Idea Lab

Overcoming Drupal Challenges as SochiReporter Nears Launch

by Alexander Zolotarev
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

SochiReporter is getting ready to launch on the web and for mobile users. We spent the last three weeks fixing linguistic, technical and design bugs, all with the goal of maximizing ease of use. So far we have drawn a fabulous group of people from both local and virtual communities: garage tech geeks and web schizophrenics, coffee-shop amateurs, and folks who want to use the site and offer feedback. Their comments have helped us to get better. We also attracted an avid gamer in Sochi who spends most of his time in an underground Internet café at the center...

• September 18, 2009
• No comments

An Update on ReportingOn 2.0 Development

by Ryan Sholin
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

Here's an eight-minute tour of ReportingOn 2.0, as it stood on our development server on Tuesday June 17, 2009. I'm extremely psyched to report that we're on track for a July 1 launch of the second phase of this Knight News Challenge funded project. As a quick refresher, ReportingOn 1.0 launched back in October 2008, as a rather Twitter-like backchannel for beat reporters to connect based on common interests. Some pieces of the first iteration worked out well, and some of them -- well, we learned a lot. What's next? Launching version 2.0 on July 1, releasing the open source...

• June 19, 2009
• 1 comment

Strategizing Media Software Development: Some Lessons Learned

by Guy Berger
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

Here's a story showing the extent of complications in getting a system going, so I'll tell it simply. It's my non-geek experience of work for a community newspaper that aims to produce world-class code for community papers that is singing-dancing, super-portable and open-source. The history started in the buzz around the World Summit on Information Society which helped to move OSS into the mental horizon of non-techies like me. When the Rhodes journalism school where I work acquired Grocott's Mail, the local newspaper in 2004, we had to install a load of new PCs to accommodate students who would now...

• February 5, 2009
• No comments

The Includer
Episode 8
People Vs. Ideas

by Andrius Kulikauskas
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

Open culture is the interplay of open people rather than open ideas. I proposed an idea, but actually, I proposed to bring it to life. I and my team didn’t win funding to build Includers. Instead, I won the chance to blog about them at the PBS Idealab website. But what is the point of blogging about a one-year-old idea? My challenge is to link together those who care and bring to life something new. The challenge I bring to the Knight Foundation is to call for knights - for champions - for includers, rather than for ideas like the Includer.

• November 1, 2008
• 5 comments

The Includer
Episode 7
Vote For Losers!

by Andrius Kulikauskas
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

The Includer is the voting machine for ones dreams.(There are no apostrophes on this Bosnian keyboard.) I am blogging thanks to last years Knight News Challenge.  November 1 is the last day to apply this year. What I really like about this contest is that everybody can see your entry.  Here is mine: Help Room.  Please rate my entry and add your comments! Paul Bradshaw (Birmingham City University), Stefan Lewandowski (3form media) and Nick Booth (former BBC journalist) have teamed together to propose Help Me Investigate. Com, an online iterative open-source investigatory community. I was hoping to draw attention to...

• October 29, 2008
• No comments

Tips to Win a Knight News Challenge Grant

by Amy Gahran
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

Earlier this week I was at WeMedia 08 in Miami, where I was on a panel about the Knight News Challenge. (Last year, Adam Glenn and I won a Knight News Challenge grant to fund our community journalism project, the Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker.) Also on the panel were Gary Kebbel, director of the News Challenge progam for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and fellow grantee Nora Paul of the University of Minnesota. Here are five points I think are useful to anyone considering applying for a News Challenge grant, based on Adam's and my experience so...

• February 29, 2008
• 1 comment