a “boot camp” for journalists

Reddit is a great training tool for writers because unlike on Facebook and Twitter, users cannot lean on their followers and friends to make their posts successful. Instead, each post’s quality of writing and message is individually evaluated. Each post has an equal likelihood of making it to the site’s front page at its genesis, regardless of its author. Thus large follower bases aren’t rewarded, as they would be on Twitter and Facebook. What’s instead rewarded is concise and witty writing, the length of “half-tweets” — the same skills vital for writing headlines, which in the digital era are more important than ever. And with the deluge of posts on the site (last month there were over 55 million unique Redditors), users must hone these skills for their writing to make the front page.

Through a rights management company called Copiepresse, which took on Google in a court case and won, Belgian newspapers have succeeded in preventing others from exploiting their content without providing financial compensation.

Margaret Boribon, the Secretary General of Copiepresse, calls it protecting the “fair value chain in the digital world.”

“Every content producer should receive fair remuneration for their efforts. It’s a very simple principle,” she says.

And while some publishers see Google as a collaborator, protecting content revenue is essential, Ms Boribon says.

“In the 20th century, there were two pillars of revenues for the press – circulation and advertising. In the 21st century, a third pillar is needed – licensing the re-use of newspaper content,” she says.

Copiepresse does not object to individuals sharing information. What it does object to is what Ms Boribon called “systematic and professional piracy.”

When Google announced it intended to establish a Google News in Belgium in 2006, Copiepresse put it on notice that it objected to the inclusion of its members' content without payment. When Google ignored the notice, Copiepresse sued.

Six years later – after failed negotiations, retaliation (Google removed Belgian newspapers from Search as well as Google News, restoring it only under threat of lawsuit) and appeals, Copiepresse won its case. Google has one more appeal, with an ultimate decision expected in 2013.

Just be yourself. Good advice for people, but maybe good advice for news organizations too?

Kerry Lauerman, editor in chief of Salon.com recently published a blog post, revealing that at the end of 2011 Salon had a record of over 7 million unique visitors, a figure that increased to 7.23 million by the end of last month. This number is up from 5.5 million uniques last August - a significant jump.

The secret? Focusing on original content rather than aggregation. "We've tried to work longer on stories for greater impact, and publish fewer quick-takes that we know you can consume elsewhere," writes Lauerman. As a result, Salon is actually publishing about one third fewer posts than it was one year ago, but generating about 40% more traffic.

For more on this story please see our sister publication www.sfnblog.com

Are you ready to meet Siri's sister? No, not another shrill-voiced digital assistant, but in fact a new discovery engine, brought to you by Siri's sister company, Trapit. Like the iPhone 4S's voice command technology, Trap.it is the product of technologies developed in the CALO - Cognitive Assistant that Learns and Organizes - project. Trapit is now its own company and has begun raising funds, including seeking capital from Horizon Ventures, one the sponsors of Facebook, Spotify and Siri.

So Trapit has an impressive heritage, being descended from a $200 million artificial intelligence project, but what is it about Trapit that differentiates it from the ever-increasing amount of aggregators and discovery engines out there?

Conceptually it's not so different to Stumble Upon, a discovery engine that learns what you do and don't like. However, instead of flicking from page to page, Trapit simultaneously displays several panels related to different subjects- i.e. the trap - that the reader has said they are interested in or are likely to be interested in. When new information is found about those issues, Trapit updates the feed.