Yule Heibel's Library tagged → View Popular, Search in Google
Interesting comment on tumblr and how its form changes content:
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"The purpose of it is just pretty different," said the Web guru Rex Sorgatz, who recently gave up his personal blog for a Tumblr. "Because I see the audience and I know who they are, see who they are. I talk in a completely different way and post pictures of my dog and make jokes about people without linking to them because everyone knows who I'm talking about. And certainly it changes the way you talk about things."
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Yep - gotta love the image of established media wringing its collective hands over the downfall of Public Man as wrought by the pyjamahadeen...
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At least anonymous bloggers are very clear and truthful about what they are: often citizens whose jobs or other interests prevent them from attaching their names to their political expression. By stark contrast, all of these establishment media outlets perpetrate a total fraud on the public by pretending that they have standards for when anonymity will be used even though, as these examples from the last 24 hours alone prove, they routinely violate those alleged standards for absolutely no reason. It just never ceases to amaze how much establishment journalists like Roberts and Phillips love to rail against the Evils of Internet Anonymity when reckless, cowardly anonymity -- for purposes ranging from catty, trivial gossip to pernicious propaganda and everything in between -- is a central tool of their "profession" and of the political class they cover.
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Kathy Sierra's post on graphics - how and why.
Fascinating interview with Darian Shirazi (age 23), the CEO of fwix.com (founded Oct. 2008), which sorts through ~200,000 pieces of news every day, "analyzing and filtering stories from tens of thousands of local sources." How? An automated news wire, the company has developed algorithms that allow it to search through all this content for nuggets of pertinent/ valuable information.
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What role do you see automated aggregation services playing in the news ecosystem?
Aggregation is going to be a way in which news companies supplement their original content. There are several services that are attempting to do this like OneSpot and Mochila, but nobody has really tackled the problem of filtering content by user behavior or linguistic quality. We have a myriad of different algorithms we’re using to judge these two aspects of content to determine which pieces of content should be surfaced over others.The true value to news in the future will be filtration of content and using technology to ensure that published news speaks well to user preferences and reader expectations. There aren’t enough editors in the world and there isn’t enough money to pay hundreds of editors to filter the growing online content universe.
How does news aggregation impact local newspapers?
I think that the problem with the local newspaper is that it focuses too much on “generally applicable” stories. When I say ‘generally applicable,’ I’m referring to crime articles or republished AP content. Local newspapers have lost their touch as the medium for communicating the metropolitan Zeitgeist - likely due to declining revenue and, therefore, smaller staff.Many people think the demise of the local newspaper is because of the Internet or Google; the truth is that Craigslist and eBay have done the most damage to the economics of the industry (ads and classified ads). The challenge is now reducing costs of getting content and filtering the content for users. I think that aggregated news is definitely information overload, and that’s why we’ve focused on building the filters and normalization - all proprietary technology - that makes this aggregated news more readable, useful and valuable. Of the stories we aggregate, only 5-10% of them actually reach users through Fwix.com.
Can automated systems evaluate the quality of news content?
Yes. Academics have been writing about judging content quality for years. Several algorithms are available for determining the quality of content and the relevance of content to specific keywords, locations, or topics. There are only a few hundred people in the world that have experience developing these algorithms into production.How does aggregation impact revenue for niche, small sites or larger ones?
For larger news companies and sites, we’ve found that local content opens lots of doors in the advertising world. Media buyers who represent large brands like Best Buy and The Home Depot are looking for ways to sell advertising around local content. National brands with local presence are eager to sell advertising to consumers who are consuming local content.An advertisement with coupons for the local Home Depot isn’t useful when shown next to an article about the current state of political strife in Iraq, but is quite applicable when shown next to an article written by a San Francisco home improvement blogger. Large news companies looking to sell local advertising need local content to do this well and we believe we are the best provider of that content. The costs of building out content for every metro in the US are also too great for news companies. Technology is the only way to do local well.
For smaller sites, engagement and additional ad revenue are probably the most valuable benefits of integrating with Fwix. We offer ad click revenue to blogs that add our widgets, which is called AdWire, to their site. Additionally, bloggers and smaller news sites have seen value in getting return visitors who are looking for a mixture of original content and syndicated local content.
Great article on finding what's valuable in your blog archives - and presenting it so that readers can find it.
Fabulous short video clip of Monica Guzman explaining how to be an awesome news commenter
Blog post by Steve Sherron on why and how to do hyperlocal blogging.
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"...I am convinced that my best chance for success is going to be in my local market. I have discovered since I began this journey that local folks are starving for attention and publicity for their business or organization. Most do not understand SEO. Few have web sites. There is a gap and a need just waiting to be filled."
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Interesting tips on SEO etc.
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My main concern from day one has been to research and select a few keywords and keyword phrases and start building content. Google found my site immediately and now I’m slowly ranking for my selected keywords. I’ve managed to rank #1 for a few longtail keywords.
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My hometown paper does not do such a hot job covering local news and events. This lack of coverage creates an opportunity for a hyperlocal blogger: Who is covering your local Crime Stoppers BBQ? Who is covering your local weather events?
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An older entry from Seesmic's Loic Le Meur, 10 reasons why politicians should blog. Very timely here in Victoria given the municipal elections still to come (Nov.15).
Article that chronicles the role of blogging in the creation of new hyper local / local news eco-systems.
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For readers, the blogs are providing news in ways unseen in traditional local news media.
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Like other journalists who run news sites, Paul Bass, New Haven Independent’s editor, does not consider himself a blogger.
“We’re a news site,” Mr. Bass said.
To underscore the difference, Mr. Bass said the site has three full-time reporters and one part-time reporter, all paid for by $185,000 in grants, corporate sponsorships and private donations. The site’s coverage, he added, helped remove a city budget director, change city towing policies and shame board of education members into better attendance, after it publicized the fact that the board’s truancy dwarfed that of city students.
“A lot of neighborhood boards weren’t covered until we came around, so we’re just showing up,” Mr. Bass said. “That’s the promise of hyperlocal journalism, as opposed to blogging.”
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Chrysanthe Tenentes of outside.in put together a useful "guide to great local blogging" in 6 easy-to-follow points.
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Go where big media doesn’t. Nothing is too local.
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Be as specific as possible when talking about places. Give them accurate names
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Much to think on in this great interview by James Bash with Douglas McLennan, the founder of ArtsJournal. "Curation" is definitely my word du jour -- I've seen it come up again and again recently, in relation to *very* different products and businesses (clothing & retail, for example).
It leads me to think that "curation" is something that's evolving out of "filtering," which in turn was something that sort of / kind of evolved out of (or related to) "gatekeeping."
The latter always struck me as something almost hateful, in the sense that gatekeepers protected the various walled gardens to which access was limited or even forbidden. Gatekeepers weren't there for me, they were there for "them."
Filtering in turn proposed the notion that users (me, we) should set their own parameters -- it's potentially democratic, anyway, provided we don't let overlords filter for us. DIY filtering can be smart, letting us develop efficiencies in how we access and consume information. But filtering done by censors is bad.
Curation can be equally two-edged (like filtering), but it now introduces another aspect: perhaps trust? Some sort of acknowledgement of expertise, or sophistication? Good curation, however, done on a digital platform, is open, accessible, democratic, and transparent.
Perhaps curation is an open, acknowledged re-insertion of the human aspect -- which "filtering" can strive to eliminate via automatic settings and controls.
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The good thing about ArtsJournal is that it's a curated service. We define what the territory is and then pick out the most interesting things. The curation aspect of ArtsJournal is its strength, but it is also a weakness because the curation reflects mostly my taste.
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As users have more access to more information on the Web, the sheer amount becomes overwhelming. So increasingly you have to depend on curators — other people — to find the good stuff that you want to see over time. So you find the curator whom you trust. That way, you have a way to navigate through a lot of information.
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Fascinating study regarding the discrepancies between what MSM professionals believe and what its reading public believes. The latter think that anonymous comments are ok; that journalists/ authors participating in online conversations with readers is ok; and that expressions of personal views by journalists are ok. The 'professionals' believe the exact opposite. Hmmm.
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Newspaper readers agree with editors on the basics of what makes good journalism, but they are more apt to want looser rules for online conversations, a new study on news credibility has found.
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Online Journalism Credibility Study released Tuesday by the Associated Press Managing Editors group and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri
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Wow, and wow again! U-Dub communications prof David Domke describes how his citizen-journalist blogger students were treated by the politicians campaigning for president, and the difference between Hillary & Barack are astounding.
One of Domke's students, Jennifer Ware, describes it like this: "John McCain spoke in Seattle (the same day) to about 500 people at the Westin Hotel’s conference room. Clinton spoke to a gathering of 5,000 at a waterfront pier (on February 7). Obama spoke at Key Arena, home to the Seattle Supersonics; it seats 18,000 and it wasn’t nearly big enough. People were sitting on the stairs, in the aisles. Seasoned reporters were smiling and nodding softly as he spoke. Some people had tears in their eyes when he came on stage. There’s all kinds of spin out there, but you simply can’t spin those numbers. Or the stark contrast to the others in the race."
Domke adds, further down: "It seems that the take-home point here is this: The Clinton campaign has made the case that Obama is nothing but rhetoric; he’s supposedly all words, while she’s all action. Our experiences showed us that their campaigns — at least in Seattle — were exactly the opposite. In their treatment of my students, Clinton’s campaign was all talk, while Obama’s was all walk."
Obama for President!
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And along the way we learned some important things about the Obama and Clinton campaigns. We didn’t set out to learn these pieces — but the campaigns taught us loud and clear.
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- Because some of the students have serious political crushes on him, even though they’ve tried to keep all this in check. He inspires them — and I haven’t sought to squelch this, being a prof interested in helping students become citizens.
- Because the class is set up as a blogging class, in which politics meets alternative journalism. So their opinion shines through in places, and this was fine as long as they didn’t cross over into fan mail.
- Because the Obama campaign treated us like pros — they called us back within minutes, set up interviews, got us press passes, went out of their way to make the campaign accessible. The Clinton campaign, in contrast, didn’t return a single phone call, didn’t provide press access, and did virtually nothing to encourage our coverage. It was either arrogance or disorganization on the Clinton campaign’s part.
In our coverage of the Idaho and Washington state caucuses, there emerged a lean toward Obama in my students’ writing about the Democratic contest. This pro-Obama frame occurred for three reasons:
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