:: Future of Journalism

The Guardian’s Facebook app: What does "social news experience" really mean?

2012-02-15T08:37:42+01:00

In September last year the Guardian launched our Facebook app as one of the media partners working on new features announced at the company’s f8 conference. The app uses the Open Graph to implement “frictionless sharing”.

currybetdotnet :: Several of us at the Guardian - including colleagues Meg Pickard and Dan Catt - had thought for some time about what a “social news experience” might be like, but when we came to build the app we concentrated on shifting one particular metric. We knew that 77% of visits to the Guardian from facebook.com only lasted for one page. A good hypothesis for this was that leaving the confines of Facebook to visit another site was an interruption to a Facebook session, rather than a decision to go off and browse another site.

Shared experience - Continue to read Martin Belam, www.currybet.net

Liz Heron, social media editor NYT: Did we get something of journalistic value?

2012-02-15T07:37:04+01:00

currybetdotnet :: Liz Heron, social media editor New York Times, gave the opening keynote address at news:rewired, explaining some of the social media work that the New York Times does, and offering some advice for those who are also involved in doing it for others. She started by commenting on the pace of change - suggesting that even when she spoke at last year’s BBC Social Media Summit, the conversation still seemed to be around “should we be doing social media”, whereas now the focus had shifted to “how can we be doing this well, and distinctively”.

... a lot of social media use in the newsroom actually saved time

Continue to read Martin Belam, www.currybet.net

“The Economist’s shift to digital”- Tom Standage at news:rewired

2012-02-15T07:28:47+01:00

currybetdotnet :: One of the panel sessions at news:rewired was devoted to the paid content model. Tom Standage, digital editor of the Economist, gave an upbeat talk about the title’s success in transitioning to the digital era. One of the panel sessions at news:rewired last week was devoted to the paid content model. Tom Standage, digital editor of the Economist, gave an upbeat talk about the title’s success in transitioning to the digital era.

[Martin Belam/Tom Standage:] if you ask (the readers) how they expect to consume (the content) in two years time, an astonishing 70% say they expect it will be digital, and only 30% print.

Continue to read Martin Belam, currybet.net

News International staff demand openness over internal investigation unit

2012-02-15T06:27:34+01:00

Guardian :: The body representing News International staff is seeking an urgent meeting with chief executive Tom Mockridge, over the role played by the internal investigations unit set up by News Corporation in the recent arrest of 10 current and former Sun journalists. The News International Staff Association (Nisa) said there is an unprecedented sense of anger and betrayal on all three News International titles – the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times – and journalists want to know what their rights are.

Continue to read Lisa O'Carroll, www.guardian.co.uk

Yahoo critic Dan Loeb: Who he wants for Yahoo's board

2012-02-14T23:53:45+01:00

Business Insider :: One of Yahoo's fiercest critics, Dan Loeb, has just formally declared war on Yahoo by nominating his own slate of directors. In addition to himself, he has suggested three other names, according to an SEC filing: Jeff Zucker, Michael Wolf, and Harr Wilson.

Continue to read Matt Rosoff, www.businessinsider.com

Inkling Habitat: Free cloud-based interactive e-book publishing platform

2012-02-14T23:12:31+01:00

paidContent :: Startup iPad publisher Inkling is launching a free, cloud-based, interactive e-book publishing platform, Inkling Habitat. That may sounds a bit like iBooks Author, but a preview of the program suggests that it is indeed as Inkling describes it—a program for professional publishers producing e-books at scale, and a way to make a very expensive process more affordable.

Continue to read Laura Hazard Owen, paidcontent.org

Hearst to link digital editions with Amazon

2012-02-14T22:59:46+01:00

AdWeek :: Is it a magazine—or catalogue? Magazines have been increasingly blurring the line between editorial and commerce, lending their names to products and shopping sites. Now, computer tablets and e-readers are making it more tempting to bridge that gap. So far, efforts have largely been one-offs, with a few magazines like People and Wired letting readers tap on their digital editions to buy certain products through iTunes and Amazon. Now, Hearst Magazines is going all out, with plans in the coming weeks to start making many of its Kindle Fire editions shoppable by linking products to Amazon.

Continue to read Lucia Moses, www.adweek.com

Fair use or free riding? The AP’s new attack on news scraping

2012-02-14T22:53:43+01:00

paidContent :: The Associated Press is becoming more aggressive in trying to rein in the information the news service scatters around the world. After helping to launch a copyright monitoring service, the AP is now suing a company that clips headlines and news items for its customers. In a complaint filed this morning in New York federal court, the AP accused Norway-based Meltwater of wrongfully repackaging and sharing its content without a license.

Details - Continue to read Jeff Roberts, paidcontent.org

SRSR: Seriously Rapid Source Review - Find breaking news sources in the Twitter stream

2012-02-14T18:12:57+01:00

nickdiakopoulos.com :: Whether it’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, a plane crash landing on the Hudson River, or videos and reactions from a recently capsized cruise ship in Italy, social media has proven itself again and again to be a huge boon to journalists covering breaking news events. But at the same time, the prodigious amount of social media content posted around news events creates a challenge for journalists trying to find interesting and trustworthy sources in the din.

[Nick Diakopoulos:] With my collaborators I built an application called SRSR (standing for “Seriously Rapid Source Review”) which incorporates a number of advanced aggregations, computations, and cues that we thought would be helpful for journalists to find and assess sources in Twitter around breaking news events.

Continue to read Nick Diakopoulos, www.nickdiakopoulos.com

News International moves to reassure advertisers in The Sun

2012-02-14T18:00:06+01:00

Brand Republic :: News International is seeking to reassure key advertisers and agencies that it is business as usual at The Sun, despite rising tensions following staff arrests at the weekend. Media Week understands News International’s commercial leader, Paul Hayes, has contacted leaders at WPP, Omnicom, Publicis Groupe and Havas agencies. He is said to have included, and added to, comments made by chief executive Tom Mockridge in a leaked email on 28 January.

Continue to read Arif Durrani, www.brandrepublic.com

New service will stream local TV stations in New York

2012-02-14T17:54:07+01:00

New York Times | Media Decoder :: A online television company has come up with a way to stream local television stations to paying subscribers on the Internet, potentially forming a new cord-cutting threat for cable and satellite distributors. The new company, called Aereo, was holding a news conference on Tuesday in New York City to demonstrate its service, which will go on sale on March 14. The service will cost subscribers $12 a month and will only work in the New York metropolitan area.

Clipped from: aereo.com (share this clip)

Continue to read Brian Stelter, mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com

The First Lady participates in CNN iReport interview

2012-02-14T17:45:31+01:00

Lost Remote :: We recently wrote about CNN iReport’s major upgrade. The social news platform also recently announced that they’ve reached 1,00,000 iReporters around the globe. As the election seasons continues to heat up, we saw President Obama participate in a Google+ Hangout. Now, First Lady Michelle Obama made herself available to answer questions from iReporters. The questions that were asked from iReporters around the world were mostly very interesting and also personal.

Continue to read Natan Edelsburg, www.lostremote.com

"iKindle": 8-inch iPad being tested by Apple, claims Wall Street Journal

2012-02-14T13:37:41+01:00

The Verge :: In spite of openly denouncing the idea of a smaller iPad some time ago, Apple looks to be in the process of testing out just such a device, according to anonymous officials at some of the company's Asian suppliers. A smaller (and presumably cheaper) iPad could be seen as a response to Amazon's successful launch of the 7-inch Kindle Fire.

Continue to read Vlad Savov, www.theverge.com

"P2P-TV" - Bram Cohen, BitTorrent: My goal is to kill off television (he joked)

2012-02-14T13:31:30+01:00

GigaOM :: BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen demoed his P2P live streaming protocol at the San Francisco MusicTech Summit on Monday, which he said could potentially stream live video to millions of computers with no central infrastructure. Cohen said that the protocol could potentially be used for video conferencing, live streams of video game tournaments or even live sports events. “My goal here is to kill off television,” he joked.

Continue to read Janko Roettgers, gigaom.com

White House renews #40dollars Twitter campaign on payroll tax cut

2012-02-14T13:16:56+01:00

Washington Post :: On Tuesday, President Obama will renew his Twitter campaign to pressure Congress to approve a year-long extension of the payroll tax holiday. The president wants supporters to use the hash tag #40dollars while explaining what losing that much in each paycheck would mean to them. That’s the amount an average American worker would give up every two weeks if the tax holiday expires as scheduled at month’s end, according to the Obama administration.

Continue to read David Nakamura, www.washingtonpost.com