Category Archives: online journalism

Product reviews the wiki/social way

Interesting use of wikis for journalism over at ProductWiki: from TechCrunch:

“The idea behind ProductWiki is to create collaborative product reviews that boil all the judgments about a product into one single review. It avoids revision wars by requiring every reviewer to list both pros and cons, and then every other ProductWiki reader can vote on each pro and each con until a consensus emerges.

“Last week, the site turned on three new features which Ismail hopes will allow him to create the ultimate “product graph” (this is like a social graph for products, showing how products are related or connected to one another). Reviewers can now identify competing or related products, and vote on which ones they like better in a head-to-head, A-B fashion. The third feature is a product rank derived from the first two features. For instance, based on 15 votes, the iRex iLiad beats out both the Kindle and the Sony Reader in the e-book category (so far).”

What RSS reader do you use and why?

I’m a Bloglines man, because it’s social and easier to click through than Google Reader. But what do you use – and why? Apart from anything else, it strikes me that there may be global differences in RSS reader use, in the same way there is with social networks (see below). You can also discuss this at the Online Journalism Blog Facebook Group.

Social networks map

A vlog post from 2020

I was asked by The Telegraph’s Shane Richmond to write a blog post ‘from the year 2020’. “OK,” I thought, “so what would a blog post look like in 13 years’ time?” Well, it would almost certainly be mobile, so I filmed it on my phone. Apple will probably be scraping the barrel of products they can ‘re-engineer’ by then, and… well, it’s all in the video. I was hoping to get some video comments too, so if you’re feeling creative, upload a response to YouTube and I’ll add it in…

Human rights violations video site launched

Mexico Reporter reports the launch of The Hub by human rights organization Witness to “allow people to publicize events or situations violating human rights using hand-held cameras or mobile phones. They gather material, upload it onto the Hub, and then tell viewers what they can do to help raise awareness of the problem and create change”

In reality, the videos on view at the moment don’t necessarily include the ‘what viewers can do’ element (which admittedly is asking a lot), but there is a specific ‘Take Action’ section. A good example of the ‘how’ of my Five Ws and a H.

Students launch local Christmas blog

Final year Birmingham City University journalism degree students Todd Nash and Neil Timms have launched a niche blog covering the build up to Christmas in Birmingham, complete with video – it’s called Turkey Brumstick. Todd explains:

“For our Professional Journalism module we were asked to produce between five and ten articles for publication. We decided it would be better to create all of them on the same topic and publicise them on a blog to try to get publicity so that it can actually be of use to people.

“We’re filling a gap in the market: the local paper doesn’t produce a lot of video content; then there are the likes of the council websites which tell you what’s going on but not if it’s any good.”

Making money from blogs: Dubber offers a commission to his reader/sellers

Andrew Dubber, who runs the music industry/new media blog New Music Strategies, has some cute ideas for monetising what has become more than a hobby, “without getting in the way of the content, and without jeopardising the integrity of the blog.” The twist: he’s giving a commission to his readers… Continue reading

Over to you, Roy: Why a blogger joined the NUJ

With the NUJ accepting its first full time blogger member (well done), The NUJ New Media mailing list (how retro) has been debating the acceptance of a second, at the end of which come Jemima Kiss and that original blogger, Engadget’s Conrad Quilty Harper, like a quality double act to head the bill. Kiss asked Conrad (or should that be CQH?) to explain why he joined. The answer bears quoting in full: Continue reading