• The journalist as curator, revisited: Curating your own content « Korr Values
  "But if you’re a traditional newspaper editor — who thinks in terms of X number of articles for X pages in X upcoming papers — the content cascade model probably sounds as doable as standing at the mouth of a river and trying to catch two A1 stories in a paper cup."
  (tags: journalism)
• NWAnews.com : Publisher says newspapers must charge for online content
  "Hussman said during the webinar, titled "From Free to Fee," that the Democrat-Gazette's pay wall helps it remain the primary source of information for the state."
  (tags: newspapers business)
• In Ann Arbor, designing a news site that doesn’t look like a news site » Nieman Journalism Lab
  "The river of news is the direction things are headed in. It’s clear people are getting more comfortable with that."
  (tags: newspapers future journalism webdesign)
• Yoz Grahame's Unresolvable Discrepancy » Blog Archive » Journalism is picking up the phone
  "The business side seems to think they’re getting something far more magic than mere microformats can provide. The bloggers, meanwhile, have clearly been too hasty in their vaporware accusations."
  (tags: newspapers journalism copyright)
• Journalists Are News Companies’ Most Valuable Asset – Publishing 2.0
  "But does focusing on journalists as news companies’ most valuable asset mean that news companies should be exclusively in the content production business? That’s a significant shift from the industrial printing and distribution business."
  (tags: journalism business)
• BBC Video embedded into Guardian article.
  The first Guardian embedding of a BBC video. I don't quite know what to make of this personally.
  (tags: business video)
• Microsoft to launch internet TV service in the UK – Times Online
  "Half-hour programmes will be preceded by short commercials, while programmes of one hour or longer will be interrupted by a commercial break."
  (tags: advertising future business)
• Reed Elsevier plummets 14% on news of £800m share issue | Media | guardian.co.uk
  "Shares in business-to-business publishing and information group Reed Elsevier plunged by 14% today after the Anglo-Dutch company said today it would sell new shares to cut its debt pile."
  (tags: business)
• Man hit by trolley on Huntington Avenue | Universal Hub
  A report compiled purely through Twitter.
  (tags: journalism twitter)
• The Barbara Argument
  "Great journalists with their hearts in the community are being shrugged off and those who are left are totally disillusioned by the whole disintegration process."
  (tags: journalism blogging regional)
• jQuery slideViewer 1.1
  "slideViewer is a lightweight (1.5Kb) jQuery plugin wich allows to instantly create an image gallery by writing just few lines of HTML such as an unordered list of images."
  (tags: webdesign photos slideshow tools)
• Requests for Revenues | News Innovation
  "…we’re putting together a list of new revenue opportunities that will go up on the site in the next few days."
  (tags: newspapers business)
• Home – MarkMail
  MarkMail is a free service for searching mailing list archives, with huge advantages over traditional search engines.
  (tags: search email tools)
• Decline slowing, says Trinity Mirror, amid 34.5% fall in regional ad revenue | Media | guardian.co.uk
  "Trinity Mirror said that it had shut 22 titles since the start of the year and cut 900 jobs – bringing headcount reduction to 1,800 in the last 18 months."
  (tags: newspapers regional trinity_mirror)
• FT.com / Middle East – UAE case highlights ‘spyware’ innovations
  "The company behind the “spyware” distributed to BlackBerry users in the United Arab Emirates as part of an apparent government surveillance effort exposed last week is neither a shady hacking outfit nor a false front for a team of spies in a bunker.
  Instead, SS8 is based in Silicon Valley…"
  (tags: security privacy)

For those who may have concluded my lack of blogging meant I’d disappeared off the planet, I thought I’d draw your attention to just one of the things I’ve been beavering away at behind the scenes.

BrandNew was set up in response to the fact that brand management online seemed to be a bit of a dirty word. While some organisatons are awarded the digerati prize of having “got it“, others end up being marginalised and scorned for their obvious errors.

Yet, I don’t think it should be such a maligned profession. As long as you are open, honest and transparent about who you are; who you work for; what you’re doing and why and sensitive to other people then being in a space where customers can easily access you should be a great thing. Right?

But being someone who has (without realising it at first) helped to manage the identity of a brand online, I am all too aware of the soul-searching that this type of role can create.

Questions such as: Can I be myself? What should I write about? Can people distinguish between my organisation’s brand and my personal identity? How do I deal with putting myself in the front line of customer service? How will my bosses react to what I say online? What if I get it wrong?

Looking back to the wonderful, supportive atmosphere of the Birmingham Social Media Cafe, I hoped that I could recreate that atmosphere for those faced with such questions.

Hence, the BrandNew meetups. The first one isn’t until September 10 so there is plenty of time to let me know how I can make it better, and to tell your friends! Any feedback would be much appeciated.

Oh, and there’s a Facebook Group too!

I’ve had little time to mull over the implications of the announcement that the BBC is to share its video content with Daily Mail & General Trust, Guardian News & Media, Telegraph Media Group and Independent News & Media. Yet, in the moments when I have, I have this nagging worry that it is not a good sign.

I can completely see the benefits: additional video content that can really enrich a story, but at no real cost to the newspaper groups involved. Plus, if you’re getting BBC content on your favourite newspaper website, perhaps you might switch your homepage allegiance.

The one thing that has personally been bugging me is that the owners of the Daily Mail, The Guardian, The Telegraph and The Independent all decided that BBC content would sit well alongside their stories.

This suggests that they thought it likely that they would be covering enough of the same stories as the BBC, and doing so with a tone and style that was unlikely to clash.

So a BBC video would sit as well next to a Daily Mail article as it would a Guardian article? When the unique selling points of a newspaper are supposedly its focus, editorial tone and world view, that seems surprising.

I guess you could argue that it is a testament to the BBC’s objectivity and that each newspaper group will have different priorities: selecting video for different stories.

But I can’t get yesterday’s quote from Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR in the US, that “news is a commodity” out of my head.

I’ve got this horrible feeling that the BBC deal proves that many articles produced by newspapers provide little or no uniqueness to help distinguish them in a flooded market.

• Local newspapers in peril: The town without news | The Economist
  As newspapers weaken and die, most people probably become less informed about local affairs, but a few motivated folk grow extremely knowledgeable. Ms Price will miss the Bedworth Echo, but not as a source of news. It was, she says, a useful way of getting the word out.
  (tags: newspapers future journalism hyperlocal)
• Lettings agent sues ex-tenant over Twitter complaint | Technology | guardian.co.uk
  A Chicago lettings agency is suing a former tenant for at least $50,000 (£30,000) after she complained on Twitter about mould in her apartment.
  (tags: twitter Law)
• The Aggregator That Newspapers Like | The New York Observer
  Perhaps RoboCop “writers” building information aggregators will be all that’s left in media’s post-apocalyptic future.
  (tags: newspapers journalism aggregator)
• Media as a hobby is not sustainable as a business – broadstuff
  "Just as Ham Radio, Desktop Publishing and Blogging all promised the rise of the Amateur, only to see it replaced over time by the Pro-Am and then the Pro, we suspect this too will disappoint."
  (tags: future journalism business)
• FT.com / View from the Top: John Malone, chairman of Liberty Media
  Fascinating interview with Malone. A must for anyone interested in the financial situation of the media industry (if you can put up with ads).
  "The Internet side of it is going to have to have some consolidator. It doesn't mean you own everything, it just means somebody is going to be the intermediary to authenticate, provide security and provide collection… I think cable is probably in as good a position as anybody to be the consoildator of that functionality."
  (tags: newspapers future business)
• ModelMayhem.com – my stock photo on Time magazine cover
  Photographers react to an amateur's photo being bought by Time for $30 and used on the magazine's front cover.
  (tags: business photos)
• Media: National Public Radio's Digital Makeover | Newsweek Business |
  "Frankly, if all the news organizations locked pinkies, and said we're all going to put up a big fat pay wall, you know what, more traffic for us. News is a commodity; I'm sorry to say."
  (tags: newspapers future journalism business)
• News Innovation | The Arizona Guardian – subscription service
  As of now the site pulls in about 8,000 unique visitors a month and enough paid subscribers to keep it in the black
  (tags: newspapers journalism innovation)
• i am near
  "It's really simple. You stick in your location, and we tell you stuff that's near it."
  (tags: maps mapping mashup hyperlocal)
• EC threatens action against US over copyright laws | Media | guardian.co.uk
  "…the EU is prepared to "suspend trade benefits granted to the U.S." if its domestic Copyright Act is not updated to fit World Trade Organisation rules."
  (tags: music copyright)
• Eleven-word snippets can infringe copyright, rules ECJ | Pinsent Masons LLP
  "The copying and reproduction of just 11 words of a news article can be copyright infringement, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled."
  (tags: newspapers copyright)
• Serious pageviews for serious news at The Sacramento Bee | BeatBlogging.Org
  "Ortiz is showing that people are interested in serious news on the Web, especially if it A) impacts their lives, B) is timely and C) provides a great community."
  (tags: journalism blogging)
• MSN Wants Local Papers’ News Feeds | paidContent:UK
  "Microsoft’s news and entertainment portal MSN wants to add UK regional newspaper content to its MSN Local site, integrating papers’ feeds with with its postcode-searchable map."
  (tags: newspapers hyperlocal)
• The Importance of Social Media Audits « Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Social Media, Web Marketing
  "Just as brands conduct audits of inventory, employees, and budgets on an often annual basis, they should also survey the landscape to find out what customers, influencers, partners and employees are participating on the social web."
  (tags: socialmedia marketing)
• Orange, Universal and C4 woo youth music market on mobiles | Business | The Guardian
  "It will give pre-pay customers unlimited access to tracks from Universal Music's extensive catalogue and let them play them on any mobile phone."
  (tags: mobile music innovation)
• Video deal is free marketing for BBC, says News International | Media | guardian.co.uk
  "We have consistently argued that content dumping by a publicly-funded broadcaster distorts the market and undermines the investment in video by commercial providers, such as the Press Association," said a PA spokeswoman.
  (tags: newspapers bbc)
• The three biggest reasons music magazines like Vibe and Blender are dying. – By Jonah Weiner – Slate Magazine
  "Teens trying to hash out (sub)cultural identities today have message boards, fan sites, and YouTube diaries to turn to, not to mention Facebook groups and musicians' MySpace pages. And that's perhaps the greatest crisis facing music magazines: They're being phased out, to a significant degree, by social-networking media, too."
  (tags: future journalism music)
• Bacterial computers can crack mathematical problems | Science | guardian.co.uk
  "As time goes by, a bacterial computer will actually increase in power as the bacteria reproduce."
  (tags: future technology)

• Social Journalism: Curate the Real-Time Web » Publish2 Blog
  "What’s Social Journalism? It’s what you do when you gather information in social media channels and then report it to your readers."
  (tags: journalism)
• The Best Business Model in the World – Umair Haque – HarvardBusiness.org
  "The 90s and 00s have been full of companies churning out the same old lame, toxic junk and trying to sell it in new ways — instead of detoxifying it."
  (tags: business innovation)
• The Nichepaper Manifesto – Umair Haque – HarvardBusiness.org
  "Newspapers strive for circulation, by telling the same stories in the same ways — in slightly different places. Nichepapers strive for scarcity: to develop a perspective, analytical skills, and storytelling capabilities that are inimitable by rivals."
  (tags: newspapers future journalism business)
• Trinity Mirror: Birmingham strike called off | Media | guardian.co.uk
  "Journalists at Trinity Mirror's Birmingham-based newspapers have called off strike action after the company agreed to make no compulsory redundancies at the titles."
  (tags: trinity_mirror birmingham_post)
• Jackie Hai | Convergence Commons | What an AP alternative could look like
  "It’s time to take news to the next level, to a form that not only informs and educates, but also has strong replay value."
  (tags: future journalism)
• NYTimes.com Introduces Self-Serve Ads For Hyperlocal Sites | Deals | Reuters
  The NYTimes.com has opened up a self-serve ad system for businesses who want to advertise on its hyperlocal sites.
  (tags: advertising hyperlocal)
• Crowdsourcing platform Help Me Investigate is live – and generates its first story | Online Journalism Blog
  Both had resolutions that might not have made traditional media, but were important to the users and, for me, resulted in the sort of engagement you want from media
  (tags: future journalism crowdsourcing citizenjournalism)
• What can journalism learn from I Can Has Cheezburger?
  "My view is that winners in the Internet era of news journalism will be the people and companies who, like Cheezburger, ReadWriteWeb and Amazon, develop systematic ways of filtering the flood of user-generated content and sources down to those with the best content."
  (tags: future business websites)
• Today the Birmingham Post published a ra… « ASH-10 Notebook
  "It's too quiet. We're losing readers. Someone write a wrongheaded article about Twitter."
  (tags: journalism twitter)
• Hack Day tools for non-developers
  "sites, services and software that could be used for hacking without programming knowledge as a pre-requisite"
  (tags: websites development)
• Newspapers on Twitter – how the Guardian, FT and Times are winning | Online Journalism Blog
  "National newspapers have a total of 1,068,898 followers across their 120 official Twitter accounts – with the Guardian, Times and FT the only three papers in the top 10."
  (tags: newspapers journalism twitter)
• News Corp sees MySpace as place for videogames | Technology | Reuters
  ""None of the traditional media conglomerates are also significant video game players, so to speak, and I think that that's the missing piece of the equation, particularly when you see how much time is spent playing games online," Miller said."
  (tags: business gaming myspace)
• Media: National Public Radio's Digital Makeover | Newsweek Business | Newsweek.com
  "Well guess what, if you're a not for profit, you still have to raise all the money that you're spending and then some, so you have a surplus when the economy goes off a cliff."
  (tags: future journalism business internet)
• Taking Comments Seriously – Nico's posterous
  "Any media outlet serious about online conversations needs to show to commenters that they are serious – by engaging with them in a debate. Otherwise, commenting sections on news sites become a graveyard for the blurbs of self-obsessed people."
  (tags: websites community comments)
• Template Twitter strategy for Government Departments
  I've turned BIS's Twitter strategy into a generic template Twitter strategy for government Departments.
  (tags: twitter government)

• Who links to the report they’re reporting on? | Online Journalism Blog
  Firstly, Google will rank a page more highly if it includes more outgoing links.

  Secondly, people will return to your site more often if they know they can expect useful links.

  So get your act together, please.

  (tags: journalism)