Idea Lab

SochiReporter Launches with Time Machine, Wiki Guidebook

by Alexander Zolotarev
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

I'm glad to say that SochiReporter, my Knight-funded project, launched on October 27. This was a very important day for me, and for our team. We tested SochiReporter for about two months before the public launch, inviting both web experts and users to comment on various aspects of the site. In the days before the launch, I didn't sleep a wink. But this is natural. I was very excited about the launch, and did my best to convey how cool and innovative SochiReporter is to the journalists and students that gathered on launch day in the hall of one of...

• November 20, 2009
• 3 comments

Using Social Media in the Newsroom

by J.D. Lasica
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

I'm working with the Poynter Institute to put together an online class for senior newspaper executives on how to use social media in the newsroom. From what I can discern, it's one of the least understood concepts in traditional media. For the Knight Digital Media Center program conducted through the Poynter, I'll likely be giving a webinar and taking part in online instruction around how journalists are already using the tools of social media. So I'd love to see some specific examples of how you're using social media (aside from blogs), or examples of how other sites are using...

• March 4, 2009
• 3 comments

The Pitch: Bringing Together Seattle's Best Media Minds

by Ryan Sholin
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

So here's The Pitch: Put together some of the smartest, most engaged, passionate thinkers about the changing media landscape in a room, buy them a few drinks, and let the conversation flow. That's the premise behind a series of meet-ups in Seattle, put together by Jason Preston, a social media consultant with the Parnassus Group. Jason blogs at Eat Sleep Publish along with Mónica Guzmán, a reporter and blogger at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. (Here's a BeatBlogging.org interview Pat Thornton did with Mónica about cultivating conversation.) If the premise of The Pitch sounds familiar, check out the Copycamp archives for ideas...

• November 20, 2008
• 1 comment

UCLA Students Got Election News from Social Media

by Anthony Pesce
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

An exit poll conducted Nov. 4 by the Daily Bruin suggests, unsurprisingly, that UCLA students received a substantial amount of information about the election from the Internet and social media sites. Eight hundred sixteen students were polled at five locations on and around campus, and we ended up with a margin of error of 3%. This was one of the questions and our results: Please circle the following places where you received a significant amount of information regarding the current election? Please circle all that apply. Television Debates ----------------------- 71% Television News -------------------------- 66% Word of Mouth ---------------------------- 56% Other...

• November 5, 2008
• 1 comment

Not All Journalism Students Hip to Social Media

by Anthony Pesce
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

Right now I'm attending a national conference in Kansas City (Associated Collegiate Press/College Media Advisers) for student news organizations, and I must say I've been underwhelmed. There was a keynote yesterday afternoon from Rich Beckman, a professor at the University of Miami School of Communication. I think he started off strong, outlining where newspapers need to go on the Internet and mentioning the recent announcement from the Christian Science Monitor to go online only. Later in the speech (see attached YouTube video, recorded in very low light from my Flip Cam) he outlined how the Internet is changing things for...

• October 31, 2008
• 1 comment

From iPhone to Facebook to Live Photo-Blogging

by Anthony Pesce
2008 Knight News Challenge Winner

On some level I was live photo blogging (plogging?) from that party, complete with comments on some of the images. If we could create an application, which wouldn’t be hard, to upload iPhone pictures automatically to a blog or to the front page of a newspaper website the possibilities are endless.

• August 14, 2008
• 2 comments

NY Times to Test Crowdsourcing Its Data

by J.D. Lasica
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

News about a potentially big deal in the newspaper industry broke just before the holiday weekend. No, not another story about a chain swallowing another chain, or news about the formation of yet another online advertising platform that's doomed to underperform. Instead, this was a kind of news that only a geek would love: MediaBistro reported, and Read/Write Web republished, word that the New York Times is planning to release an open API this summer. Huh? An API, as Wikipedia reminds us, is short for application programming interface. Those of us in or near Silicon Valley are well aware of...

• May 27, 2008
• 1 comment

2007: The Year of Social Media

by J.D. Lasica
2007 Knight News Challenge Winner

A few thoughts about the pivotal year in media just behind us, and a look at some of the trends that will extend into 2008 and well beyond. Social movements and cultural trends rarely fit into neat chronological packages, and that's true here as well. A year ago, you'll recall, Time named "You" as the Person of the Year, chronicling the rise of the personal media revolution best exemplified by the spectacular growth of YouTube. It's become a truism that we're all now part of the media, and more of us have grown comfortable in that role, as cell...

• December 28, 2007
• 1 comment