If you haven’t perused the Top 10 list of placeblogs over at Placeblogger, you are certainly missing out. There were a few local blogs on the list I had not yet run across that I will be sifting through in the next few days. The list is a great starting point for educating yourself about what’s out there, preparing for a presentation or for sharing as an example of what local citizen journalism is all about.
Month: January 2007
Washington Post on the Backfence meltdown
The Washington Post has a more in-depth report on the recent staff cutbacks and loss of the CEO at the hyperlocal site Backfence. Some of the more stinging remarks:
“Realistically, it’s going to take close to 10 years for the business models to be there and for there to be enough advertisers willing to give money to hyperlocal start-ups,” said Vin Crosbie, managing partner of Digital Deliverance, a Connecticut media consulting firm. “Backfence’s problem is that it was too early.”
“They haven’t really been able to capture the genuine interest of local residents on passionate issues like crime,” said Peter Krasilovsky, a consultant who has been following Backfence’s development.
“It’s downsized to a modest team of people and they’re out of money,” [Frank Bonsal, one of Backfence’s angel investors] said. “At this point, I don’t look for any return or any prospect of recovery.”
Ouch.
Does this mean Backfence is not a viable model, or is it just too ahead of its time? There is a sharp distinction to be made between Backfence’s cookie-cutter type of approach and a site with such local flavor as Baristanet or an aggregator of such sites like the new Placeblogger. See Tish Gier’s recent post, “Citizen Shovelware isn’t Citizen Journalism.”
Nevertheless, I’d say that the lesson for those of us who are in the business of producing content is that traditional media outlets, that is newspapers, need to put it in gear quickly and leverage their standing in the community so they can become an integral part of the discussions taking place online.
Make no mistake: If the local newspaper doesn’t get hip and develop an online community (and that doesn’t just mean snarky message board minions), they will eventually face someone who will. And it will then become a choice of bearing another spirited online competitor or spending the bucks to buy them out.
Source: Bitcoin Up Fake
Discussions on the future of journalism education
I know I’m a day late, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fine interview between ICM’s Bryan Murley and Gatehouse Media’s Howard Owens on what might happen to our young journalists if colleges don’t shape up quick. Also, be sure to catch the first part of Bryan’s piece with WashingtonPost.com’s Rob Curley.
And for even more, here are thoughts from Mindy McAdams, Bob Stepno, Andy Dickinson and of course, this Journalistopia post, where bright minds from all over contributed their thoughts.
There is a lot of practical advice out there: keep a blog, learn some HTML/CSS, become handy with a camera and audio device, etc. However, students also need to make sure they understand just what the heck is really going on. They need to understand and be taught some of the fundamental, nitty-gritty differences between web journalism and print journalism. A few examples:
1) The big readership time is while people are at work. Breakfast is big, and lunchtime is huge. If a bus drives off a highway in the wee hours of the morning, and you think your deadline to file copy is at 6 p.m., well, you’re going to get reamed. Sunday is the newspaper’s big day. On the Web site, Sundays are usually dead.
2) As Orlando Sentinel editor Charlotte Hall likes to say, online news is like a flowing river, while the newspaper is like a snapshot of the day. That means news judgment on a Web site is different because there is a more complex time element involved that must balance with the “bigness” of the news.
3) Web headlines are often different from print headlines. Online news stories truly live and die by the headline (i.e., just search “Shamu” and “New York Times” in Google). Search engines bring huge traffic and they sniff out headlines based on keywords, so try to get those in there.
4) We don’t necessarily measure a story’s popularity by how many passionate phone calls we get about it any more. We measure it using page views, visitors and the most e-mailed list. But yes, phone calls are fun too.
5) What makes a great blog post might not have legs for a “news story.” A favorite example is Miami Herald reporter Oscar Corral’s blog post about the finely manicured feet of Fidel Castro’s daughter. Would the Herald write a story about this? Probably not. But the blog post was extremely popular, according to Corral. And it was just a paragraph and a photo he snapped.
There are many more such principles out there (do share in the comments), but I worry that students are not getting fundamental nuggets such as these in their college journalism courses. This is stuff everyone needs to know now, not just web-leaning journalists.
Getting started in WordPress checklist
If you’re pondering converting your blog to the easy-to-use WordPress or starting a new one, here’s a handy checklist from Download Squad of things to do once you install the blog software. Hmmm … I still need a favicon.
Also, check out this neat new plugin for WordPress made for whoever may be browsing your blog from a Nintendo Wii, DS or a PSP. It’s already installed here, so when you take a break from playing tennis, swing by and let me know how it looks.
New York Times covers citizen journalism trend
Just caught an article that ran in yesterday’s New York Times about various local citizen journalism initiatives being carried out by individuals. (Also, make sure to check out David Carr’s interesting take on journalists blogging, and pay particularly attention to the section about news judgment being affected by page view metrics).
While Bob Tedeschi citizen journalism story is a nice look at the trend, I felt the story glossed over the profitability of the sites. About one site, Tedeschi writes:
“Readership [at WestportNow.com] is growing, he said, with between 5,000 and 7,000 visitors clicking on the site daily. Advertising revenues are also increasing, he said. Although the site still loses money, Mr. Joseloff said he hoped to develop similar sites elsewhere in Fairfield County.”
Aside from that line, the article gives no sense as to whether these other small hyperlocal sites will implode like Backfence seems to be doing. Of course, for those doing it strictly out of passion, then I suppose it doesn’t really matter, now does it?
And on a side note, let me give kudos to the Times for their new social networking features, particularly the permalink feature. Even though Michael Arrington angrily dissed it, I think it’s a great thing.
[UPDATE – Jan. 16] Liz George from Baristanet and Gordon Joseloff from WestportNow have responded in the comments. Tish Grier says on her blog that “the New York Times doesn’t quite get what citizen journalism is about.”
Roundup of Yahoo! Local features
Search Engine Watch has published an interesting feature on Yahoo! Local’s attempts to increasingly incorporate user-generated content into their listings. Some of the new features include allowing users to edit business listings by updating outdated addresses or flagging locations that have been closed. Yahoo also commissioned a poll with some interesting results:
The Harris poll also asked users about the effect ratings and reviews might have on their decision to patronize a particular business. Overall, 79 percent of respondents said they’d be likely to be influenced by a rating or review on Yahoo Local, with 9 percent of respondents more likely to be influenced by a review that was negative, 23 percent more likely to be influenced by a review that was positive, and 47 percent likely to be influenced by both positive and negative reviews.
Last fall, Yahoo commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct a poll to gauge users’ likelihood of posting ratings or reviews of local businesses to Yahoo Local. Overall, 67 percent of respondents said they would be likely to post a review, with 9 percent of respondents more likely to post a review that was negative, 8 percent more likely to post a review that was positive, and 50 percent likely to post a review either way.
Yahoo has constantly been adding new features to their site and the latest one launched in 2007 is the dating section. They have a whole list of new things that they can do with the dating section, checking profiles or adding people from Facebook. We will see how it pans out because it looks to be extremely promising right now. It’s not looking like a friend with benefits thing either, mainly for people seeking long distance or serious relationships. They always tend to work out best when you invest the time and effort into it.
Stupid-proof map creator tool
Mindy McAdams posted a link to Atlas, an easy-to-use map-making tool. HOW easy is it to use? I signed up for an account, typed in the address for the Orlando Sentinel and made this map. Total time: Less than 1-1/2 minutes.
You can embed the map just like YouTube video and manipulate it in several other ways. I’d embed it here, but Journalistopia gets indigestion whenever I try to embed stuff. Heck, it actually took me longer to write this post. Atlas, I wish I had found thee earlier. Enjoy!
Mourning the state of cafecito in Hialeah
My hometown of Hialeah, what is likely the most Cuban-American city in the United States and a place where 92% of its residents are Spanish speakers, has been forever changed.
A Starbucks has opened. And on the big 49th Street no less.
If you’re not familiar with Hialeah, it’s a place where the tiny shot of 50-cent Cuban coffee is king. It’s a place where the tiny paper cups of hyper-caffeinated black cafecito are served up through a window, and big yellow water coolers are kept on the windowsill because the stuff is so strong. And this is no small town either; it’s the fifth largest in Florida, making it more populous than Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.
This development is akin to finding a McDonald’s in Iran or an Outback Steakhouse in India. Unsettling.
The idea of a Starbucks in Hialeah has long been a topic of rueful speculation in my family. “Will a Starbucks ever open?” we wondered. “And will it last?” We love the vanilla bean frappuccino but feel strange about having it parked too close to home.
For better or worse, it feels like the culture of my hometown is changing and that one of the strikingly unique places in this country is being whittled away.
[Photos by augschburger and presidentservelan]
British newspapers paying Google for headline placement
Do I hear $10 for “Saddam Hussein hanging?” $15?
PaidContent highlights a Wall Street Journal report on the growing trend in the U.K. toward newspapers bidding on sponsored links on Google for news events. Some American newspapers have gotten in on the act too, including the New York Times, Washington Post and USAToday, according to the article.
I have no qualms about training journalists to write search-engine friendly headlines. Those headlines tend to work better on the Web anyway, and Google is the biggest driver of traffic just about anywhere.
Nevertheless, the question is: If this trend explodes here in the United States, will even mid-size and small news sites have any other choice but to join the auction?
Journalism students, professors need to read this
Mindy McAdams shouts it from the mountaintop: Students need a different skill set to prosper, and even survive, in today’s hectic journalism marketplace.
She writes:
“Now, let me hasten to say that some of those students are the very ones who are deliberately plugging their own ears and closing their eyes to reality. They are attached to a dream of becoming someone from the past — maybe photojournalist Eddie Adams, maybe gonzo writer Hunter S. Thompson — a journalist who only took pictures or who only wrote.”
Use the tools you have today, and craft your own legend instead.
[UPDATE 8:21 p.m.] Innovation in College Media’s Bryan Murley promises an interview on Monday with Howard Owens regarding this very topic. So tune in, young Jedi!
News design roundup, new monthly column
The Editors Weblog is beginning a new monthly column on news site design, and their first post is a great roundup of some changes taking place in the industry. Their first column features National Geographic, the Guardian and the recent Time and Computerworld redesigns. Check it out!
Asia leads the way in blogs
Steve Safran at Lost Remote drew attention to a surprising discovery: Asia, particularly Japan, South Korea and China, are way ahead of the United State in terms of blog readership. Check out Safran’s post for links about the study, or just check out the whole PDF of the study.
Would any of you happen to know of any data or investigations about the state of blogging in Spanish-speaking countries?