Recently in Web 2.0 Category

From college students on Facebook, to moms, and even the EU parliament, it seems everyone these days is jumping on the social networking bandwagon, and journalists can, too. 10,000 Words recommends these sites for journalists:

Wired Journalists



The place for journalists to network and discuss the changing world of multimedia journalism. "WJ's strength," writes 10,000 Words, "is in its groups, in which members discuss topics like tutorials, audio techniques and student journalism"

LinkedIn

With 23 million members, LinkedIn offers an interactive database of hundreds of thousands of resumes; where professionals can keep in touch with current and former colleagues and be introduced to mutual contacts.

COLOURlovers

COLOURlovers is a hub for page designers, graphics journalists, and web producers. The site offers searchable color schemes and patterns, groups and a blog.

Twitter































Where news breaks first (and where social networking and microblogging converge). As 10,000 Words notes, "the site is still great for keeping up with the world in 140 characters or less."

Flickr

The after hours refuge for the photographers. Flickr offers both inspiration and a worldwide audience for amateur and professional photographers alike, as well as a place for discussion on lenses, filters and camera types.

Source: 10,000Words.net

Sky News has relaunched its website today with a raft of new features. The revamp is aimed at personalizing the site for users and expanding its range of user-generated content and videos.

Steve Bennedik, the editor of Sky News Networked Media, states that, "The features we are introducing to personalize the site are just the start of a process aimed at allowing our users to tailor sky.com/news to suit all their online needs."

Sky is introducing an online community element to its website, powered by Pluck, enabling users to have their own blogs, to comment on other people's blogs, and discussion boards.

The redesigned website will incorporate SkyCast, a video platform powered by a "white label" version of Google's online video technology, into its news pages to encourage users to submit their own videos relating to news stories.

The new Choose Your News function allows users to hone their news search with categories including most popular stories, most recent video clips and "special interest" topics.

A Story Tracker function will automatically update users on news stories they are following.

Sky News is also launching a news service, powered by news aggregation company Daylife, which will provide readers with any related stories from "external sources" from the UK and international providers.

The website will also include more video, graphics and a new "bold design", as well as an interactive and searchable weather map of more than 4,500 destinations.

Source: Guardian

In the wake of Tim Russert's death, we are reminded again that in the world of Wikipedia and Web 2.0, breaking news waits for no man.

Following the sudden death of Mr. Russert, the former moderator of "Meet the Press" and the chief of NBC's Washington bureau, NBC chose to withhold the news for over an hour, wanting to first inform Russert's family, who were vacationing in Italy.

"We were not prepared to say anything until all the family had heard," said Allison Gollust, an NBC News spokeswoman. "The last thing we wanted to do was to have the family discover this on the air." Gollust said NBC had asked the other networks to hold back and all agreed.

Russert collapsed from a heart attack in NBC's Washington newsroom around 1:40 p.m. and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at the hospital at 2:23. The official announcement came from NBC's former anchor Tom Brokaw, on air at 3:39.

But almost 40 minutes earlier, the news broke on Wikipedia. Mr. Russert's page was updated at 3:01 p.m. -- adding the date of death and turning present-tense verbs into the past tense. "The entry was particularly influential since many journalists had heard of Mr. Russert's becoming stricken, but did not know the outcome," noted the New York Times. "If some turned to Wikipedia to refresh themselves about Mr. Russert, they found an article that seemed to confirm what many had been hearing."

The IP address of the editor traces to a "junior level" employee at Internet Broadcasting Services in St. Paul, Minn., which contracts Web services to local NBC TV stations. The employee, who posted thinking the information was public record, has since been fired.

Sources: The New York Times, The Daily Online Examiner

 The Associated Press (AP) has announced that the incident regarding the Drudge Retort (DR) receiving take-down notices is "matter closed", European Journalism Centre reports.

The AP recently filed Digital Millenium Copyright Act takedown requests asking DR to take down blog posts that they were violating copyright laws by using quotes ithat were too long.

The AP said that on Thursday, they were able to "provide additional information" to DR's Rogers Cadenhead so that he can "bring the contributed content on his site into conformance with the policy he earlier set for his contributors."

"Both parties consider the matter closed," the AP said.

This week, the AP will be meeting with people interested in blogs to discuss "the relationship between news providers and bloggers".

"The resolution of this matter illustrates that the interests of bloggers can be served while still respecting the intellectual property rights of news providers," the AP said.

Source: European Journalism Centre

See also:

US: AP admits to being "heavy-handed", will define standards for fair use on blogs

On his web site, Howard Owens published an article giving valuable tips on moderating your own web site for those who are new to community management.

The list of tips includes:

-Make checking comments a habit and participate in conversations that feature incorrect information, as this will give you credibility.

-Make sure your site has an "enforceable terms of service and guidelines or rules."

-Require registration.

-Take ownership of sections to show "that you pay attention and you care", i.e. sports editors in charge of sports on the web.

-Ban users or remove comments because they violate rules, not because you don't like them and do not get into arguments with people who know how to "push your buttons."

-"Reward your frequent contributors" because it fosters a relationship and encourages them to continue.

See also:

US: How Philly.com solved its user comment problems
Creating guidelines for user comments
Solutions to manage bad behaviour on the comment board
The Fray:Setting the standard for online forums

Source: howardowens.com through IFRA Exeecutive News Service

The New York Times launched an online feature that enables users to set up friends lists and receive a feed of the stories recommended, shared and commented on by those friends.

Until now, nytimes.com readers could comment on stories but couldn't recommend them.

Dubbed TimesPeople, the feature is currently only available as a Firefox browser plug-in, but it should be opened more widely soon.

The New York Times is moving in the direction of social networking by adding these features, although they remain at a very basic level compared to social networking experts like Facebook. Feeds from TimesPeople members can also be set up to appear simultaneously on a Facebook profile.

According to Cnet.com, it is conceivable that a most-recommended tab be eventually added on the Times' homepage next to the popular "most e-mailed" story list.

This is a smart move by the NYT, as they venture slightly deeper into social networking possibilities, while remaining strictly focused on news.

Source: Cnet.com - Beet.tv through European Journalism Centre

At the Guardian 's "Future of Journalism" conference, Twitter was mentioned as an innovative and revolutionary service that has helped journalists worldwide cover events more immediately, such as the earthquake in China, mayoral elections or soccer games. In his blog, Ron Sylvester says the podcast is "fascinating" and "thought-provoking."

Dave Hill, a reporter for the Guardian, covered the mayoral elections on Twitter, which gave people the opportunity to see raw journalism. He claims that news-making of this nature has "the immediacy of reporting by the seat of your pants."

Another Guardian employee, Anna Pickard, enjoys the "simultaneous" element that the Internet provides, referring back to the time she began blogging TV shows only to have people watch TV and respond to her blogs at the same time.

NPR's Andy Carvin mentions that community is vital to the Internet and that "the technology has got ridiculously simple." In his opinion, Twitter is like " a conversation in your pocket."

"You can express things in a different way, with greater brevity, economy or humour - and there are infinite ways of covering the same event," Hill said.

Some say that Twitter is competing with traditional media, a thought that may be "misleading". Twitter does not offer quality reporting with in-depth analysis and full coverage, like traditional media does.

Twitter is fast at communicating events and according to ReadWriteWeb, it will "never outshine the mainstream press as long as reporters continue to do what they do best -- get on the ground, talk to the right people, find out what's really going on."

Source: Technolo-J

Yet another example of newspapers embracing citizen journalism, as the South Wales Argus is looking for citizen reporters "to give us the really local news in their area."

"If you've got your ear to the ground in your neighbourhood, you could be telling our readers know the big stories on our award-winning website," the paper said on its website.

Check out how the Chi-Town Daily News has created a network of citizen journalists in the US.

Source: South Wales Argus through Guardian Roy Greenslade

Currently, blogging arrests are at a record high, the BBC reports. 64 bloggers have been detained from mostly China, Egypt and Iran since 2003 according to a University of Washington annual report. In 2006-2007, the number of arrested bloggers tripled to 36.

Blogging has a "political importance", since issues include exposure of corruption, human rights violations, "suppression of protests", criticism of public policies and questioning political entities. Arrests tend to multiply during times of "political uncertainty" such as during elections.

A World Information Access (WIA) report concluded that imprisonment usually follows arrest. The report says that 15 months is the average prison sentence, the longest being eight years.

The Committee to Protect Bloggers claims that 344 people were detained as a result of blogging in Burma, even though WIA cannot confirm.

Around 30 countries worldwide implement restrictions on online activities. According to the report, restrictions on blogging also take place in Canada, France, Britain and the US.

Elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US make it more likely that the number of bloggers arrested will increase.

Source: BBC News though I Want Media

The Corpus Christi (Texas) Caller-Times and The Bakersfield Californian are two daily locals that, largely by supporting user-generated content, buck the trend observed by Amy Gahran, of the Poynter Institute, to move away from local coverage. The papers have developed loyal and growing audiences.

Bakersfield.com began hosting weblogs two years ago and since its launch, has become home to 1,192 individual bloggers, 314 of which are updated within the last three months. Community content now represents 18 percent of Bakerfield.com's traffic. Logan Molen, vice president of the Californian's interactive media said, "It is easily the fastest growing source of traffic for us."

The Caller-Times, in turn, garners around 560 comments a day - a number enviable by many larger papers - and especially impressive for a paper with a 54,000 daily circulation.
 
"One day earlier this month a Corpus businessman was shot while cycling before work. A check of the digital back fence showed 56 people had commented on the paper's coverage by noon. Acts of troubling random violence aside, a story on summer jobs had drawn 33 comments, and the newspaper's columnists each seemed to draw a healthy handful. In fact, of all the local stories on the website that day, more had comments than didn't," notes the Readership Institute.

Caller-Times Editor Libby Averyt addresses readers regularly in a column, and listens to their feedback. Wheen readers mourned the dropping of a popular comic strip, the paper reversed the decision and when the paper stopped printing the TV book, the paper smoothed over complaints with a compromise of a stand-alone section of trimmed-down listings.

Local-focus, with locally generated content has led the Caller-Times to be able to cite year over year increases in paid print circulation (up 0.25 percent daily, 0.18 Sunday, according to FAS-FACS).

Sources: Readership Institute, Poynter Institute
 

After the Associated Press filed take down notices against community-created Drudge Retort, arguing copyright violations for quotes from 33 to 79 words long, the blogosphere responded with vehemence.

Bloggers boycotted referencing or linking to Associated Press articles and a website for the "UnAssociated Press" was founded.

Following the backlash, on Saturday the AP retreated, but didn't recant, saying it was "heavy-handed," but has not withdrawn its take down requests.

The AP will now "attempt to define clear standards as to how much of its articles and broadcasts bloggers and Web sites can excerpt without infringing on The A.P.'s copyright," Jim Kennedy, vice president and strategy director of the AP.

"The A.P.'s effort to impose some guidelines on the free-wheeling blogosphere, where extensive quoting and even copying of entire news articles is common, may offer a prominent definition of the important but vague doctrine of 'fair use,' which holds that copyright owners cannot ban others from using small bits of their works under some circumstances," observed The New York Times.

Sources: Editor & Publisher, The New York Times