NowPublic Blog

We’ve completely rebuilt every single page on NowPublic for your enhanced viewing pleasure. Yes, a site re-design that preserves all the site’s current functionality but makes the content more readable, the news more relevant and the tools more usable.

Here’s a list of the highlights:
More mojo: We take news seriously but we also know that sometimes the best told stories are the ones that require unorthodox thinking. We say bring it. For a long time we’ve taken the lead from more conservative news designs. As you will see, this is no longer the case. The days of bobblehead news delivery are done and the new frontier has you as the lead player. NowPublic’s new tone respects the irreverence and personality of you — our member. While we don’t get too many UFO stories on the site and T Rex sightings are rare, we expect that if the Martians do ever come you’ll see it on NowPublic first. Keep your eyes open!

Member rankings: Some of you may have noticed that you’ve accumulated a number of NowPublic points. What do these mean and how do you get more? Well, the answer to both of those questions is the same: be a good member. And what does that mean? In general terms we want you to do things that helps us grow our global news community. NowPublic points give props to people who are contributing to the dialogue and helping us tell the stories that matter. If you’ve got lots of fans or if you’ve spent time helping other site members we want to recognize that. All these good things earn you points over time and help you ascend the ranks. We tell you who is in the running on a daily, weekly, monthly and all-time basis.

Your presence stream: We think it’s great that lots of our members are plugged into sites like Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and others. If you’re posting news to your accounts in these communities then set up your NowPublic presence stream so that it streams your content to our users. Keep on using the tools you like but extend your reach into the news world.

Your news dashboard: I admit that sometimes I find the cricket scores less than gripping. Although I totally get that half the world’s population is nuts about cricket I just haven’t been able to get there yet (perhaps some day). In the meantime I’ll just keep tuning my news consuming habits to the often obscure interests I have. The new news dashboard is a brilliant way to track what interests you on NowPublic. Get photo, video or text feeds of the stuff you want from the places and people you want to hear from. Don’t tell our design team but this page is actually becoming my de facto NowPublic home page. Shhhhh.

You can set your own dashboard up by logging into your account, clicking your username at the top of the screen and then clicking on “Dashboard”.

So let us know what you think.

Have fun!
Michael.

Erica Smith, a combo journalist and designer with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, informs us of the ongoing hollowing out of American newspapers on her blog, ‘Paper Cuts’ (1 vote for most clever blog name this year). As evidenced in a Google Map mashup, there have been upwards of 3,020 documented journalism jobs cut so far this year, already passing 2007’s last 7 month high water mark of @ 2,000.

http://graphicdesignr.net/papercuts/

The Globe and Mail’s Mathew Ingram wrote about Twitter’s news breaking success today as well. If you don’t read Mathew’s blog it’s worth checking out for a Canadian perspective on technology. Here’s what Mathew had to say today:

“Like many others, I woke up this morning to news of a disaster in China: a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the southwest, with thousands of people either dead or injured. Unlike some, I didn’t get the news from the radio or TV — I got it from Twitter, a group-chat/instant messaging client that has been gaining in popularity as a real-time news application. Much like the forest fires in California last fall and other recent news events, Twitter became one of the main sources of on-the-ground reporting — even before CNN started picking up what was happening, and with more personal detail. According to Search Engine Land, Twitter even beat the U.S. Geological Survey, which tracks quake readings.

During such times, Twitter seems like a “crowd-sourced” reporting tool, much like what NowPublic.com of Vancouver has created but with cellphones and 140 character messages as the medium. In any disaster, one of the first things people look for is the eyewitness account, the first-person description, the man on the scene. Whenever something like the earthquake happens, thousands of editors and producers at newspapers, radio programs and TV networks clog the phones trying to reach someone, anyone, who can provide a personal account: they call homes, schools, stores, friends, distant relatives. What was it like? Where were you when it happened? What happened next?

Source: theglobeandmail.com

NowPublic

Tags: breaks | Tech & Biz | twitter

Twitterers the world over are changing the way news travels. Chinese microbloggers issued some of the first reports of the earthquake that hit the country last night. But the accounts tell the story from a perspective that is unlike anything you’ll see on the evening news.

@sixhat all is good around here. i think only people in high buildings felt it in shanghai. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to sixhat

[q url=”http://twitter.com/nocas”]”@AlexBowman exactly. that was the only thing i could think of when i was coming out of my building. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to AlexBowman

@Chinkerfly i was on wuning road/dongxin road, near zhenping road metro station. on the 31st floor we felt it a lot. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to Chinkerfly

a lot of people on the parking lot of plaza 66. i guess they felt it too. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific

breathing normal again. feeling an earthquake on the 31st floor was not fun. about 11 hours ago from”

Source: twitter.com

@sixhat all is good around here. i think only people in high buildings felt it in shanghai. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to sixhat @AlexBowman exactly. that was the only thing i could think of when i was coming out of my building. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to AlexBowman @Chinkerfly i was on wuning road/dongxin road, near zhenping road metro station. on the 31st floor we felt it a lot. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to Chinkerfly a lot of people on the parking lot of plaza 66. i guess they felt it too. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific breathing normal again. feeling an earthquake on the 31st floor was not fun. about 11 hours ago from txt[/q]

@sixhat all is good around here. i think only people in high buildings felt it in shanghai. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to sixhat @AlexBowman exactly. that was the only thing i could think of when i was coming out of my building. about 10 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to AlexBowman @Chinkerfly i was on wuning road/dongxin road, near zhenping road metro station. on the 31st floor we felt it a lot. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific in reply to Chinkerfly a lot of people on the parking lot of plaza 66. i guess they felt it too. about 11 hours ago from twitterrific breathing normal again. feeling an earthquake on the 31st floor was not fun. about 11 hours ago from txt

Source: twitter.com

NowPublic

Tags: bruno | carlos | david | Figueiredo | Jos | Lopes | PEDRO | Rodrigues | santos | Serra | andre | Culture | Fonseca | JORGE | luis | Nuno | paulo | Ribeirinho | Tiago

Another piece on Rafat Ali’s conference in LA where NowPublic CEO Leonard Brody is talking about the impact of ‘voter-generated content’.

Other media executives said what’s different about this campaign is that people are contributing to a near real-time feedback loop through the Web that’s changing how stories unfold.

“The networks that provide ‘first to see’ immediacy (in the news) will rise,” said Leonard Brody, co-founder and CEO of NowPublic, a citizen journalist Web site that has more than 140,000 contributing writers.

Source: news.com via mtippett

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Tags: campaign | Media | Santa Monica | changing | Citizen Journalist | co-founder | conference | contributing | Democracy Forum | economics | Elections | EXECUTIVES | facebook | Leonard Brody | Micah Sifry | NowPublic | online | Politics | presidential frontrunners | Site | Tech & Biz | twitter | YouTube

An interesting analysis from Barry L. Ritholtz on the opportunities open to news organizations like the NYTimes now that Murdoch is shaking up the WSJ.

Murdoch’s changes are both ambitious and perplexing: He is seeking to shift the Journal’s coverage to include much more politics, more elections, more general government stuff. The Journal itself reported the move to “put short articles on the front page or thefronts of sections that would not continue on inside pages.” The fear that paper might shift rightward in its news coverage is so far unfounded; instead, it is the topics and subjects covered that is what is shifting. Financial news is losing out to Mr. Murdochs first love: Politics.

In other words, “De-Financializing” the paper. The coverage looks to becoming less business and finance oriented, and more of a general interest paper — kinda like what the Washington Post and the New York Times already do.

In trying to extend the WSJ’s reach, Murdoch has left its flank open. That creates the opportunity for a shrewd operator to expand their Business news. Hence, the opportunity for the Journal’s competitors, and in particular, the NYT, to go after the Journal’s audience. The business goal would be to capture a significant percentage of the Journal’s expensed subscriptions.

How? First, I would beef up the business pages. Hire additional staff, especially the reporters at the WSJ itself. Second, raid the most popular WSJ blogs. They have some terrific coverage there, and that would carry over to the NYT.com site. Even if unsuccessful in the hires, it makes the operation of the WSJ more costly — a technique not unfamiliar to Murdoch. Expand the business video coverage, using embeddable flash. Lastly, take the very successful Dealbook model — close integration of the blog, newspaper columns, and email list — and clone it to other related business issues: Marketbeat, RealTime Economics, etc.

Source: bigpicture.typepad.com via mtippett

NowPublic

Tags: going | Media | New York | NYC | Washington | Advice | Blog | Business | Coverage | Dealbook | economics | expand | HIRE | journal | Journalism | magazines | Murdoch | news | NYTimes | Operator | opportunity | Politics | reported | Shift | subscription model | Tech & Biz | WSJ

Hey, what’s that incredible sucking sound? Oh, it’s your news…

Think we hardly get any international news in our mainstream media? Right you are. But we don’t get any domestic coverage either, unless it’s about the elections, according to the insightful but not cheerful new State of the Media Report from the great folks at the Project for Excellence in Journalism:
“The agenda of the American news media continues to narrow, not broaden. A firm grip on this is difficult but the trends seem inescapable. A comprehensive audit of coverage shows that in 2007, two overriding stories — the war in Iraq and the 2008 campaign — filled more than a quarter of the newshole and seemed to consume much of the media’s energy and resources. And what wasn’t covered was in many ways as notable as what was. Other than Iraq — and to a lesser degree Pakistan and Iran — there was minimal coverage of events overseas, some of which directly involved U.S. interests, blood and treasure. At the same time, consider the list of the domestic issues that each filled less than a single percent of the newshole: education, race, religion, transportation, the legal system, housing, drug trafficking, gun control, welfare, Social Security, aging, labor, abortion and more.”

Source: blogs.law.harvard.edu via mtippett

NowPublic

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Frank Smith looks at the implications of Youtube’s volume of content. Some interesting questions arise.

NEW YORK — Media Summit — During a panel here at the Media Summit yesterday, YouTube Inc. ’s Philip Inghelbrecht, strategic partner development manager, dropped this nugget of information: Ten hours of fresh content is uploaded to YouTube every minute.

“If you can’t solve the search question quickly enough that’s a problem,” said Inghelbrecht.

But this explosion of digital content could come at a cost. A study
released by IDC sponsored by information management firm EMC Corp. (NYSE: EMC) found that
the total volume of digital content being produced today has exceeded
existing storage capabilities. IDC estimates that 281 billion Gbytes
were uploaded in 2007, which amounts to about 45 Gbytes of content per
each human on earth.

Source: contentinople.com

NowPublic

Tags: content | CORP | Media | New York | Summit | amount | being | billion | capabilities | Development | Digital | dropped | estimates | exceeded | existing | Explosion | firm | Gbytes | Hours | information | Inghelbrecht | manager | nugget | Panel | PARTNER | philip | produced | Released | sponsored | storage | STRATEGIC | Tech & Biz | uploaded | volume | YouTube

NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AOL announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire
Bebo (http://www.bebo.com), a leading
global social media network. Together with its AIM and ICQ personal
communications network, the acquisition will give AOL a premier position
in the fast growing world of social media with a network of
approximately 80 million unique users.

Source: biz.yahoo.com

NowPublic

Tags: Media | New York | acquire | Acquisition | agreement | announced | bebo | Community | global | Joanna Shields | leading | Network | NowPublic | president | Tech & Biz | unique users | Yahoo

On Friday Dan Gillmor wrote here about bringing an entrepreneurial mindset to today’s journalism.On Friday, Dan’s former employer, the San Jose Mercury News, laid off 15 newsroom staffers and lost five other editors through buyouts, shaving the editorial staff by about 10 percent, on top of a larger set of layoffs a few months ago. Or, to be more precise, the paper’s corporate owners, MediaNews, did so.

This is at once both troubling and ironic.

Troubling, because the downsizing is indicative of deep-seated financial and circulation troubles in the newspaper industry as a whole. (As newspaper analyst Dave Morgan observed last year: “Ad revenue in most large newspaper markets will keep dropping 3-5% per year for the next five years. Real circulation — excluding the tons of papers dumped on schools, hotels and the constantly-churning “free ten-week trial” — will keep dropping 3-7% per year for the next five years.”)

Ironic, because the Mercury News should know better. No other newspaper is so well situated to emulate the culture of Silicon Valley. Here in the Valley, the Merc has spent years reporting on the cyclical ups and downs of the technology sector. But more significant is the ethos of 21st century capitalism that the Valley embodies.

Some of those lessons might be summarized as:

• Experiment. Take risks. Think outside the box. The Valley’s mantra could be summed up in a phrase: “Innovate or die.”
• Dare to fail. Build on the rubble of others’ failures.
• Embrace uncertainty. Embrace change.
• See where the marketplace is going, get there first and offer something of immense value.
• Build for the long term, not for short-term returns.

(I blogged about forecaster Paul Saffo’s rules for success here and here.)

Innovation or inertia?

On Friday, Beatblogging.org’s David Cohn pointed to Clay Shirky’s new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, and quoted this excerpt from Shirky’s book:

A good deal of user-generated content isn’t actually “content” at all, at least not in the sense of material designed for an audience. Instead, a lot of it is just part of a conversation.

Mainstream media has often missed this, because they are used to thinking of any group of people as an audience. Audience, though, is just one pattern a group can exist in; another is community. Most amateur media unfolds in a community setting, and a community isn’t just a small audience; it has a social density, a pattern of users talking to one another, that audiences lack. An audience isn’t just a big community either; it’s more anonymous, with many fewer ties between users. Now, though, the technological distinction between media made for an audience and media made for a community is evaporating; instead of having one kind of media come in through the TV and another kind come in through the phone, it all comes in over the internet.

University of Florida new media professor Mindy McAdams chimed in:

Newspapers used to be centered in communities. Now they are mostly not. People in much of North America don’t even live in communities.

Is this why newspapers are dying? Because there are no communities? …

It’s about what Shirky said: Audiences are not the same as communities, and communities are made up of people talking to one another.

What does a community need? How should journalists supply what communities need? …

Indeed, this is perhaps the key question for the survival of newspapers, but one that’s rarely heard in newsrooms or corporate media offices.

I was once optimistic about the resiliency of newspapers and the promise of their online news divisions. But that optimism has faded as media companies circle the wagons and hunker down, intent on shoring up short-term profits with few attempts to boldly experiment.

A handful of exceptions like the Beat Blogging project — a collaboration among 13 news organizations to determine how social networks can improve beat reporting — only prove the rule. The Mercury News seemed on course to embrace a new direction with its Next Newsroom Project, coming to Duke University on April 3-4. I hope I’m proved wrong, but the odds appear stacked against the paper’s Denver-based corporate owners embracing the kinds of still-evolving, far-reaching, disruptive changes on the table at Next Newsroom.

Most of the innovation in news continues to occur outside of the newspaper industry, ranging from Digg, Newsvine, NowPublic and Facebook (rivers of personalized news) to Placeblogger’s list of citizen media sites and David Cohn’s citizen newspaper network BrooWaha.

News organizations need to begin thinking of news as an ongoing process rather than a finished product, as broadcast news consultant Terry Heaton has written. The new era is not about mass products but serving niche markets and repositioning your core business for the new economy. It’s about engagement, participation and conversation rather than monetizing audiences or eyeballs. It’s about taking journalism in new directions. It’s about studying people from the future — young people — and their radically different media habits.

Chiefly, it’s about taking chances, and building value for communities, and innovating for the new information age.

Or perishing.

Source: pbs.org

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Tags: San Jose | Newspaper | NowPublic | Tech & Biz | troubles