Top 10 Twitter Tweets at NewsTools2008 Conference
10. @amylive: Good mix this session: videographers, citJ, nonprofit, journos, student, educator.
9. @amylive: How do you create a market for info that people need but don't nec. want? Learn how to make chocolate-covered broccoli!
8. @Digidave: @amylive is rocking the comments through newstools.
7. @joshwolf is averse to advertising, which limits options
6. time for a tequila!
5. @acensky: glad to finally get on Yahoo!s wireless network.
4. @amylive: WSJ on MS's hostile bid to take over Yahoo today: http://snurl.com/26tz4. & we're here! But forbidden to speak to Yahooers
3. @joshwolf: In drupal circles Civi-CRM is like the F-word was in elementary school... I think I have to sit on the wall at the next recess now...
2. @joshsprague: Did I just hear, "Today's media...is like pornography basically?" Did that refer to legacy media?
1. @kegill: i first read the name as "new stools" and went "what?!?"
"If I really wanted traffic, I'd post porn."
Tuning into the NewsTools2008 conference has been an inspiring experience to say the least, as journalists and tech geeks combine brainpower to brainstorm new ideas about the future of journalism.
But at the end of the day, I can't help but think... is all this brainstorming, time and effort all worth it? Will our audiences actually care?
Let's look at two questions I discussed with some bloggers yesterday:
1) Did you get the audience?
2) Did you get the advertising dollars?
Journalists can plop all their best news content online, but if they’re not addressing the above two questions – it just doesn’t matter. Afterall, what pays for journalism? Advertising dollars. And what brings more advertising dollars? A larger audience.
This causes a dilemma, as we look at what content tends to get the most hits on the Internet. It's not news, that’s for sure.
Celebrity gossip? Porn? Yes. Yes.
Perhaps that's why I overheard one blogger at NewsTools 2008 say the following:
“If I really wanted traffic, I’d post porn.”
Vanity Fair had one of it’s biggest days, hits-wise, when the juicy story about childstar Miley Cyrus (character: Hannah Montana) broke last week. The 15-year-old Disney actress and pop singer, posed nude with a bed sheet in the June issue of the magazine. So the masses read that story the most – they didn’t turn to election coverage, local news, or even sports stories as much as they turned to a naked 15-year-old.
Even today, four days later, Miley Cyrus is still the top Yahoo! search and Annie Leibovitz, the celebrity photographer who took the image, is eighth in Yahoo! searches.
So how do journalists, who want to cover important stories compete? How does information compete with entertainment?
Do we turn to salacious, sensational journalism to be competitive, or do we stick to our traditional journalistic values and sink into oblivion?
How do you stick to your standards and still put food on your table at the end of the day? It's a bothersome, but true dilemma. Journalists have to deal with the challenge of balancing information with entertainment.
We at the NewsTools2008 conference can sit around all day discussing promising new journalism tools that will benefit democracy… but is that even what the public wants?
After we invest all this brainpower, money and time into creating better journalism, will anyone tune in?
Is it worth it?
Let’s be optimistic, but realistic as well.
Deadline: Talking to Tony Kuttner
Deadline is a game played through facebook that tests the player's knowledge of the news. The first time I encountered it, I was knee deep in school work. Yet, this facebook app managed to steal over an hour of my time. It was a fair trade though as I found myself thoroughly caught up on recent events when I finally managed to quit.
At NewsTools2008 yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit down with Tony Kuttner of NewzWag.com. He's on the team that created Deadline and shared his thoughts on
Here are the highlights:
-Other news quiz applications have relied on the player knowing trivia (what was the general's name that...) rather than knowing about the story. Someone who just quotes trivia when talking makes for a dull conversationalist. Delivering more of the story and what's interesting about that story makes for better conversations and therefore a better game.
-Regular, new content is key. They aim to get 15-20 new stories up every weekday and 10 each day on weekends.
-Aesthetics were important to the team. It had to look good. It's hard to test exactly how much of an effect this has on whether people play, but it seems important. (Anecdotaly, I think the design makes me more prone to stick around.)
-Including interesting, sometimes offbeat, stories and making it easy to share with your friends is important to the community aspect.
-The application was created as part of a team that included 3 developers. None were game developers, but some members of the team were avid gamers. (Avid gaming seems important as they get a lot of little things right).
Personalization and localization through geo-technology
I'm here at the NewsTools 2008 conference in Sunnyvale, California and had the opportunity to sit in on a session with Paul Lamb of Man on a Mission Consulting. The topic of discussion was "Personalization, localization, geocoding, geotracking, geo-broadcasting." Through our discussion Lamb outlined his interest in leveraging technology for the social good, and the new technologies that will help us achieve this. To make sure we're all on the same page, here are some definitions provided by Lamb...
"1. Personalization: Personalization is tailoring a consumer product, electronic or written medium to a uswer based on personal detals or characteristics they provide. Examples Newsfeed aggregators like Netvibes or Mixx.
2. Localization: Local news and information with community and neighborhood relevant information. This includes both hyper-local search and community spedific sites like i-neighbors.org, the Gotham Gazette (New York City), and Everyblock.
3. Geocoding: Geocoding or geotagging is the process of assigning geographic identifiers (e.g., codes or geographic coordinates expressed as latitues-longitude) to map features with other data records, such as street addresses. Examples include Google Mapsand Google Earth.
4. Geotracking: Is the ability to track locations and peoplge using online mapping or place-based sensors like GPS, Wifi, cell phone triangulation, and RFID tags. Examples include Meetro, Imity and Myloki.
5. Geo-broadcasting: Geo-broadcasting involves live video or audio broadcasting that is simultaneously tracked using online mapping and geotracking tools. Example seero.com"
Many of the people in our discussion group were curious as to how this geo-technology would be utilized by in low-income communities, after all, not everyone has a Blackberry or iPhone. Lamb explained how mobile technology is booming, even in third world countries. And that the beauty of this, is you don't need a computer to access. It's much more likely that someone from a low-income area will have a cell phone vs. a laptop or desktop computer. Thus, the window of opportunity for geo-tracking is widened tremendously in comparison to technology that is solely computer based.
This idea is that people will be able to connect as a community to disseminate knowledge surrounding a specific geographic location. In most cases it would be up to members of the community to contribute information and keep the project rolling. An example of this citizen mashup would be in Michigan where drivers mapped out current potholes and recently patched potholes. Lack of moderation does raise a question of trustworthiness, but for the most part it's assumed that someone taking the time to contribute to the community really does care about the project being created.
The affect this has on journalism is that news no longer has to live and die in one day, after being interpreted by one group of people. Instead it is able to continually grow as time passes with people contributing to its evolution. This is a process where news and information can live in a physical, geographic location. Lamb had an example of where the Berlin Wall formally stood. People can rent GPS devices that detect where the wall used to stand. As someone passes across the barrier they can hear speeches from the former Chancellor, or biographical stories of those affected by the wall. The story lives on and evolves in a physical place.
The possibilities for this geo-technology seem endless, and it's exciting to see where it will move next. I'd just finally like to point to an advocacy mashup to show how powerful the use of this technology can truly be. Here is screenshot of the Crisis in Darfur project where Google Earth teamed up with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to draw attention, create awareness and spark action against the genocide in Darfur.
