To anyone who’s wondering why this site has gone quiet recently (is anyone really out there?), I’m reassessing what to do with this little project. FYI. –Steve
TREND-SPOTTING FOR WHAT'S NEXT TO IMPACT NEWS & MEDIA
(Hmmm, I seem to have neglected this blog for quite a few days. Back to it…) This afternoon I listened in on a webinar by Widgetbox.com, which develops free tools for anyone to use in creating web widgets. The company and its offerings are impressive. The widget-making tools are super-useful for publishers large and small…
For most mainstream news publishers, as they produce video, the inclination is to host that content on their own websites. Makes sense, right? You own the videos, they should be where you have complete control over them. Right? Actually, not necessarily. These days it makes the most sense to post video on Youtube, which has…
The Project for Excellence in Journalism came out with its new annual report, “The State of the News Media 2008,” this week. It paints a bleak picture of the newspaper industry, especially — though bleaker for large metro dailies than small papers. It’s a must-read for anyone in the news business (and not just newspaper…
Just a short tip today. … Allow your readers to post comments on your content. (And yes, I mean all of it.) That’s hardly a new idea. Many news websites allow users to post comments on their content. Surprisingly, some still do not. (Which is pretty sad; allowing user comments is the base level for…
It’s beginning to feel like we’re getting somewhere on the issue of mainstream news websites linking outside themselves. Yesterday in a story about Elliot Spitzer’s alleged call-girl hook-up, “Kristen” (aka, Ashley Youmans, aka Ashley Alexandra Dupré), the Times linked to her MySpace page. Hurray! Linking offsite is a no-brainer for Internet native publishers. But it’s…
Next time you make a comment here, you’ll notice that I switched from the default WordPress commenting feature to using Intense Debate. Let me know what you think of it, please. Intense Debate is a new company based here in Boulder, and I know its recently appointed CEO, Tom Keller. What they’re doing definitely looks…
While the advice on this website most often is restricted to online tips, here’s one to help the print edition of your newspaper. You’ll accomplish it with an online program. Here’s what you do: Set up an affiliate program that other website owners and bloggers can sign up for, where they market your print subscriptions…
Here’s an excellent new blog aggregator: Alltop.com. That’s the site’s main entry point, and here’s one of its aggregator sites: Journalism.Alltop.com. The concept is a simple one that we’ve seen before, though I think this is a nicely done implementation that’s worth a look. Alltop’s sites simply list the top 5 entries of a bunch…
When some news people think about “citizen journalism,” the inclination is to think of encouraging (and perhaps teaching) non-journalists to act like journalists. For example, my hometown paper features something called MyTown, which announces: “Post news, events and photos. Blog, create your own groups, set up RSS feeds, and build your own communities and web…
Aack!! I just realized that WordPress stopped delivering me e-mail approval alerts when new comments get posted to this blog. I moderate comments in order to spare you from comment spam. (I must admit to having neglected this blog recently in terms of upgrading to current versions of WordPress and the Askimet comment-spam filter; ergo,…
This is the cover of the weekly TV guide insert in the Boulder Daily Camera that showed up in Sunday’s paper. (Click on the image to see the larger view.) Like many papers, the Camera has continued to cut back on elements of the print edition. At the same time, it recently raised the home-delivery…
Today’s tip was spotted in a recent article by Robert Niles of Online Journalism Review, “Keeping Your Job in Journalism.” While the article is aimed at instructing journalists on how to keep their jobs in an era of downsizing and transition-of-the-business-model chaos, one recommendation helps not only the individual journalist, but his or her news…
In yesterday’s tip I mentioned Herb Caen, the popular columnist who was such a huge part, for so many years, in making the San Francisco Chronicle the top newspaper in town. After Caen died in 1997, the Chronicle was less interesting a paper to many readers in the Bay Area. The paper has had some…
Be sure to check out a Boston blog aggregator site called Universal Hub. It’s a great example of what all local news organizations should be doing (IMHO). Universal Hub is an independent website run by Adam Gaffin, who trolls all the blogs having to do with Boston and picks out the best items each day…