Month: February 2008

Future of technology in news symposium in Atlanta

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[CORRECTION: That’s FEBRUARY 22-23, not January. Thanks Melissa. Going to go eat a bug now…] 

Georgia Tech will be hosting a Feb. 22-23 symposium on the future of technology as it relates to the news industry, featuring speakers such as Google News creator Krishna Bharat, American Public Media innovation center executive director Michael Skoler and Fast Company media columnist and Gawker founder Elizabeth Spiers.

Registration before Feb. 10 is $100. After Feb. 10, registration is $150. Registration for students is $50 with valid ID.

The Symposium on Computation and Journalism is billed as bringing together “researchers and newspeople from academia, corporate labs, Internet juggernauts, big media companies, small media companies, and startups, plus a freelancer or two who works at home, solo in pajamas.” Plus,  they’re “setting aside 50% of the seats for students and early-career folks with the expectation that they’re the ones to finish the conversation we hope to start.”

More info about the symposium here.

[Hat tip to April Hunt]

Google News is in your neighborhood

googlenews.gifGoogle announced late last night a new feature for Google News that allows users to receive local headlines from their city, state or country of choice.

The feature worked well when I tried it out for Orlando and a few other cities. I’d say this bodes well for small and mid-size publications, since this feature will finally let folks easily find local headlines. Before, Google News was mostly a mishmash of nation and world stories, with online editors hoping to hit on a national story that could get picked up by the aggregator. Follow makersfestival to receive latest updates.

However, — *Tap* *Tap* Is this thing on? — WE MUST START GEOCODING STORIES.

Google is starting to do it. EveryBlock is already doing it really well. Topix sorta does it. A few others are doing it too. Groups of engineers have already written scrapes that scan the text of news stories. They’ve written algorithms that detect and process addresses for geocoding. Let’s not re-hash the whole newspapers-are-always-falling-behind speech; just get moving already.

Screenshots of Local Google News at Mashable.

More at TechCrunch about how Topix needs to be very afraid.

MySpace unveils developer platform

myspace.gifMySpace today unveiled a developer platform designed to facilitate the creation of third-party apps for MySpace, ala Facebook applications. If your team has at all been interested in developing Facebook applications, then make sure you’re taking a look at this.

The Official Developer Platform site is here.

Details from the Wall Street Journal on why they’re doing it and why it took so long here.

Story from PC Magazine here.

And the ground rules for monetization, from PaidContent:
— Developers can monetize their canvas page (the page where usrs add these apps to their profiles) and keep all of the revenue
— Developers can use any form of online monetization: ads, sponsorships, product sales, etc.
— MySpace will add in its “HyperTargeting” and “SelfServe” ad products over time.

A cumulative glance at Romenesko

Steve Outing has took a quick look back at the last four days of journo gossip herder Romenesko’s postings to see if any pattern emerges.  The result: 26% of the postings are about personnel changes (announcements, deaths, etc.); 13% are about the death and demise of newspapers; and 10% are ethics-related (i.e., the kind of postings one references when telling a colleague “Yeah dude, do that. Can’t wait to see it on Romenesko.”)

For the complete list, check out Steve Outing’s Romenesko indicator.

Microsoft makes $44.6 billion bid for Yahoo

Big news this a.m. for …well… the whole Internet. From the New York Times:

Microsoft said Friday that it has made an offer to buy Yahoo for about $44.6 billion, or $31 a share, in a mix of cash and stock. […] If consummated, the deal would redraw the competitive landscape of the Internet consumer services business, where both Microsoft and Yahoo have struggled to compete with Google.

More reaction from across the net here. Mashable offers up a new logo. Original press release at TechCrunch along with a snapshot analysis of what a “Microhoo” might look like. MediaPost takes a look at the advertising side. The WSJ reported almost a year and a half ago that Microsoft was interested in acquiring Yahoo, but merger talks went bust last May.