and chief instigator of WikiLeaks. Much has been made about both men trying to make our lives more transparent, Facebook with its 500-million-strong social network, and WikiLeaks...
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Legal Drama
Top 3 New Media Legal Battles of 2010
This year's been a big one. Spain won the World Cup. Lindsay Lohan went to jail. Don Draper married his secretary. And, of course, the federal courts waded into some of the thorniest legal issues affecting new media. Three cases stand out from the rest of 2010's docket. Each one shook up the law in a significant way. Below...
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Free Speech
Online Censorship Grows in 2010, Showing Power of Netizens
Despite some good PR for online freedom this year, online censorship grew and became more subtle in 2010. Online propaganda remains strong within countries like China and Iran, where media censorship is everywhere and the governments have mastered online censorship tools. These countries are as efficient as hacktivists when it comes to controlling information. China and Vietnam remain among...
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MagazineShift
iPads, Print-on-Demand Slowly Transform Magazines in 2010
This revolution is going to take its time. It's been a year of high expectations but little fulfillment for those who thought 2010 might forever change the way we read magazines. We've seen that disappointing uses of new tools, limited audience interest, and small initial financial returns are going to result in a gradual shift, not a sudden transformation....
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MovieShift
'The Social Network,' Streaming Boom Dominate Film in 2010
From Pandora to Palo Alto, digital and social media grabbed movie headlines in 2010. The year started with a box office record-breaker that captured our 3D imaginations ("Avatar") and is ending with David Fincher's fascinating look at Facebook ("The Social Network") collecting awards for film of the year (American Film Institute, Los Angeles Film Critics, National Board of Review, New York Film Critics, et al).
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Social Networking
Vietnam Pushes Facebook Clone to Control Online Speech
HANOI, VIETNAM - Inside one of Hanoi's more than 3,000 online gaming houses, gamers clad in coats and scarves pass the hours shooting at each other on their screens, oblivious to the wintry gray and 10 celsius evening outside. This is southeast Asia, but the French colonial architecture and the proliferation of tourist-market socialist kitsch -- all covered by a wet blanket autumn gloom -- give the place a slightly European feel.
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Yahoo Prefers Delicious Sale to 'Sunset'
In this week's 4MR podcast, I look at the controversy surrounding Yahoo possibly closing down social bookmarking site Delicious, which it bought five years ago. An internal slide was leaked showing Delicious was on the "sunset" list (to be closed), but after an outcry on Twitter and other social networks, Yahoo said it would look for an outside home for Delicious, meaning it could open the way for a sale. I talked with ReadWriteWeb co-editor Marshall Kirkpatrick about the future of Delicious, and even photo-sharing site Flickr in the wake of chaos at Yahoo.
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BookShift
Books in Browsers? Google, Amazon Bring E-Books to the Masses
For authors and publishers already overwhelmed, last week's news about the Google eBooks store and Amazon's Kindle for web only added to the waterfall of controversy pouring into an already raging river of e-book and publishing hype. The big takeaway from these two announcements, and a recent "Books in Browsers" event that I attended, is that the web browser is...
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Europe
Brussels Leaks Tries to Build on WikiLeaks Idea in EU
A new site, Brussels Leaks, modeled after WikiLeaks, launched out of the blue last Thursday to much excitement in the European capital and the Twittersphere. This follows the announcement of OpenLeaks, a spin-off from WikiLeaks from former workers there. But Brussels Leaks doesn't plan to run the documents that are leaked to it, but rather rely on the media to...
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TVShift
Why I Want a Hulu for Sports (And Why It Won't Happen Soon)
When it comes to television shows and events, we the people have been taking more and more control of what we see and on what medium. The rise of everything from DVRs to streaming Netflix to mobile TV means that we get to decide when we want to watch our favorite shows. More people have taken the plunge and cut...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Minorities, Young People Lead in Twitter Use
In this week's 4MR podcast, I look at the recent survey results from Pew Internet on Americans' use of Twitter. The research group found that 8% of American use Twitter, with 2% using it daily. That use is even more pronounced among Americans aged 18 to 29, and among blacks and Hispanics. I spoke to Pew Internet senior research specialist Aaron Smith about the survey results and how Twitter use compares to social networking use.
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Free Speech
Online Freedom of Expression Under Siege in Thailand
BANGKOK, THAILAND -- "Today I have to go all the way to Khon Kaen to report to the police," said Chiranuch Premchaipoen, the editor of Thailand's well-known online news site Prachatai during a recent conversation in Bangkok. The town is 450 km from Bangkok, and Chiranuch has to travel there once a month just to check in with police. This...
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Social Media
How Calgary's Mayor Used Social Media to Get Elected
Naheed Nenshi became mayor of Calgary at the end of October not by outspending his rivals or hailing from the incumbent political class in Canada. Nenshi didn't plaster his campaign message across the television, and he didn't even buy a single newspaper advertisement. Instead, Nenshi led a grassroots effort that mobilized soccer moms and utilized online activism on a Facebook page, on Twitter and on YouTube.
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: WikiLeaks Under Attack, Dropped by Amazon
In this week's 4MR podcast, I talk about the recent release of secret diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, and how it is viewed by governments, journalists and free speech advocates. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is wanted in Sweden for possible sex crimes, Amazon dropped hosting the documents, and the site has had trouble staying online due to hacker attacks. I spoke with NYU professor Jay Rosen about his views on WikiLeaks, the networked nature of information sharing, and the potential for local WikiLeaks.
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Free Speech
Suu Kyi Set Free But Media Still Held Captive in Burma
Burma has in recent weeks been one of the top world news stories. The country's November 7 general election was followed less than a week later by the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, one of the world's best-known political dissidents, whose appearance at her front gate on Saturday, November 13, was carried on news networks around the world. However,...
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PoliticalShift
Fundly + Facebook = Millions in Micro-Donations for Campaigns
Political campaigns and non-profits must constantly "feed the beast" with their fundraising efforts. While traditionally that chore has meant going after people with the most money, the Internet has helped spawn networked fundraising and even "social fundraising" efforts where micro-donations add up to a lot more. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, 53% of the $750 million Barack Obama raised...
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EducationShift
Why We Gave Our Students Droid Smartphones to Capture News
This semester at Ryerson University in Toronto, thanks to help from Motorola and Telus, a major Canadian cell phone provider, my fellow third-year online journalism instructor Vinita Srivastava and I have been able to provide all our two dozen students with Android-powered Droid smartphones.
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5Across
5Across: What's Next for Public Media?
While most people think of public media as being government-funded broadcasters such as NPR, PBS, BBC and CBC, the definition is being expanded to consider public-serving new media. So that might also include new non-profits such as ProPublica, Oakland Local or Bay Citizen, who all are looking to serve the public as a mission that is more important than making money. But how are these new entities -- as well as the old guard in public media -- going to evolve in the digital age?
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Public MediaShift
Public Media Experiments Show Promise, Need to Involve Public
The Public Media 2.0 series on MediaShift is sponsored by American University's Center for Social Media (CSM) through a grant from the Ford Foundation. Learn more about CSM's research on emerging public media trends and standards at futureofpublicmedia.net. This article was co-authored by Jessica Clark, with research support from Christopher Ali and Erin Roberts. After a slew of reports,...
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Public MediaShift
Special Series: Public Media 2.0
The Public Media 2.0 series on MediaShift is sponsored by American University's Center for Social Media (CSM) through a grant from the Ford Foundation. Learn more about CSM's research on emerging public media trends and standards at futureofpublicmedia.net. About this Series How are public media makers and outlets evolving in the digital, participatory age? Stories in this week's special...
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Public MediaShift
5 Emerging Trends That Give Hope for Public Media 2.0
Public media is facing the same pressures as commercial media when it comes to digital: How can they transition to a new age of social media, collaboration and audience interaction? From today until Thanksgiving, MediaShift will have a special in-depth report on Public Media 2.0, with analysis, case studies, a 5Across video roundtable and coverage of this weekend's national PubCamp in Washington, DC.
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Citizen Journalism
Crowdsourced Fact-Checking? What We Learned from Truthsquad
In June, Senator U.S. Senator Orrin Hatch made the statement that "87 million Americans will be forced out of their coverage" by President Obama's health care plan. It was quite a claim. But was it true? That's a common, and important, question -- and it can often be hard to quickly nail down the real facts in the information-overloaded world...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Newsweek-Daily Beast Merger; Slate Hurting?
In this week's 4MR podcast, I discuss the recent merger announcement between Newsweek magazine and online publication The Daily Beast. The deal becoming finalized was first reported by Nick Summers, a former Newsweek reporter now at the New York Observer. I talked with Summers about the challenges Newsweek has faced, and his back-and-forth online with Slate's Jacob Weisberg about the current state of Slate.
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World View
Burma Elections Include Throttled Net, Blocked News Sites
Japanese journalist Toru Yamaji, the head of the Tokyo-based news agency APF, was arrested over the weekend in the eastern border town of Myawaddy, Burma, after reportedly entering from Thailand. He was taken by helicopter to the Burmese capital, Naypyitaw, for questioning by military intelligence. Yamaji was attempting to report on the ongoing elections in Burma, despite the restrictions put...
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Public MediaShift
Inside the NewsHour's Multi-Platform Election Night Bedlam
Elections test how much information a news organization can process and then quickly and accurately share it with an audience. They're also a good time for news organizations to take stock of how far they've come since the last one, and to try the latest journalistic tools (or gimmicks). Four years ago, YouTube was nascent and Facebook had finally opened...
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PoliticalShift
5 Moments When Digital Media Transformed Australian Politics
The Digital Age has seen significant change in the way Australian politicians, political journalists and the public interact and communicate with each other. As a result, MediaShift asked me to identify the top five events in Australia's recent history where politics and new media intersected. My shortlist, compiled with crowdsourcing assistance from my politically engaged Twitter and Facebook communities,...
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PoliticalShift
Live 2010 Election Day Chat on Social Media + Politics
I will be joined by an all-star lineup of new media experts, comedians, and social media gurus to look at how online coverage of Election Day is going -- with pointers to the most innovative mashups, maps, video blogs and more. The plan is to chat today from 10 am to 1 pm Pacific Time, and then again from...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Sunlight Foundation Tracks Money in Politics
In this week's 4MR podcast I talk with Sunlight Foundation's Ellen Miller about their efforts to track down the biggest donors in this year's election races. On Election Night, they will run their Sunlight Live platform that will give details on who has donated to whom as live video shows the winners and losers. Miller also talks about Sunlight's recent $1.2 million grant from the Knight Foundation.
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5Across
5Across: Politics in the Age of Social Media
5Across is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. As more people use social media such as Twitter and Facebook, politicians and campaigns need to put more time, energy and money into reaching people there. According...
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PoliticalShift
How the Tea Party Utilized Digital Media to Gain Power
The biggest story of the U.S. midterm election has been the growing influence of the Tea Party movement. Since their first rallies in early 2009, these vocal, visible conservatives have succeeded in shifting the center of American political discourse to the right. This election cycle, Tea Partiers have gone a step further, successfully backing primary challengers against moderate Republicans...
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PoliticalShift
Quirky Conservative Canadian MP Gets Real on Twitter
Tony Clement, the federal minister of industry in the current Conservative Canadian government, was home having dinner with his family one Saturday night in July when a woman began banging on their door. She frantically asked for help, saying her friend was drowning in the nearby river. Clement, his wife and father-in-law ran down to the water. He and...
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PoliticalShift
Will Geo-Location Services Play a Role in Elections?
The experiments that took place with Facebook and Twitter during the 2008 presidential campaign are now viewed as standard operating procedure just two years later. Will the same be said about location-based services come 2012? Foursquare and Gowalla are the current crowned kings of geo-location and have been getting regular mentions in the tech blogosphere and beyond. Geo-social is very...
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PoliticalShift
Special Series: PoliticalShift 2010
About this Series After the success we've had with previous in-depth reports -- the Beyond Content Farms series and Beyond J-School, we decided to do another series on MediaShift. This time the series will look at "PoliticalShift 2010," the way that social media, technology and blogs are changing the equation for politicians in the context of the 2010 U.S. midterm...
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PoliticalShift
GOP Beating Democrats with Social Media for Midterm Elections
There is a major shift going on in politics this election cycle, with more candidates and campaigns using social media and technology to boost their chances. From today until the U.S. midterm elections on Nov. 2, MediaShift presents an in-depth special report, PoliticalShift 2010, with data visualizations, analysis, a 5Across video roundtable and live CoverItLive chat on Election Night with...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Hard News Pays More than Celeb Stories?
4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. In this week's 4MR podcast I look at new research from Perfect Market that shows news sites earning more "revenues per thousand page views" (RPM) for serious...
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Legal Drama
Michigan Official's Hate Speech Protected by First Amendment
For the last few months, Andrew Shirvell, an assistant attorney general of Michigan, has crusaded against the "radical homosexual agenda" of 21-year-old Chris Armstrong, the openly gay student-body president of the University of Michigan. Shirvell has verbally attacked Armstrong at campus events, demonstrated outside the student's home, and has bashed the kid on his personal blog, Chris Armstrong Watch. On...
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Free Speech
2010 Press Freedom Index Shows Europe on Decline
Reporters Without Borders yesterday released its 2010 World Press Freedom Index. Thirteen of the EU's 27 members are in the top 20 in terms of press freedoms, but some of the other EU nations are very low. The European Union has had a reputation for valuing and respecting human rights, and new data suggests that reputation is at risk. "We...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Knight Fellows Switch from Sabbaticals to Hands-On Projects
Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. For much of the past 40 years, the idea of a Knight Fellowship at Stanford University was a dream come true for mid-career journalists,...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: A $100 Million Expansion for Public Media?
In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the ambitious plan by American Public Media honcho Bill Kling to add more than 300 new reporters and editors to four local public radio newsrooms, at a funding cost of $100 million. These new reporters would be digital-first and focus on text and multimedia before radio. I spoke to Ken Doctor, who wrote a detailed article about Kling's plan recently.
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MusicShift
10 Truths About the Modern Music Business
I've been covering the digital music business for MediaShift for more than 18 months, and in that time I've chronicled new services and examined key trends and news. Below is a look at 10 things that I've come to believe are true about the modern music business. 1. The "DIY Revolution" has Been Relatively Ineffective Although going it on your...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Howard Kurtz Leaves Post for 'More Nimble' Daily Beast
Howard Kurtz is not only the dean of American media critics, but he has "walked the talk" of his obsession with media. He is a multi-platform juggler, having been in print at the Washington Post for nearly three decades, hosting CNN's weekend show, "Reliable Sources," and writing the Media Notes blog for Washingtonpost.com for 10 years. And he even does...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: AOL Buys TechCrunch; Knight Updates News Challenge
4MR is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the recent shopping spree by AOL, including buying tech news blog TechCrunch for more than $30 million. PaidContent founder...
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Environment
How Climate Activists Are Warming to Social Media
American environmentalists recently suffered a pair of devastating defeats in their decades-long effort to halt global warming. Progress stalled on domestic legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions prior to a key UN summit in Copenhagen. Lack of leadership from America, the world's second largest climate polluter, made it impossible to produce and binding international agreement at the conference. Then, a...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Examiner.com Execs Push for Quality, Refute 'Content Farm' Tag
Journalists love to categorize, generalize and put everything into easily digestible chunks of information. But in our quest to explain something in simple terms, we also can oversimplify things. That may have been the case with MediaShift's recent series, Beyond Content Farms, where we included Examiner.com in no less than three stories. Examiner.com does create massive amounts of content, with...
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Free Speech
Will France Sacrifice Online Freedom for the Sake of Security?
On September 8, the French Senate voted for a bill, called Loppsi 2, that seeks to create a dangerous online filtering system that could jeopardize the work of journalists and bloggers, as well as online freedom of speech for French citizens. If this bill becomes law, any French website could be shut down with nothing more than a notification from...
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MovieShift
Adrian Grenier Turns Camera on Paparazzi in HBO Documentary
"I'm going to meet Adrian Grenier from 'Entourage' and see his new documentary," I told a friend recently. That friend is a female who's married but also a fan of "Entourage." "Can you tell him I think he's cute?" she said. I think he gets the message. Grenier plays Vincent Chase, the good-looking idiot savant in "Entourage" who makes...
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EducationShift
The Challenge of Digital Media in the Classroom
This fall, more than 70 million students headed back to school in America, of which 50 million are going to public elementary and secondary schools, and a record 19.1 million are enrolled in colleges and universities. These students are wired as never before -- in school, at home, and at every stop in between. It is now commonplace to see third-graders with their own cell phones, and even junior high schools expect students to work from a laptop with an Internet connection.
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MovieShift
How Filmmakers Use Crowdfunding to Kickstart Productions
According to the crowdfunding pitch for the film "Art Machine," a $1 donation will buy you "love and respect from the cast and crew." And if you give $1,000, you get perks like a DVD and a speaking role in the film. That's the promise from director Doug Karr and Chop Wood Carry Water Productions for anyone who supported...
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EducationShift
Professors Speak Out About Changes Coming to J-Schools
Education content on MediaShift is sponsored by Carnegie-Knight News21, an alliance of 12 journalism schools in which top students tell complex stories in inventive ways. See tips for spurring innovation and digital learning at Learn.News21.com. This article was co-authored by Abby Moon. A previous article on MediaShift mined the OurBlook series of interviews with leading journalists and academics to...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: New Twitter Makes Room for Ads
In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the newly redesigned Twitter.com, now with a double-pane view, embedded photos and video, and infinite scroll. Some folks say this means Twitter is more of a media company, getting people to pay more attention to its website, where it could serve up more ads. I talked with tech pundit and blogger Robert Scoble, who said he likes the redesign and thinks third party Twitter app makers will need to innovate to survive.
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PoliticalShift
Hallmarks of Good Campaign Sites: Simplicity, Inspire Action
A political campaign website is the place where candidates recruit new volunteers, and where the candidate can get their message out unfiltered. It's more important than ever, and yet many candidates still struggle to get it right. "The website really is that first real encounter with the voter; it's your chance to turn a casual visitor into an actual supporter,"...
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Collaboration
Public Media Corps Takes on Broadband Divide for Minorities
If there was a reality show about the Public Media Corps (PMC), the intro might sound something like this: "Here's the true story of how 15 fellows, five public media institutions, three high schools, three community organizations, a library and a museum collaborate to bridge the broadband divide." Secretly, I wish there was a reality show about the project because...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: NYU's Jay Rosen on Rethinking J-Schools
In this week's 4MR podcast I do another special report for our "Beyond J-School" series, this time an in-depth discussion with NYU's Jay Rosen, who has been taking a new approach to journalism education. Rosen told me more about his Studio20 program, using an arts metaphor, and its work in helping to launch the new hyper-local site for the East Village in conjunction with the New York Times.
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EducationShift
Spending the Summer in 'Journalist Law School'
What do you get when you cross a lawyer and a journalist? Most of the time, of course, you get a lawyer. You know: The kids who worked so hard on the college paper but jetted off to Boalt when the prospect of years of unpaid internships scared them off. Most journalists remember a few people like that. (I know a dozen or so.)
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Helping Journalism Students Get Tech Skills
In this week's 4MR podcast I talk about MediaShift's "Beyond J-School" series so far, including the stories on teaching social media, the 5Across roundtable and Jen Lee Reeves' take on getting j-students over their fear of technology. I talked with Reeves more about how she is asking her students this semester to pay $36 each for Lynda.com courses on learning the basics of Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash. Reeves talked candidly about her students and their fears of failing with technology.
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EducationShift
Revamping J-Schools in Australia to Bring in 'Citizens Agenda'
As Australian democracy hangs in the balance, and with the outcome of the August 21 national election unlikely to be resolved for weeks, I'm considering the implications for journalism education -- and how we can invent new models for political reporting.
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5Across
Just as traditional media has struggled with disruptive technology and the Internet, so too have the institutions that run journalism education. Most journalism schools and training programs are run by people whose careers were framed by print, broadcast and traditional PR, so how can students get the skills they need in the digital age? We convened a group of journalism educators, a trainer, a student and a J-school dropout to discuss how journalism education is shifting.
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Google Offers Free Calls via Gmail
In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the recently launched free phone service from Google through Gmail. Undercutting Skype and other VoIP services (not to mention landlines), Google is letting people call from their computer to anywhere in the U.S. or Canada for free, and charging low international rates. What's in it for Google? I spoke to tech pundit and Computerworld contributor Mitch Wagner to learn more.
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Free Speech
Free Speech at Stake as India Demands Encrypted BlackBerry Data
Next week will be decisive for BlackBerry corporate users. BlackBerry maker Research In Motion (RIM) could provide a solution to help security agencies in India access corporate email by obtaining encrypted data in readable formats. If RIM does not offer a solution before the end of the month, India has warned that it will block BlackBerry Messenger service in the...
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Collaboration
KCET's 'Departures' Exemplifies Community Collaboration
I've written for MediaShift several times about journalistic collaboration between news organizations, such as the Climate Desk project, for example, or Public Media's EconomyStory. But there's another kind of collaboration that's critical to the future of journalism: Collaboration between a news organization and the community it serves. This kind of collaboration is critical for a few reasons. First, as anyone...
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Environment
Smartphone, HDTV Boom Begets Gargantuan E-Waste Problem
The digital media revolution promises to improve the quality of our lives though an expanded capacity to communicate, collaborate, learn and make informed decisions. Yet our seemingly insatiable demand for digital media is driving a proliferation of consumer electronic devices and IT infrastructure, which are significantly contributing to a tsunami of toxic electronic waste. This week U.S. Environmental Protection Agency...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Facebook Places Wants to Be Turned Off
In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the recently launched Facebook Places location feature. While the social network touts it as a great way to tell your friends where you are in the physical world, others worry about the privacy implications. In fact, the most popular stories on the subject are telling people how to turn it off. I talked with Gawker staff writer Adrian Chen about his take on how Facebook could have made it easier to turn Places off.
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Thought Leader Q&A
CrowdSpring Brings Crowdsourcing to Design, Writing
If you run any kind of business, large or small, you're always looking for ways to get quality work done at a low cost. And when it comes to contract jobs like web and logo design, or copywriting, you're caught balancing between quality and cost. A couple years ago, CrowdSpring launched as a way for small and medium-sized businesses to...
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Legal Drama
Who Owns Your E-Book of 'War and Peace'? Probably Not You
Who owns your copy of "War and Peace"? If we're talking about a dog-eared paperback copy of "War and Peace" that you purchased in your college bookstore, then you own the copy for purposes of copyright law. But if we are talking about an e-book version of the latest translation that was bought online and downloaded to an e-reader or...
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PoliticalShift
3 Hot Topics at Supernova: Public Policy, Social Media, Privacy
Supernova, an annual technology conference, recently convened for the first time on the East Coast, a change that was evident in the composition of the conference attendees and the direction of the overall conversation. Below are the top three major takeaways from the conference. Policy matters Harold Feld, legal director of Public Knowledge, earned a place as crowd favorite during...
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Free Speech
Saudi Blogger/Activist Jailed for 'Annoying Others'
Although Saudi Arabia was one of the first countries to have been authorized to register domain names in Arabic, it is still one of the most repressive countries when it comes to the Internet. For example, since 2009 Internet cafes in the country have been required to install hidden cameras, supply a list of customers and websites accesses, not permit...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Politicians Don't Want Wikileaks Protected
In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the recent move by U.S. senators to amend a Federal journalist shield bill to exclude Wikileaks. Many lawmakers are angry at the whistle-blower site for sharing thousands of classified documents about the Afghan war. But what does this mean for a possible shield law, which already passed the House and a Senate committee?
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Thought Leader Q&A
Facebook Launches Media Page But Resists Revenue Sharing
Facebook is the alpha dog of social networks, and it's also becoming a top dog when it comes to referring traffic to news sites. That became clear in February when Hitwise found that Facebook was referring more traffic to news and media sites than Google News. But for a long time, Facebook only had intermittent communication with media companies about...
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MobileShift
Customer Support Face-Off: Nexus One Hell vs. Apple Heaven
When I finally purchased my first smartphone, Google's Nexus One, last March, I quickly declared myself a satisfied customer. I was easy to impress. Anything was a step up from a five-year-old Samsung with a pull-up antenna. Like many, I dreamt of an iPhone, but was turned off by what I heard about AT&T's service. I waited in vain for...
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Collaboration
The Climate Desk: Time-Intensive Collaboration Pays Off
When I first heard about The Climate Desk back in April, I was impressed by its ambitious mission: The Climate Desk is a journalistic collaboration dedicated to exploring the impact -- human, environmental, economic, political -- of a changing climate. The partners are The Atlantic, Center for Investigative Reporting, Grist, Mother Jones, Slate, Wired, and PBS's new public affairs show...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Kindle Gives Amazon More Bang for Less Bucks
In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the surprising success of the Amazon Kindle e-reader in the wake of the hit Apple iPad tablet. While many people expected the iPad to impact the e-reader market, instead the major players cut prices and Kindle sales tripled in the past month. Plus, Amazon announced a new line of Kindles that will cost even less -- with no touch screen or color.
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EducationShift
Learning From Failure in Community-Building at Missouri
I recently had an opportunity that is rarely handed to a journalism school professor: The chance to be a member of the inaugural class of the Reynolds Journalism Institute Fellows in the 2008-09 school year. I already have a unique job.
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MobileShift
Gaming + Mobile + Social = 'Conspiracy for Good' from Tim Kring
Tim Kring, a long-time television writer and producer, is best known as the creator of the NBC show "Heroes." But he's rapidly expanding his media universe -- last week at Comic-Con he launched a new book project, "Shift," which will debut in August from Crown Books. He has also created a new transmedia project called "Conspiracy For Good" (CFG), which...
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5Across
What are content farms? If you've been reading our special series at MediaShift on the subject, you'd know that content farms or mills churn out massive amounts of content tailored to Google searches. But the approach to churning out that content varies from how-to articles (Demand Media), vertical topics (High Gear Media), hyper-local (Patch.com) and sports (Bleacher Report, SB Nation). And at some sites, writers get paid a small amount, while at others they toil for free.
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Philosophy
From a business perspective, traditional journalism is rather inefficient. Stories are chosen by a small group whose members often have similar experiences and outlooks. With little knowledge of true market demand, they assign the stories to a limited pool of writers and reporters who may not have the knowledge or contacts to quickly do a top-notch job. The stories...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: The Problem with Content Farms
In this week's 4MR podcast I give an overview of "content farms," sites such as those from Demand Media, Yahoo's Associated Content and AOL Seed that produce massive amounts of content for low pay. While there have been issues with the quality of content from these sites, they often provide "good enough" how-to information for people searching for it online.
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Hyper-Local
Writers Talk About Working the Hyper-Local Beat
In my first article for our special Beyond Content Farms series, I examined the opportunities available to writers at some of the biggest content farms. Today, I look at jobs covering hyper-local news. What hyper-local news organizations are aiming for is nothing short of revolutionary: AOL's two-year-old Patch network and established players like Examiner.com are attempting to recreate a...
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Business
Writers Explain What It's Like Toiling on the Content Farm
"We are going to be the largest net hirer of journalists in the world next year," AOL's media and studios division president David Eun said last month in an interview with Michael Learmonth of Ad Age. Eun suggested that AOL could double its existing stable of 500 full-time editorial staffers in addition to expanding its network of 40,000 freelance...
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Hyper-Local
AOL Patch and MainStreetConnect Expand Hyper-Local News
It's difficult for media people to search any job site these days without running into an ad for AOL's Patch. It seems equally difficult to read media news sites without finding a feature story about Connecticut's MainStreetConnect. MainStreetConnect has appeared in recent days in both Columbia Journalism Review and Journalism.co.uk. Like Patch, the community news organization is hiring, though...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Apple Offers Free Bumpers as iPhone Fix
In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the problems Apple has been having with its iPhone 4. The infamous "death grip" issue meant you'd have dropped calls if your hand went over a certain part of the phone's antenna. Apple brought out Steve Jobs for a press conference today where they offered free bumpers to solve the issue, and would refund anyone for their iPhone if they weren't satisfied. I talked with Chicago Sun-Times tech guru Andy Ihnatko for his take on the press conference and Apple's non-apology apology.
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Collaboration
Media Consortium Pushes Collaboration to Increase Innovation
Once a week, representatives from liberal publications such as AlterNet, Yes! Magazine, the American Independent News Network, the UpTake, and Ms. Magazine convene to discuss mobile strategies. The call, organized by the Media Consortium, is part of an Incubation and Innovation Lab designed to help members collectively tackle the new realities of journalism -- a landscape where traditional revenue sources...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Kachingle Hopes 'Social Payments' Can Help Fund Content
If advertising alone isn't going to support all the online journalism and content sites, and pay walls will just turn readers away, perhaps there's another solution, a third way: Social payments. More than just simple donations, social payment systems such as Kachingle and Flattr simplify giving money to sites you visit. Both services set up a monthly payment system, with...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Time.com Restricts Access to Print Stories
In this week's 4MR podcast I look at the move by Time.com to restrict access to its print stories online. Rather than set up a pay wall, Time shows abridged versions of print stories and asks you to subscribe to the print magazine or get its $5 iPad app edition instead. That has critics howling. I also talked with PaidContent co-editor Staci Kramer, who considers Time's strategy a "condom" between online visitors and the print magazine.
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NewspaperShift
How Immersive Journalism, Games Can Increase Engagement
The average reader spends 25 minutes a day reading the newspaper, while the average online user spends 70 seconds a day on a news site, according to data from Hal Varian, Google's chief economist. (JD Lasica has more on this presentation.) As a journalist, I'm not satisfied when people just scan my headline and then move on. As a citizen...
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Public MediaShift
6 Key Lessons From NewsHour's Coverage of the Gulf Oil Spill
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has lasted more than two months now. It is the worst spill in U.S. history, and it is likely to continue until at least August. And in covering it, PBS NewsHour has broken every traffic record it ever had thanks to great reporting, our live video feed of the spill and the...
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Legal Drama
What the Viacom vs. YouTube Verdict Means for Copyright Law
Some have called it a license to steal. To others, the recent Viacom v. YouTube court decision was no less than a trumpet heralding the protection of free speech on the Internet. And yet to a third contingency, Manhattan federal judge Louis Stanton's decision was really an exercise in high-minded legal theory. Regardless of your outlook on the case, it...
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Free Speech
WikiLeaks, iPhone Incidents Show that U.S. Needs Shield Law
The United States' global reputation as a champion of free speech is at stake. This is partly because the legal framework has not kept pace with the evolution of free speech, and also because the Freedom of Information Act is not being applied correctly. Today, the U.S. is in danger of losing its place as the bastion of free speech...
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Media Usage
Spot.Us Lessons: Journalists Work in, and For, the Public
In a previous post I introduced the most significant findings from my recent case study of Spot.Us, a crowdfunding platform for journalism. In this post I discuss what my findings mean for journalism, and for the role and the work of a journalist. Renegotiating the Role of a Journalist A crowdfunded journalistic process brings a new element to a journalist's...
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5Across
5Across: Arts Criticism in the Digital Age
As newspapers and magazines have cut staff in the shift to digital, arts critics find themselves with less sure footing when it comes to a full-time staff position. According to a recent article in The Australian, 65 full-time film critics have lost jobs on American newspapers and magazines since 2006. Can't local newspapers just use syndicated reviews for movies shown nationally?
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: YouTube Wins Court Case Against Viacom
In this week's 4MR podcast I consider the ruling in the YouTube vs. Viacom court case, with the judge essentially throwing out Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit. The judge believed that YouTube followed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's "safe harbor" provision, taking down videos that violated copyrights when the copyright holder gave it a take-down notice. Viacom said it would appeal the decision while YouTube called it a strike for content-sharing sites on the web.
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Your Take
Which Smartphone Is for You: iPhone or Android?
Betamax or VHS? Mac or PC? Blu-ray or HD DVD? Format wars have been waged for years in the media world, and now they've come to smartphones. At the forefront of those wars is the battle between the entrenched leader, Apple's iPhone, and the more open system from Google: Android. While Apple tightly controls the apps on its iPhone, the...
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Free Speech
Crisis in Kyrgyzstan Shows Need for 'Responsible Content'
Back in 1996, my Columbia University colleague Jack Snyder and his co-author, Karen Ballentine, published a ground-breaking article called Nationalism and the Marketplace of Ideas. The essay used Serbian broadcasting and Rwandan radio to illustrate how hyper-nationalist media could be used to incite political violence. Today's online media have the potential to be used in a similar fashion -- and...
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Media Usage
Spot.Us Case Study Shows Impact of Crowdfunding on Journalism
Platforms such as Spot.Us and Kickstarter have shown that crowdfunding can work as a financing mechanism for journalism. We will likely see more crowdfunded stories in the future, which means it's important study how crowdfunding impacts journalism and the role and work of a journalist. I'm currently in the process of completing a Ph.D. project about collective intelligence in journalism,...
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Legal Drama
Can Financial Firms Use 'Hot News Doctrine' to Stifle Aggregators?
Traditional print newspapers and magazines are experiencing upheaval thanks to the rise of the Internet, but they are not the only information providers facing serious challenges. Even before the tumult created by the recent recession, major financial firms were struggling with the effects of competition from online financial news aggregation services aimed at investors. In some cases, these online services...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: iPhone 4 vs. Android Phones
In this week's 4MR podcast I consider the new iPhone 4 announced by Apple, with a sleeker design, longer battery life, "retina display" and a front-facing camera for video calls. How will the iPhone stack up against popular Android phones such as the new 4G HTC Evo and the Motorola Droid? I talked with CNET associate editor Nicole Lee to...
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Thought Leader Q&A
How Josh & Chuck Made 'Stuff You Should Know' a Hit Podcast
Perhaps you were hunting around iTunes one day and came across a list of the top audio podcasts. There in the top five among the usual suspects from NPR was something called Stuff You Should Know. And once you started listening, you were hooked on the congenial chit-chat between hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant, senior writers at HowStuffWorks.com (owned...
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MovieShift
How 6 Big Summer Films Are Using Facebook For Marketing
Tony Stark, better known as Iron Man, believes in "better living through technology." Most marketers would argue that better marketing is enabled by technology as well. One of the primary game-changers today is Facebook and studios are learning how to engage audiences online to spur a better box office. Movie marketers understand the impact that reaching their desired audiences on...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Barnett: Advocacy, Membership Groups to Push Non-Profit News
The erosion of the traditional business model for news has led many to go down the non-profit path. The result is a slew of new non-profit news websites. The Bay Citizen, which launched at the end of May, is the newest and joins the likes of ProPublica, MinnPost, and the Texas Tribune, to name just a few. But as the...
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Thought Leader Q&A
NBC's Ryan Osborn Wants to Use Social Media for Storytelling
Ryan Osborn's story at NBC is the prototypical tale of the young aspiring journalist going from a page on "The Today Show" in 2002 to becoming the first director of social media at NBC News. But what he'd like to do in that job is not exactly typical: Osborn wants NBC to concentrate on using Twitter and Facebook to extend...
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World View
Crisis in Thailand Leads to Net Crackdown, Censorship
At least 80 people were killed during the latest clashes in Thailand. But the confusion and danger that are present in various parts of Bangkok do not explain why several Thai and foreign journalists have been shot since April. Two are dead. The tense political situation also doesn't justify the leadership's blocking of more than 4,000 anti-monarchy websites. As we...
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Philosophy
Why Journalists Should Learn Computer Programming
Yes, journalists should learn how to program. No, not every journalist should learn it right now -- just those who want to stay in the industry for another ten years. More seriously, programming skills and knowledge enable us traditional journalists to tell better and more engaging stories. Programming means going beyond learning some HTML. I mean real computer programming. As...
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Environment
The Mediavore's Dilemma: Making Sustainable Media Choices
The media business is becoming a complex game. A major study recently conducted by the Knight Commission concluded that the Internet and the proliferation of mobile media have unleashed a tsunami of innovation in the creation and distribution of information, a torrent teeming with hundreds of thousands of media channels and millions of media product choices. We also live in...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Facebook Privacy Update; Bay Citizen Launch
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition I look at how Facebook tried to simplify its privacy settings in the face of widespread criticism and defections. Now the 50 settings have been streamlined down to 15, but still some critics decry the opt-out nature of sharing vs. opt-in. Plus, the new Bay Citizen non-profit news...
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Guides
Your Guide to Cutting the Cord to Landline Phones
The number of landline telephones in the developed world has steadily risen over the past century, but something changed in the last decade: A decline began. The International Telecommunication Union found that there were 57 fixed telephone lines per 100 inhabitants in the developed world in 2001, but that number dropped to 50 lines by 2007. What happened? The mobile phone revolution started displacing landlines as more people relied on cell phones and voice-over-IP (VoIP) services such as Vonage.
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PoliticalShift
Politicians Face Consequences If They Don't Secure Name Domains
Search the name of Representative Pete Hoekstra of Michigan's second district and PeteHoekstra.com is among the top results. But click on the site and you'll encounter this tag line: "Dangerous, Polarizing & Bad for Michigan!" How could a nine-term Congressman, a ranking member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence and now a candidate for the gubernatorial race in Michigan...
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PoliticalShift
Aussie #Spill Breaks Down Wall Between Journalists, Audience
The spectacular demise of the Australian conservative party's leadership in November 2009 was a turning point for political journalism in the country. This is the third and final installment in a special MediaShift series (read part one here and part two here) about the transformative impact of the biggest Australian political story of 2009, which became known simply by its...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: A Primer on Facebook Privacy Issues
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition I focus on the recent privacy brouhaha at social networking giant Facebook. Why are prominent techies deleting their accounts and complaining? Mainly because Facebook keeps adding features that are "opt-out" instead of "opt-in" and its privacy policies are a complex mess. I talked with lawyer Michael McSunas to...
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TVShift
4 Reasons Why 3D TV Is Years Away From Adoption
After a multi-decade struggle, 3D is finally catching on in theatres. It was a challenge for 3D movies to get where they are today, but I'd say the studios (and theater operators) are finally calling it a success. All the pieces have come together, spurred on by financial support of the infrastructure and much-needed exposure of the latest 3D technology...
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Hyper-Local
Networks Aim to Solve Local Ad Puzzle for Hyper-Local Sites
Local advertising is back in style, at least among some big national media companies, and that attitude shift has fueled changes for hyper-local and micro-local news sites. While small independents might not yet feel the financial benefits of an increased focus on local advertising, some site owners are seeing increased interest in the content they generate and in the tools...
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PoliticalShift
U.K. Conservatives Pushed Online Promotion -- But TV Reigns
The new media evangelists who preached of a revolution in British electoral politics will have to wait until at least the next election to see their prophecies come to fruition. In this country steeped in electoral tradition, the impact of new and social media on the 2010 race was minimal. The British still consume high tea and scones, watch football...
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5Across
5Across: Athletes on Social Media
Back in the day, the only coverage of a sporting event came from the accredited media. But now, you can find out more from fans in the seats taking pictures and posting to blogs -- or from the athletes themselves who are getting hooked on Twitter and Facebook status updates. In fact, Major League Baseball has warned players it is...
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Legal Drama
CDA Protects Newspapers from Liability for Libelous Comments
A desperate, weeks-long search in 2007 for missing Purdue University student Wade Steffey yielded a number of stories in the local Lafayette, Indiana, newspaper, the Journal & Courier. The newspaper also covered a mugging incident that was reported by another student, Timothy Collins, on the same night of Steffey's disappearance. Local police, apparently suspicious of the coincidence between the two...
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Public MediaShift
5 Needs and 5 Tools for Measuring Media Impact
This spring, National Public Radio launched Go Figure, a new blog authored by members of its Audience Insight and Research Group. In an April 1 post, blogger Vince Lampone wrote, "Nearly all listeners have been moved to take action by NPR at some point in their lives. For instance, two in three have done further research into a topic, most have visited a website, and nearly 25% have become involved with a local or national political issue as a result of listening."
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: FCC's 'Goldilocks' Approach to Regulating Net
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition I focus on the proposal by the FCC chairman Julius Genachowski to find a "third way" of regulating broadband providers. His "Goldilocks" approach tries to inforce fairness and Net neutrality rules, but not be too heavy-handed by avoiding setting prices for ISPs or forcing them to open up...
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Digging Deeper
DoApp Wants to Dominate Mobile Apps for Local Media
The buzz surrounding mobile and tablet apps is deafening. Media companies of all sizes are considering how mobile apps might help a hurting bottom line, leading them to consider mobile ads or paid apps. The We Media folks even threw a one-day Tablet Throwdown so media companies could show off their iPad apps and talk about possible business models. But...
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Free Speech
China Tightens Media Control at Shanghai Expo
In honour of the Expo Shanghai China, the biggest display of Chinese might since the 2008 Olympic Games, Reporters Without Borders is inviting Internet users to visit a page on its website, the "Garden of Freedoms," that's dedicated to the freedoms that are often oppressed in China. Hundreds of countries, regions and corporations are participating in this exhibition, but none...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Legal Implications of Gizmodo iPhone Caper
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition I focus on the brouhaha surrounding Gizmodo obtaining a next-generation prototype of the Apple iPhone. The tech blog paid $5,000 for the prototype, took it apart, and then returned it to Apple. But police raided Gizmodo editor Jason Chen's house and took away computers, hard drives and cameras,...
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Public MediaShift
Live-Blogging the FCC Workshop: New Platforms, Strategies for Public Media
This live-blog post is a continuation of the first post covering the FCC's Future of Media Workshop on public media. Panel Discussion III: New Platforms, Approaches and Structures Maxie Jackson III, President and CEO, National Federation of Community Broadcasters Says when he thinks of the future, he wants to stress "independence and impact," in the transition from public broadcasting to...
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World View
Hands-On with WePad Touchscreen Interface
BERLIN -- I threw a party here on April 17 in order to compare the Apple iPad tablet with the new WePad that's being produced by the Berlin-based company Neofonie. I found that the WePad had many things the iPad was lacking -- Flash support, a webcam, multi-tasking and more -- but at the time, the WePad I tried had...
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MagazineShift
The Ethics of Digital Magazine Advertising
In my recent discussions with magazine editors, executives and experts, I've heard a lot about how magazines will integrate new forms of advertising, and "monetization" opportunities, into their digital content. From digital editions to social media to mobile apps, magazines are exploring a variety of ways to provide advertisers with novel opportunities to reach audiences, just as they have in...
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Philosophy
WikiLeaks, Bay Citizen, and Lessons from the Logan Symposium
Over the past two days, I had the pleasure of attending the 4th Annual Reva and David Logan Investigative Reporting Symposium. If you want a blow-by-blow account, check out the live blogs from Day 1 and Day 2. Now that I've had a chance to catch my breath, I want to reflect on what I heard (and what I didn't...
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MobileShift
WePad Takes on iPad with Support of European Publishers
BERLIN -- When I made plans to travel to Berlin to help judge the Best of the Blogs awards for Deutsche Welle, I figured it would be a nice idea to throw a MediaShift party. Then I found out that the new WePad tablet computer was being produced by a Berlin-based company, Neofonie. So it made sense to see one...
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Your Take
What Do You Think of Ads on Your Mobile Phone?
There are two converging trends: 1) people are tired of seeing advertising everywhere, and 2) cell phones are becoming an entry place to the mobile web, meaning more ads are coming. Yet, even as our smartphones give us more features, we'd prefer to have no ads and not have to pay for apps. At some point, we might have to...
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World View
Will 'Telecentros' Transform Cuba's Internet Access?
It wasn't your typical keynote address. Earlier this month, at an event held on the campus of Cornell University, a room of people gazed at a blank screen in rapt attention, listening to a woman speak over a weak cell phone connection originating in Cuba. The speaker was Cuba's 32-year-old star blogger, Yoani Sanchez. The event was the seventh annual...
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PoliticalShift
How #Spill Effect Brought Color, Collaboration to Media Tweets
Twitter distinguished itself as an important new platform for breaking political news in Australia during the Great #Spill of 2009. This is the second installment in a MediaShift series on the "#spill effect." (You can read the first part here.) It draws on a case study of the event and includes online interviews with eight tweeting journalists who are prominent...
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: Apple's iAds; Journo-Programming Degree
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at Apple's plan to enter mobile advertising with its new iAd platform. Apple has been known for hardware and software but has never handled ad sales before, and now finds itself squarely in competition with Google and AdMob in that arena. Plus, Columbia University announced a...
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MobileShift
The conundrum with the iPad is that it's exciting to consider a sleek new form factor for getting news, movies, TV shows, games and web browsing -- but it's less exciting to be first in line to pay the most for the least. We all know the first version of a technology product costs the most and is missing the...
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World View
Navigating Media Ethics and Censorship in Dubai
Around the world, dozens of organizations, from Freedom House to Reporters Without Borders, advance the ideal of a free press and a free citizenry. The ideal suggests there is one type of free press to be secured globally: the Western model of a constitutionally protected free press. What stands over and against the free press? The typical examples are the...
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Your Take
How Much Would You Pay for iPad News Apps?
So you've plopped down $499 (or more) for a shiny new iPad from Apple. You've connected iTunes to the device and now you've visited the App Store. But now comes the question: How much more will you pay for news apps? Some of them are free, like the USA Today app, while some offer limited selection like the New York...
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PoliticalShift
How Technology Changed American Politics in the Internet Age
The 2008 U.S. presidential campaign drew the attention of the world. In the aftermath, the Obama campaign's use of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter were widely credited with helping secure the historic victory of President Barack Obama. But the Obama campaign wouldn't have been able to make its technological strides without the innovations first deployed by the Howard Dean campaign years...
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World View
Reporters Without Borders Issues 'Enemies of the Internet' List
On March 12, 2010, Reporters Without Borders celebrated World Day Against Cyber Censorship. The goal of the event was to rally everyone in support of a single Internet that is unrestricted and accessible to all. It is also meant to draw attention to the fact that, by creating new spaces for exchanging ideas and information, the Internet is a force...
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: All Hail the iPad (Except Curmudgeons)
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's special edition, I look at the impending launch of the Apple iPad tablet. So far, reviews have been mainly positive, though there are some caveats about the missing features (Flash support, camera, USB, etc.). Media companies are falling over themselves to create apps, including paid apps, but no one...
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MarketingShift
Why The iPad Is A Hit (And Why I Won't Buy One Yet)
Even before any consumers had received Apple's iPad, it was being proclaimed a hit. I didn't find that surprising, because from the beginning there were signs this day was coming. Here are a few: There was a business and tech press feeding frenzy since before the initial announcement of the impending device. The announcement had the same kind of shoulder-to-shoulder...
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Environment
Is Digital Media Worse for the Environment Than Print?
Is it possible that digital media could be more destructive to the environment and a greater threat to trees, bees, rivers and forests than printing?"
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Your Take
What Do You Think of Apple's iPad?
Apple CEO Steve Jobs says the new iPad will be revolutionary. Pre-orders have sold well, Apple stock is soaring, and Apple Stores will likely be jammed this weekend for the April 3 launch of the device. But can the iPad really follow in the footsteps of the iPhone and change our media habits in a radical way, whether it's reading...
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Philosophy
Portability, Participation Rule for New Media Consumer
We're spoiled by technology. Today, we expect more from our media than we can get from print, radio or linear TV. If you're like me -- and, increasingly, evidence shows people are -- you crave portability, fungibility, the ability to listen to a book or article, to watch a TV show or movie or YouTube clip whenever and wherever you...
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Public MediaShift
Better Coordination Needed to Map Local Media Ecologies
Back in 2008, I co-organized a conference called Beyond Broadcast. That year's theme was "mapping public media," and was designed to both call out the rising importance of maps as a platform for sharing digital media, and to "map" the fragmented universe of public service media projects. The maps I found at the time underscored the siloed nature of news...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Google Uncensored in China; iPad Mania for Mags
In this week's edition, I look at Google's recent move to stop censoring its site in China and instead redirect traffic to its uncensored Hong Kong site. Google is also running real-time search results and asking Congress to punish countries that filter the Net, but will the move backfire? Plus, magazine publishers are moving quickly developing iPad apps and even selling advertising on their apps before they even exist. Will people pay for those apps?
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Thought Leader Q&A
PayPal Hopes to Lure Publishers to Its Micropayment System
With all the talk about paid content coming back into vogue (thanks, Rupert Murdoch!), it's a wonder that PayPal hasn't been part of the conversation. The tech startup that's now part of eBay has been dominant in handling online payment transactions and is projected to have $5 billion in sales by 2011, according to Bloomberg. But so far, a grand...
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Legal Drama
Attributor Helps Media Companies Crack Down on Web Scofflaws
Websites that scoop up content from the mainstream media without compensation are being put on notice: Pay up or risk being shut down. The warning comes from Attributor, a California-based company that monitors web content on behalf of magazine, newspaper and book publishers. Earlier this month, Attributor announced a "new model for online content syndication" called FairShare Guardian. It's not...
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TVShift
A few years ago, while TV networks were happily setting up Hulu as a place for people to watch shows online for free, the cable companies were fretting. If cable customers could watch shows online for free on Hulu, or through cheap subscription services such as Netflix, who was going to pay for cable service? Sure, the cable companies would...
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: Google TV Disrupts; Facebook Passes Google
I look at Google TV, the new alliance between Google, Intel, Sony and Logitech to create a new TV or set-top box that will finally connect the TV with the Net in a simple way. Plus, Facebook last week surpassed Google in traffic for the U.S., according to Experian Hitwise, and Facebook referrals to news sites were more loyal visitors than referrals from Google News or the Google search engine. And I asked Just One Question to Time magazine TV critic James Poniewozik, getting his take on Google TV.
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Philosophy
How Journalism is Getting Better
Michael Arrington's recent TechCrunch post about old media "guys" who don't get it made me realize how far things have come -- and how much better they've gotten -- in the world of journalism. I worked for more than 15 years in what's now called "legacy media" as a reporter, news editor and business person. All along, there were a...
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: The Rising Buzz of Location Services at SXSW
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the growing interest in geo-location services such as Foursquare and Gowalla, especially as the South by Southwest conference begins in Austin, Texas. Now, Twitter and Facebook are both preparing to add geo-location to their services as well, and Google already has Latitude and Buzz that can show your location. But will this become a mainstream phenomenon or just a pastime for the tech-savvy in-crowd?
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Public MediaShift
Witness Creates Sophisticated Evaluation Tools for Video Impact
Last month, Jessica Clark and I explored how various Public Media 2.0 projects are measuring their level of success in informing and engaging publics. We found that many public media organizations are struggling to measure impact -- and some are relying only on traditional indicators of reach, as opposed to other elements of impact such as relevance, inclusion, engagement or...
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World View
Turkish Reporters Unite to Protest YouTube Ban
The Turkish courts banned YouTube in May 2008, and now a new protest campaign launched by the editorial team of the Milliyet newspaper is drawing attention to how long the country has been prevented from using the website. The initiative, which was was launched on February 19, is not the first campaign of this type. But it's notable because previous...
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Legal Drama
What Are the Legal Implications of PleaseRobMe?
They know where you sleep, and now they know where you get coffee. That was the message driven home by the recently created website PleaseRobMe.com. The site aggregates Twitter posts sent when a person uses Foursquare to check in at a location -- meaning they're basically telling the world that they're not at home at the moment. According to the...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Viacom Yanks Shows from Hulu; FT's Pay Model
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the recent move by Viacom to pull "The Daily Show" and "Colbert Report" from Hulu, and run them on their own sites. Plus, the Financial Times said it would start charging for day passes and weekly passes to augment its metered pay system online.
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MovieShift
Can Social Media Chatter Predict Oscar Winners?
The biggest night in movies is two days away, and everyone has an opinion as to who will win an Oscar. While there isn't a proven formula that can tell us which film is going to win, a closer look at social media such as blogs and Twitter can provide some interesting perspective as to which nominees are dominating conversations...
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5Across
5Across: Smartphone Etiquette, and Our Lack of Civility
Back in 2006 on MediaShift, I asked an innocent question to readers: "In what social situations should you NOT use a cell phone?" The response was overwhelming, with dozens of people upset by the lack of etiquette shown by people talking on cell phones in restaurants, theaters and even in public restrooms.
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PoliticalShift
The #Spill Effect: Twitter Hashtag Upends Australian Political Journalism
Australia is gearing up for a national election in 2010 and a core group of influential political journalists in the elite Canberra Press Gallery are tweeting their way along the campaign trail -- and bringing an engaged public along for the ride. Press Gallery journalists are among the most active Australian reporters on Twitter, which entrenched itself Down Under as...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Google's Trouble in Europe; WAC vs. Apple
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the trouble Google is having in Europe, with its executives indicted in an Italian court; the European Commission investigating anti-competitive behavior; and recent privacy complaints against Street View. Plus, an alliance of rival cell phone companies wants to create a unified app store to take on Apple. Plus I ask Just One Question to Spot.us honcho David Cohn, who explains an innovative ad plan for the crowdfunding site.
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PoliticalShift
How Mobile Apps Are Revolutionizing Elections, Transparency
The importance of social media in politics was made clear by Barack Obama's 2008 presidential run. But there is a new frontier of Web 2.0 technologies that politicians and political groups are slowly starting to embrace: the smartphone app. These apps have the potential to reshape how politicians communicate, raise money and get out the vote. The biggest player on...
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Legal Drama
Courts Still Wary About Webcasts, Live-Blogs, Tweets at Trials
One of the most watched television events in U.S. history was the announcement of the verdict in the O.J. Simpson murder trial in October 1995. By the time that trial was televised, the public had become accustomed to watching footage of both civil and criminal proceedings in state courts, and such proceedings continue to be broadcast today. But shortly...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Olympics Tape-Delay Backlash; PleaseRobMe's Geo-Scare
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the backlash against NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics, with people on the West Coast angry at the network for tape-delaying the best events until prime time. Plus, a new service called PleaseRobMe.com points out the vulnerability of people who use check-in geo-location services such as Foursquare along with Twitter. And I ask Just One Question to NewTeeVee's Liz Gannes.
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World View
Media Development Needs Unified Research for Digital Age
Not so long ago, some Western governments and private donors decided that investing in the media was a good way to support the development of democracy in other countries. Over the years, media development has become a vast enterprise, responsible for hundreds of millions of dollars of investment every year. The paradigm was straightforward enough: provide training, equipment, and management...
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Public MediaShift
Is There a Master Metric for Evaluating Public Media?
Over the past few months, we've been presenting MediaShift readers with a picture of a more dynamic, engaged, public media future. But how are Public Media 2.0 projects measuring their success in informing and engaging publics? Is it even possible to create a master metric? What are the differences and similarities in evaluating different kinds of projects?
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Google's Mixed Buzz; Olympic Social Media
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the new Google Buzz, offering ways for people to use their Gmail contact list to send out status updates, videos, photos and more. Google has had to react to an array of concerns over privacy and the way Buzz automatically generates followers (and followees). Plus, the Olympics start on a somber note, but are being covered like never before over social media. And I ask Just One Question to NYU J-school grad and former MediaShift contributor Alana Taylor.
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World View
Bloggers Face Death Sentence in Iran; Some Escape to France
Iranian authorities are once agan cracking down on the Internet. Internet connection speeds were degraded in several cities in advance of the Islamic Revolution's 31st anniversary on February 2. This same tactic was previously used by the regime in advance of events likely to be used by the opposition to stage demonstrations. Several websites were also targeted by hackers, including...
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MovieShift
How Digital Marketing Helped 'Avatar' Break the Box Office
Do you remember August 21, 2009? Moviegoers in more than 100 IMAX 3-D theaters worldwide watched 16 minutes of footage from a new James Cameron movie. That same day, Ubisoft debuted a trailer for a videogame based on the film, and Mattel unveiled action figures inspired by the film's characters. A day earlier, the teaser for the very same film...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Facebook as News Reader; Engadget Comments
This episode of 4MR is brought to you by GoDaddy, helping you set up your own website in a snap with domain name registration, web hosting and 24/7 support. Visit GoDaddy to learn more. Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the rise of Facebook as a place to find news. Hitwise...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: iPad Mania; Yelp Scores $100 Million
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the hype and reality around the latest device from Apple, the iPad. While some have slammed it for what it's missing, it's too early to tell how media companies might use it to sell their content. Plus, Yelp gets up to $100 million from Elevation Partners, helping some employees cash out without an IPO. And I ask Just One Question to Google News' Josh Cohen about whether Google should have started working with publishers sooner.
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BookShift
Best Coverage, Tweets of Apple iPad Event
The hype has reached fever pitch on the new tablet device being unveiled by Apple today in San Francisco. You're probably tired of going through tweets, live blogs and photo galleries trying to find the latest and best coverage of the latesty shiny gadget. So we've collected the best coverage around the web in one handy place here on...
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5Across
5Across: Environmental Impact of Newspapers, Books, e-Waste
When I cancelled my daily newspaper subscription, I figured it was the right thing to do for the environment. No longer would someone have to print up all that newsprint and deliver it to my doorstep. But what I didn't consider was the environmental impact of all my electronic devices -- their energy use as well as the harm they can do when being "recycled" in developing countries.
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Hyper-Local
5 Recent Big Moves In Hyper-Local News
The pace of change for hyper-local news sites and related businesses is dizzying. It's hard to keep up, especially if you try to pay attention to business moves made by large players, as well as innovations that bubble up from local, independent news sites. This year already began with large companies and investors making moves into hyper-local news. At the...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Text Donations to Haiti; Google.cn Uncensored
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the way social media and text-to-donate has helped to transform charitable giving in Haiti after the earthquake. Plus, Google announced it would stop censoring its search site in China after having Gmail accounts of dissidents and free speech proponents hacked there. And I ask Just...
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PoliticalShift
Local Bloggers Step Up to Watchdog Local Government
Traditionally, newspaper reporters were dispatched to cover the mundane proceedings of a local government in action: the city council meeting. But as the mainstream media grapples with its survival in the Internet era, the seats in the audience once occupied by full-time reporters are sometimes being filled by local bloggers and other citizen media outfits. They're using blogs and social...
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Media Usage
8 Lessons Journalists Can Learn From Scientists
The ScienceOnline10 conference starts this Thursday, and about 275 scientists, educators and science writers from around the world will gather near Raleigh, N.C. to discuss many of the same online tools and issues that journalists are examining. Sessions will focus on topics like "citizen scientists," crowdsourcing, and the best iPhone apps for gathering and sharing information. The conference is sold...
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World View
2009 Was a Terrible Year for Free Speech Online
2009 was an unprecedented year for online repression. For the first time since the Internet emerged as a tool for public use, there are currently 100 bloggers and cyber-dissidents imprisoned worldwide as a result of posting their opinions online in 2009, according to Reporters Without Borders. This figure is indicative of the severity of the crackdowns being carried out in...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: 3D TV Hype at CES; Nexus One Phone
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I consider the hype around 3D TV at the Consumer Electronics Show. While many companies and even cable channels are announcing 3D TV initiatives, it seems doubtful that huge numbers of people will be drawn to the technology this year. Plus, Google unveiled its Nexus One phone to...
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Media Usage
Most Popular MediaShift Posts of 2009
I'm not a huge fan of year-end lists, roundups and new year predictions. But I make an exception when these lists give me unexpected insights. Such is the case with this list of the most popular posts from MediaShift over the past year. I didn't limit it to posts that were published in 2009, and tried to trace what made...
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Public MediaShift
How to Avoid Ethical Snags in Non-Profit Journalism
The nature of non-profit journalism invites ethical dilemmas. Over the past few years, dozens of centers of investigative journalism and non-profit websites have been started using money from foundations, individual donors and membership fees. The latest trend is non-profit networks that share resources. Collaboration is a good thing, but it can lead to tensions among collaborators. How can such centers...
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MovieShift
Film Industry Experts Offer 10 Predictions for 2010
Films such as "2001" and "2012" illustrate how the future has long fascinated Hollywood. With a new year on the horizon, I asked 10 executives and analysts, many of whom were in attendance at the recent Future of Film Summit in Santa Monica, Calif., for their predictions about the film industry. Below are 10 topics and thoughts on what the...
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Futurama
Media Mavens Wish for More Collaboration, Less Talk in 2010
Layoffs, buyouts, furloughs, and more than a few shuttered newspapers and magazines. That's definitely part of the story of 2009. Yet, at the same time, many established news organizations pushed online with impressive results, and online-only organizations continued to grow and innovate. Now, with 2009 ending, we have a new year of media to ponder. I contacted a selection of...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Google Phone and Netbook; Kindle Under Attack
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at Google's various moves into consumer electronics. Rumors abound about a Google phone, code-named Nexus One, that could be out as early as the first week of January. And Google also might be coming out with its own branded netbook with Chrome OS by Christmas 2010....
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Digging Deeper
California Watch Says 'Yes' to Open, Networked Investigative Reports
Some investigative journalists have been resistant to change in their profession, but hard times at newspapers have brought about a new sense of experimentation and collaboration. That is evident at the Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) and its new California Watch project, which attracted major foundation funding from the James Irvine Foundation, Hewlett Foundation and Knight Foundation. When I visited...
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MusicShift
The Year in Digital Music and Predictions for 2010
As 2009 comes to a close, and the music industry shifts focus to 2010, it's worth looking back at some of the noteworthy events of the past 12 months. This is also the right time to look ahead and predict what will happen next year. For some in the business, this year brought trouble after trouble; for others, 2009 was...
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Legal Drama
Lessons Learned from Tweeting a Biker Gang Trial
We fell into Twitter somewhat accidentally in our newsroom at the London Free Press in Ontario, Canada. The Bandidos biker gang trial was going to be a big one for the Free Press. We'd extensively covered the crime when it first happened: eight bikers from Toronto found dead on a rural road near London, and six men charged with...
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World View
Sri Lanka Makes Journalism an Act of Terrorism
As of December 10, J.S. Tissainayagam, a respected Tamil journalist and editor, had served the first 100 days of a 20-year sentence in a Sri Lankan jail. In his World Press Freedom Day statement, President Obama cited Tissainayagam as an "emblematic example" of a journalist who was being persecuted. Amnesty International also named Tissainayagam a prisoner of conscience, and...
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PoliticalShift
Can Posterous and Tumblr Boost Government Transparency?
If a present-day version of whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg was looking for a way to easily release important confidential information, he might find himself drawn to Posterous or its micro-blogging/lifestreaming competitor, Tumblr. These services have the potential to offer a new level of simplicity for releasing government information, and help open up the closed doors of Congress. Beyond becoming tools for...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: The Death of E&P; AOL's Spin-Off
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the recent announcement that Nielsen will be shuttering Editor & Publisher magazine, which covered the newspaper business since 1884. E&P's Jennifer Saba says the loss of classified advertising was as much to blame as Romenesko. Plus, America Online was spun-off from Time Warner yesterday and...
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Legal Drama
Is It Legal for an Editor to Unmask an Anonymous Commenter?
On November 13, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's website, StLToday, asked readers to comment on a story titled, "What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten?" Soon, a commenter posted a reply that included a "vulgar, two-syllable word for a part of a woman's anatomy," according to an online account by Kurt Greenbaum, the paper's director of social media. Editors at the...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Stanford Program Breaks Down Walls Between Business, Tech Journalism
I am so used to hearing about innovation in journalism that when I first heard about the Innovation Journalism program at Stanford, I assumed that's what it focused on. Not exactly. The VINNOVA-Stanford Research Center of Innovation Journalism actually focused on helping journalists cover the field of innovation. David Nordfors, a Swedish punk rocker-turned-molecular-physicist-turned-journalist, found that journalists were stuck in...
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Weblogs
Can H1N1 Flu Bloggers Help Battle Pandemic Misinformation?
Vincent Racaniello, a professor of microbiology at Columbia University Medical Center, remembers the last flu pandemic, which occurred in 1968. "It's a great contrast [with today], because back then you had to wait weeks for information, and the only way you got it was through newspapers and scientific journals, and now of course we have instant dissemination of everything," Racaniello...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Comcast-NBC Deal; AOL's Robot Army
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift (the Stuffy Head Cold Edition). In this week's edition, I look at the $30 billion mega-merger between Comcast and NBC Universal. Critics already believe the deal could lead to higher cable rates and less free content on Hulu. Plus, AOL's Tim Armstrong said he would use computer algorithms to help in the...
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World View
Iran Cracks Down on Internet Expression, Bloggers, Journalists
Last week, the Iranian blogger Sasan Aghaei, who runs the site Azad Tribun, was arrested by intelligence ministry officials after they carried out a search of his Tehran home. It is not known where he was taken. Aghaei is also a reporter for the daily newspaper Farhikhteghan, and he's the third employee of the paper to be arrested since the...
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Legal Drama
Will Google Sidewiki Shift Control of Online Comments?
Journalists and news outlets are accustomed to offering comments and criticisms about others, but they're not as used to being the subject of public comment themselves. In the online world, where technology can and does upend established relationships, journalists and online news outlets are joining the ranks of the commented-upon. The shift has taken place due to the increased presence...
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PoliticalShift
Best of Twitter: FTC Workshop Discusses Future of Journalism
For two days this week, some of journalism's most high profile executives and experts descended upon Washington, DC, for "How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?" a workshop hosted by the FTC. One exchange of note came between Rupert Murdoch and Arianna Huffington, who spoke separately but did a good job of representing two divergent points of view. Murdoch kicked...
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Public MediaShift
FTC Should Consider Policy Reform to Support Public Media 2.0
It's been a busy season for prognosticators who examine the intersection of public policy and media. Today will be particularly hectic for them, as journalists, bloggers, public broadcasters and policy wonks pack into a session at the Federal Trade Commission to ponder, yet again, "How Will Journalism Survive the Internet Age?" (Submit your own thoughts via Twitter here). Two weeks...
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MagazineShift
Condé Nast, Hachette Magazines Push into iPhone Apps
Turning a magazine into an iPhone app might seem as simple as shrinking the printed page to about a sixth of its normal size. But as magazines develop iPhone and other mobile applications to supplement their print editions, they're finding that adapting to the new medium is a significant challenge. Years ago, magazines realized that their websites had to do...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Media Company Layoffs; Omidyar Startup
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the deep layoffs that are planned at AOL, the AP and BusinessWeek. In the case of AOL, the company plans to shed one-third of its workforce, or 2,500 staffers. eBay founder Pierre Omidyar announced plans to launch a news startup in Hawaii that will combine...
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5Across
5Across: Social Media Marketing 101
There's a new series of demands being made in company meetings everywhere: "What is our social media strategy? What are we doing on Facebook and Twitter? I want followers and fans, and I want them now!" But before companies large and small -- as well as non-profits and charities -- jump into social media, they need to take a deep...
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PoliticalShift
Young Political Candidates Confronted by Digital Past on Facebook
Last spring Emanuel Pleitez, 26, ran for California's 32nd Congressional seat in a special election to replace Hilda Solis, the new secretary of labor. During the campaign, one of Pleitez's opponents, California State Sen. Gil Cedillo, discovered photos from Pleitez's Facebook profile that showed Pleitez hanging around with various women at parties. The Cedillo campaign used the photos as the...
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MovieShift
DigiFest Examines DIY to Big Budget Special Effects for Films
Apocalyptic visions and alien invasions descended upon Hollywood earlier this month, to the collective delight of the digital media industry. At the American Film Institute's DigiFest, which was produced by the AFI Digital Content Lab, attendees experienced two days of presentations and screenings focused on new media platforms and creative storytelling using digital innovations. The event spotlighted advanced productions from...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Murdoch-Google Spat; Ft. Hood Shooting on Twitter
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at recent comments by News Corp. honcho Rupert Murdoch about taking his content out of Google searches, and how many people reacted to it. Plus, many news organizations made Twitter Lists to cover the Ft. Hood shooting, but the Austin American-Statesman had an excellent Twitter feed...
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Legal Drama
Does Gawker's Publication of McSteamy Sex Tape Constitute Fair Use?
Editor's Note: new information was appended to this article on Dec. 15. It probably seemed like a fun idea at the time. Last year, Eric Dane, known as "McSteamy" from the show "Grey's Anatomy," his wife Rebecca Gayheart, and former beauty queen Kari Ann Peniche decided to make a home movie. Yes, that type of home movie. The threesome recorded...
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World View
President Obama Must Press China on Web Censorship
In China, Google is forced to censor its search engine, Facebook and Twitter are blocked, U.S. news agencies are barred from selling their services freely, and foreign investment in the media industry is closely watched. Yet when President Obama visits the country in a few days, it's unknown if he will publicly pressure the Chinese government on issues of censorship...
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World View
Hossein Derakhshan's Arrest: One Year Later
It's been over a year now since the arrest of Hossein Derakhshan, popularly known as Hoder. Ever since he wrote the first Persian-language blogging guide in November 2001, he has helped pioneer the Iranian blogging community while living in his adopted home of Toronto. (Derakhshan is a dual citizen of Iran and Canada.) However, beginning in 2006, Derakhshan's views started...
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Digging Deeper
@FakeAPStylebook Editors Explain Their Overnight Success on Twitter
For anyone who has suffered through reading the entire AP Stylebook for a journalism class, there's a cathartic release when reading the dry wit of the @FakeAPStylebook feed on Twitter. It combines parody of the journalism usage bible with funny repartee and the absurd. That mix has brought amazing success to the people behind the feed: more than 40,000 followers...
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PoliticalShift
10 Projects that Help Citizens Become Government Watchdogs
With the 2010 U.S. elections coming into view, many people are looking for more information about the people running for office -- and the individuals and organizations funding these candidates. Fortunately, there are dozens of initiatives that mine and share the data that influence policy and policy-makers. Many are funded by The Sunlight Foundation, which aims to use "the revolutionary...
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Hyper-Local
TheDigitel.com Brings Human Context to Local News Aggregation
Many news websites are working to refocus on local news, and often this means turning to automated aggregation. One hyper-local startup in Charleston, S.C., is blending links, community and visuals to try and redefine aggregation by giving it a human context. TheDigitel.com was launched by Ken Hawkins in June 2008, and recently received its first round of venture capital funding...
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PoliticalShift
Politicians Use Social Media to Bypass the Press Corps
Politicians are figuring out what social media technologies like blogs, Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have to offer: direct access to voters. More than ever before, they can bypass the professional press and deliver an uncensored, unfiltered -- and unchecked -- message. "[Social media] allows me to gives my thoughts on the events of the day and the complete text of...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Scoble on Twitter Lists; Time, Newsweek Hurting
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at Twitter Lists and how they allow people to group the people they follow on Twitter. Some say they might replace RSS feed readers. Robert Scoble answers Just One Question about how Twitter Lists have changed his life. Plus, magazines are hurting once again, with Time...
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Legal Drama
It's Now or Never For Citizen Journalists and Federal Shield Law
When Sen. Charles Schumer amended the Senate's bill to exclude unpaid reporters, bloggers, and citizen journalists from a proposed federal shield law, many in the Internet and journalism community were outraged. In the wake of the change, MediaShift published an article that argued Why Bloggers and Citizen Journalists Deserve a Shield Law. [Ed. note: please see update at the bottom...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Harold Evans Sees Bright Future for Print-on-Demand Newspapers
Evans is the editor-at-large for The Week magazine. He has written numerous books, but his most recent is called "My Paper Chase," a fascinating memoir covering his early years as a cub reporter, copy editor and eventually editor and publisher over decades of distinguished work. He connects what happened in those early years to the changes wrought by technology and the Internet, and what he sees as he watches his wife, Tina Brown, co-found and manage The Daily Beast.
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Legal Drama
Why the Future of Online Speech Depends on Net Neutrality
Late last week, the Federal Communications Commission announced it was seeking public input on draft rules that would codify and supplement existing Internet openness principles. This was another chapter in the ongoing "Net neutrality" debate. On one hand, the White House was calling for a "free and open Internet" and endorsed a bill called the Internet Freedom Preservation Act. Yet,...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Twitter's Real-Time Search Deals; Bloomberg Rising
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the deals Microsoft made recently with Twitter and Facebook to incorporate tweets and status updates into its Bing search engine. Google quickly announced a deal with Twitter too, but why should we care? Also, Bloomberg bought out BusinessWeek magazine, but the jewel might well be...
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Philosophy
The Right Way For Media Companies to Create Social Media Policies
Swimming in the roiling sea of online journalism, increasing numbers of newsrooms have decided to take up the challenge of articulating editorial policies for social media. Over the past year, news organizations from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times to the BBC have issued protocols for staff on Facebook, Twitter, and personal blogs and websites. Recently, the...
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Media Usage
Kicking Ink: The Guilty Pleasures of Print
On a recent trip to Washington, D.C. for "Public Media Camp," it happened again. I was tempted by print. Starting in May, I gave up my print newspaper subscription, and then compared how the iPhone beat the Kindle when it comes to reading periodical publications on electronic devices. My fingers have remained relatively ink-free each day because I get my...
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NewspaperShift
Can Programmers, Journalists Get Along in One Newsroom?
One of the explanations for the emergence of the programmer/journalist is the move of news organizations from print (or radio or TV) to the web. While some newspapers have gone online-only, and many are still trying to move to a "web-first" mindset, there are still newsrooms that view the web as a secondary medium. I remember when every step forward...
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MovieShift
Universal's Neil: Original Videos, Word of Mouth Key for Online Promotion
Movie marketers are poised to see a significant boost to their online marketing budgets, according to eMarketer, which predicts studios will spend $2.7 billion by 2013 in online advertising. That's more than double the $1.2 billion spent this year. Digital LA, a networking organization for online entertainment, marketing, advertising and tech professionals in Los Angeles, hosted a "Movie Marketing: Online,...
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Weblogs
Why Bloggers and Citizen Journalists Deserve A Shield Law
Today in the United States, there is no legislation that allows bloggers to protect their sources. Yet bloggers have become a great way for the public -- and journalists in particular -- to keep informed about important topics. A survey from Middleberg Communications and the Society for New Communications Research released on September 22 found that 66 percent of journalists...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: FTC's Blogger Rules; Charging for iPhone Apps
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the new FTC rules for blogger disclosure, when they are reviewing a product or service. They are now required to disclose if they are being paid by the company or if they get a freebie. And what's up with all the new paid news apps...
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MusicShift
Record Labels Are Losing Power to Fans, Artists
Over the past month, I received a significant amount of feedback on my recent MediaShift article, What Will Record Labels Look Like in the Future?. People from all areas of the music industry reached out and shared their feelings on future business models, and strategies for moving forward. Regardless of their background, practically every person I spoke with agreed on...
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5Across
5Across: How to Deal with Technology Overload
So many of us are feeling overwhelmed with technology and are trying to deal with it. I've written about my own practice of taking a technology sabbath for one day off a week from my computer. On this episode of 5Across, I convened a roundtable of folks who are either overloaded with technology or helping people deal with that overload. And for true balance, the discussion also touches on the benefits of technology, too. Check it out!
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Knight Commission Report; NPR's Local Venture
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's special edition, I look at the report that came out today from the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy. The Commission called for strengthening public media, bringing broadcast access to all Americans, and having at least one strong online info hub for each community....
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World View
Online Reporters in Malaysia Struggle Against Jail, Fines and Filters
Malaysia ranked No. 132 out of 173 countries on last year's edition of Reporters Without Borders' World Press Freedom Index, which means it's already a hostile place for reporters. Thanks to recent initiatives aimed at controlling the flow of online information, the country appears ready to tighten its grip on the Internet, too. But bloggers and web journalists continue to...
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PoliticalShift
Local Politicians Use Social Media to Connect with Voters
When television cameras panned across the room full of senators and representatives during the recent presidential address to a joint session of Congress, the audience at home caught a glimpse of several political leaders tweeting away on their BlackBerry phones. At the national level, social media has been embraced by many politicians. Even the White House has a Twitter account...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Bay Area News Project; FCC and Net Neutrality
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the new Bay Area News Project, a non-profit startup with $5 million in funding from financier Warren Hellman, in association with KQED and UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism. Plus, the FCC's new chairman Julius Genachowski makes waves by supporting new rules for Net neutrality,...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Daylife, Getty Give Aggregation Tools to Publishers (for a Price)
Upendra Shardanand re-focused Daylife from being a platform as well as destination site, putting the platform first and letting the site fall further into the background. Recently, Getty Images announced a partnership and $4 million investment in Daylife, with plans to sell Daylife services to its clients, including the SmartGalleries tool for showcasing photos online. Getty joins previous Daylife investors the New York Times Co., Craigslist's Craig Newmark and TechCrunch's Michael Arrington.
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Google Fast Flip; BusinessWeek Sale
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the latest moves by Google to make nice with online publishers. First came word the search giant was working on a micropayment solution. Then came the release of Fast Flip, a visual browsing service for news sites, with publishers splitting ad revenues with Google. Also,...
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New Mediation
The Great Debate on Micropayments and Paid Content, Part 2
In Part 1 of the great micropayments debate, David Carr tried valiantly to defend the idea of charging for heavy-hitting journalism online, while Mike Masnick disagreed vehemently, saying micropayments would seal the doom of newspaper companies. Can the two debaters be brought together to find some common ground? Read on for Part 2. Major Media Without Walls Mike Masnick: We...
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New Mediation
The Great Debate on Micropayments and Paid Content, Part 1
Newspapers need to start charging for online content to survive. If newspapers charge for content, it will hasten their extinction. These are the opposing views in the very heated debate going on among newspaper publishers, editors, journalists and new media mavens. While pay walls for newspaper content have had mixed success -- with the Wall Street Journal Online being the major shining example -- the idea of micropayments for news stories is once again gaining supporters.
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World View
Environmental Reporting Becomes Hazardous Work in Egypt, China
Since May 2009, Tamer Mabrouk has held one of the saddest records regarding human rights abuses in Egypt. He is the first blogger to receive a fine after a company sued him for having criticized its activities in Lake Manzala, which is connected to the Suez Canal. Mabrouk was fined $8,700, lost his job, and was forced to move out...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Examiner Buys NowPublic; CIMM Wants Better Metrics
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the recent buyout of NowPublic by Examiner.com for a reported $25 million. The citizen media site will combine with Examiner.com's low-pay "Examiners," who write about niche topics for the newspaper chain. Also, major TV networks, ad agencies and advertisers teamed up to form the Coalition...
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Citizen Journalism
Can Allvoices Succeed as Citizen Journalism Platform?
With Examiner.com recently buying out citizen media site NowPublic for a reported $25 million, the attention turned to similar independent sites such as Allvoices. Would it now become buyout fodder for a mainstream media company, or would it suffer the fate of so many citizen journalism sites that came before it, shutting down before finding a successful business model? To...
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MovieShift
Movie Apps Get Social as Studios Integrate Facebook Connect
Movie studios fully understand the influence that word-of-mouth reviews, whether positive or negative, have on box office receipts. Social networks are accelerating this conversation as consumers hype or hurt a movie's perception. Many observers speculate that moviegoer talk on Twitter, which often comes straight from a mobile phone inside a theater, can impact a film's opening weekend. As a result,...
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Media Usage
Kicking Ink: How the iPhone Beats the Kindle (So Far)
Last May, I finally took the full digital plunge and canceled my print subscription to the San Francisco Chronicle after 18 years. The cost was becoming too much, and I felt it was a good time to experiment with getting my news in digital form -- and to write about it here. In my first installment of "Kicking Ink,"...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Editorial Layer at Wikipedia; NYT-ProPublica Story
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the recent move by Wikipedia to add an editorial layer to some entries, the so-called "Flagged Revisions" that will only allow changes that are approved by certain editors. Plus, the New York Times Magazine will be running a story co-produced with ProPublica that cost $400,000...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Magazines Need to Embrace Multimedia Storytelling in Digital Age
This is one in an occasional series on MediaShift where I discuss issues in-depth with thought leaders in online media. The format has changed to give you a profile of the person, as well as more of our dialogue -- including audio clips. If you have suggestions for future Q&As or want to participate yourself, drop me a line...
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Media Usage
The Importance and Challenges of Universal Media Literacy Education
Elizabeth Thoman, the godmother of the "media literacy" movement recently told me that the Internet has endowed her field with a sense of salience, if not urgency. "As long as media literacy education was about television, it was perceived to be fluff," she said. "But when the Internet came along, kids didn't know how to cite sources online, and they...
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Legal Drama
Was Twitter Document Theft, and Publication by TechCrunch, Legal?
In June of this year, the personal email account of a Twitter employee was accessed, apparently as a result of an insecure password. By Twitter's own account, the unauthorized access to that account was the first in a series of actions that ultimately gained the hacker (who calls himself "Hacker Croll") access to Twitter corporate documents that were maintained...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: EveryBlock Sale to MSNBC.com; Report from Gnomedex
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the recent sale of micro-local data site EveryBlock to MSNBC.com and the issue of its open source code. Plus, Washington Post announced it would discontinue hyper-local site LoudonExtra.com. I also have a special report from tech conference Gnomedex, where UW teacher Kathy Gill is teaching...
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Culture
Gnomedex 9.0: Tech Conference Looks Deeper at Social Media
SEATTLE -- I am here attending the geekfest of geekfests called Gnomedex. Its name is a play on the old tech conference Comdex, which ironically doesn't exist anymore. Coming here is a throwback to my time as a pure tech journalist going to conferences such as Macworld and the Consumer Electronics Show. But what's interesting is that even in...
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MusicShift
What Will Record Labels Look Like in the Future?
The pioneers of the music industry couldn't have seen this coming in their wildest dreams. When publishers were selling sheet music in the late 1800s, the idea of people privately sharing their product, independent of location and physical constraints, would have seemed ridiculous. But now record labels have been decimated by the digital shift, and are rethinking their entire business...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Facebook Takes on Twitter; iPhone Backlash
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at all the recent moves Facebook has made to take on Twitter, including revamping its search, coming out with slimmed-down "Facebook Lite" and buying out FriendFeed. Plus, various high-profile tech pundits have come out against the iPhone after Apple rejected Google Voice from its App Store....
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PoliticalShift
How U.S. Departments of Defense and State Differ in Social Media Approach
The Defense Department's new head of public affairs says there is no more powerful communication tool in reaching supporters and critics alike then with a personally delivered message. What's the suggestion? Social media technologies like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter must be thoroughly engaged by civilian and military personnel at DoD in a new era of personal communication. That's what Price...
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Weblogs
Using the 'Steal-O-Meter' to Gauge if Stories Steal or Promote
In the recent dust-up between the Washington Post and Gawker, Post reporter Ian Shapira was upset when his story was excerpted on the media gossip blog Gawker. While blogs and even mainstream news articles have been quoting, excerpting and summarizing other stories and blog posts for years, there's never been accepted etiquette on how to do so. According to Shapira,...
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MovieShift
Digital Media Summit Explores New Models for Promotion and Creation
My first job was in old media. In the summer of 1986, I spent Sunday mornings constructing the San Francisco Examiner with my cousin, and venturing out via bicycle to share a heavy bundle of news, advertisements and stories from around the world. I was a paperboy. At iHollywood Forum's Digital Media Summit in Los Angeles last month, editors at...
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NewspaperShift
Five Ways to Use Mind-Mapping Tools in the Newsroom
About a week ago, I was in a meeting with some colleagues, preparing our coverage of an upcoming news event. We were jotting down ideas in long lists; it was quite literally linear thinking. But linear thinking isn't always the most helpful way of looking at a problem, because it restricts the way that you associate ideas together and limits...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Murdoch's Pay Gambit; WaPo/Gawker Tussle
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the recent comments by News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch, who says he wants to make people pay to see content on all his news sites. The comment split people into two camps: those who think news sites will have to charge something; and those who...
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NewspaperShift
How Computer-Assisted Reporters Evolved into Programmer/Journalists
It wasn't until half-way through my journalism degree that I realized I wasn't going to be a traditional reporter. I wasn't even going to be a multimedia reporter. I was going to be a programmer/journalist. Putting a slash in your title makes you more important. I haven't been able to track down the first use of the phrase, but the...
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MovieShift
Animated Film Takes Donations, DVD Sales to Pay Music Costs
When New York-based animator Nina Paley decided to distribute her independent animation project "Sita Sings the Blues" online for free, she recalled the fate of 1920s jazz vocalist Annette Hanshaw. Once hugely popular, Hanshaw had almost completely disappeared from public knowledge when Paley decided to include her songs in the score for her film. "How could this happen to an...
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World View
Century-Old Groundwork Fuels Internet Interest in Iran Today
A couple of years ago, while browsing in a Philadelphia bookstore, I found a small red hardback book. Its worn woven cover was used, but in decent condition. The side of the book, in a matching faded red background, had a small vaguely Islamic curved label that reads in gold lettering: Mission for my Country / His Imperial Majesty Mohammed...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal; Chris Anderson Goes 'News'-Free
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the recent complex search deal between Microsoft and Yahoo, with Microsoft's Bing search engine to run queries on Yahoo, and Yahoo getting 88% of revenues. Plus, Wired editor Chris Anderson recently got in trouble with an interview he gave to Der Spiegel, saying he no...
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PoliticalShift
The Highs (and Lows) of Public Officials on Twitter
Are high profile public officials using Twitter as a noble tool to bypass the proverbial "mainstream media filter" and communicate directly with constituencies? Or do they just see it as yet one more wall in the online echo chamber, something merely to influence and/or amplify mainstream media stories? The answer probably lies somewhere in between as I found from examining...
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Legal Drama
Changing the Law to Save Newspapers: Some Modest Proposals
As newsroom staffs continue to shrink and newspapers go out of business at an alarming rate, the difficulty newspapers have experienced in gaining economic traction online has been blamed on blogs and websites that link to content on newspaper sites. According to some, this kind of "free riding" is responsible at least in part for the distress in which newspapers...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: TechCrunch's Twitter Docs; YouTube Profits?
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I look at the controversy surrounding tech blog TechCrunch posting internal documents from Twitter that were obtained from a hacker stealing them. Some people defend TechCrunch as running newsworthy documents, while others think they are harming Twitter too much. I also look at possible profits coming from video...
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Business
What does journalism cost? That's a question that's being batted around a lot lately as the economic case for and against traditional newsrooms gets made in the press, on the web, and certainly across well-polished boardroom tables. In an article on J-Source, Kirk LaPointe, managing editor of the Vancouver Sun, argued that when the cost of news is sliced and...
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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...
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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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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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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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Legal Drama
Criminal Cases Push Newspapers to Identify Anonymous Commenters
Anonymous comments on newspapers blogs are drawing attention from prosecutors seeking information about criminal matters, once again raising the issue of whether newspaper blog comments are protected under state press shield laws. Last fall, I wrote about two civil cases involving claims of defamation, where two separate courts refused to order newspapers to disclose information that would lead to the...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Special Iran Election Edition
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's special edition, I look at the way that social media have played a vital role in the breaking news happening in Iran after their contested presidential election. Though the government has cracked down on the opposition, censored the media and blocked websites and even text messaging, the news has...
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Culture
Religious Evangelists Spread Faith through Social Media
Recently, Cardinal Sean Brady of Ireland called on Irish Catholics to spread positive prayers via Twitter, texting or email. It's nothing new to see religious leaders using new media to try to energize their congregations or for religious adherents to use Internet technology to connect with others of similar faith. (Mark Glaser has written previously about Church 2.0 -- the...
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Legal Drama
A Brief History of AP's Battles with News Aggregators
The news is information, and information wants to be free, as the saying goes. But for news organizations, the news is a product that is collected, recorded and sold for profit. And those profits are now under extreme economic pressure, threatening some news organizations with extinction. Both online and traditional news outlets are regrouping, retrenching and reconsidering their business models...
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Weblogs
Media Criticism Flourishes Online, Putting Legacy Media Under Microscope
In November 2007, Time Magazine columnist Joe Klein wrote a piece for the magazine chastising House Democrats for wording in their version of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Not long after the column hit the web, Salon columnist Glenn Greenwald wrote a piece arguing that "for the sake of its own credibility, Time Magazine needs immediately to prohibit Joe Klein...
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EducationShift
Is University of Missouri's iPod Touch 'Requirement' Fair?
The news out of the Missouri School of Journalism two weeks ago was a little confusing. The school announced it would be requiring all incoming freshmen journalism pre-majors to purchase an iPod Touch or iPhone. At least that was the lede in stories by the Columbia Missourian and The Maneater. But the "requirement" wasn't really a "requirement," if you read...
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NewspaperShift
Kicking Ink: The Struggles of a Print Newspaper Unsubscriber
I knew the day was coming, but it was still a shock when the day came. Groggy-eyed in the early morning light, I slowly went down the four flights of stairs in the front of my building and looked down. Nothing. For 18 generally uninterrupted years, I had the San Francisco Chronicle delivered to me, except when neighbors stole...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: WSJ's Social Media Guidelines; NYT's Pay Plans
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. This week I look at the Wall Street Journal's code of conduct for reporters and editors, with guidelines for using Twitter and social media sites. Plus, the New York Times is considering two different plans for charging for online content -- a metering system and subscription system -- according to a report...
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MobileShift
Live-Blogging EconSM Gathering About Social Networking on Mobiles
SAN FRANCISCO -- I am at the UCSF Mission Bay Conference Center right down the hill from where I live in Potrero Hill. Yes, it is "Bike to Work Day" today in San Francisco, but I couldn't bike down in nice clothes. So I split the difference and walked most of the way here. The topic is how social...
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5Across
Twitter Mania: Will Twitter Change the World?
Twitter has become a multi-headed phenomenon since MediaShift devoted a week to covering micro-blogging two years ago. Twitter is now established as a new form of communication, an early warning system for breaking news, and a startup company in San Francisco that has no discernable income. And with the power of Oprah, CNN and Ashton Kutcher, it has become...
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Wikis
Wikipedia Art: Vandalism or Performance Art?
Artists Scott Kildall and Nathaniel Stern developed the idea to create a self-referencing Wikipedia article late last year. The plan was to write a new article, titled Wikipedia Art that was wholly devoted to the fact that the page had been created -- an article that was completely meta and self-referential. The axiom that all press is good press is...
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NewspaperShift
PressTerra Tests Newspaper 'Printernet' on Iberian Peninsula
In my March 24 column, I talked about the "printernet," a system of networked desktop publishing where the desktops and printers are spread throughout the whole world. This is another way of describing the new printing model of "distribute and print," where you send a digital file via the Internet to the printing facility closest to the final distribution point...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Kindle DX; Google vs. Newspapers
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. This week I look at the unveiling of the new wide-screen Kindle DX aimed at newspaper, magazine and college textbook readers. Will people pay $489 for it? Plus, I look at the AP and News Corp.'s moves against Google, with the AP playing hardball for running content in Google News. Meanwhile, Google...
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Public Relations
Issue Advocacy on the Internet, Part 1
The Internet has been alternately characterized as participatory, conversational, and collaborative. By empowering its users to create (not just consume) content, it is by design a more democratic medium than any other. There has been plenty of discussion about how, by giving everyone a public voice, the Internet is upending conventional power dynamics and enabling a new generation of opinion...
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Business
Live-Blogging RJI Symposium on New Tools, New Business Models
COLUMBIA, MO -- I am at the new Reynolds Journalism Institute building on the campus of the University of Missouri, my alma mater. It's interesting to be in a new building looking out on a campus that is so familiar and so different now. The mission of the RJI is to "develop and test ways to improve journalism through...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Swine Flu Online; Disney Joins Hulu
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. This week I look at the positive -- and negative -- way the Internet, blogs and Twitter have spread information about the swine flu. There are great resources, maps and tracking sites, but it's easy to get in a panic as well. Also, Disney joined up in the video site Hulu, putting...
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EducationShift
Advice from the Pros to Journalism Graduates
It's an anxious time to be graduating from journalism school. The economy is in the tank and newsrooms are being decimated. But yet, it is also a great time to be a journalist, with more news and information available than ever before and more ways than ever to reach audiences. At the recent International Symposium on Online Journalism at...
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Digging Deeper
Building the Ideal Community Information Hub
Problem: Where can people find the local information they need, whether it's about a school board meeting, a new construction project or a nearby robbery? Solution: A community hub, with all the information aggregated in one online source and pushed out via libraries, in-person meetings, community radio, small run print publications and cable access TV. That's my conclusion after studying...
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MusicShift
How Bands Can Avoid Making 7 Big SEO Mistakes
There is an entire school of thought, as well as a sizable industry, dedicated to the optimization of websites to show up higher in Google search rankings. Search engine optimization (SEO) techniques vary from simple content changes to tricks that game Google's system, referred to as "black hat" SEO. Optimization can be a complex topic -- read Mark Glaser's article...
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Culture
How Charities Harness Social Media to Raise Awareness, Money
On April 14, actor Hugh Jackman pledged to give AUS $100,000 to the charity that could best convince him, via Twitter, that it was deserving of the award. On Friday, Jackman announced that, unable to decide, he had chosen two winners to split the prize: Operation of Hope, a medical foundation that donates surgical procedures to children in developing countries...
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NewspaperShift
The Fallacy of the 'Print Is Dead' Meme
Common sense tells us that print is not going away. If print is no longer an important part of your life, that is undeniable. But to extrapolate from personal experience to a statement about what is going to happen in the world doesn't work. But that's exactly what many of the people foretelling the death of print are doing. That's...
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4MR
4 Minute Roundup: Pirate Bay Case; Oprah-geddon on Twitter
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. This week I look at the recent ruling in the Pirate Bay case, where four men at the file-sharing site were found guilty and sentenced to a year in prison -- but are asking for a retrial due to a conflict of interest by the judge. I also mention @Oprah's entry to...
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Legal Drama
Coalinga Newspaper Not Liable for Running MySpace Rant
A post on a social networking site like MySpace could end up anywhere, and depending upon where it ends up, the result could be catastrophic. We've covered that territory before on MediaShift, discussing a case involving discipline of a teacher for conduct shown on a MySpace page. In Moreno v. Hanford Sentinel, a California appeals court considered a case...
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NewspaperShift
Ohio Newspapers Share Content, But Don't Give Up Hope for AP
For many, last week's news that the Associated Press planned to begin to crack down on news aggregators that link and quote its content wasn't news at all. Media industry publications have long been reporting on the friction between the AP and aggregators -- a series of verbal swipes made at conferences and in news articles that perhaps reached an...
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PoliticalShift
Live-Blogging Netroots Nation's New Media Summit
SAN FRANCISCO -- I am in the swanky Bently Reserve building in downtown San Francisco for the Netroots Nation's New Media Summit, affliated with the liberal blog Daily Kos. On the agenda today are panels on the evolution of journalism and new media, the wisdom of crowds, social media for social good, and using video to expand your audience....
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: #AmazonFail; Journalism Online; Ashton Kutcher Speaks!
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. This week I look at the controversy surrounding #AmazonFail, a protest that formed on Twitter when the giant bookseller delisted thousands of gay-themed books from its bestseller lists. Amazon eventually said it was a mistake by an employee in France, but the PR damage was done. I also look at the unveiling...
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Thought Leader Q&A
How Tech Publisher IDG Grows Revenues During Recession
Patrick McGovern, IDG: "[At InfoWorld.com] our audience numbers and frequency of visits soared. Even though we gave up 40% of revenues from stopping print, we actually had 10% more revenue growth absolutely. The online revenue didn't only make up for the missing print revenue, but we actually had absolute growth."
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5Across
Everywhere you look there are dark signs for newspapers: bankruptcies, less print editions, the threat of closings in San Francisco and Boston, layoffs and pay cuts. But the journalism of newspapers will live on in digital form online. How will this after-life look? We brought together five people for the latest episode of 5Across who are working for newspapers...
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MediaShift Innovation Spotlight
ProPublica's ChangeTracker Lets You Watch Government's Moves
The Obama administration has already made strides toward greater transparency and better use of technology in government, but has promised even more. It's important to make sure that President Obama and his people act on those promises. One way to do that is to watch the government's footsteps online. ChangeTracker makes this possible, and not just for government sites -- it can be used to track changes on any website.
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: HuffPost Investigative Fund; AP on Mobile Apps
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. This week I look at the new Huffington Post Investigative Journalism Fund, which has $1.75 million to start a new non-partisan site that will do investigative work and then give it away to any news organization. I also look at the latest moves by Disney, distributing video on YouTube and possibly on...
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BookShift
Glaser & Son Consider Pros and Cons of Kindle 2
I am what you might call the late early adopter. Rather than live on the bleeding edge, I wait safely until Version 2 comes out with the bugs and problems fixed. I got Windows 98 in '99, waited for the iPhone 3G, and checked out the Kindle 2 rather than 1. But when my e-book reader from Amazon arrived in...
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MusicShift
Maximizing the SXSW Experience with Social Media
Every year, thousands of bands, music industry professionals, and hardcore fans flock to Austin, Texas for the mighty South By Southwest (SXSW) music festival. Over the course of nine days, three distinct but interwoven conferences take place -- Interactive, Music, and Film. For the uninitiated, SXSW can be an overwhelming, daunting experience. But for tech-savvy patrons, technology has made the...
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Legal Drama
'Fox & Friends' Hosts Not Liable for Repeating Associated Content Parody
As newspapers are closing or abandoning their print editions, online news sources are growing in importance -- as are sites that rely on user-submitted news stories. But with so much unfiltered news content available online, how do you separate the accurate from the inaccurate and truth from parody? You might think that traditional news sources would be better able...
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: All Things Twitter!
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. This week is a special edition devoted almost entirely to Twitter. I talk about the huge popularity of Twitter now -- with 9.8 million unique visitors to its website alone in February, according to comScore -- and how the startup is now bringing in revenues thanks to a deal with Federated Media...
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Philosophy
Farewell to the Tyranny of Reporters
When I give lectures about the future of journalism, recently I have been making reference to the weakening, if not the entire overthrow, of what I term The Dictatorship of the Writer. What I mean is simply that in the pre-Internet past reporters and writers of various sorts would nose about a subject and after a certain amount of research...
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: State of the Media; Jurors' Itchy Twitter Finger
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I talk about the new gloomy State of the Media report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ), and the positive side for online media. I ask "Just One Question" to PEJ director Tom Rosensteil, and cover the latest news about jurors going online, Twittering and Facebooking...
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Legal Drama
How Crowdsourcing Could Revolutionize Patent-Busting
Ricky James Robertson knew very little about touch-screen personal navigation devices when he first began reviewing patents on them back in November of last year. He was surfing Slashdot when he came across a launch announcement for a company called Article One Partners; the group offered awards for as much as $50,000 to individuals who could invalidate specific patents...
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Thought Leader Q&A
BlogTalkRadio Lets Anyone (Including the Pentagon) Start Talk Shows
BlogTalkRadio CEO Alan Levy: "Three or four months into doing this, we started broadcasting live from Afghanistan, with an embed there named Scott Kesterson. Every Friday morning he would be live from Kabul or from Kandahar, and people could listen in and ask him questions. And the soldiers were listening to what was going on...Now, the Pentagon has a network on BlogTalkRadio. Now you know the medium has arrived when the Pentagon is embracing it."
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MusicShift
Five Tips for Musicians to Engage Their Fans Digitally
There was a time when celebrity musicians were positioned as unreachable idols. Those days are long gone; in today's wired marketplace, musicians have to forge a personal relationship with their audience to keep their fans' interest. And for many, that means creating opportunities for fans to have an inside look into all aspects of an artist's life.
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: Hearst E-Reader; Boxee vs. Hulu
Here's the latest 4MR audio report from MediaShift. In this week's edition, I talk about how the New York Times launches hyper-local sites right as Google's Tim Armstrong launches Patch.com hyper-local sites -- both in New Jersey. Plus, Hearst says it will develop a new e-reader device like a Kindle, but with a larger, flexible screen, likely coming from E-Ink,...
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5Across
Lively Roundtable Discussion on Making Compelling Online Video
When I launched MediaShift in early 2006, I wanted to go beyond writing about all the trends in online media -- blogging, podcasting, online video, etc. -- and actually do those things myself. Walk my talk. I recently launched the 4-Minute Roundup audio podcast, and today I'm launching a new monthly video roundtable called 5Across that will include 5...
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PoliticalShift
Public Diplomacy in the Digital Age, Part 2
We're a nation at war. At war not with another nation, but with a hateful ideology violently expressed: terrorism. Every militaristic move a terrorist makes is designed to intimidate, frustrate, agitate....in short, communicate. Physical destruction and loss of life, crass as it sounds, are means to those ends. In this sense, the war of ideas is no longer a metaphor or a figure of speech -- it's a literal war in which we now find ourselves. And in a war of ideas, public diplomacy will be an important tool in our national security toolkit.
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Weblogs
Diet Bloggers Deal in Brutal Honesty in Quest for Weight Loss
On February 11, Scott Schroeder fell. He'd eaten at a McDonald's for supper and gorged himself on a Big Mac, fries, regular Coke, and a dollar chicken sandwich. And though he managed to pull out of the trenches the next morning, he fell from grace later that day when he stopped at a Taco Bell and ate two soft tacos,...
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MobileShift
The Promise and Challenges for Mobile Media in the Developing World
Mobile phones are everywhere. They have long surpassed the Internet in number of users, and in some parts of the world, mobile phones now rival television in reach. The mobile tech economy (at least until recently) was booming with telcoms and handset manufacturers fiercely competing in emerging markets, and software giants like Microsoft and Google entering the mobile industry in...
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4MR
4-Minute Roundup: Facebook Democracy; Newspaper Strife
This week, I'm soft-launching the new weekly 4-Minute Roundup -- or 4MR -- audio report from MediaShift. I will embed the audio here in a blog post, and will make it available via iTunes for you to subscribe. Each Friday, I'll look at the week's top stories, give an overview of what's been happening, answer one of your "burning questions"...
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Legal Drama
How Animal Rights Activists Beat the Rodeos in Videotaping Events
As cell phone cameras and palm-sized videocams have become cheap and ubiquitous, there is little if anything that is immune from being documented and displayed on the web, as numerous celebrities and sports stars have learned to their regret. In the realm of hard news, the result is that citizen journalists are able to bypass big media news organizations and...
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PoliticalShift
How Obama Inspired Israeli Politicians' Online Campaigns
Just as television changed the way political campaigns were run in the 1960s, the Internet has changed the way political campaigns are run in the 2000s. Upwards of 70 million people watched the more aesthetically-pleasing JFK debating the more radio-suited Nixon on the tube in 1960. Nearly 50 years later, the YouTube debates of 2008 allowed people to ask their...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Productivity Guru Gina Trapani Balances Blogging, Coding, Community
This is one in an occasional series on MediaShift where I discuss issues in-depth with thought leaders in online media. The format has changed to give you a profile of the person, as well as more of our dialogue -- including audio clips. If you have suggestions for future Q&As or want to participate yourself, drop me a line via...
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Public Relations
Public Diplomacy in the Digital Age, Part 1
"What is public diplomacy?" was the first question that Ted Koppel posed at the recent Media as a Global Diplomat conference attended largely by public diplomacy professionals. I was surprised that the panelists, including the outgoing Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy & Public Affairs, couldn't readily agree on an answer to this foundational question. Koppel continued, "I thought [public...
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Social Networking
How Celebrity Imposters Hurt Twitter's Credibility
By the time the news spread that the Dalai Lama had opened a Twitter account it no longer seemed such a novelty that a high profile individual would join the micro-blogging service, even if he was a divine being. The account gathered nearly 20,000 followers before Twitter pulled the plug two days later when representatives of the Tibetan leader informed...
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World View
Monarchs Use 'Lese Majeste' Laws to Silence Online Critics
"When it comes to a monarchy, all reason goes away," according to a Thai reporter quoted in a Reporters Without Borders report on free expression in Thailand published this week. He was commenting on the multiple charges of lese majeste -- injury or insult to the king -- brought against journalists and writers in his country, where speaking negatively about...
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Guides
E-books are electronic books, or books you can read on your computer or on handheld devices such as e-readers or smartphones. The first e-book was likely created by Michael Hart at the University of Illinois in 1971, when he typed in the text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence onto an early version of the Internet. Hart founded the Gutenberg Project, an online collection of e-books that are taken from public domain books.
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Public Relations
In Hudson River Landing, PR Pros Were Not First Responders
In times of crisis, communications professionals have an important -- and increasingly complicated -- role to play. We used to be the first to offer public responses to catastrophes, able to develop elucidating messages before much of the news media was on the scene. Nowadays, the type of media that will report on a crisis is often as unforeseen as...
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Thought Leader Q&A
Rufus Griscom Mixes High, Low Brow on Babble Parenting Site
Rufus Griscom: "Online content, if it's not user-aggregated or user-generated, is seen as rather old and creaky. But I would argue that there are lots of shades of gray. All of the online content sites are becoming a hybrid of user-aggregated, user-generated and edited content, because feedback and citizen journalism and ratings and suggestions are becoming part of these sites."
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MediaShift Innovation Spotlight
BronxRhymes Uses Locality, Maps to Track History of Hip-Hop
BronxRhymes is an attempt to raise awareness of the history of hip-hop in the Bronx, the northwestern borough of New York City where the musical style is thought to have originated. The history of hip-hop is illustrated through rhymes and plotted on an online map.
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Social Media
Journalists Still a-Twitter About Social Media
Journalists are obsessed with Twitter. Obsessed. They use it, talk about it, analyze it, deconstruct it, reconstruct it, love it, hate it, capitalize on it, become experts on it, monetize it, argue about it, and become micro-famous on it. They are mesmerized with what it is and they are as giddy as Tom Cruise on Oprah just thinking about what...
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Legal Drama
U.S. Supreme Court (Finally) Kills Online Age Verification Law
In 1998, the U.S. Congress enacted the Child Online Protection Act (COPA), a law intended to control child access to sexually explicit material on the Internet. The law was immediately challenged on free speech and other grounds and its enforcement was delayed. After ten years of litigation, on January 22 the U.S. Supreme Court dealt the final blow to...
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PoliticalShift
Obama, Congress Enlist 'Direct to Constituent' Communications
Professional communicators are paying close attention to the rise of "direct to consumer" (DTC) communications. This is a phenomenon largely enabled by the rapid proliferation and adoption of online technologies, whereby organizations can communicate directly to the public without filters or mediation from the press. Corporate blogs or advocacy groups' online "action alerts" are just a couple examples. As a...
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Media Usage
How Forwarded Email Jokes, Hoaxes Evolved with Social Media
When I first ventured online in the late '90s, my in-box was constantly flooded with email forwards. Friends and co-workers alike tossed around lists of jokes, hoaxes and cautionary urban legends, pleas about a dying child in Idaho that needed your prayers or horror stories about human fingers discovered in fast food hamburgers. Today it seems that there are fewer...
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EducationShift
UBC Begins Study Program of New Media and Society
The young men and women entering university today are digital natives who have grown up in a world of Microsoft, Google and Apple. They have lived through a time when the Internet went from being a highly specialized system used by scientists to a ubiquitous utility that defines how they engage with the world. But while today's students may blog...
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Digging Deeper
Vodafone's Child Porn Filter Blocks Innocent Czech Tech Blogs
Last summer, the British cell phone carrier Vodafone announced it would be offering a new filtering service for its Czech customers. "Child pornography and promotion of racism [are] such socially dangerous content that we have access to it automatically blocked for all of our customers," said Philip Premysl, senior manager of corporate social responsibility of Vodafone in the press release....
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Weblogs
Can Blog Awards Identify Quality Online Content?
I met the news that my blog, Bloggasm, had been nominated for a 2008 Weblog Award with a mixture of amusement and apathy. I had watched last year as my RSS feeds became clogged with the incestuous link trolling common with such contests. The Weblog Awards, like others of its kind, are based on a popular vote, guaranteeing that most...
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MarketingShift
Transparency as a PR Principle, Not a Tactic
We used to say in my profession -- public relations -- that you shouldn't say or write anything that you wouldn't want to turn up on the front page of the New York Times. Now what I like to tell clients instead is: You shouldn't say or write anything that you wouldn't want to turn up in Google search results....
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PoliticalShift
Government 2.0: How Social Media Could Transform Gov PR
It's easy to see governments as nameless, faceless monoliths, something impersonal or, even worse, untrustworthy. Much of that is because government culture remains steeped in traditional ideas about public relations and outreach work, notions that have become archaic in an Internet-enabled, hyper-connected world. Just as private companies are learning to embrace social media to manage brand reputations, governments must adapt...
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MediaShift
Top 10 MediaShifting Stories of 2008
Once again, it's time to look back on the year that was, and consider the new media highlights. Overall, it's been a topsy-turvy year, with a deep recession and historic election giving us reason to despair and hope. The economic turmoil pushed people to read online news at historic levels this past fall, and econ blogs became required reading for...
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Legal Drama
Can U.S. Laws Protect Online Speech from Foreign Libel Suits?
"...in cyberspace, the First Amendment is a local ordinance." That's a remark famously made in 1997 by John Perry Barlow, one of the co-founders of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Barlow's complete statement is well worth re-reading but one implication of this particular remark is that the reach of American constitutional values may be limited by our country's physical borders. When...
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World View
Innovative Web Video Series Shows Real Life in Gaza, Israel
One sense of fear, two armies, and three rows of electrical fences separate Israel and the Gaza Strip. For the past 10 years, it has been difficult for residents of these two places to ever imagine meeting one another in person. Now, thanks to a new documentary project produced by French/German television station Arte TV and a handful of Israeli...
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NewspaperShift
Pulitzers Open to Online-Only Entrants -- But Who Qualifies?
When it was announced earlier this year that Joshua Marshall, founder of TalkingPointsMemo, had become the first blogger to win a George Polk Award for his coverage of the attorney firing scandal, many recognized the news as a milestone for online journalism. A somewhat condescending New York Times headline read, "Blogger, Sans Pajamas, Rakes Muck and a Prize." Earlier this...
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