Online Journalism Blog

The following are answers to a question posed by Greg Manset (via Facebook, naturally):How can journalists use Facebook?

1. As a great way to find contacts. For example: say you cover the health industry and you add 20 of your contacts to Facebook – by looking at their friends you may be able to find other contacts you wouldn’t otherwise have met. Now, you obviously have to be careful you don’t add whistleblowers or anonymous sources and risk their anonymity, but for most day to day work this can be really useful. I should add that LinkedIn and Twitter can be used in the same way. [Read more]

• Improve your community with a reputation system – Yahoo! maps 9 of them: http://twurl.nl/vl32mv #
• Using Who Should I Follow again – but it only takes your first 500 friends, so the recommendations include people I already follow. Shame. #
• Read a very good dissertation on online journalism ethics: Facebook people would be upset if journalists used their info #
• Just watched the rushes of a documentary on citizen journalism I was interviewed for. Those 9/11, 7/7, tsunami clips are going to cost him #
• @ragnhildo the ethics dissertation was by @ecotrip #
• Three ways journalists can use Facebook (and other social networks) http://twurl.nl/ir0iya #
• It’s 30 years this year since Factory Records was formed? That makes me feel old. #
• Watching David Byrne: Playing the Building (BBTV) http://twurl.nl/gak6tw #
• Anyone know of a plugin that allows commenters to upload an image with their comment (not link or embed one)? Wordpress or other CMS #
• DailyLit is to Twitter-publish 3 books. Looking forward to reading Down & Out In The Magic Kingdom. http://twurl.nl/evmifr #
• The twitter grapevine apparently knows what i’m doing two days before i do – and i think i know the source. #
• Finally a panel discussion worth reading about: retweet jemimakiss: PDA >> @ Future of Journalism: Women on the web http://tinyurl … #
• Finally a panel discussion worth reading about: retweet @jemimakiss: Women on the web http://tinyurl.com/3gu3bl #
• Trying out #Evernote – yet another beta. #
• Suggest to me a twitter friend you think I should be following #
• @clarewhite http://twurl.nl/qgxuma #
• Jay Rosen live now on radio about citizen journalism. Who wants to bet this is dumb-dull? http://twurl.nl/xmajw6 #
• I can’t believe we are having a discussion about whether a member of the public has the right to ask a public figure a question #
• …and to publish that. #
• Here’s the guide: if it’s a public figure, in a public place, at a public event, then it’s public. Otherwise, be courteous? #
• Anyone else listening to this Jay Rosen thing on KUOW? #
• ah well, it’s over anyway. #

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Last week I introduced the ‘Something for the weekend’ feature where I post a link to an online tool which has potential journalistic applications.

This week’s tool is Comiqs,

“a service that lets our users create and share their comic-style stories with the community. We aim to provide our users with easy to use tools that transforms their most cherished and most memorable photographs into something fun. We also aim to build to build a fun and light-hearted community where people can hang out to have a laugh or two.”

Now there’s a rich history of comic strips and graphics in newspapers. Satirical cartoons are an obvious application of this.

Could Comiqs introduce a user generated element to that too?

The site already has a News and Politics section, while ‘People and Personalities‘ also has potential for satirical content. But the other categories bear looking at too. Life story and How to and tutorials have clear magazine equivalents.

There’s a lot of crap as always with UGC, but categories like ‘top rated’, ‘most viewed/discussed’ etc. should help filter through.

The site could also act as a platform for a news site’s readers – give them an image to download and point them to Comiqs to create the caption.

Some obvious problems: no RSS feeds; no way of knowing what language something is in before you click or search.

But lots of potential. Any ideas?

From ITproPortal.com:

“Techcrunch and Huomah are reporting that Google is looking into launching a Do It Yourself Publishing Service for Magazines.”The patent abstract says that Google is investigating

“A method includes receiving personalized content from a plurality of content sources. The personalized content is based on user input. The method further includes receiving a personalized advertisement based on user input, and creating a customized publication including the personalized content and the personalized advertisement.”"

More here. Thanks to Richard Grimes of the NUJ New Media mailing list for the link.