Chapter 8: Catching Content

The idea of a distributed story is, like the product itself, emerging in various forms across the Web. There’s no one place — nor can there be one place — that encapsulates the idea. Instead it will manifest in many forms; however, there are some basic principles that are necessary for this type of emergent [...]

Distributed Storytelling: Why You Need a Predictive Market

I just had a long conversation with Sophia B. Liu, a PhD candidate at the University of Colorado at Boulder, who is — and I will bastardize the heck out of this — working on a thesis about how to build tools to allow for distributed story and archiving of events.
I know I’ve not accurately [...]

On Language + Knowledge

I was having a discussion with one of the Computer Scientists from Northern Kentucky University about the convergence of communication and programming.
We were discussing my decision to leave NKU and take a position at Ball State University, and reflecting on the one class we team-taught (actually, she taught it; I was a guest lecturer once [...]

Wolfram Alpha: The Data is the Story

Jeff Jarvis and I exchanged a few Tweets about the new mathematical algorithm engine, Wolfram Alpha. The basics of our discussion (and I believe his discussion with other folks) was on the merits of the engine for journalists.
His response to be (in 140 characters) is correct: there are too many holes in the dataset right [...]

Tech Companies Develop APIs for Public Records

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For the past few years, I’ve been telling newspaper and media companies that if they didn’t get on the ball, technology companies were going to usurp much of what they consider their domain because modern technology companies are bogged down with the “history” that newspapers oftentimes cling.
In fact, lots of folks smarter than [...]

Touch: The New Face of News Navigation

I often hear people who defend print say that computers can’t replace the feel of paper.
It’s easy to dismiss such talk as the ramblings of Luddites who staunchly refuse to enter the digital age. I’ve done it. I’m a child of the computer revolution. I’ve been reading and participating online since 1984. I had a [...]

APIs And Conversations: The Real Canary In The Coal Mine

“The canary in the coal mine.”
That’s how Jeff Jarvis describes the Twitter-verse in relationship to news organizations. He’s thesis: every news agency should be using this type of service — the mobile network where people can distribute 140-character messages to large groups of readers via text message — to track down breaking news, find sources [...]

A Desktop Home for News Organizations

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Newspapers have a reader problem. And they have a Reader problem.
It’s no secret that news organizations face declining readerships, prompting layoffs and corporate restructuring. For many in the industry, the end must seem near.
But it’s never the pitfall you expect that gets you. You’re prepared for those and with enough smart people — [...]

Citizen Journalism and Video

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I’m a novice when it comes to video.
Everything I’ve learned, I’ve learned from either watching videos online — Rocketboom, for instance — and reading research reports done by smart folks. It’s the kind of knowledge that normally drives me crazy because I really need to get my hands on something, play around with [...]

My RSS Trends and Why I Read What I Read

Image by Gustav H via Flickr

Syndication is — and will continue to be — an important trend in online media simply because it is so specific to the medium.
These feeds can’t be replicated in traditional media, thus making it one of the areas that all companies should be investigating for revenue and traffic generation. Of [...]

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