Tag Archives: SnapChat

Tap to advance: the rise and rise of the horizontal story

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Snapchat's horizontal navigation

Another month, another set of new feature launches: this time the longform blogging platform Medium announcing ‘Series‘, a “new type of story”, then days later Facebook announcing its ‘Messenger Day‘ feature.

Last month it was Instagram‘s Carousel feature and WhatsApp‘s Status feature.

What all have in common is the almost unquestioned use of a horizontal storytelling mode: a move from scroll-based navigation to navigating through a swipe or a tap.

What does that mean for journalism and storytelling? I think it’s about time we asked. Continue reading →

The most-read posts on Online Journalism Blog — and on Medium — in 2016

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2016

Rounding up the best posts of the year is a good habit to get into, but one that I’ve failed to acquire. In 2014 – the ten year anniversary of this site – I rounded up the year’s best performing posts, which does give you a flavour of what was happening that year — but I forgot to repeat it for 2015.

Here, then, are some reflections on the 10 pieces which did best in 2016 (there were 100 posts across the year), plus the older posts which keep on giving, and a comparison of some pieces which did far better on Medium than on OJB. Continue reading →

Someone asked me about 2016 and 2017. This is what I said

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Crystal ball image by Christian R. Hamacher

Crystal ball image by Christian R. Hamacher

Every year Nic Newman asks a bunch of people for their reflections on the last 12 months and their anticipations for the year ahead. Here’s what I’ve said this year — as always, to be taken with significant doses of salt. 

What surprised you most in 2016?

Perhaps the sheer number of significant developments (compare the posts for 2015 and 2014). It was the year when bots went mainstream very quickly, and platforms took further significant steps towards becoming regulated as publishers.

It was a year of renewed innovation in audio. 2016 saw the launch of a number of new audio apps, including Anchor, Pundit, Clyp and Bumpers.fm, as various companies attempted to be the ‘Facebook of audio’. The only problem: Facebook wants to be the Facebook of audio too: at the end of the year they introduced live audio. Continue reading →

Snapchat for Journalists now available in Spanish

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Snapchat para periodistas libro

My ebook Snapchat for Journalists is now available in Spanish: Snapchat para periodistas.

The new translation also includes specific examples from Spanish language media and journalists using the platform.

A Spanish language blog post by Barbara Maseda, with more details about the translation, can be found here.

Barbara has also translated two of my other books into Spanish: Periodismo de datos: Un golpe rápido (Data Journalism Heist) and Excel para periodistas (Excel for Journalists)

Whatever happened to the audio slideshow?

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Remember the audio slideshow? Once one of the most compelling editorial formats – and a truly web-native one at that – it is now rare to see them on a news website. And a whole wave of audio slideshow work is starting to disappear from the web.

The page for BBC’s Jazz junctions – riding New York’s A Train now lacks the audio slideshow it once held, while The Guardian is awash with pages showing gaps where a slideshow should be – like After the riots and Timbuktu’s ancient manuscripts (both from 2007), error messages about Flash (from 2010 and 2011) – or no pages at all in the case of Shrimp fishing in the Wash or Somalia’s refugee camps.

audio-slideshows-chart new-york-times

A search on the New York Times Chronicle tool shows a spike in mentions of audio slideshows at the end of the last decade. After 2010 they aren’t mentioned at all.

2012 seems to have been the last time audio slideshows were part of the fabric in the UK: most of the work on the Guardian’s Audio Slideshows section is from that year, while it represents the peak of production at the BBC. Here’s just a selection: Continue reading →

Snapchat para periodistas: una guía pensada para la redacción

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spanish-screenshots-snapchat

¿Cómo producir contenido noticioso para Snapchat? ¿Es posible calcular estadísticas de audiencia? ¿Qué sentido tiene invertir recursos y tiempo en producir contenido que va a desaparecer en 24 horas? Estas y otras preguntas aparecen respondidas en “Snapchat para periodistas”, una guía que detalla cada uno de los recursos de esta red social y cómo aprovecharlos en estrategias de publicación.

El libro, escrito por el periodista y profesor británico Paul Bradshaw, incluye muchos ejemplos de las cuentas de Snapchat de medios de Estados Unidos y Reino Unido, como el Huffington Post, la BBC, The New Yorker, CBS, Fusion y Mashable, entre otros.

La traducción al español incluye algunas capturas de pantalla de canales de medios latinoamericanos, además de las del original. Aunque el uso de Snapchat no está tan extendido en redacciones de habla hispana, hay algunos medios que mantienen cuentas, como Perú 21 y Todo Noticias (Argentina).

Además de ilustrar buenas prácticas, los ejemplos también documentan una parte de la historia de los usos de la plataforma –que puede ser útil especialmente para quienes no lleven mucho tiempo usándola.

El texto cubre todas las opciones técnicas (grabación de video y sonido, edición de texto, uso de lápices y filtros, etc.); estrategias de producción y diseño narrativo; almacenamiento de estadísticas de audiencia; algunos consejos útiles para construir una red de amigos; y otras funcionalidades más sofisticadas para usuarios avanzados.

Paul Bradshaw es autor de varios libros sobre periodismo, incluyendo otros dos disponibles en español: “Excel para periodistas” y “Periodismo de datos: un golpe rápido”.

7 platforms who became publishers in 2016

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We've got work to do

In 2016 Tumblr got angry

If there was always a suspicion that it would happen eventually, this year it was confirmed: in 2016 platforms from Facebook to Snapchat, Twitter to Tumblr, all took significant steps towards becoming fully blown publishers. Here are 7 things that happened this year that swung it. Continue reading →

How to find ‘feeds for leads’ as a journalist

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When a journalist gets their first job, or switches role to a new area or specialism, they need to quickly work out where to find useful leads. This often involves the use of feeds, email alerts, and social networks. In this post I’m going to explain a range of search techniques for finding useful sources across a range of platforms. Continue reading →

Snapchat Memories is nothing to do with memories – but it changes everything

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Snapchat memories

Swipe up from the camera screen to access Snapchat Memories, then tap the camera roll option

Snapchat’s new Memories feature is being pitched as a way to share old snaps and stories — but the real change is what it means for those creating and reporting stories in the tool. Now for the first time Snapchat users can create non-chronological sequences and stories using images or video that they have not taken themselves. Continue reading →

5 ways to find useful Snapchat accounts to follow as a journalist

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Snapchat book cover

This post is an extract from the book Snapchat for Journalists

Finding Snapchat accounts to follow is harder than it needs to be. There are some directories, such as Snapcodes, but these rely on user submissions. The iPhone app GhostCodes also ‘curates’ lists of accounts by category, but also relies on users giving their own usernames.

You can find some articles highlighting interesting accounts to follow on Snapchat. One useful search phrase to use for finding those is this:

Here are 4 useful techniques for tracking them down.

Method 1: The advanced search

The most obvious approach is to look for some articles highlighting interesting accounts to follow on Snapchat. You can narrow this a little by using search operators like allintitle: (which restricts results to those where the words are in the page title).

One useful search phrase to use with this is: Continue reading →