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Ah, so they’re not *my* ideas, I’m *their* vehicle: “The media has huge, huge power to spread a meme because it’s the major mechanism of copying. Memes are using human brains as their copying machinery. So we need to understand the way human beings work.”
Monthly Archives: February 2008
The Catch Is the “Challenge” Part
I’m at WeMedia 08 in Miami today, because at 4:15 ET I’ll be speaking on a panel about the Knight News Challenge. That’s where my colleague Adam Glenn and I got the grant to fund our community journalism project, Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker. Gary Kebbel, director of the News Challenge progam for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, will be talking to my fellow grantee Nora Paul (Univ. MN) and me about the News Challenge process.
My understanding is that this is going to be more of a discussion than a presentation. But still, I wanted to pull my thoughts together in a way that might be useful to other people considering applying for a News Challenge grant…
Continue reading
links for 2008-02-26
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“This disaster has been largely ignored by the American media. Points to the value and importance of alternative sources like blogs and sites like Global Voices which provided this round up on the damage caused by Cyclone Ivan and the relief efforts.”
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Damn — Creative Commons founder Larry Lessig decides not to run for congress. I guess having brains, sense, and initiative disqualified him, eh?
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“David Cohen, exec VP of Comcast, just testified at the FCC’s remote hearing. He did not defend the “throttling†of net traffic passing through BitTorrent. But he also didn’t deny that Comcast had restricted the net speeds of BitTorrent users.”
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How fast is your broadband, really? Take this test to find out.
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Great overview! “Models that have been explored here—affiliate programs, memberships/subscriptions, branding/promotion/support, merchandising, donations, and ad space—represent what appear to be the best options for citizen journalists at the moment.”
links for 2008-02-25
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Great exploration of what more could be done with the biz side of local papers, especially missed advertising opps. Found via Romenesko.
links for 2008-02-24
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Another example of how sharing vulnerability can be a good thing. Although personally I use a Google spreadsheet to track my own health/weight loss issues 🙂
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Sarah Dopp got some great answers to this question: “I wanna see a Venn Diagram that shows the differences and overlaps between ‘Authenticity’ and ‘Transparency’.â€
links for 2008-02-22
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“The first ever Sex-Positive Journalism Awards launched last fall. Now, as the March 23rd deadline for entries approaches, we need more entries from MSM sources. It’s free to submit entries, and readers can submit as well as writers.”
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So, so, so true. “helping the self requires being responsible for the self, and being responsible requires telling the truth, not being coddled.”
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I’m gonna sign up for this: “The Boulder Startup Weekend II will take place March 21st-23rd at the CU . Tickets are on sale here for $40 and will be used to provide food, shirts, posters, music, streamers, pop rocks and soda.”
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Dave Taylor got a Macbook Air (of course) and discusses which apps and tools he absolutely had to port over to it. Kinda like “What books would you want to bring if you were marooned on a desert island?” I picked up a few good tips here.
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Video that Ron Lewis recommended last night about how the media functions.
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Today’s laugh. (not quite work safe, or for the squeamish, but totally hilarious)
Why Blogging Your Problems is Good
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| If you get really creative about it, failure and frustration can be the most engaging part of your blog. Don’t be scared to be human. |
On a discussion list, a colleague recently asked for opinions about whether it’s a good idea to sometimes blog about the sucky stuff: Obstacles, frustrations, disappointments, setbacks, etc. Several people on this list responded to say that they only preferred to write — and read — about “successes.”
I can understand the general reluctance to blog about problems: Fear of being vulnerable, or of looking dumb or unprofessional (which is just another kind of vulnerability). It can be difficult to realize that sometimes vulnerability can be your greatest strength — especially in blogging.
Here’s my reply to that thread where I explain why blogging your problems can and probably should be a key part of your blogging strategy…
links for 2008-02-21
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Great advice on responding to a negative review in a blog: “Thank the blogger for their time. Feel free to correct, if you feel it is helpful to do so and you can do it diplomatically. Check back to see if the blogger (or another reader) responded.”
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Amen to this: “I’m not sure anyone really has the right to claim what “true†citizen journalism is, because we can’t even agree anymore on what real journalism is. “
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“Some print news execs have told me that, as much as they blame sites like Craigslist and Monster.com they haven’t even gone there and they sure as heck don’t know why their users (and I) like the other guys better. They call themselves journalists?”
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“The Tribune is using its remaining print ads to refer readers to its partner CareerBuilder.Com. Ironically, CareerBuilder has a questionable future, since it’s nothing more than an online emulation of the anachronistic & increasingly broken print model.”
links for 2008-02-20
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CNN allegedly fired a reporter for blogging. I’m looking into this.
What I Don’t Like About Flock (so far)
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| When I open Flock’s feed reader, all my folders are expanded (above). I’d rather the default be that all folders are collapsed (below). |
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I’m still trying out the Flock browser, putting it through its paces. While I still generally like it, here are some problems that are bugging me so far:
Feed Reader: I love having this in my sidebar. It imports and exports feeds in OPML perfectly, including folder info. However, there are a couple of bothersome things.
First, when you open up the Flock feed reader in the sidebar, the default setting is for all folders to be expanded, rather than collapsed. If youhave several folders each containing lots of feeds, that’s a significant usability problem. I find myself constantly clicking folders closed. Could we change that default, Flock team?
Also, when you click on a folder to display all the latest results from all the feeds in that folder, it shows them grouped by feed. (That is, all the new results from feed A, then feed B, etc.) The reason I track so many feeds is I enjoy the serendipity of living in the moment. I’d love it if they offered an option to view results in a folder strictly by “most recent,” without grouping it by feed.
If they don’t fix these bugs, I might try installing the Sage feed reader plugin with Flock and try that instead.
A few more complaints…