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Despairwear. I am so tempted.
Archive for the ‘By others’ Category
You are what you wear
Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009A by-the-book reader meets the Kindle (NYT)
Saturday, May 30th, 2009The slim, envelope-size Kindle is undeniably convenient, even for the curmudgeonly. – Picture caption from By-the-Book Reader Meets the Kindle – NYTimes.com.
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This first-person article about the accommodations that even a “curmudgeon” is willing to make when the technology is good enough, and the use case is right, to me is another confirmation of my hypothesis that the Kindle is showing the way toward a future in which people get paid for the content they are able to deliver conveniently (emphasis most emphatically mine). ’Nuff said; go read it.
Students offer 5 ideas for marrying journalism, technology (Poynter)
Friday, May 15th, 2009This semester, Medill’s Spring New Media Publishing Project offers journalism students an opportunity to design and build those new tools, working side-by-side with computer science faculty and students. Five teams are researching, designing, building and testing new information-driven applications. In the process, the journalism and computer science students are forging a common language and are starting to understand one another’s cultures.
via Poynter Online – Students Offer Five New Ideas for Marrying Journalism and Technology.
What Northwestern’s Jeremy Gilbert writes about here is very promising stuff indeed. I have parachuted in a couple of times – once to do a brief presentation to the Medillians about successful collaboration with technologists, and just this week to begin helping with the project presentations that will climax the quarter.
Much remains to be seen and done, but you are invited to stay up with the students’ work in progress on the class blog, www.writeclick.org.
Obsolete jobs: Wire editor, features editor [yelvington.com]
Saturday, May 2nd, 2009If Steve Yelvington didn’t exist, we would have to invent him. Latest evidence:
Read my lips: This is not a temporary maneuver in response to an economic cycle. This is permanent structural change.
via Obsolete jobs: Wire editor, features editor | yelvington.com.
Pressure on the Presses [WSJ]
Friday, April 24th, 2009Mostly all in one place, a reference guide to the woes of newspapers and newspaper companies. I could just save it to Delicious on the theory everyone has seen it already, but it’s just as easy to use my WordPress widget. (If you haven’t, it’s both a map and a table.)
J-Schools Play Catchup (NYT)
Saturday, April 18th, 2009Sunday’s New York Times does a quick survey, assembles some anecdotes, and draws a few conclusions…..
The changes [in media] are forcing colleges and universities to rethink what a journalism education should look like. The perennial debate about journalism programs — theoretical teaching versus professional skill building — has been displaced by more urgent questions: How can you help students find sustainable business models, while introducing the formerly verboten subject of the business side? What are the implications for the craft of journalism in the shift to digital? And how do you position students for an uncertain future in the media?
via J-Schools Play Catchup – NYTimes.com.
The online headline, as headlines are wont to do, oversimplifies the conclusions one easily can draw from the story: For one that, that J-schools perhaps saw this coming somewhat before the people running paid newsrooms. (The print presentation, in the Education Life section, is way different. In fact, the first deck is “J-schools boom despite crisis.)
Boom is not far off. I don’t think that the more than 100 admitted-but-not-yet-enrolled graduate students who attended a two-day Medill open house this week (Thursday at the downtown newsroom, Friday in Evanston) felt like they had applied to a place that’s a lap behind.
Is there lots yet to figure out? Sure. I kinda think that’s one reason I’m here, to help.
The new skillset for online reporters [Nieman]
Friday, April 17th, 2009At the Tribune, we talked about the use of social networks as “where journalism meets marketing.” At Medill, there is a huge emphasis on audience understanding. It all leads to the same place – one where journalism reaches the people who most will benefit from it, who most want it, who will be most likely to consume more of it.
“My generation, the notion of marketing your own copy, that was like dirty. You know, don’t make me get near that. That’s somebody else’s job. But in fact, now, marketing — we don’t call it that, but that’s a big part of what online journalists do. Figuring out which blogs they need to be in touch with in order to keep their audience together, using Twitter to drive traffic to your stuff, figuring out the right mix.” — Alan Murray, The Wall Street Journal
My own list is at the end of this speech from April 2006. Your mileage may vary, but I like mine pretty well.
Can the Statusphere Save Journalism? (techcrunch.com)
Thursday, April 16th, 2009The last sentence of this excerpt goes right to the heart of the matter. A long post, but a good one, from Brian Solis.
Worthy content combined with evangelism and clever promotion will earn visibility and expanded syndication through retweet (RT), link shares, Diggs, Stumbles, bookmarks, tweetbacks, Likes, and other forms of social syndication. With each new instance of sharing, content reverberates through extended social graphs. Content becomes a social object that inspires communication and action.