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25 Oct

Tips and tools to innovate with during election night coverage


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NOTE: Originally ran on Online Journalism Review: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/webjournalist/201010/1900/

In our world, there is no better story that reflects the power and value of good journalism like an election.

Regardless of the medium, the stories from an election can include investigative pieces, people profiles, contextual stories, and, because politicians are so colorful, stories of the weird.

Put these under an umbrella of breaking news and see us do our thing.

The midterm elections are just around the corner and they have proven to live up to a newsy season. By now many of us have established a general plan for election night coverage.

But to help foster innovation and advancement in journalism, last’s week #wjchat, a weekly chat about Web journalism held through Twitter, had its first Elex Exchange where we shared ideas and tools to help with this year’s coverage.

Inspired by the chat, here’s a list taking advantage of the latest technology to help election.

TWITTER // reporting + distribution
It’s a basic tool that should be part of your daily journalism routine, but Twitter is still best tool for covering a real-time news event, especially when covering breaking news or election.

As written before, Twitter is the tool to help you find sources and trends in real-time. Either by zip code or by topics/keywords, make sure you are using and monitoring Twitter throughout the election. Use a Twitter-client like TweetDeck with predetermine searches that you occasionally check on.


The next basic minimum is to have a Twitter feed on your homepage specifically for the election coverage. No programming is required to create this widget, you just need to decide whether you want public tweets with a hashtag or you want to create a list of the accounts that will appear in the feed.

Either way, Twitter has got you covered with their ‘goodies.’ Make sure you take the time to customize the colors to have it match your site design.

If you haven’t yet, check to see if a hashtag or hashtags relating to your local races have been created by the community. If no one has, create them right away. If someone beat you to it, don’t worry and embrace them… but either way start using them NOW!

This simple act gives you a head start in becoming the lead authority on these races, in social media and beyond.

Take a page from the Pulitzer Prize winners for Breaking News, seattletimes.com, and get in the habit of creating and using hashtags when covering all types of news.

FOURSQUARE // geolocation + distribution
This election season, news outlets should create ‘check-in’ places for polling locations in their town. The geolocation community is small but growing and will be checking in as they go to vote. Like a hashtag, if you don’t create a location, they will.

Become the leader in coverage by not only creating the locations but add a tip (Ex. Tip links to LAT story about Venice Beach fight) that links back to your site’s live, active, up-to-date election coverage.

Remember, by having these locations, you can also find potential sources as they check in to the venues.

USTREAM // live streaming
Who says TV broadcast gets to have all the fun with their live coverage. Okay, it may not be your idea of fun, but live streaming is a tool more newsrooms need to embrace. No expensive satellites required, services like Ustream allow you to do a live shot from your newsroom with a laptop and camera or from your smart phone.

Stream the candidates’ celebratory or concession speech election night live straight onto your homepage. It’s easy and it should be another standard tool in your journalistic toolbox.

CROWDMAP // crowdsource reporting + mapping
This tool comes from Sarah Day Owen, #wjchat colleague and Augusta Chronicle‘s Social Media Editor, who heard about it from the new hyperlocal site TDB in Washington D.C. She is hoping to experiment with this tool that takes crowdsourced information from cell phones, news and the web and maps them.

This application, originally built to crowdsource crisis information, begs to be used by news outlets, especially for something like election coverage. It’s free and pretty simple to setup… so you still have time to pull this off. Even if you don’t get participation from the community, get your reporters to file dispatches.

STICKYBITS // social media + user-generated content
I recently wrote about this tool and want news organizations to experiment with it, so here’s a second pitch.

Like Twitter’s hashtag or FourSquares’s digital makers, create your own barcode and literally post it at as many polling places in your town, asking a question (Ex.: What do you hope comes out of this election?) and a note encouraging them to download the stickybits app and upload their responses. See if you get people in your community adding election related “bits” – video, text, photos, audio, etc. – to your barcode.

IMAPFLICKR // user-generated photos + geolocation
Okay, so getting the community to download an app to scan a barcode then post a message is a sizable hurdle (I know, but try it anyway!), so here is a simpler tool that takes a Flickr feed and maps it.

In other words, you can open up a Flickr account and have people submit photos from polling places and get them mapped. Like the Twitter feed, no programming is required and the biggest decision you have to make is whether or not you make this a public or staff driven feed.

PHOTOSYNTH // photo + crowdsourcing + magic
This tool, originally created by the University of Washington before it was purchased by Microsoft, is something I’ve been trying to push into newsrooms’ toolboxes for years. It finally made its mainstream debut with CNN’s “The Moment” in 2008, but hasn’t been used much in news since.

It may not work perfectly in this scenario, but I would remiss if I didn’t mention it. PhotoSynth takes a collection of photos – from different contributors – of one location and “stitches” them together to create a virtual experiment.

So, let’s say we’re at a candidate’s headquaters for the party… take a ton if photos of the scene, throw them into this program and post an experience like no other. It’s more powerful if you crowdsourced the images.

STORIFY // social media + curating (Invitation required)
The great thing about Twitter and other social media networks is the real-time stream of content that flows out of them, often like a fire hose of information. The bad thing about these tools is the content can get drowned out rather quickly. Storify, who’s creator we profiled recently, is a tool that let’s you build a story through social media elements, adding context and comments around elements from Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and more.

You create an article on their site, but you embed the created piece on yours. It’s in beta and there are a few limitations with it, but if you want to tell the story of how the election night was covered through social media, this is the tool to use.

Do you have a tool you plan to use? Have you experimented with these? What examples of great election coverage have you seen? Make sure you add your thoughts and experiences in the comments, before and after the election.

Robert Hernandez is a Web Journalism professor at USC Annenberg and co-creator of #wjchat, a weekly chat for Web Journalists held on Twitter. You can contact him by e-mail (r.hernandez@usc.edu) or through Twitter (@webjournalist). Yes, he’s a tech/journo geek.

11 Oct

Q&A with Storify and Hacks/Hackers founder Burt Herman


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NOTE: Originally ran on Online Journalism Review: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/webjournalist/201010/1894/

For this week’s post, I “sat down” with Burt Herman (@burtherman), entrepreneurial journalist who is the CEO of Storify and founder of Hacks/Hackers.

NOTE: We did the Q&A-style interview over a collaborative document and one of my favorite tools: typewith.me. You can see the raw interview and play it back here: http://typewith.me/ep/pad/view/ojrqa01-bherman/latest

Burt HermanBurt, you have an incredible journalistic background and really, in my opinion, you truly represent the new type of tech/entrepreneur journalist we’ve all heard about. Tell me a little bit about your background at the Associated Press and how you evolved from reporter to entrepreneur.

Thanks, you’re too kind :)

Yes, I started off in a fairly typical journalism role — I went to work for the AP because I wanted to work overseas as a foreign correspondent, and they had the most opportunities to do that. So after graduating, my first journalism job was as a temp hire at AP and things went from there — a couple years in Detroit and then a post as an editor on the International Desk in New York before I was sent overseas to Berlin. From there, I went to Moscow and then to Uzbekistan to start a new bureau for AP covering the former Soviet republics in Central Asia. My last AP job was a bureau chief in Korea. In between, I covered the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Asian tsunami, Pakistan and many other stories.

I returned to the US in late 2008 for a Knight fellowship at Stanford, where I had gone as an undergrad. With all the changes in journalism, I wanted to explore the secret sauce of innovation in Silicon Valley and see how that could be applied to journalism. I took classes at the Graduate School of Business, Design School, computer science department and explored how this could be applied to journalism. In the end, I wound up deciding to extend my sabbatical from the AP to have a go at doing a startup on my own, building a company around the future of storytelling and digital publishing from a clean slate.

From being a foreign correspondent to being an innovator, you must have seen a lot of changes along the way. What stands out for you when you look back at that decision to make the transition?

It’s still very much in progress, and I’m learning more about it all the time. The first big difference is that being a journalist gives you a daily sense of accomplishing something by writing a story and having it be published. You then move on to the next story and get constant feedback. Trying to create a business and develop Internet applications is a much longer process, filled with many ups and downs along the way. It’s exciting to be your own boss but also can be terrifying at the same time. I suppose dropping into crisis zones and new countries was a decent preparation for this, and also just being open to always leaning new things.

That was going to be one of my questions. Which is harder: being a CEO of a startup or a foreign correspondent?

I worked for 12 years at AP and nearly 10 of those overseas, and along the way I had a lot of great mentors and advice. I’m still new at the startup thing, so that’s definitely more challenging right now. Also it’s having to do much more with less when you’re not part of a larger organization. Everyone has to contribute in many ways. Both come with a lot of freedom and lack of oversight, again which is wonderful but also requires a lot of drive and passion to keep going.

Your startup is called Storify… can you describe it and tell me how the idea came about?
Storify
The idea comes from thinking about the future of journalism and the fact that everyone now is creating so much content. We’re flooded with Tweets, YouTube videos, Flickr photos and everything else. Everyone can be a “reporter” when an event happens. But not everyone is a “journalist” — making sense of an issue and giving the context. So we built a system to help people do this, take the best of social media and make it into a story — to “storify” it. The word itself is actually in the dictionary, and also comes from my AP days when editors would send messages to bureaus asking them to “storify” something.

Talk about the process of going from an idea… or even a word… to a startup. Where are you in the process now? What is your current challenge since you already have a working product.

The first thing I needed was to find a cofounder who had the technical ability to work with me, and also was passionate about the topic. The idea I began with was actually something different relating to news and social media, this evolved over time.

So to find a cofounder, I basically started going to any tech events that I could around here and was talking about what I was doing to find people interested, and there were several false starts with people who didn’t work out. I eventually found my now-co-founder Xavier [Damman] when he was presenting at a Twitter application meetup.

Part of that was also the reason for starting Hacks/Hackers — indeed.

So, Hacks/Hackers was a means to this end? Or was it a resulting side project from your process?
Hacks/Hackers
Hacks/Hackers was part of this, trying to find people passionate about media and technology. But it also was born from my experience at the fellowship at Stanford, seeing all the amazing work that computer scientists were doing and wanting to bring that energy to journalism for the sake of helping quality journalism survive. I do believe strongly that democracies need information to function and journalists have fulfilled that role. Meanwhile, media and technology are converging, and the way that we get this information is changing. We need to make sure that we bring together journalism and technology at the start of this storytelling process to build the future of media, not as an afterthought as has often been the case. And we should work together to make that happen, rather than the somewhat contentious relationship we have seen at times between media and technology companies.

As I reflect on my career, I see that I have been working under the H/H “framework” … working with engineers and designers to advance journalism. Seeing — and attending — a couple of H/H meetups, I have to say I’m really l glad this is going on… are you surprised by its success? It’s international, right?

Yeah, we already have a couple chapters in the UK and starting now in Toronto. I was a bit surprised that it spread so much. Really, it just began with me starting a meetup group and getting some 30 people to come to a bar last November, less than a year ago. Now we have more than 2,400 members on various Meetup sites and more people coming to our blogs and on an email list. I think it’s clear that there’s a hunger for this thinking, and we want to also empower journalists in newsrooms to be part of the changes that are happening. We will only figure this out by working together and experimenting, another key thing that Hacks/Hackers is about. We’ve been doing some hackathon events and want to expand that, so people have the freedom to try things away from the usual daily newsroom rush.

You wear many hats… of these — journalist, innovator, businessman — is there one role that is larger than the others?

I guess I’m not really writing so much lately, although I’ve been calling myself an “entrepreneurial journalist.” I was talking to David Cohn of spot.us and he also is in a similar space. The definition of “journalist” has changed so much, and really is about bringing together a community around a topic to enlighten and inform. So in that sense, I suppose it’s quite a bit of that, while also building a successful business and do the whole Silicon Valley startup route of getting investors, building partnerships and making things happen. It’s definitely a lot to do, I’m busier than ever nowadays! I guess that’s also the brave, future.

Like I said, you (and David) to me represent this modern journalist reflecting the needs of our times… but, in my opinion, I think you guys are a rarity. We’re not all going to be able to do this… or can we? Or should we, even? What do you think?

Well, yes, it’s quite hard to do many things and do them all well. Hacks/Hackers is about bringing together journalism and technology, but that doesn’t mean every journalist is going to be a rockstar coder or should even try. That takes years of work, just like being a great writer. But I think it’s important for everyone to understand the other side and the complete picture. That also goes for journalists now having to understand more about the business side of things, why traffic matters and how to drive it, all those other parts of media. With everything so interconnected, we all need to have a wider awareness.

Sadly, we are constantly hearing the complaints from veteran journalists lamenting <eyeroll>the end of the golden era</eyeroll> … what do you say to those people who think technology killed journalism… or to those who are feeling low about the state of things now?

It’s interesting because even though I’m quite young, my career has basically been right during this amazing shift. I think the golden era is ahead of us. We are not really still at the birth of the Internet, the Web, social media and all these amazing technologies that change the way we communicate. I became a reporter in some ways because I’m a nosy person :) — now with Twitter I can eavesdrop on the world and see what people are talking about. That’s a golden opportunity for storytelling. And reporters can now interact with their audiences more easily as well, [getting] the feedback that all writers crave — sometimes for better or worse.

We need to take the best parts of the past, like the credibility and fact-checking, context and the like and blend that with technology. It’s a rough time for sure as old models are collapsing, but I’m confident that many more exciting things will result. One quite interesting little recent development was Howard Kurtz leaving the Washington Post for The Daily Beast — the new models are taking off, so that should be encouraging.

What tip or lesson would you share/give to someone who is thinking about taking that leap and trying a startup or new experiment? And, quite honestly, dude, what drives you? What keeps you going?

Definitely experiment in whatever way you can, we need more people trying new things to figure out what works. In Silicon Valley, failure is embraced unlike anywhere else. You’re not trying hard enough if you’re not failing once in a while, we need to take chances and learn from our mistakes to move forward.

Ha — yes, good question as to motivation, it’s sometimes quite tiring! I guess I’m the type who always keeps thinking there is a better way to do something, maybe it’s the latent engineer in me. Also it’s been great to see all the feedback from people with Hacks/Hackers and realizing that this is actually bringing people together, that’s been wonderful and I’m now also getting a lot of help from local organizers in all these different cities.

With the startup, also seeing people get excited about what we’re doing and having some amazing experiences like launching our product at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference.

I couldn’t agree with you more… personally, these are extremely exciting times and it is great to see organic movements like H/Hs help facilitate that. So, my last question is one I have been asking people recently… it’s a simple one, but I always love the answers, and you touched on it earlier. In these times, with the ups and downs and the unknowns ahead… why are you a journalist? (You are clearly a journalist, sir.)

I want to say thanks for saying that, although I suppose being labeled a “journalist” these days might not always be a favorable thing. :) I guess this goes back to what I wrote when I applied to the Knight fellowship. My parents come from Romania and grew up under communism, and I spent a lot of time traveling in Eastern Europe as a student and studying the area. I do feel strongly about the importance of freedom of information as essential to democracy, and that we are incredibly lucky to have that in the United States. After reporting from many countries where that wasn’t the case and people are struggling under authoritarian regimes, I feel even more strongly about the power of open information.

Awesome. At the recent H/Hs meetup a young guy — who dabbled with journalism, but became a developer – asked, “why would a developer want to be involved in journalism when they could make more money doing something else?” I had been somewhat quiet at the time, but could not help blurt out a response…

Because we give a damn… because we care… because we’re suckers… money, decent money, would be great… but we do it for a higher calling or something that drives us. Both Hacks and Hackers related.

Yeah, I do think some developers do feel a sense of a bigger mission and giving back to the world, like with open-source code. In that way, there are a lot of things hacks and hackers have in common.

Thank you so much for taking the time and “chatting” with me in this experimental Q&A… I had a blast.

Sure, thanks again for the kind words and interviewing me. That’s another thing I’m also getting used to in the brave, new entrepreneurial world — having people interview me! It gives me much more sympathy for all the people I’ve interviewed over the years :).

HA! Thank you.

05 Oct

Two new Social Media emerging tools — possibly useful in Web journalism


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NOTE: Originally ran on Online Journalism Review: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/people/webjournalist/201010/1891/

Think about it, two or three years ago most people had never heard of Facebook. Tweets were still mainly owned by birds, not limited to 140 characters. FourSquare was some vague game from elementary school.

In general, most people had written social media off as some sort of high school fad.

Well, you should know by now, Web-based Social Media is not a fad.

If you still doubt this, temporarily remove your head from the sand and go talk to one of the more than half a billion people that spend hours and hours sharing news, photos or running a virtual farm. (For the record, I am not a fan of FarmVille.)

In its constant evolution, though, technology routinely leapfrogs past itself as it innovates and disrupts the status quo.

In other words, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

What’s next? It’s geolocation paired up with augmented reality, in my opinion.

Those creating these new tools typically don’t have journalism as a possible application in mind. But I, an admitted tech/journo/mad scientist geek, can’t help but apply the journalism prism to some of the latest tools and technology.

So, in that vein, here are two emerging tools I’ve came across that I think are worth keeping an eye on. They may not be perfect now, but I encourage you to experiment with these and see if there is a journalistic application here.

NOTE: I recently posted my Web Journalism’s rules of tech engagement, so feel free to refer to them and keep them in mind as you read. All of them apply, especially #1 and #5.

Whrrl
This new social media site may sound similar to its forefathers, but it has one clear difference (that I think they underplay). It’s not about you, it’s about community… and it’s about moments.

On Twitter or FourSquare, you are telling the world where you are… in Whrrl, you are “creating a story.” Your posted photos and notes from your check-in are auto-grouped with others and, potentially, are telling the story of a moment collectively.

Example: We’re celebrating your birthday at a bar. We capture the moment by sharing pictures, videos, comments, etc. Those not attending could virtually experience the moment and add to the conversation.

Neat… but where’s the journalism?

Change the previous example from “birthday” to, say, “election.” Reporters and citizens are posting their experiences — comments, photos, videos, etc. — at polling sites, leaving a virtual marker filled with content for others to add or re-live. This would also work for a sporting event, a protest/rally or any news event where people gather in one location.

Collectively, we can capture the moment in real-time with rich multimedia. This doesn’t replace the article or video piece, but can really enhance them.

stickybits
This tool launched earlier this year at SXSW and is referred to as digital graffiti. Now, how to explain this… um, think of a digital bulletin board or wall where anyone could post anything.

Like a Facebook wall? Sort of.

Instead of the wall living in your computer, it is at an actual, physical space… because the information is embedded onto a sticker with a barcode. Scan it with your smart phone and read or leave messages in multiple media.

While finding these stickers is a cute game, they’ve recently graduated to using standard barcodes, which are on millions of products.



You can get barcodes for free and even order them in sticker form if you want.

Where’s the journalism here? Well, my brain is still thinking of different applications, but what immediately stands out here is the distribution.

Imagine going to a polling place where people can scan a sticker to read or leave messages. The only way to get that unique experience from that polling place is to be at that location.

From news to reviews, we could possibly embed our stories on anything and anywhere. And, more importantly, we can get user engagement. We’re not talking about from behind a computer, we’re talking about out in real life.

Take some time and play, er experiment, with these new emerging types of technology. Get in the habit of exploring this stuff… and share your experiences.

19 May

Youropenbook.org and Facebook’s flawed privacy settings can help your reporting


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Get past the awkward and dark predetermined searches like “I hate my boss,” “I lost my virginity” and “I’m not a racist but” … and look at what youropenbook.org presents to us as journalists.

While the 105 million+ people on Twitter know their tweets are default set to public, they are still a fraction of Facebook’s 400 million+ users that post T.M.I. they’d only share with their closest 300 friends.

Facebook gives you a false sense of private… but by now you should know better.

The walls around the Facebook garden have crumbled because of the company’s seriously flawed privacy settings.

And while as a user you should be freaked out and proactive about your personal settings (and more conscious of what you are posting!), as a journalist this is presents an incredible, unfiltered opportunity to access your community on a diversity of topics.

Hold your nose and thank youropenbook.org for making it easier to access your the community on Facebook – for better or worse.

You can now quickly query what’s on the mind of the millions of users that are sharing their raw opinions about any topic… sadly, they usually think it’s “private,” often sharing their opinions with their social guard down.

Here’s a quick search on the some newsy topics.

Arlen Specter

Bangkok, Thailand

Illegal immigrants

Even boring old healthcare.

Go to the site and do a search on something related to your beat or community. Who knows how long this tool will actually last (Facebook has sued before).

But while this is still around, look passed the initial shallowness of the tool and look at the possibilities that help you improve your journalism.

Oh, and do yourself a favor and check your privacy settings on Facebook… come to think of it, just check your privacy at the door before you log onto the Web. It’s all public… whether you like it or not.

28 Apr

Blogger’s Journalist’s house gets raided, why aren’t we more angry?


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Gizmodo's Tale of Apple's Next iPhone
Image by Gizmodo

Let’s gets this out of the way. There are a lot of unknowns here and probably lots of potential shady things yet to come out. This story, no doubt, has legs… and lots of them.

But, I have to say, I’m starting to feel really disappointed in the lack of outrage journalists are having to the Gizmodo raid. Maybe I’ve completely missed it, but we should be up in arms here!

And by “we,” I don’t just mean Webby nerds, tech geeks or digital dorks. By “we,” I mean journalists in every newsroom cross platform, across the country.

Where is the statement by the Society of Professional Journalists? The American Society of News Editors? The Online News Association, for heaven’s sake!?!?

If you missed it, Gizmodo posted a recap from their point of view, but here’s my understanding: (Note: You could easily do a search-and-replace here and change “lost” or “found” to “stolen” … or can you? Too soon to say.)

Act I: A new, prototype Apple iPhone was “lost” at a bar in the Bay Area. When this news first broke, many of us thought it was a crafty Apple P.R. stunt rather than a bonehead mistake. Turned out it was the latter and the bonehead employee was later named.

Act II: The “finder” of the phone allegedly attempted to contact Apple to make it aware of the misplaced device… but in the end, Gizmodo paid an estimated $5000 to get their hands on the “found” iPhone.

Act III: After Gizmodo posted a video and photos showcasing the “found” iPhone, it received a memo from Apple asking for their missing property back. The device was “bricked,” or remotely deactivated and made useless, presumably by Apple.

Act IV: Police raided the home of the blogger/reporter who posted the Gizmodo item. They actually knocked down his door while the blogger was not home and seized several pieces of equipment, which included laptops, iPad and more. The police have halted their investigation, once someone pointed about that the blogger is more than likely covered by the federal and state shield law.

Act V: ??? Who knows, but I can’t wait to find out.

Again, let’s get certain things out of the way here.

Yes, Gizmodo practiced checkbook journalism to purchase the iPhone. This is not a practice many of us do, condone or can even afford. But, sorry y’all, this type of journalism exists and is more common than we’d like to think. (One word: Paparazzi.)

Second, no matter the quality of it, Gizmodo is actively doing journalism. It’s not part of a legacy masthed, but one that was built by covering tech news — and it does so fairly well.

Third, you and I don’t know the details yet of how that phone was truly acquired. Hell, if Gizmodo was smart, they probably didn’t ask. But the device was acquired… someone leaked it… someone lost it… someone stole it… but the “it” was, and still is, big news. (Did you know Nokia has a missing device? I’m guessing not. Why? Because it ain’t an iPhone.)

Lastly, a journalist’s house was raided by authorities in connection to the device that he openly admitted and publicized he had. Don’t you think that was a little over the top?

So, I am asking myself, why aren’t we more pissed here? Where is our journalistic outrage? Where is the angry mob with pitchforks defending the first amendment right?

Would we be more outraged if instead of the phone it was some classified government document? Or if instead of a corporation like Apple contacting the authorities, it was the government?

Y’all, this is one of the biggest stories in modern journalism and we need to be on top of this… we need to get angry… we need to pick up our pitchforks pens and craft, at the very least, a statement that says this is not okay!

I love Apple too, but I love journalism more.

24 Apr

HTML editors


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A few days back, I was asked for a recommendation for a good, relatively cheap HTML Editor. I use BBEdit and Dreamweaver, but I asked the Twitter-verse for advice. Here’s a list of what they recommend. NOTE: I haven’t used these.

 
Works on Mac and PC:

KompoZer | http://www.kompozer.net | FREE

JEdit | http://www.jedit.org | FREE

Amaya | http://www.w3.org/Amaya/ | FREE

NVU | http://net2.com/nvu/ | FREE

Komodo | http://www.activestate.com/komodo_edit/ | FREE

 
Mac only:

Taco | http://tacosw.com | $24.95 & Demo

Coda | http://www.panic.com/coda/ | $99 & Demo

Espresso | http://macrabbit.com/espresso/ | $79.95 & Demo(?)

BBEdit | http://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/ | $125 or Demo

 
PC only:

Notepad++ | http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm | FREE

 

Categories: Tools & Technology Tags: ,
15 Mar

WIRED on a white horse, FTW? iPad-zines might just work


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OK, there’s been a break in the hype about the iPad, so I’d like to add an additional two cents… you may have read my first post where iPad has incredible journalism potential, but not its savior… well… I’m going to have to change tweak my tune.

Wait, wait… it’s not the savior, but done right it can create an incredible revenue stream for certain print products.

Let me tell you how I got here.

We started with Amazon‘s Kindle. The most transitional, soon-to-be-forgotten product ever… either it was gifted to you or your fit in the I-travel-a-lot-and-read-a-ton-of-books niche. The B&W experience with pauses between page flips was worth it to you (or some sucker) for a couple hundred bucks.

The NYTimes created and released their Times Reader 2.0 that even syncs to your TV or something… I really don’t know the details, because, like many of you, it did not resonate and has been largely ignored. Sorry, Google Reader and many, many others still win.

We’ve heard of the legendary eInk flexible paper that will breathe life into newspapers by dumping the cost of newsprint. And at CES we got a glimpse at Hearst‘s flexible paper. Hearst innovate while trying to please its shareholders? Um, probably not.

And, hopefully by now, we’ve all seen the Sports Illustrated‘s demo video of what their tablet could do. It’s a neat concept, but being jaded from print journalism’s track record, I doubt we will invest in a smart, creative staff that will really take advantage of this new form… shareholders may not understand the potential.

Yes, it’s all pretty much been hype or mediocre at best.

Wasn’t this going to be a positive post? What changed?

</haterpants>

I saw the video by WIRED magazine displaying their Adobe Air iPad-zine… it was not a concept, but an actual working, beautiful magazine in all its digital-multi-touch glory. It worked! No clip art, static hand guiding me through the potential interface like SI’s.

But it’s just a video right?

If it were any other magazine, I’d roll my eyes… but it being WIRED this crazy idea just might work.

Look at their print product. Fantastic, insightful content wrapped in elegantly designed and laid out pages. It’s clear that they value and are focused on a reader experience that last more than minutes. Readers don’t recycle their issues or line their bird cages pages… well, normally.

Look at their deadlines. They are not producing the daily miracle or nightly newscast or templated site. They have time to craft a product for every edition. (The only folks with more multimedia friendly deadlines are museums!)

That deadline schedule and WIRED’s creatively is a powerful mix when translating it to a digital, interactive tablet experience… and in the capable hands of a creative staff, it makes iPad-zines worth your time and, more importantly, your money.

The presentation of content in this form taps into two things the Web has not really mastered:

> Serendipitous browsing. Meaning, flipping through pages and seeing what jumps out at you as you scan for stories to read have more going for them that an SEO-friendly headline.

> The beauty of the boardsheet. Print newspapers, but especially magazines, are not tied to templates because they have time to create an engaging layout. The limitations of space for their content, gives them a finite number of pages to work on.

I just finished seeing WIRED present their product at SXSWi (see live stream clips) and they up’ed it even more by demoing their iPad-zine on a Nexus One and iPhone… meaning, it’s not just an iPad-zine, but iPhone-zine, Nexus One-zine and so on… they are still not sure about their revenue structure, but they are hoping to bring life back into the journalism subscription model.

And, with a product like that, I’d pay.

Let’s hope we don’t mess it up! Let’s hope we invest in a creative, smart staff and give them the freedom to do their jobs. Let’s hope the content and vision outweighs the bottomline of the shareholders… or at least hope the shareholders give it a chance.

It’s going to be a big year for digital journalism. The tablets are coming, the tablets are coming! And so is the opportunity to create an engaging experience with our readers. And maybe some money too.


BONUS

And who is really behind this creative opportunity? Meet Condé Nast. They own WIRED and many other magazines… but don’t judge them by their Web site.

Other tablet demos

IKEA | http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIGd4aBzhTU

Mag+ | http://vimeo.com/8217311

02 Feb

SMS + QR Code = Awesome geek business cards


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Okay, okay… so you are saying to yourself, “Robert that SMS business card thing your wrote about is a little tech geeky. So, can you make it even MORE tech geeky?”

Why, yes. Yes, I can.

I mentioned QR Codes in a few posts back. These are new bar codes that anyone can generate to point to a specific URL, display text, share a phone number or send an SMS.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

If the answer is merging Contxts.com with QRCodes and printing them on the back of business cards, then you are correct! And, well, we may need some mental help. But who cares. Nerd is the new cool, right?

So, here it is… I created a QR Code with the SMS number of 50500 and message of webjournalist. All you have to do is take a picture of the code using the appropriate app on your phone, and your phone *should* send out a text message to Contxts and get my contact info.

My business cards with QR codes.

I say *should* because depending on the QR app you have (and believe me there are many) it may or may not work.

Hey, it’s cool. (Don’t judge me.)

28 Jan

Testing out iCall – free VoIP iPhone app


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iCall is the new iPhone app that allows you to do Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calls over the Web and 3G. VoIP, while much cheaper, is also generally known for low audio quality. Sorry, it’s true.

Well, it’s also true here. The audio quality from my iCall call was pretty bad… but remember you get what you pay for.

Compared to a traditional cell phone or land line, the audio quality is dramatically worse. Granted I was on AT&T’s not-so-great network, but you can’t blame them for everything and you can’t blame them for this.

The audio was slurred coming in when I heard my voicemail greeting and it was stuttered going out when I heard the audio playback.

Compared to Skype, the quality is also worse. But, in a pinch, this may be a cool app to have.

That said, this may happen to be a coincidence, but my battery was drained from 70 percent to 20 percent five minutes after the call.

Verdict: I don’t recommend this app when GoogleVoice is around the corner.

I uploaded my the audio so you can check it out.

Listen!

28 Jan

Two business card alternatives: Save the trees, embrace the geekiness


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My paper contacts in my office.

A few months ago, I uploaded a photo of my trusty, old Rolodex onto Facebook.

Over the years I have met some great people, collected a ton of business cards and attempted to alphabetize them in my Rolodex.

That alphabetizing part only lasted about 20 minutes some ten years ago.

Since then, I have had piles from different conferences strategically growing on my desk, in my backpack and around my Rolodex.

So, if business cards don’t work for me, what would?

Here are two ways I’ve begun sharing my contact info. Both of these I learned from people at I’ve meet at conferences.

The first is the extremely, iPhone-geeky-awesome Bump. This was introduced to me by David Stanton (@gotoplanb), Poynter Institute and University of Florida instructor, and all around cool tech guy. We met at AEJMC and sure, it probably took longer than physically swapping business cards, using the bump was much more fun. More importantly, it gets the contact information into your phone!

Why is it called Bump? To swap info, each iPhone user first loads up the free app, establishes a connection, then does a fist bump. Okay, the fist bump is actually optional… but the gesture/motion between the two iPhones triggers the app to look for a receiver/sender and syncs up the info. [See the video]

The second is simply, simple and I can’t believe it is free. At this year’s CES, I met some great L.A. tech folks, including Lisa Borodkin (@lisaborodkin). She’s an Entertainment + new media law and policy expert that is jumping into Web journalism reporting for LAist.

I didn’t believe her, but she asked me to text her first name to get a text back with her contact info. I did it, it worked. I set mine up.

Contxts is awesome. The downside: it’s in the SMS side of your phone, not contact side. But, it’s in your phone and adding it to your contacts shouldn’t take too long.

How’s it work, exactly? Just have people text your name/code to 50500 and boom, they get your info. I got greedy, so I have two accounts: webjournalist and roberth.

Try ’em out and tell me what you think.

There are TONS of alternatives to business cards swaps, and these are just two I’ve played with. Which ones have you used? What do you recommend we try or try to avoid?

Let’s do what we can to save the trees… and embrace your inner geek.