Online Journalism Blog

Live coverage of JEEcamp is available here

There is also a site aggregating all mentions of JEEcamp on Twitter, Flickr, Delicious and blogs at jeecamp.com

JEEcamp09 is tomorrow – the hashtag to follow on Twitter is #jeecamp, while jeecamp.com will be aggregating any mentions of jeecamp from various social media platforms. A team of livebloggers will be covering the event here on the Online Journalism Blog – remind yourself below…

It’s 2 weeks until JEEcamp - the unconference for journalism experimenters and entrepreneurs – and I think it’s probably time to whittle down what we’ll be talking about.

Whether you’re attending or not, what do you think are the biggest issues you’d want to discuss with others in the news, social media and technology industries?

JEEcamp09

On Friday May 8 2009 I’ll be hosting JEEcamp09 – an unconference (or barcamp) for journalism experimenters.

Last year’s JEEcamp was great. This year we’re doing it all again, but with some cute ideas to stir things up.

These include: 

• Open mic for business models for news: Attendees are invited to explain how they think news can support itself online. 5 min limit.
• Speed networking: attendees get a minute each with a random other attendee to swap cards and explain what they do.
  
• Musical chairs panel discussion: Begins as a standard panel discussion – but once a panel member has responded to a question, they are replaced by someone else in the ‘audience’, raffle-style.

And there will be other ideas as we go along. If you have any other ideas for stirring up the traditional format, I’d love to hear them.

The day will be opened by Kyle Macrae, the man behind one of the original new media journalism startups, Scoopt. That was sold to Getty in 2007, who closed it down last month. Kyle will be talking about his experiences of getting Scoopt off the ground, and why he thinks Getty failed to make it viable.

After that, the really interesting stuff is in the heads of the attendees, how we – and you – get it out. 

You can get tickets at http://jeecamp09.eventbrite.com/ - and add your comments below as to how you’d like this to pan out.

The EJC filmed three videos during the day at JEEcamp - here they are:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWkC_-M8wtY]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOvYFs6OCfw]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_9zG_q0GkU]

What happens when you bring together local journalists, bloggers, web publishers, online journalism experts and new media startups – and get them talking?

That was the question that JEEcamp sought to answer: an ‘unconference’ around journalism enterprise and entrepreneurship that looked to tackle some of the big questions facing news in 2008: how do you make money from news when information is free? Where is the funding for news startups? How do you generate community? What models work for news online? [Read more]

If you’ve not been able to attend JEEcamp, you can still take part online. We will be running live coverage at JournalismEnterprise.com – and taking your questions and comments.

We’ll be using CoverItLive, which allows users to post comments, chatroom-style, and we’ll be incorporating these into the event itself.

Here’s how it (should) work: there will be five topics being discussed during the event: funding; business models; online news models; legals; and building audiences and community.

Each topic will have a correspondent attached – a journalism student from Birmingham City University who will be reporting what’s being discusse, but also feeding back any comments or questions from people following JEEcamp online.

That’s all assuming the wifi works, of course…

JEEcamp already has a fantastic mix of people from the news and tech industries â€" with people coming from as far away as Latvia, Sweden, Spain and South Korea too.

To join in online go to http://journalismenterprise.com/jeecamp-live-coverage/ from 9am till 4pm GMT on Friday March 14 (to convert to your own time zone use this converter)

Ahead of the event you can also add to the event wiki at http://jeecamp.pbwiki.com â€" in particular any questions under the themes being discussed (http://jeecamp.pbwiki.com/topics)

And finally, there’s an aggregator blog at www.jeecamp.com for anything tagged ‘jeecamp’ on Wordpress, Flickr, YouTube, or Delicious (also search results for ‘jeecamp’ on Twitter, Google Blog Search and Technorati).

Look forward to meeting you (virtually)…

If you live in North America and would still like to come to JEEcamp but for the cost of flying to the UK – help may be at hand.

I’ve managed to secure sponsorship from the European Journalism Centre to support up to five attendees. So if you’d like to come to JEEcamp but had discounted it because of cost, contact Kathlyn Clore at the European Journalism Centre on clore@ejc.nl

She will be able to identify if you qualify for some sponsorship.

We are now expecting over 50 attendees from across the spectrum of news organisations and startups. Full list at jeecamp.pbwiki.com, where you can also sign up to attend.

Friday will see over 40 of the UK’s innovators in online journalism (plus some from other countries) gather for JEEcamp – the Journalism Enterprise and Entrepreneurship unconference. They include people who have launched journalism startups like Scoopt and Yoosk; local journalists who oversee hyperlocal and blogger projects; freelancers with an eye on the digital future; and national journalists who have built online communities around their brands (for a full list – or to sign up to attend yourself, see the JEEcamp wiki).

The unconference will, broadly, discuss five areas. These are:

1. Business models (including advertising)
2. Audience development (including communities)
3. Funding
4. Legals
5. Online news models

But that’s just the start. Within those areas, what questions do you think we should be discussing? What questions would you ask?

It’s two weeks till JEEcamp – the ‘unconference’ around journalism enterprise and entrepreneurship. There are now over 40 people signed up across the JEEcamp wiki and Facebook event page, representing the national and regional press, tabloid and broadsheet, magazines, bloggers, freelancers, academics and journo startups.

So if you still want to come but haven’t signed up, please add your name to the wiki asap (the password is jee), as I may stop new registrations soon.
Also, sponsorship is available if you’re travelling from afar.