Results matching “blog from the web”

The Sony Reader is muscling into Kindle territory, and early reports on the new player in the market are positive.

The Kindle is more expensive the Sony's model and the Kindle does not have "format neutrality." The Kindle is unable to read formats like Acrobat PDF unlike its Sony rival, which can read virtually any format. However, the Sony Reader may not have always-on Internet connectivity, according to Gizmodo.

The Reader also does not does not have as many titles as Amazon's gadget has, but you can read any PDF, TXT, RTF, DOCs, Blogs and RSS for free and right away. But, you have to pay for each blog and RSS you subscribe to with the Kindle. This is disappointing when you can access these for free with an iPhone.

Furthermore, the design of Sony's model is more aesthetically pleasing than Kindle. The slimline model makes its rival look somewhat cumbersome by comparison.

Sources: Guardian.co.uk and Gizmodo

Sun-Times News Group reports a deal with social media firm Pluck which will offer readers discussion forums blogs, photo and video sharing as well as other community tools on SunTimes.com, PioneerLocal.com, SuburbanChicagoNews.com, SouthtownStar.com and Post-Trib.com. The venture is meant to increase audience interactivity, according to Catherine Lanucha, the group's director of content.

The New York Times (NYT) Moscow bureau has created a Russian-language blog whose title reads "Tell the Americans and the entire world about Russia", reported Marketing Media Review.

The viewpoints featured on the blogs are translated into English and will be published on the newspaper's official site, even if the tone of the content is negative. The issues discussed in the blogs are suggested by NYT journalists and include translated NYT news stories about Russia.

 Russian bloggers had the chance to pose questions to one of Barack Obama's advisor, who answered the inquiries and studied the nearly 500 comments left on the blog.

Source: Marketing Media Review

New media like blogs may be helping to "demystify" the Middle East and advocate peace journalism, even though it may seem as though there are more bloggers than readers, according to Jaron Gilinsky, journalist and documentary filmmaker in Jerusalem.

Since 2004, the number of new, "citizen-generated" media and reporters at the US political conventions has significantly increased. It has become more difficult to differentiate between independent bloggers and traditional ones as traditional media is adopting a "multi-platform" method, according to Media Shift's Mark Glaser.

Eric Beecher, former editor of The Sydney Morning Herald, says that Australian politicians have to support the idea that journalism may be vital to a democracy, while pointing out that quality journalism risks dying out.

"We can cherrypick. We can do the commentary and a little bit of investigative journalism and that kind of thing, but I can't see a business model for independent journalism funding hundreds of journalists to do the bigger things that you have to do to fulfil the democratic mission," said Beecher.

According to The Australian, Fairfax Media's recent decision to cut 5% or 550 workers from papers like The Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne's The Age may "blow a hole" in Australia's traditional quality media that new online media like blog sites would not be able to fill since the number of staff employed at such outlets may be about 10 times smaller than at traditional ones.

Beecher thinks that Fairfax is sending a message that its duty is to shareholders and "not to maintaining quality journalism and its place as the fourth estate".

Rupert Murdoch's News Limited remains as the "sole" commercial source of serious journalism, The Australian writes. The future holds "celebrity-driven pap" as paper and magazine content, for which advertisers are moving to the Internet, according to Beecher.

Source: The Australian

Portfolio.com's Jeff Bercovici questions whether or not Nicholas Kristof, New York Times (NYT) op-ed columnist, has crossed an ethical border after he pretended to be a Chinese national in order to test out the boundaries of Internet censorship in China.

The Star Tribune announces that it is transforming its online edition into a blog that will allow for the site to be updated regularly and for interaction between readers and editorial staff to be increased so as to "reinvent" print and online opinion journalism, reports StarTribune.com.

"We have two products, the Web-based one and the newsprint one. The newsprint one doesn't change during the day, because it can't. The Web-based one can, but it doesn't, because we use it mainly to present a snapshot of what we were thinking and writing about yesterday. I realized we could turn that model on its head by making the Web version change throughout the day and letting the newsprint version handle the snapshot,'' said Eric Ringham, the paper's commentary editor.

On weekdays, the Opinion Exchange section will feature a summary of daily Editorial Board meetings and encourage readers to provide their opinions, which may "inform" and possibly "influence" editorial views. "Traditional" editorials will be posted alongside opinions that evolve throughout the day, such as columns and YouTube videos.

The "best" of Opinion Exchange will be published in the following day's paper, writes SrtarTribune.com.

Source: StarTribune.com

In his Digital Deliverance blog, Vin Crosbie outlines his arguments, predicting that numerous US newspapers would go out of business in the future because print is dying, with regional papers folding in first, and that the industry will go through a "gray age."

Advertisers aren't the "primary customers" of papers. Readers are the "root of the business", because readers appeal to advertisers who will in turn bring profits to newspapers.

Crosbie mentions that the declining newspaper industry isn't cyclical. The situation might not necessarily get better in the future, The Guardian blogger Roy Greenslade points out.

Britain's newspaper industry may reach the same tumultuous state as in the US, according to Greenslade.

Source: Guardian.co.uk

Even though the UAE media has grown in the last few years and helped the country advance, it should become both critical and objective, which can happen with the introduction of "more openness", "transparency" and "press freedom", according to Dubai-based paper Gulf News editor Abdul Hamid Ahmad. 

Journalism has been optimized in the country, thanks to innovative technological developments that resulted in improved and more "design-led" newspapers.

"However, I don' t see much progress in the matter of professional journalism, ethics of journalism and freedom of the press. These three aspects need to be addressed quickly, as the advancement on them is slow," says Ahmad.

In the past three decades, UAE went from having over a few daily papers and magazines to having more than a dozen dailies and hundreds of magazines and periodicals, mentioned Ahmad. Publishing houses and media zones like the Dubai Media City have been created.

"I do not envision ebb in this tide of progress in the future, especially as the population grows. I can only see the media in the UAE growing in presence, readership and diversity of coverage," Ahmad says.

The continuously evolving media environment in the country has caught the eye of foreign publications and media outlets, which have established their services in the region bringing along technological and professional skills.

Ahmad addresses the issue of tailoring content for UAE's public, mentioning that foreign newcomers have to adapt their skills so they fits with local traditions, cultures and sensitivities.

Source: Garcia Media
 

Twitter reported this week that it is axing its SMS service outside India, the US and Canada, causing consternation across the Twitter community. Almost immediately after this was announced, reports emerged of IT entrepreneurs taking up the challenge to look for a solution. The Editors Weblog spoke to - we think - the first organisation to launch a solution to the Twitter SMS issue: Twitsms.

Twitter is a free social networking and micro blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

The Editors Weblog spoke to Delia Timms and Jeff Bonnes (the founders of Twitsms) after receiving their email announcing the launch of Twitsms, which was just two days after our posting on the SMS issue. (Our interview with Delia and Jeff follows below.)

Twitsms buys the SMS in bulk in advance to keep costs low. Prices start at 7 pence in the UK and 11 cents in Australia per SMS.
 
The Editors Weblog also contacted Twitter, to find out how it feels about Twitsms and other such services helping out the Twitter fans that have been affected. Twitter has previously acknowledged that SMS is a key part of its service, saying: "We love SMS. The lowest common denominator aspect of this service is a defining part of Twitter."



Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter Inc, told me: "We do not officially endorse any one service. However, we are interested in seeing what the response to these services will be."

There has been a certain amount of annoyance in aspects of the Twitter community about how Twitter have handled this issue, especially following Biz Stone's blog on the Twitter website calling for "perspective" on the issue. Svetlana Gladkova (Vice President of Business Development at Profy) does not sugar coat her views in her blog on Twitter's reaction, stating: "In my opinion, the team over at Twitter has committed quite a number of mistakes in handling this situation."

Here at the Editors Weblog, we try not to dwell on the negative and focus instead on solutions to our readers' problems; and Delia and Jeff look like they might just have one:

What inspired you to launch this service?

We use Twitter ourselves to keep in touch with friends and family both in Australia and overseas.  Jeff is American and particularly liked Twitter for staying in contact with his friends overseas.  So we understood personally how important it was for some Twitter fans to keep getting their SMS - even if they had to pay a very small fee for it.  Living in Australia we already have to pay fees for our SMS, so it is not unusual for us to pay to get our Tweets too.  We felt Twitter fans should at least have the choice to get their SMS, rather than just being cut-off by Twitter altogether.
 
How did you manage to set this up so quickly?

Experience and enthusiasm. We have built a few other successful internet businesses and have gained valuable experience over the past few years.  So we were fortunate to start out with some knowledge, skills and code. Jeff was able to apply learning from previous projects to speed up the coding for www.twitsms.co.uk. One of our other businesses does messaging and SMS already, so we were one step ahead with this. We were also able to use hardware and hosting from our other internet operations. We crowd sourced the graphic design for a fast turnaround.
 
What technology are you using?

We use Java and a web development framework called Grails. This allowed us to build  a very robust site quickly.
 
Can you explain exactly what arrangement you have established with the mobile companies?

Currently we buy SMS in bulk to keep the cost for users as low as possible.  As the site grows, we will look for ways to reduce costs even further.
 
Have you had any contact with the Twitter team about your project?

No we have not made contact yet, but will in the future. We hope that Twitter is happy that www.twitsms.co.uk and www.twitsms.com.au are keeping their fan-base connected outside of the USA, Canada and India!
 
What have been the early indicators been for Twitsms?

Early business is very strong. We knew there was a solid Twitter community and we knew they were annoyed about being shut off.  But were not sure whether they'd pay for their Tweets. However we have been happily surprised by the immediate interest from Twitter fans. They are more annoyed about Twitter shutting their service down, than having to pay a few cents to get their SMSs. Another surprising aspect for us has been the global interest.  www.twitsms.co.uk has been live for 4 days now and we've had contact from customers in the UK, Australia, Belgium, Norway, Sweden, Turkey, Israel, Russia and France (of course!).
 
The use of Twitter itself has been a great springboard for www.twitsms.co.uk.  Twitter is a handy and powerful tool for communicating and getting immediate feedback from customers! It is also an efficient way to keep our customers updated as we are responding to requests and developing new features quickly.
 
What is your competition?

There is one site that has launched in competition and several still 'coming soon'. There has also been one site that has stopped development before they released. We are not worried by competition; we developed www.twitsms.co.uk because it is a service that we needed and wanted to share with the Twitter community.  Being first to market has been great. The feedback and early input from our customers is helping us ensure that www.twitsms.co.uk is the best alternative for the international Twitter community.

Sources: Twitsms, Twitter, Profy

See also:

Twitter reduces its mobile service, ends SMS updates service

 

Imprisoned Cuban journalists continue to report from jail, whether it is through the weekly telephone calls they are allowed or by passing on notes during prison visits.

Journalists José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández and Miguel Galván Gutiérrez, who are currently jailed in Havana's Güanajay prison, managed to provide information about the exploitation of prisoners who are used as free labor at a shoe factory in Havana.

Articles making use of the information were published on CubaNet and PayoLibre, Miami-based online news outlets, even if they were not written by Hernández and Gutiérrez.

Both journalists were convicted in March 2003, as part of a "massive crackdown against the opposition and independent press", reported Maria Salazar on the Commitee to Protect Journalists Blog. 

Source: European Journalism Centre, Commitee to Protect Journalists

To further challenge the social networking site Digg, Yahoo! announces that it developed its "Buzz Up" content recommendation service so that it features more publishers, who can now add the feature's button to their web sites and have users vote on articles.

If sites aren't equipped with the "Buzz Up" button then links to the content can be submitted through Yahoo!. "Buzz Up" allows for users to vote and to share content like videos, blog entries and news stories, similar to the way in which Digg works.

Yahoo! said it will have some editorial control over the articles, so as to avoid releasing content that is "lewd, violent, or capable of exposing the company to legal liability", reported Business Week.

The "social content voting" system of the Yahoo! service could help less popular sites get more visitors, writes the European Journalism Centre.

Since the service's launch in February, the number of publishers has quadrupled from 100 to 400, the main focus being the US. Outlets that have already signed up for the service include USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and Entertainment Weekly.

Source: European Journalism Centre, Business Week

Google will set up a blog headquarters for bloggers who will be covering the Democratic convention in Denver next week, as well as for the Republican convention next month.

The move shows the development of new media, as Google competes with other well-established media outlets by providing users with the chance to use its YouTube site as well as other social media services in order to report on political events.

Around 500 bloggers paid US$ 100 to be able to access the "Big Tent" blogging facility, reports European Journalism Centre.

Source: European Journalism Centre