iPod Touch is great, but…
Blogger Mark Evans describes why he opted for an iPod Touch rather than an outright iPhone.

One thing that would make the iPod Touch even greater, however, would be VoIP - or the ability to essentially use the iPod Touch as a phone via a software download from Skype. Evans makes a good point though: that would probably anger the wireless carriers a little too much for Apple right now. And a follow up comment points out that the Touch lacks a built-in microphone. Alas, technology gets us so close…

Start-Ups: Follow the Opportunity, not the Plan

Blogger Bret Terrill offers a great aphorism for those hoping to succeed online: ditch the business plan and follow the opportunity. Business plans, he argues, are useless when the whole game can change under your feet with the launch of a new platform (iPhone, Facebook) or a new technology. Click through to read his analogy; it’s too good to rip off here.

Share This

Over at PBS.org, freelance writer Simon Owens explores the implications the Big Tent (or the Google Tent as I’m fond of calling it) will have on the Democratic National Convention, how much more access bloggers will have this year, and whether the whole thing constitutes a consolation prize for progressives.

One quote caught me by surprise:

Despite the enthusiasm of many of the Big Tent participants I spoke to, there has been a fair amount of skepticism as well. In the comments section of an Alternet article about the tent, one person wrote that “any learned, critical thinking, reasoned human being would realize that this is a charade to sugar up and pacify the progressive community.”

Is it really ‘progressive’ thing?

If you follow the link and read the comment, posted by user blueapples26, this person hammers both Google and Digg for exhibiting decidedly undemocratic behavior. Now, I don’t disagree that both companies are less democratic than one might think, but I’m not sure the event is an attempt to placate progressives. Aren’t they setting up a similar tent at the Republican National Convention?

Share This

Tales From the Road launched Friday.

Check it out.

Share This

I just wanted to take a moment and recognize the folks over at Popular Science magazine for their Web efforts. They quietly launched a redesigned site, PopSci.com, in 2008. It’s built on the Drupal platform and one way of looking at it is that, functionally, it’s a group blog. Each navigational bucket along the top represents a category, but all posts/articles/stories appear time-stamped in reverse chronological order on the home page.

If you haven’t checked it out, I recommend.

It offers a unique model for a traditional print company to leverage their assets on the Web. It also gives me hope that old media companies will come to realize that a blog is just as easily (and perhaps more helpfully) understood as a medium, not as a genre.

Share This

Each year Call to Action, a progressive, reform-minded organization within the Catholic Church, convenes a National Convention. This year the group aims to hold a few sessions on how to utilize new media technologies to inform and galvanize the laity to action. Some suggested sessions include blogging, podcasting and social networking. I had a conversation last night with an organizer, and hope to sit on a panel for the group. The convention is in November and preliminary information can be found here. More to come soon…

Share This

The Arketi Group, an Atlanta-based public relations and integrated marketing consultancy, issued a report looking at how business to business journalists use blogs. Here is one finding:

The graph to the left shows that 84 percent of business to business journalists reported they would use a blog as a primary or secondary source.

This report kills me. Here’s why:

Blogs are defined by their medium, bloggers are not

Could you imagine a report asking whether or not a business to business journalist quoted a “speech” or an “interview” or a “written report” as a primary or secondary source? No, that’s nonsensical. All of the above, including blogs, are simply different media, across which sources of varying levels of reputability convey information - which brings me to my second point…

Blogs are not uniform sources of information

Do I get story ideas and learn about journalism trends from Jarvis and Romenesko? Sure. Do I get them from the latest blog indexed by Technorati? No. Just like I give more credence to something I read in the Journal as compared with the National Enquirer.

Share This

Timothy McNulty at the Chicago Tribune wrote a great article yesterday on journalistic objectivity.

Objectivity is an oft-debated topic amongst journalists. To what extent is it possible? Where are the lines drawn? Has it diminished in the age of cable TV’s talking heads and the numerous opining bloggers? Or, as McNulty says, does objectivity get reduced to neutrality? “On the one hand this” and “on the other hand this,” without any attempt to truly seek the truth?

One thing that interests me is the potential of objectivity on a macro level - especially given the democratizing potential and decentralized nature of the Web.

(more…)

Share This

A big move for an old magazine
An editor over at U.S. Catholic, where I worked this past summer, informed me that the Christian Century, a Christian magazine with more than one hundred years of history opened up its site to independent bloggers. (Founded in 1884, it was renamed the Christian Century in anticipation of the 20th century!)

First off, I wanted to point it out and give kudos to the staff over at Christian Century for making the move.

Secondly, apparently the way it all started was one writer, Real Live Preacher, taking it upon himself to come up with the idea and recruit all bloggers to make it happen. This fact illustrates an important facet of opening up your site, or your platform as a more traditional or mainstream news and information site. The mantra, “if you build it, they will come” just doesn’t work.

There needs to be someone, whether it is a writer on staff or a community outreach coordinator or advocate, reaching out to bloggers to convince them to contribute. They can write anywhere. You have to convince them it is better to do so on your site.

Or you may have to do more…
This past spring I worked with a dozen other graduate students in the spring on the Medill Media Management project. In the course of our research into hyperlocal community news sites, we spoke with some editors at the Rocky Mountain News. When they launched YourHub, a community news site reliant heavily on user generated content, they stressed the importance of soliciting content from the community. Actively. One editor told us that if you have to go door to door and explain to people what a blog is and how it works, then that’s what it takes.

Now not all of us have the resources of the Rocky Mountain News, but to be in conversation with the community (or audience, or readership, or viewership, or whatever), you need to truly be in conversation with the community.

Share This