DigiDave | Journalism is a Process, Not a Product

Updates on Spot Us!!!

2008-07-17T10:31:00-07:00

This blog is not the home of Spot Us. This is the blog that contains my thoughts on journalism as a larger topic, technology, the Internet, San Francisco, random thoughts, etc.

If you want the home base for Spot Us news, subscribe to our blog. So far it's turning into an interesting experiment and I'm trying to be as transparent as possible about how we move forward.

While I will try to keep Spot Us and this blog separate, you will have to indulge me from time to time while I do quick recaps. So here I go.

Spot Us Right Now

1. Design is starting. The site is scheduled to launch in full October.

2. Using a wiki we successfully raised money for our first story which will be reported on by Alexis Madrigal. You can watch Alexis report his progress at the Spot Us blog.

3. We already have a 2nd and very ambitious pitch. The Independent Arts & Media nonprofit will work with a reporter to fact check political advertisements for 10 weeks preceding the San Francisco election.

links for 2008-07-17

2008-07-17T07:31:54-07:00

How Good Is The Mainstream Media At Linking Out?

Linking to useful websites doesn’t “leak” traffic - quite the opposite in fact. Offering useful links makes visitors more likely to return to see other interesting websites they might find, a model that sites such as Digg and Fark are built around.

Get Attention on Crowdsourcing.Com

2008-07-15T18:10:35-07:00

I continue guest posting at Crowdsourcing.com and today, still fired up from my last post, which I guess can only be described as "things I hate about "social media," I decided to try a fun little experiment.

Tired of press releases (and knowing full well that some of the "best" tech-blogs out there just re-hash press releases) I decided to offer up Crowdsourcing.com's blog as a platform for any startup if they are willing to engage in the following three conditions.

What I proposed

1. As of now, anyone has potential to be the focus of my next post on Crowdsourcing.com. Yes - you and your garage-based startup could end up on this blog which is part of the Wired News network. We will link to you and focus the entire content of the post on what you are doing. All you need is to have a startup/project/something that is related to crowdsourcing. (EMAIL ME).

2. You will have to get on AIM, Skype or some other video conference technology so I can interview you (recorded).

3. (and here's the catch). I will play the part of "mean interviewer." I will actively try and find flaws in your site, system or idea. I will not be nice. I will pretend its been a bad day and nobody brought me coffee. But - if you can make a good case for what you are doing, if you can convince me, the curmudgeon, I will admit defeat and will sing your praise from there on out. And - you will have a video representation of you convincing a cynical jerk about the merits of your project.

Essentially I'm inviting anyone into a game of conversational poker. Show me what you got, I'll show you mine and you have the potential to come out looking good.

Who wants free press?

links for 2008-07-14

2008-07-14T07:32:05-07:00

The economics of publishing made simple

The economics of content creation are in fact fairly simple. The two critical questions are “Does the support come from the reader, or from an advertiser, patron, or the creator?” and “Is the support mandatory or voluntary?”

(tags: shiry, publishing, economics)

So You Wanna Be a Web 2.0 Super-Star?

2008-07-14T04:34:19-07:00

Having trouble sleeping, so take this for what it is - 4:26am rambling (either my best or worst thinking, perhaps the comments will let me know).

Jason Calacanis' retirement from bloging. Like others makes me cry foul and B.S.

But the reason I'm upset isn't just because Calacanis' move is obviously egotistical (I mean, calling "blogging dead" because you are leaving is like Michael Jordan saying basketball is over because he retired. Kobe and Shaq would disagree. And, you are not the Michael Jordan of blogging).

What upsets me is that his post has a lot of good points about the state of the blogosphere.

Jason writes:

"Bloggers spend more time digging, tweeting, and SEOing their posts than they do on the posts themselves.....[Gawker pays] “not [by] the quality of the words but the number of page views those blog posts get....Excelling in blogging today is about link-baiting, the act of writing something inflammatory in order to get a link.”

Now my first response (and why I call B.S. on Jason) is that he has contributed to the state of things. This is a guy who gave away a Macbook Air to try and get more followers on Twitter and now he is complaining about hype over content?

If anything Jason quit because the above has been his experience with the medium. He has nobody to blame but himself. His statement "blogging is dead" is sort of like a coward-villain saying "if I can't have her nobody can" and shooting the love interest of a movie so the hero can't run off with her. As we know, that move never works.

Being distracted by Techmeme? Stop reading it. Worried your traffic is falling? Stop looking at the stats. Either way - blogging is a MUCH better way to stay in communication with people than a 1995 email newsletter.

The fact is, it is impossible to ignore the stats, techmeme and your Twitter followers. Why? Here's a phrase we all learned from our favorite high school history teacher: "follow the money!"

For some people there is too much money at stake. I'm reminded of a Cyprus Hill song called "So You Want to Be A Rock Super-Star." Go ahead, check the lyrics.

So you wanna be a rap/rock superstar, and live large
a big house, 5 cars, you're in charge
comin' up in the world don't trust nobody
gotta look over your shoulder constantly.

This notion of the A-list is creating a frenzy for the top. Indeed Robert Scoble has already handed over the keys to the blogosphere (who is Robert to make this decision and wtf does it mean?). And what awaits you at the top? Well - the dream is money, fame, respect, free gadgets sent to you for review and other geek dreams. But the truth is - it's just life. I think Robert Scoble is one of the few at the top who realizes that what he has been given is a privilege, not to be taken for granted. Other "A-list" bloggers seem to act as though "the world owes them a living" (see one of my all-time favorite moral-lesson cartoons).

I'm left with the same ill taste in my mouth from when I was compelled to write the post "What I hate About the Internet Everyone is a "Social Media Consultant."

The blogosphere needs to mature. The vast majority of people don't care about the tech/geek concerns of the "A-listers," so why do they dominate the air-waves? I am still amazed that tech as a subject dominates the blogosphere. Think about it. If you had to pick the top five topics that people in the world are concerned about in life, I doubt technology would be at the top. Even if it were, it wouldn't be this Apple iPhone gadgety-crap, it would be about useful stuff like solar technology or AI. Yet Engadget, Gizmodo and TechCrunch rule the day.

I just see so much more potential and I guess that's what frustrates me.
(hopefully, now that this is out of my head, I can fall asleep).
End transmission.

Changing the Legal Structure for Digital Journalism

2008-07-13T11:37:00-07:00

Doug Fisher is hosting this month's Carnival of Journalism. He asks: "What changes will need to be made in national and international legal systems to help the digital age, and especially journalism in the digital age, flourish?

My first response is to say: Listen to Shirky talk about the Creative Commons version of starting Corporations. (Video by David Spark of Spark Minute).

Now, if that didn't blow your mind - here are some more practical thoughts.

1. I hate bureaucracy. I learn more and more about it every day since starting Spot Us which is technically a 501c3. Let me tell you - bureaucracy is not fun stuff. I realize being an adult can suck at times - but does it have to suck so much that it actually constrain innovation? I think that's what Shirky is discussing. Just as the Creative Commons has built the legal framework through which people can be creative - we need a legal framework where groups of people can be creative together without being stifled.

2. As for news organizations: We should think more about Creative Commons licensing our content. I know it goes against the tradition of the scoop, which has been near and dear to our culture since the beginning, but scoops have the half-life equivalent to a link. If our information was made freely available and became the building blocks through which other work could be done - we would be the foundation upon which the news and information world is built upon.

Example: Take a national story that exists at local levels.

The environment.

Get 100 papers from around the country to agree to work on the story together: "Cover local environmental degradation in your area, but share the findings openly with the other 99 papers the whole time."

Each paper gets their local scoop. The sum is greater than any of the parts. And with the right CC license - you leave room for citizen journalists to come in and fill up gaps or update the story.

You effectively create THE resource of geographic examples of environmental degradation.

Other stories that are national and local at the same time:

The effects of No Child Left Behind.
Sub prime mortgage.
I'm sure there is no shortage of these.

To pull off a project like this you need a different legal structure (as well as the willingness of 100 papers to try something innovative - but that time might just be now). I'll tell you this - if you were able to find 100 papers who agreed to ban together to tackle a story like this - they would be stifled by the bureaucracy that would be involved right now. I'm not talking about technology bureaucracy - I'm talking about business and legal issues. The technology wouldn't be that difficult. Hell - you could do it with a wiki if you wanted.

links for 2008-07-11

2008-07-11T07:32:30-07:00

Would You Like to Read about Problems with Meeting Ethanol Mandates in California?

The first pitch on Spot.Us is 46% funded as of bookmarking this. All we need is 7 more people to donate 15$ each. This is an important story that could reveal a major enviro oversight.

(tags: enviornment, spotjournalism,)

links for 2008-07-10

2008-07-10T07:34:10-07:00

Fund the Journos

Josh Levy, a super nice guy, is down with the idea for Spot Us and spreads the word.

My Father's Old/New Routine

2008-07-09T21:35:22-07:00

In a post today at Crowdsourcing.com (where I continue to guest post) I wrote about the changing routine of my father's media consumption. I want to continue that thought here in oft-ignored Future category of this blog.

I write:

Before the Internet (and I am old enough to remember) when my father came home from work he sat right down in front of the T.V. and we knew not to bother him for at least an hour and a half. Understandably so - he needed to unwind. This unwinding period was followed by dinner and then more television watching, because there was nothing else to do. Thank god for "The Simpsons," a show we could all watch together.

The routine today is a bit different. After dinner he doesn't return to the television - he goes straight to the computer. Some of his activities on the computer are passive, but some are active. He has changed his daily pattern and has removed some passive media consumption time and replaced it with active media participation.

It was in reading a follow up post from Rahmin Sarabi that I thought this topic might be worth exploring more. I doubt that Rahmin and I are the only two that have noticed this shift.

Obviously it's difficult for me to know my father's daily routines now. I haven't lived at home since high school. Furthermore, my father is getting ready to retire - so he isn't burning the midnight oil anymore. Still - there is something to this.

I can remember growing up when the "clicker" (remote control) was the awe inspiring powerful tool to the outside world. Whoever owned the clicker dictated what the family would watch (hence the Simpsons comment.). But - even if my father earned the right to the remote (and he often did) I could watch 60-Minutes quietly because it only required passive participation. Or - I would find my way to the small television in the kitchen and watch Nickelodeon or whatever it is that I used to watch.

I wonder how that family dynamic changes when the center piece is a mouse and not a remote? Because computers beg for active media participation is it easier for families to bond around it, or harder? Perhaps it's more of a sociological issue than a journalism one, but I think the consequences for that future family dynamic could have far reaching implications.

I'm also curious about what will happen when my father does retire. The first thought that comes to my mind is that he should start a blog. This is an option that wasn't available to my grandfather - and while I never lived with him either, I'm sure he did a lot of TV watching. Oddly enough - my grandfather would have been a fantastic blogger about gardening, something he was only able to dedicate himself to in retirement.

END THOUGHT.

links for 2008-07-09

2008-07-09T07:34:05-07:00

New Media and Local News

A look at the stats of our sleepy little town’s web stats as seen by Quantcast. I was very surprised the number of folks looking at the site. By their measure, my little old town’s paper has roughly two thirds the US audience of Mashable.
Uncertainty aplenty as Web, media leaders convene

When media and technology tycoons convene Tuesday in idyllic southern Idaho for five days of dealmaking and outdoor recreation, the mountain air will carry more than a whiff of uncertainty as most arrive with their businesses in various states of disarray