Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. This is one of those articles I'll just quote in full. It's from Poynter on a new study by Pew on bloggers:

New Pew Blogger Study
Yesterday, the Pew Internet and American Life Project released an intriguing new report: Bloggers: A Portrait of the Internet's New Storytellers

A few highlights:

39% of net users (about 57 million American adults) read blogs -- a significant
increase since the fall of 2005. And 8% of net users (about 12 million American
adults) keep a blog.
Most US blogs are personal journals. Most bloggers do not consider their blogging journalism. However, 57% of bloggers include links to original sources either "sometimes" or "often." And 56% spend extra time trying to verify facts they want to include in a post either "sometimes" or "often."
54% of bloggers are under 30.

US bloggers are evenly divided between men and women -- so anyone who continues to ask "where are the women bloggers?" is probably not really looking. (I'm sure this will be a huge topic of conversation at the upcoming BlogHer
conference, which I'm attending.)

These were the most common primary blog topics cited:

"My life and experiences:" 37%
Politics and government: 11%
Entertainment: 7%
Sports: 6%
General news and current events: 5%
Business: 5%
Technology: 4%
Religion, spirituality or faith: 2%
Hobbies: 1%
Health: 1%

Pew surveyed 7,012 US adults by phone, including 4,753 internet users, 8% of whom are bloggers.

All your podcasting problems solved (we hope)

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, podcasting]. I have a number of problems with podcasting, specifically the lack of accessibility and the fact that it's difficult for search engines to index your content. So it's great to read a report on Poynter on free service Podzinger which, when you register your podcast feed, grabs the audio file soon after it's published. Poynter reports how the service

"uses some ultra-sophisticated voice recognition software to create a rough transcript.
"That transcript is rough -- definitely not good enough to publish, so it's a good thing Podzinger doesn't publish it. However, it is good enough to yield fairly accurate search results. So anyone searching for keywords at Podzinger turns up audio files which match that query."

Helpfully, they also suggest for vodcasters

"if you publish video content, you can still leverage Podzinger. First, create a feed and make sure that every time you produce an audio file, it gets added to that feed. For video, screencasts, etc., extract the audio in MP3 format, and then add those MP3 files to your feed. Then register that feed in Podzinger. You don't have to advertise this feed to the general audience, you can use it just for Podzinger if you want."

UPDATE: Poynter have added some more resources for improving audio listings from reader Anthony Anderson:

"Blinkx: Keyword searching of audio and video. Submit your site to Blinkx.
Podscope: Audio/video search engine. Like Podzinger, but it's been around longer. Podscope powers AOL's podcast search. Submit your site to Podscope.
TVeyes: Fee-based service (real-time transcript searching of network TV, local stations, NPR, and more). Parent of Podscope. Also offers a free keyword
search service for full text (transcript search) of Web-based news video. "

CNN Embracing Citizen Journalism?

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism]. Dan Gillmor comments on the move by CNN to use clips from video sharing sites like YouTube. I've been surprised how slow media giants have been to develop an interest in what is potentially free content, but as Dan points out, the question now is whether content developers will look to get paid for their content.

BBC News set to launch its first vodcasts

[Keyword: online journalism, vodcasting]. The Press Gazette reports on the BBC's move into vodcasting, saying:

""Best of" compilations of the top 10 O'Clock News and Newsnight stories will be available for download, and the recently launched Story Fix, a snappy round up of the week on the News 24 website, will be adapted for vodcasting.

"The BBC has also been working on a morning show, with the working title The Breakfast Takeaway, which will headline the agenda for the day and serve as a briefing."

Finalists for Knight-Batten innovation in Journalism awards announced

[Keyword: online journalism]. Read all about it at Journalism.co.uk:

"This year's finalists include a searchable Congress database, run by The Washington Post, which contains every recorded vote in the US House and Senate since January 1991.

"The Transparent Newsroom project run by the Spokane Spokesman-Review was nominated for webcasting its daily news meetings and offering online chats where readers can criticise news coverage or pose questions.The newspaper's website also posts raw documents, such as interview transcripts and even handwritten reporter
notes.

"Nominee Global Voices Online is network of global news run by multilingual editors who present and translate citizen news from outside North America and Western
Europe.

"HealthNewsReview is a clearinghouse for health news to help journalists write accurate medical reports and consumers find useful health news.

"Developed by the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to track tropical storm and hurricane activity, IBISEYE.com calculates specific buildings that are at risk as well as reporting actual storm damage in Florida.Users can also track storms, submit their own forecasts, assess possible damage.

"Bakersfield Californian's social media platform, Bakomatic, a MySpace-like social network, was nominated for dedicating itself to solely cover Bakersfield, California, allowing residents to submit stories, photos and events for publication.

The final nominee TCDailyPlanet - a local news website for Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota - brings together over 35 local and ethnic news organisations and trains citizens to participate and contribute to the news."

'Website must come second’ says Independent's Kelner

[Keyword: online journalism]. Interesting diversion from the recent decision taken by the Guardian and Times to publish some stories online first. The Press Gazette quotes the Independent editor Simon Kelner as saying "If you have an exclusive story at five o'clock to go in the following day's newspaper, the idea that you would put it on the website for nothing strikes me as complete madness."

Is this a wilful misunderstanding of what other papers are doing, or does Kelner genuinely believe that The Guardian would do that? Those newspapers who are publishing online first have already said they wouldn't do so for an "exclusive".

Similarly, Kelner argues "There is absolutely no model for a newspaper website to make money, and conversely what it can do is hit the value and currency of the printed product."

Again, this seems to show a lack of awareness of the massive rise in online advertising revenue over the past couple of years, a rise that even managed to wake the techno-unfriendly Murdoch from his slumber into buying MySpace and urging his newspapers to embrace the web. As advertising flees from print, the canniest newspapers are protecting their territory by being able to offer advertisers an extended - and expanding - audience online.

The value that a website can add to the printed brand is also born out by the Guardian and Times' decision to publish in America, a market where they already have an extensive online readership. Your website is not only part of your brand, but also part of your service. And The Independent's flat, largely uninteractive site (how about this: a quiz you can't take part in) does not do justice to the high quality of journalism and design in its printed version. What a shame.

Westminster blogging debate

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. Hold The Front Page reports on a seminar on Monday titled “Is Westminster ready for the age of participatory media?”

"The debate, in Parliament, will pose questions such as whether the Speaker should register with FaceBook, or if GoogleVideo is a good place to webcast select committee meetings"

"The world's first story auction website"

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism]. The Press Gazette reports on plans to launch "the world's first story auction website" - kissnsell.co.uk. The site has been created by former News of the World journalist Kizzi Nkwocha, now a publicist, who aims to change the way the media buys exclusives.

"Prices for the stories will vary according to the wishes of the seller, and just as in a traditional auction house you will have a reserve price for a story and the auction will run for a set number of weeks.

"But typically, as a publicist, you'd sell a story for anything between £10,000 and £70,000, depending on how big the story is and how much in demand the people behind it are."

Real life citizen journalism projects

[Keyword: online journalism, citizen journalism, blogging]. It's that Jemima Kiss again, this time blogging from an event looking at successful US citizen journalism ventures. Lots of detail here for those with an interest. Meanwhile, I continue to look for the UK's own citizen journalists and citizen journalism ventures... anyone out there?

Sunday Telegraph editor: tell us what we don't know

[Keyword: online journalism]. Patience Wheatcroft, the editor of The Sunday Telegraph, is quoted in the Guardian on the future of newspapers. And if you're expecting any pearls of wisdom from that hyperlink, don't get your hopes up. "Newspapers will be with us for a lot longer yet," she shockingly predicts. "When people have more leisure time, and this is particularly true for weekend papers, they will still want to sit down and read papers." Let me guess: it's their portable nature that gives them the advantage? You can't read the internet in the bath, eh?

But there's more. "Increasingly important in the multichannel world is the brand. People have to know who to trust. Old established brands equal strong relationships and that is what it is all about." Ah yes, another original argument. You can't believe what these scruffy bloggers are posting, can you?

Still, Wheatcroft does acknowledge "that the impact of the digital era on newspapers was "the most profound change in the way in which we communicate [with consumers] since the birth of the printing press"." Next thing you know, she'll be calling it 'revolutionary'...