Archive for Journalism
Dilbert creator predicts the end of news print
October 8th, 2007 • 1 comment Internet, Media
Tags: magazines, newspapers, publishing
…And it all rests on the evolution of the iPhone, apparently.
I predict that the end of printed newspapers will happen in the time it takes for most people to upgrade their cell phones two more times. The iPhone, and its inevitable copycats, (let’s call them iClones) are newspaper killers.
When you have a web browser in your pocket, a printed newspaper is redundant. Eventually, all cell phones will have Internet browsing built in. You might not have a web browser on your next cell phone, but the one after that will have it as a standard feature.
The definition of Web 3.0
October 4th, 2007 • Media
Tags: web2.0, web3.0
So here it is… the defining statement that says goodbye to Web 2.0, and hello to a new generation. Or not. Either, Jason Calacanis (all-round web entrepreneur, and the co-founder of Weblogs Inc.), has had a stab at giving a dictionary definition of Web 3.0:
Web 3.0 is defined as the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform.
Web 3.0, the official definition.I can grasp that. I’ve watched Facebook and the like grab headlines, but wondered what will happen once they become everyday. So you can now share your thoughts and habits with friends, and find new ones. Read more »
A complete history of the first time things happened
October 3rd, 2007 • 1 comment Life, Media
Tags: asides, great sites
Oh, now I’m a happy boy. This is the sort of stuff you could lose years of your life to… The First Time News Was Fit To Print is a compilation of the first mentions in the New York Times of famous people, places, things and terms.Sound dull? You need to get out more…mental_floss magazine - Where Knowledge Junkies Get Their Fix
Blogs become ‘media properties’
October 2nd, 2007 • Media
Tags: blogging, publishing, web2.0
A new chart shows the power of blog-powered technology sites against traditional online media, with several home-spun players now giving the BBC and CNet a run for their dollar.If you’re a habitual consumer of technology sites, none of the findings will come as a shock. To my eyes, the real interest comes in the comment over at Read/Write Web…
I’ve been referring to Read/WriteWeb as a “media business” or a “media property”. R/WW used to be a blog, back when I was the only writer and I blogged in the evenings. But sometime last year, it became my full-time job. Then it became a business, and now it’s a media property. Let me clarify one thing though - I’m still a “blogger”, as are Marshall and Josh and the other R/WW writers. But Read/WriteWeb has evolved into something different than a blog, which is traditionally thought of as the voice of a single person.Dave Winer, one of the pioneers of blogging, also says that the voice must be unedited. This is clearly not the case with R/WW, which has multiple bloggers and also a strong editorial stance. The same is true at Techcrunch, Gigaom, PaidContent et al.
Beyond Blogs: Old & New Media Converge
As an employee of an established publisher making its way in a new landscape (quite successfully, I should add), I find the fledging steps being taken by the New Blogs fascinating. The term ‘blog’ must be replaced soon: it is still tainted with the image of a loner in an attic recounting adventures with his Airfix kit to an audience of zero.
The New Wave is far closer in cut to traditional sources: the likes of ValleyWag and Read/Write Web are investigative and authoritative. Their writers live in their markets, and show care in providing a sound service for the reader. They are far closer to being specialist news services than they are blogs.
On a purely physical level, one thing that defines them as such is their page structures: a multi-post landing page, followed by linked single pages (unlike CNet or the Beeb, which are driven by industrial strength databases). I don’t doubt that the New Wave will ditch their restrictive formats, as soon as money allows.
There’s one other factor that distances them from traditional sources, namely the more pervasive inclusion of analysis. Perhaps there’s a lesson here for the mainstream press: the bloggers hitting prime time have kept their conversational approach, preferring to inject some of themselves into their tales.
At their worst, they vanish into internal debates that have no relevance to the audience. But at their best, they offer a narrative that purely objective news delivery cannot equal.
V-loggers edge closer to prime time
September 23rd, 2007 • Internet, Media, Video
Tags: publishing, Video
I think we can all draw this curve. Technology gets to a point where creating and distributing your video is open to everyone. Shortly after, Darwin strolls into the room, makes a declaration, and some fall by the wayside. But those left after natural selection has done its thing begin to grow.In particular, they start crawling uphill, toward the big piles of money on the crest. As they do, they sprout the trappings of their established peers, with advertising, distribution deals and a whole world of star-related swapsies.So no surprise today to hear that one of the original and best v-logs, Rocketboom, has cozied up to one of the hottest video networks, Blip.tv:
Rocketboom joins a growing crowd of other top videoblogs that can be found on Blip.tv, including Wallstrip, TreeHugger TV, Alive in Baghdad, and Goodnight Burbank. As with most of those shows, the relationship between Rocketboom and blip.tv is not exclusive.
Rocketboom Moves to Blip.tvI’m hearing that. When we launched the Stuff.tv Show, it was an experiment - include it in the new site, and see if it floats. Nine months later, and it’s in the iTunes Top 20, and has just gone live as a channel on Joost.
Headline juxtapositions: as bad online as off
September 20th, 2007 • Media
Tags: , asides
I grew up in print magazines, where the first rule was to watch for elements on a page - you’d be amazed how easy it is to miss a crass clash of headline and image or advertising message.So I felt a wave of deja vu when I spotted this over at Valleywag…
What happens when there are no more journalists?
September 10th, 2007 • Internet, Journalism
Health warning: I have an agenda here. I’m a ‘professional’ journalist, and I spend my days with 400 other professional journalists. So you’ll understand why I was attracted to a study from the Project for Excellence In Journalism into citizen-generated news sites.
The study had a fairly simple premise: get rid of the traditional news media (in print and online), and look at what remains. They spent a week studying Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit, and also Yahoo News, comparing them with 48 mainstream news purveyors.
FoxNews: sensational
September 5th, 2007 • Journalism, Life, Media
Tags: asides, TV
A few days back from the San Francisco holiday, and I still have FoxNews’ television coverage of the Larry Craig story rattling around my head.
Even as a humble Brit, I know that Fox has a reputations for eye-catching news delivery. But although a good number of US media pundits are less than kind to Craig (who, if you’re unaware of the story, is a senator accused of immodest behavior in a gent’s loo), there was an edge to Fox that left an acidic taste.
I caught one round-table group of pundits discussing the senator’s fate. I can’t recall the names, but I can see the glee on their faces: he had been weighed, measured and found wanting - slightly premature, perhaps, given that he had yet to officially climb onto the scales.
To my surprise, I became addicted during the holiday to a half hour of Fox before retiring for the night - it was the same addiction I developed to LBC radio, back in the days when it decided than anything less than 11 was showing a lack of commitment. I’m just not sure I’d want to base my reality on what it told me.
Mr Web 2.0 on a new form of news breaking
August 30th, 2007 • Internet, Journalism, Media
Tags: blogging, Journalism, newspapers
Or is it so new? Tim O’Reilly (the chap credited with coining the term ‘Web 2.0′) tells of his admiration for one blogger’s handling of a breaking news story…Journalism is Burning Or How Breaking News is Broken: “It wasn’t the subject of Scott’s story that stood out; it was the way he was telling it on his LaughingSquid blog. He reported the story by updating the blog over time. The practice is not unusual for bloggers. Revising or appending an update after the main or original story is fairly common. However, as this particular story grew and grew, Scott decided to keep adding more and more updates to the same blog post instead of creating new and separate posts each day.”He’s right, of course, but I work with an editor who does this every day, and has been for the last two years minimum.Her particular tipple is Formula 1, and I’ve always admired the way she pieces together race coverage as it happens - you can watch the jigsaw assemble as you hit the refresh button.An hour after the race is over, and you have a wonderful, completed picture. I’m not quite sure where I’m headed here: perhaps it’s to say that while O’Reilly’s praise is well placed, I’m unsure where the ground is being broken.
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