December 2009
34 posts
2 tags
Audience Types
I’m thinking about who a news website should be designed for. I know everyone says that websites are passe and everything will be on social networks, but I still think of a website as an important home base. That is where everything you put out on all different platforms should be consolidated, making all your resources easy to access, and should be a one-stop shop for information.
So...
November 2009
11 posts
1 tag
This Is Why The Internet (And Twitter) Wins →
From TechCrunch. Twitter beat everyone else to the news of Tiger Woods’ car crash by a mile.
Yes, this is why news organizations will not be able to compete in the realm of truly breaking, realtime news. But this is also why the focus for those who can’t beat the Internet for speed need to provide the added value of REPORTING - adding context and background and details.
Don’t...
2 tags
Case Study: The Real-Time Web at the New York... →
Love this idea of the real-time stream. EnjoyThings has one that can be loaded in a Firefox sidebar, which is an added coolness factor.
My current (but ever-developing) ideal for a news site is a real-time stream PLUS a base of topic pages (“living articles” “wiki-style news” - whatever you call it. I’m sticking with topic pages from now on, because that’s...
1 tag
A Guide to Mobile Web Design Tips and Tricks →
From Mashable. Good tips for making blogs on Wordpress and other platforms work on mobile.
I feel so behind when it comes to mobile because my old Nokia doesn’t really do any of the things that newer phones do - I can look at websites, but typically don’t bother. But since mobile growth worldwide is far exceeding computer growth, news organizations need to be prepared to make all...
3 tags
Guidelines for UGC from the Commonwealth... →
Interesting paper, with some relevance to the commenting issues I’ve been thinking about. One thing that I wasn’t thinking about before was the relationship between UGC and media literacy, and the ability/responsibility of broadcasters to help their audience gain the ability to create UGC. The paper suggests making skills advice available whenever you’re soliciting UGC.
The...
2 tags
“#BC3 live blogging - inviting comments can lead to accusations of censorship if...”
– @BBCCollege
2 tags
YouTube Direct Gives News Orgs A Way To Accept... →
From TechCrunch. YouTube Direct will let news orgs integrate a video upload tool into their sites. Users can simultaneously upload their video to YouTube and to the news org through the tool. Seems like a good tool for markets where YouTube is popular.
As with all UGC collection/curation tools, I think you have to use something like this for really well-defined projects. You can’t just...
3 tags
Wiki-News
The AP told Poynter recently that it wants to create topic pages for breaking news to rival Wikipedia, calling them “news guide” pages designed to appear high in search results and direct users to content. The NYT says it is trying a “living article” concept, in which a topic page develops over time with the story.
UPDATE: Here is some information and a video on the...
2 tags
BBC bows to SEO →
From the Guardian. The BBC will use two headlines for every story - a shorter one that appears on the home page and is easy to scan, and a longer one that appears on the article itself and is more descriptive.
I’m wondering why all the headlines shouldn’t be as descriptive as possible, no matter what part of the site they’re on. When I read a headline, I want it to tell me...
4 tags
Building Positive Commenting Communities
At our brown bag lunch discussion of blogging yesterday (with guest speaker, name withheld since I doubt it was considered on the record), there was a lot of skepticism about commenting. The speaker’s view was that commenting almost always becomes vile and spammy.
Commenting often becomes vile and spammy, but not always, and I’m wondering what are the factors that encourage positive...
Disclaimer
So this blog is meant to be a place for me to corral my thoughts, questions, bookmarks, etc., which right now are scattered around the web on Delicious, Read it Later, Google Reader, Google Docs, actual bookmarks, Twitter, my network drive and Facebook. It’s my personal tool in figuring out the complex world of social media, new technologies and journalism.
I do work for Voice of America,...
