www.josschuurmans.com

Would we still call it journalism?

Tweet (by me): [Reading:] The End Of Hand Crafted Content http://ping.fm/kzv9s

Tweet (by Katri Lietsala): @josschuurmans What did you think about Arrington's article? In my opinion, he is so right: excellent journalists can have their own brand.

We're talking about Michael Arrington's article on TechCrunch, 'The End Of Hand Crafted Content', which by now has received 350 comments and, according to Topsy.com, was retweeted 1246 times.

Tweet: @katrilietsala http://ping.fm/lxNzC I agree that excellent journalists can have their own brand. There are several push factors at play.

For one, "disintermediation" and "sources going direct" imply that one no longer needs to be part of a news organization - the news industry - to conduct and share acts of journalism. We really are witnessing a revolution, with the means of production changing hands.

For another, the social web, particularly the blogosphere and the real-time web, appear to appreciate personal perspectives just as much as "objective reporting". This seems like an opportunity for individuals, including the "excellent journalists" that you mention, to build their personal brands.

Furthermore, I expect that journalists will be increasingly compelled to go solo if their news organizations keep hanging on to their model of "lecturing" rather than facilitating conversation.

Some freelancers have always been successful at franchising their personal brand across various channels and publications.

The Demonic Verses

Having said all that, the other interesting point that Mike Arrington made has to do with the advent of highly automated, "fast food" content production.

The illustrating example here is Demand Media, a company whose way of producing “content” was characterized by Jay Rosen as "demonic".

Demand Media immediately brought to my mind the animated video "EPIC 2015" (the Evolving Personal Information Construct), in which GoogleZon operates in a rather similar fashion and the New York Times finally goes off-line to continue as an elite newspaper for the rich and the elderly.

Yet, personally, I am not so afraid of this type of spam. As Doc Searls wrote:

"(...) Just as an aside, I’ve been hand-crafting (actually just typing) my “content” for about twenty years now, and I haven’t been destroyed by a damn thing. I kinda don’t think FFC is going to shut down serious writers (no matter where and how they write) any more than McDonald’s killed the market for serious chefs. (...)"

The web has always challenged us to distill signal from noise. The vast majority of content on Twitter, for example, is of no consequence to most of us.

If anything, should spammy businesses like Demand Media succeed in gaming the major search engines (which I doubt), it would only boost our reliance on social filters: if I know you and you have read something that you'd like to share (and possibly discuss) with me, I'd probably be interested and trust that it's not spam. We are already relying more and more on human filters this way.

The business model is still up in the air

The big question remains, how is "excellent journalism" going to be paid for in the future? Jeff Jarvis is exploring possible answers within the 'New Business Models for News' program at the City University of New York's CUNY Graduate School of Journalism.

Nikki Usher contends that the business model for news has always been broken - which, in my view, seems to imply that news provision may have to be subsidized. Looking at it that way, Arrington may be right in suggesting that for some, the only way to keep publishing may be pro bono.

Perhaps if we made a distinction between b2b and b2c journalism?

The revenue model for b2c journalism relies on sales and advertising. Selling journalistic content to consumers seems an increasingly difficult proposition. And on the flip side, Dave Winer sheds some doubt on the future of advertising as well, in Rebooting the News #35:

"(...) advertising itself may go away. “In a way an ad is a query… They try to guess as to what I’m interested in. And the better they guess, the more it becomes information." (...)"

The revenue model for b2b journalism is a content model. Businesses will always be willing to pay for timely and/or exclusive information as long as it's an essential part of their supply chain. The potential customer segment here is not limited to the media.

But what then, if the customer is not a media organisation? Let's say it's a mobile phone producer, or an insurance company instead. If journalists were to supply them with information which has been researched and packaged exactly as if it were supplied to the media, would we still call it journalism?

Amplification is the new circulation

When one quotes, forwards or retweets a reported fact (or opinion, for that matter), I believe it is considered good journalistic practice to try and reference a source as close as possible to the original event, observer or report.

David Weinberger's "transparency is the new objectivity" would support the suggestion that such practice is just as much required on the Net today than it has been in the press and public discourse traditionally.

(And BTW, Just like professor Weinberger does, I should really apologize for the cliché of “x is the new y.”)

Dan Gillmor appears to support this principle as well by recommending that we should be skeptical of everything (while not equally skeptical of everything) we read and always consider the trustworthiness of the source and the verifiability of its claim.

And while I agree that the transparency and verifiability of a story's origin  is an important attribute of its credibility, I also observe a dilemma here:

With the proliferating practice of reblogging and retweeting, it often seems increasingly cumbersome to track down the original source.

Amplification is the new circulation.

As we move away from the lecture model to the conversation model, facts and opinion spread through the social graph as by "word of post".

Tweet: http://ping.fm/F2TxI @jayrosen_nyu Is it reasonable to expect from everyone who amplifies a message that they link to the origin?

Jay Rosen, I believe that this is a challenge for the rebooted news system and I would love to learn your take on it.

Let me offer an example.

My wife, Minnna Ojamies, is a native Finn, who follows the Finnish mainstream media closely. She serves as my "human filter" to the news in Finnish. She uses Google Reader to share the news reports which she considers most interesting. I subscribe to her shared reading on Google Reader.

Also I happen to share stuff I read; articles, posts and tweets which I think may be of interest to others and/or which I would like to capture for possible future reference.

What I share on Google Reader flows into an RSS feed (edited on Yahoo! Pipes to include the string "[Reading:]" in front of the headline), which is forwarded by notify.me via Ping.fm onto a number of "social" web services including my account on Twitter.

The other day, she shared this article published on Taloussanomat, reporting that the 100-dollar laptop, for which Nicholas Negroponte has been campaigning, had arrived.

I hadn't seen this news in any of the other RSS feeds that I subscribe to. Unfortunately, the article was rather poor on source references. Also, it didn't mention much anything about the timing of availability of the laptop in question, nor about its competition.

In other words, there was little transparency and verifiability to go by. Yet, when it comes to overall credibility as a news brand, Taloussanomat finds itself - in my perception at least - in positive territory. Therefor I shared it.

The topic interests me and if the report turns out to be "new and true", I will be happy that I captured and amplified it. If not, I will be disappointed in Taloussanomat and regret amplifying noise rather than signal.

I could have done my own background check, of course. A simple web search would probably have done the trick. And services like Techmeme are helpful, too.

But my point, really, is that it may not be realistic to expect "amplifiers" to routinely carry out verification checks.

Personally, when I am in "reading mode", catching up with my RSS subscriptions, I don't  necessarily want to allocate much time to verification. My priority is to read, capture and share (and amplification is a by-product which serves the rebooted news system).

So, I'm kinda wondering if it would be acceptable that we simply link to where we read the news - in my case the article by Taloussanomat - and perhaps trust that the rebooted news system will somehow take care of verifying the origin itself.

That, across all these chains of amplification, some people will actually go back and refer to the origin of the story - especially when doubt or controversy (combined with a lack of transparency or verifiability) pass a certain threshold.

There's another remark or two that I wanted to make around amplification being the new circulation.

If we accept this framing of the new news system for a moment, it might lead us to believe that paywalls a la Rupert Murdoch constitute indeed an act of shooting oneself in the proverbial foot.

Let's assume for a moment that the way to reach people online is less about signing up subscribers and more about amplification.

In a sense, the newspaper sales model can be associated with "push" and the amplification model with "pull". Through subscription and sales outlets, stuff is pushed to people on certain terms, but only after recieving the package will they find out what they appreciate and what not. What they subsequently do like and decide to amplify is what they have pulled out as signal from the noise.

You can't put it back into the tube, Rupert!

In such a world, where pull trumps push and amplification trumps circulation, any content behind paywalls cannot be amplified.

Or rather, of course the message can be amplified - Washington Post readers also have Twitter accounts - but the paywall discourages the referencing of the original source.

So, if amplification is the new circulation, perhaps the amplifiers (that's us) won't always take the trouble of reading and verifying the original source, especially when it's made cumbersome to do so. If important enough, we'll do the fact-checking somehow routing around the paywall. Perhaps we'll find our own sources.

Hm, Dave Winer, perhaps it's not only that sources are going direct, (@davewiner, what would be the best link to this theme?), but also readers will go direct, namely directly to the source.

Tweet: http://ping.fm/F2TxI @davewiner Seems to me that not only sources, but also receivers go direct, namely to the source.

(When sources go direct, they become senders. And if senders can go direct, so can receivers or readers.)

Finally: how about if the half time of news is approaching to zero, much like the cost of storage of digital content is approaching to zero?

In a variation to Chris Anderson, will it make best business sense to give the news away for free and sell something else? Some type of premium content? Live experiences?

In such scenario, high-quality news including investigative reporting will merely be a brand builder, an investment rather than a business of its own.

Capturables from Rebooting the News #10

Just arrived to the office. Lots of stuff I feel like unloading.

On my way here I listened to episode 10 of Rebooting the News. I think it was one of the best shows in the series so far (among the first 10, that is - I have some catching up to do).

Jay Rosen makes two very pertinent connections between the tech world and journalism. The first connection is about bug catching, a very common and appreciated practice in software development, but very under-utilized and unappreciated in journalism.

In software development, everyone acknowledges that you cannot ship a perfect product. There will always be bugs and users are actually thanked for pointing them out. In journalism however, the expectation is that journalist check and double-check before they publish, and then ship a "perfect" product. If a reader points out a mistake or contradiction, typically the journalist either doesn't respond at all, or responds in a defensive fashion. Jay explains it as tribalism.

Blogging seems to allow for a less defensive attitude. Blog posts are perceived as less finished or less perfect, and bloggers seem more willing to correct and update their copy, while acknowledging readers' feedback.

It's an interesting phenomenon to point out and certainly something that needs to be addressed in the "new news system".

The second connection Jay makes is about usability. Why are geeks not better at making things easy to use? Dave Winer says it's because it's so damn hard to do. And it requires a great sense of empathy - the ability to put oneself in the users' shoes. He mentions Martin Scorsese and Marlon Brando.

Jay sees a nice parallel in that journalism is about making it easy for users to user their own democracy, lowering barriers to participate without much prior knowledge. (This is so true and elegant!)

What else? The Church of the Savvy. That's Jay's description of the undeclared religion of the press. Above anything else, journalists will value, remain loyal to and defend their savvy-ness.

Jay's inspiration of the week is Elvis Costello's recording of Nick Lowe's classic, 'What's So Funny 'Bout Peace Love and Understanding'.

Note-to-self: action points:

1. Check out Jay's tumblr blog - I didn't know he had one, and I was wondering why Google Reader hasn't served me any blog content from Jay lately (I've subscribed to PressThink);
2. Check out blogtalkradio, which is what Dave is using for these podcasts. I need to figure out a way to produce podcasts easily and economically.

[REPEAT from June 1: Dave built a dedicated site for 'Rebooting the News', at http://rebootnews.com/. He also created an RSS feed of this podcast series, at http://rebootnews.com/rss.xml. And a package of the first ten episodes which he uploaded as a torrent to Mininova at http://www.mininova.org/tor/2637891. He announced all of this here: http://www.scripting.com/stories/2009/05/30/rebootingTheNews110.html]

And don't miss the FriendFeed room either!

Citizen journalists in Prague: how does Google teach you better journalism?

In an article on ReadWriteWeb, 'Google Offering Training Services for Hyperlocal News in Europe', Marshall Kirkpatrick points out that Google is teaching a local news network in the Czech Republic how to use online (Google) tools to support for their investigative reporting.

He read about it on NYTimes.com:

"(...) The newsrooms-cum-cafes are part of a new venture in so-called hyperlocal journalism, which aims to reconnect newspapers with readers and advertisers by focusing on neighborhood concerns at a neighborhood level (...)"

For Google it's an opportunity to build market share in online advertizing.

As Nicholas Carr wrote in his most insightful analysis of Google's strategy, 'The Omnigoogle':

"(...) If hot dogs became freebies, mustard sales would skyrocket. It’s this natural drive to reduce the cost of complements that, more than anything else, explains Google’s strategy. Nearly everything the company does, including building big data centers, buying optical fiber, promoting free Wi-Fi access, fighting copyright restrictions, supporting open source software, launching browsers and satellites, and giving away all sorts of Web services and data, is aimed at reducing the cost and expanding the scope of Internet use. Google wants information to be free because as the cost of information falls it makes more money. (...)"

Now, to the ReadWriteWeb poll, Do You Think the Web Industry Has An Interest or Obligation in Helping Old Models of Reporting Transition Online? , I'll say: "Yes I do." Definitely an interest, that's very clear when it comes to Google.

Whether the new industry has an obligation to help the transition, is more complicated. In my view, it is primarily the responsibility of the journalist profession to pull themselves up by their hair and relocate to the new reality. Jay Rosen has called this a 'Migration Point for the Press Tribe':

"Like reluctant migrants everywhere, the people in the news tribe have to decide what to take with them. When to leave. Where to land. They have to figure out what is essential to their way of life. They have to ask if what they know is portable."

In terms of corporate responsibility, I do think that web companies have an obligation to act in ways that support and help sustain forms of journalism which strengthen the workings of democracy. These may be new forms of journalism, and they may well compete with the "old models of reporting".

Marshall mentions the Lawrence Journal World as a well known model of effective local online reporting and closes by saying: "For more on this general topic, I'm going to listen to this collection of podcasts by Dave Winer and NYU Journalism Professor Jay Rosen, titled Rebooting the News."  :-)

What I would like to hear is how well the Czech initiative will succeed. The first time I visited the country was in 1993, just after Czechoslovakia had split up in two. It was fascinating to talk with (young) journalists then, to hear their genuine concerns about their new democracy, and to note their motivation for building a new, post-communist, civil society.

Any (citizen) journalists out there getting involved in Google's initiative in Prague, do share your views and experiences!

Jay Rosen's most linked-to post, ever

In the first episode (audio) of his podcast series 'Rebooting the News' with Dave Winer, Jay Rosen calls this post, 'Audience Atomization Overcome: Why the Internet Weakens the Authority of the Press', the most linked-to post on his blog, ever.

Jay wrote:

"(...) Take a sheet of paper and make a big circle in the middle. In the center of that circle draw a smaller one to create a doughnut shape. Label the doughnut hole “sphere of consensus.” Call the middle region “sphere of legitimate debate,” and the outer region “sphere of deviance.” (...)"

Jay argues that journalists in the U.S. will not step outside of the agreed boundaries of what is considered "the political debate". If your coverage stays between "what the Republicans are saying" and "what the Democrats are saying", you're safe.

This phenomenon is not confined to the U.S.

Jeff (and Dave) on cutting out the middle man

While it's arguably somewhat lame to blame the reporter for not promoting his book ('What Would Google Do?'), the crux of journalist and journalism professor Jeff Jarvis's replique to The Observer is worth mulling over:

"(...) what really struck me in this process - and it is always good for a journalist to endure journalism - is that the interview itself is becoming outmoded.

I’ve noted before that Dave Winer (who, ironically, is beating me up for being too much the journalistic traditionalist) wisely refuses interviews, telling journalists that everything he has to say he has said online.

"(...) The process of the interview has the reporter hold all the cards in his hand: who he talks with and what he will reveal to each and what he will say in the end, without links to what any of the parties has said. Then the reporter gets to toss it all on the table.

A process of links and discovery and conversation and correction would be far more illuminating of the ideas and issues than this old process of control through the sieve (and efforts to trump up conflict and drama). That, you see, is the real moral to the story: It’s the form that’s bullshit. (...)"

Alma Media's actually-rather-sad tragicomedy

Continuing my thread on cognitive dissonance... :-)

”It is normal to expect that the spouse is a man.” That's Kai Telanne for you, CEO of Alma Media, commenting on the Korhonen affair which has been making headlines in Scandinavia this week.

Had he meant ”to expect” in the cognitive sense, i.e. speaking in terms of probability, well, so be it. But the context at the moment is entirely normative. As far as Telanne is concerned, the spouse should have been a man.

Newly appointed head editor Johanna Korhonen resigned from Lapin Kansa, the regional newspaper in Finnish Lapland, even before she got to start working.

Korhonen, former editor-in-chief of the Finnish journalists union's magazine, issued a press release on Wednesday in which she came out as a lesbian and claimed that the paper saw in her sexual orientation a reason to offer her one hundred thousand euros if she would leave while keeping the reason secret.

She was urged to bend the truth a bit by stating instead to the public something about having finally realized that moving from Helsinki to Lapland was not a good idea.

This is a serious case which touches the core values of our society. These are matters of democracy and human dignity. The fact that such a blatant and backward case of discrimination happens in not just any company but a newspaper for #!% sake...

As New York University journalism professor Jay Rosen teaches us, we need to make a distinction between the media and the press. Alma Media, the concern which owns Lapin Kansa, is a media firm whose raison d'être is to take market share in the attention economy. The press, on the other hand, plays a vital role in the democratic process, a role which Edmund Burke called the Fourth Estate.

From a media point of view, Alma Media is doing fine at grabbing people's attention. However, looking at the role of the press, this tale is an absolute farce.

If it were fiction, this would be an entertaining tragicomedy. And even though one cannot but laugh at its absurdity, the sad truth is that this is the reality we live in today.

Link: New editor-in-chief dropped from newspaper, allegedly over lesbian relationship :: Helsingin Sanomat - International Edition.

[UPDATE: Last week I mused that Finns don't take to the streets. I was wrong. A demonstration against Alma Media was under way on Friday in the city of Tampere. Meanwhile, readers have started cancelling Alma Media subscriptions in protest to the publisher's hillbillyness.]

[UPDATE, October 17, 2008: Janne Jalkanen thinks it's all just about the money. And Frans Mäyrä notes how Alma Media not only managed to insult lesbians, but the Lapp people as well.]

Dugg: PressThink: Migration Point for the Press Tribe | Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen explained on June 26, 2008, why he believes that in the new territory across the digital divide, hybrid forms of journalism, which combine properties of open (amateur) as well as closed (professional) editorial systems, will be the strongest.

(Apology: while I hope this doesn't constitute a breach of "fair use", I struggle to paraphrase Jay's essay in a more compact fashion).

"(...) The First Amendment says to all Americans: you have a right to publish what you know, to say what you think. That right used to be abstractly held. Now it is concretely held because the power to publish has been distributed to the population at large.

(...) The land that newsroom people have been living on—also called their business model—no long supports their best work. So they have come to a reluctant point of realization: that to continue on, to keep the professional press going, the news tribe will have to migrate across the digital divide and re-settle itself on terra nova, new ground. Or as we sometimes call it, a new platform.

(...) And like reluctant migrants everywhere, the people in the news tribe have to decide what to take with them, when to leave, where to land. They have to figure out what is essential to their way of life, and which parts were well adapted to the old world but may be unnecessary or a handicap in the new. (...) This creates an immediate crisis for the elders of the tribe, who have always known how to live.

(...) Today, the press is shared territory. It has pro and amateur zones. (...) Part of it is a closed system—and closed systems are good at enforcing editorial controls—the other part is an open system.

(...) Open systems are good at participation, community formation, and locating intelligence anywhere in the network. They are good at sharing, and getting good at surfacing the good stuff. The two editorial systems don’t work the same way. One does not replace the other. They are not enemies, either. We need to understand a lot better how they can work together.

[UPDATE, August 28, 2008:

In his next blog post, on July 8, Jay Rosen pointed to an interesting additional reference, from Stowe Boyd:

"(...) What the newspapers' management fail to understand is the end of mass: people simply do not hold with mass identity now that they are free to find human-scale identity, and once they find it, they will not go back. Newspapers and other mass media is falling first and fastest because we are rejecting the ersatz, mass belonging that they offered, as part of the expansion of the industrial Western democratic ideals. (...)"

]

read more | digg story

Dugg: PressThink: Filter the Best Stuff to the Front Page: A Demo | Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen wrote on June 16, 2008:

"(...) OffTheBus and NewsTrust.Net ran a little test two weeks ago. It's a crowdsourced week in review feature for high quality John McCain coverage, June 2 to 9. Here's the background and results. (...)"

What I find more interesting about this blog post than the content of the experiment or indeed the ensuing US-centric political flame war in the comments is the concept of the experiment, as well as Jay's reference to Dave Winer's rivers of news, and the concern that filtering may not keep pace.

(...) The mission of NewsTrust—it’s nonprofit and non-partisan—is to be a “guide to good journalism.” The site offers a “range of tools to help you find and share” the best work.

(...) Sites like NewsTrust take it for granted that expansion in media space is a good thing. But filtering and forwarding systems must keep pace.

(...) In this connection, I point you to NewsJunk.Com, a new site. Dave Winer, with some co-conspirators, created a river of news intended for serious users of political coverage. It’s designed to be radically inclusive and selective. (And fast.)

(...) Ethan Zuckerman, co-founder of Global Voices Online—a “find new voices” project that’s working—said he was concerned that tools to organize the flow and make it practical for people to use were not keeping pace with expanded opportunities to publish.

(...) For a more intelligent and flexible filter we can trust in pro editors to adapt to the Web. We can turn to bloggers (they edit the Web for us and always have.) Or we can try the participation route, also called social media. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: PressThink: Introducing NewAssignment.Net | Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen wrote on July 25, 2006 about his idea for NewAssignment.Net ("an experiment in open-source reporting"):

"(...) Assignments are open sourced. They begin online. Reporters working with smart users and blogging editors get the story the pack wouldn't, couldn't or didn't. (...) There's $10,000 to test it, courtesy of Craig Newmark.

(...) The site uses open source methods to develop good assignments and help bring them to completion; (...)"

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Dugg: Craigslist's unorthodox path | The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe ran a background piece about Craig Newmark of Craigslist' fame (Wikipedia: Craigslist).

"(...) Newmark, who is customer service representative and founder of Craigslist Inc., didn't start the website as a business, but it has grown into an utterly unusual one. (...)"

"(...) Peter Zollman, founding principal of Classified Intelligence (...) says Craigslist is a for-profit business "run like a nonprofit."

(...) "There's nothing noble or altruistic or pious about what we're doing," [Craig] says. "Once you make enough money and provide for your future, it's more satisfying to change the world a little bit." (...)"

On journalism:

"(...) "Has Craigslist caused newspapers pain? Yes. It's called capitalism," Zollman says. "They came along with a better mousetrap, and people started using it."

Newmark is personally interested in exploring the potential for the Internet to support new kinds of journalism, whether produced by professional investigative reporters or amateurs. "We need investigative reporters to ask tough questions," he says.

Among the organizations he supplies with moral or financial support are the Sunlight Foundation, which aims to improve access to congressional information; NewAssignment.net, which promotes "open source" reporting; and ProPublica, which is building a team of investigative journalists. (...)"

(Via David Weinberger)

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Dugg: PressThink: When Mayhill Fowler Met Bill Clinton at the Rope Line | Jay Rosen

Jay Rosen writes:

"(...) "Trust me because I mask my true feelings about the matter" is not an inherently better way to journalize or gain cred. "Trust me because I show you what my true feelings on the matter are..." can also work." And if it has pro and amateur wings maybe the press can fly again. (...)"

Interesting tale about identification in (citizen?) journalism. While surely unintended, what springs to mind is Günther Wallraff's undercover journalism. (see Wallraff's entry on the Wikipedia)

But also, the debate about "being transparent about your biases" is interesting in this context. In the old school, the point is to be as informative as possible about the interviewee and their biases, not about the journalist. It's altogether not that straightforward...

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Dugg: Video-interview of Rupert Murdoch | Walt Mossberg, Kara Swisher / D6

"(...) video highlights from the first part of the D6 interview of Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO, News Corporation, conducted by conference co-hosts Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher. (...)"



(part 1 - 07:00 minutes)

Asked by Mossberg if newspapers have much of a future left, Murdoch says:

"(...) Over the last 10 or 15 years they've made every economy possible in production, with computers and so on, but not in journalism. Now they have to turn to journalism.

(...) Every story in the (...) [Wall Street] Journal currently is, on average, touched or edited by eight different people. That is ridiculous. (...)"

(part 2 - 6:15 minutes)

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Dugg: Dan Gillmor: Principles of a New Media Literacy | Publius Project

[UPDATE, April 30, 2009: Dan Gillmor's essay on the Publius website appears to have moved. The new, correct link is: http://publius.cc/principles_new_media_literacy]

"(...) In this emergent global conversation, which has created a tsunami of information, what can we trust?

How we govern ourselves on the Web depends in significant ways on the answers. To get this right, we’ll have to re-think, or at least re-apply, some older cultural norms in distinctly modern ways.

It comes down, in significant ways, to some principles, both for media consumers and creators. They add up to a 21st Century notion of what we once called “media literacy.” But media literacy has generally lacked the kind of participatory piece that is so essentially a part of digital media. (...)

• Be skeptical of absolutely everything.
• But don’t be equally skeptical of everything.
• Understand and learn media techniques.
• Ask more questions.

(...)"

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Dugg: Reuters' "mojo" experiments with Nokia | Jemima Kiss

"(...) Reuters' journalists are experimenting with the potential of mobile journalism through a project with Nokia's research centre. (...)"

read more | digg story

Dugg: Blogging as a Form of Journalism | J.D. Lasica / OJR

"(...) Weblogs offer a vital, creative outlet for alternative voices (...)"

When cleaning up my paper (sic!) archive the other day, I came across a printed article in two parts, by J.D. Lasica for the Online Journalism Review (OJR), published on May 24 and 31, 2001. Just before I'm throwing this away for the benefit of the paperless office, I'll quote what I highlighted back then:

From: 'Blogging as a Form of Journalism', May 24, 2001:

'Channels' does not sufficiently describe the dynamics of distributed online conversations

Interesting conversation about "channels" developing here with Bill French.

Totallly agree that people create channels in efforts to create order from chaos. The way I used "channels" in my post on 'The End of Channels?' was with the traditional notion of, if you will, media titles, in mind: TV/radio channels or shows, zines, newspapers, websites, blogs, forums...

I suppose what they have in common is that they all have a name, an address, and usually a more or less defined scope. They are often furnished with editorial policies and they may be designed to further particular political or commercial interests. Also, most often they have a brand identity.

But if we look passed the keeper of the gate and over the garden wall, I am willing to accept that channels - as in "meta-handlers" - are not necessarily disappearing, but rather evolving into new forms, such as distributed conversations connected by tags.

The point I am trying to make is that old-style channels are designed to contain conversations within them. Sure, they are helpful as meta-handlers in creating order. And, agreed, the new meta-handlers are facilitated by social media, e.g. through tags. However, I hesitate to go as far as to call those tag-connected (micro-content contributions to) conversations, ehm, "channels".

In Dutch, we use the same word for channel and canal: "kanaal". So it won't surprise you that I quite strongly associate the word channel with a human-made, one-directional, controlled flow.

Bill writes:

"(...) People tend to prefer the benefits that channels provide - they create the notion of a "meta-handle" that makes it easier for them to understand, know about, and share. (...)"

Well, I won't deny that people find channels convenient. Still, to me, even "virtual channel" or "conversation channel" doesn't quite sufficiently express the dynamic nature of distributed online conversations. These conversations do not have ONE name, ONE address or even a defined scope.

Tags are useful in searching and navigating these conversations, - in particular because they add social filtering to the mix - and "tag cloud" is a metaphor that helps people venture into the Web 2.0 era.

And yet, even tag clouds cannot contain or accurately scope conversations. The Web, and in particular the social media web, makes our culture and economy more "probabilistic", as Chris Anderson puts it in The Long Tail.

So, why not liberate the conversations from their channels and simply call them "conversations"?

(See also: 'www.josschuurmans.com: 'The concept of "conversation" as in the Long Tail of Conversations')

Dugg: Social Media Will Change Your Business | BusinessWeek

BusinessWeek's Stephen Baker and Heather Green have updated their article 'Blogs Will Change Your Business' from May, 2005, (which I dissected here) to include observations of social media over the past three years.

It's a nine-pager, so I'll read it on my commute one of these days before drawing any conclusions. However, I already know that one of my posts that I will compare this against, is: 'The End of Channels?', which has this summary:

The three aspects of social media that I'd like to view as qualitative departures from the past are: (1) 'The Dilution of Channels' in that online conversations happen all over the place; (2) 'The Wisdom of the Crowd', social software helping people navigate their way through online conversations; and (3) the participatory and co-creational nature of social media.

read more | digg story

Dugg: Andrew Keen is the Anti-Chris

In this podcast Moira Gunn speaks with author Andrew Keen, who claims that today's Internet is killing our culture. With descriptions like "dystopia", "Orwellian nightmare", and "tyranny of the amateurs", Keen explicitly disagrees with Chris Anderson on the virtues of the Long Tail and the abundance of free content.

Anderson's more optimistic views on emerging economies of abundance and the business of "free" are well captured in another podcast on IT Conversations from June 2007, as well as in his keynote at the Nokia World event in Amsterdam, in December 2007 (which I blogged about earlier today).

Keen describes Web 2.0 as a stage in the development of the Internet in which businesses attempt to build revenue models around user-generated content, whereas during Web 1.0 businesses explored the Internet as a new distribution channel for their existing, professionally produced content.

read more | digg story

My top-8 podcasts of all times

Admittedly, I'm hooked on the Conversations Network :-)

In fact, surprised myself by having such a strong focus on technology in the top-3. But the truth is, these topics will have a huge impact on our future.

1. Pop!Tech 2004: Carolyn Porco, Cassini Science Imaging Team Leader: 'Explorer's Club'

"(...) Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Operations (CICLOPS) has been focused on Saturn since early 2004 as the Cassini spacecraft approached its orbit around the planet. (...) The icy moon Enceladus contains fissures that suggest tectonics, the south pole is especially warm and has signatures of organic material. (...) The other moon, Titan, is where the Huygens probe landed in January 2005. (...) the Titan moon may give us a significant glimpse of what the Earth was like before living organisms. (...) Lastly Carolyn shares some of her views on science and spirituality. (...)"

2. Pop!Tech 2004: Joel Garreau, Journalist, The Garreau Group: 'Human Nature'

"(...) "Are we fundamentally changing human nature in our lifetime?" Joel Garreau thinks that yes we will be...over the next twenty years. What's driving this? (...)" GRIN: genetics, robotics, Information and nanotech.

3. Tech Nation: Sandra Blakeslee, Contributor, NY Times

"(...) Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with NY Times contributor Sandra Blakeslee, about neuroscience, and how it is revealing how our brains map out our physical bodies. (...)"

4. Pop!Tech 2004: Ben Saunders, Solo Explorer

"(...) On his latest expedition in February 2004, Ben set out from Cape Arktichevsky in Northern Siberia in an attempt to be the first person in the world to make a complete crossing of the frozen Arctic Ocean in a 1,240-mile journey ending in Canada, solo and unsupported. (...) After experiencing first hand conditions described by NASA and Environment Canada as 'the worst on record', Ben has raised international awareness regarding the extent to which climate change is affecting the Arctic. He noticed conditions that were up to 15 degrees warmer than in 2000, and had to negotiate vast, unprecedented areas of thinning ice and open water. (...)"

5. Pop!Tech 2004: Doug Rushkoff: 'Renaissance Prospects'

"(...) Douglas Rushkoff analyzes, writes and speaks about the way people, cultures, and institutions create, share, and influence each other's values. He sees "media" as the landscape where this interaction takes place, and "literacy" as the ability to participate consciously in it. (...)"

6. O'Reilly Emerging Technology Conference 2005:
Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine: 'Economics of the Long Tail'

"(...) he explores the economics of the long tail and shares his insight on the effects it might have on future business models. Chris discusses how distribution networks like Amazon, iTunes and Netflix have shown that the right side of the curve which forms millions of niches can be as big a market as the chart toppers. (...)"

7. O'Reilly Digital Democracy Teach-In:
Gatekeepers No More? The Grassroots Challenges the Journalistic Priesthood

"(...) Professional journalists have been the chief gatekeepers of news about political campaigns and governmental operations. That's changing, fast, as the Internet and other technical tools open up a variety of avenues for other participants in the information process. (...)" With Dan Gillmor, Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen.

8. Pop!Tech 2005: Sam Harris, Author, The End of Faith: 'The Future of Ideas'

"(...) Sam Harris debates many points relating to religion, particularly the dangers that can be brought about by religious extremists -- in any faith -- around the world (...)"

Runners-up:

Clayton Christensen, Professor, Harvard Business School: 'Capturing the Upside'

"(...) Through his recent research, Professor Christensen has developed a set of theories to help guide managers as they seek to answer seven critical questions when trying to build new growth businesses, again and again: (...)"

Web 2.0 Conference: Lawrence Lessig

"(...) By presenting media remixing as the "creative writing" of the future he highlights the dangers of moving from a free culture where discussion and free speech are taken for granted, to a permission culture where permission to reproduce media messages will depend on the use of that media. (...)"

SDForum: Lawrence Lessig: 'The Comedy of the Commons'

"(...) Lessig (...) charts a history of IP, which helps him highlight the difference between physical-property law, which can result in a tragedy of the commons, and intellectual-property law, which can result in a comedy of the commons. (...)"

Eben Moglen, Director, Software Freedom Law Center: 'Freedom Businesses Protect Privacy'

"(...) Few, if any, presentations at conferences in the coming years will manage to combine the intellectual depth and delivery skills shown by Software Freedom Law Center director Eben Moglen in this penetrating analysis of privacy and technology. (...)"

Tech Nation: Dr. Steven Miles, Author & Professor, University of Minnesota

"(...) Dr. Moira Gunn talks to Dr. Steven Miles, the Minnesota MD who studied tens of thousands of documents released by the Department of Defense about US military prisons in Iraq. Included were those from the notorious Abu Ghurayb prison near Baghdad. What Dr. Miles found was extremely disturbing. (...)"

MeshForum 2005: Jamais Cascio: 'Participatory Panopticon'

Jamais Cascio's 'Participatory Panopticon', a presentation at the MeshForum 2005 Event held in Chicago, Il, May 1-4, 2005 and podcast via IT Conversations, takes the "memory prosthesis" concept of Nokia Lifeblog a few steps further.

"(...) [S]elf-proclaimed freelance world-builder, [Jamais] has a bold vision for the future. He calls it the Participatory Panopticon, and it spells the end of privacy and the end of secrecy. While personal privacy is eroding, the ability of those in power to lie, cheat, and steal is also becoming increasingly impaired. (...)"

Tech Nation: Greenfield v. Kurzweil: 'Biotech: Will it Save Us or Hurt Us?'

"(...) Baroness Susan Greenfield, Director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, debates Ray Kurzweil, one of America’s most prolific inventors and a futuristic thinker in his own right. Will biotechnology save us? Or hurt us? (...)"

Pop!Tech 2005: Susan Blackmore, Author and lecturer: 'Memes'

"(...) Memetics is an intellectually rich but controversial field which seeks to explain how our minds and cultures are designed by natural selection acting on replicating information, just as organisms evolve by natural selection acting on genes. (...)"

The End of Channels?

Summary: The two aspects of social media that I'd like to view as qualitative departures from the past are: (1) 'The Dilution of Channels' in that online conversations happen all over the place; and (2) 'The Wisdom of the Crowd', social software helping people navigate their way through online conversations.

[ADDITION, October 26, 2007: I've added one more charasteristic to the social media mix: (3) 'Participation'. See also the addition towards the end of this post]

My local professional communicators' association wishes to pick my brain on "social media". So it's about time I captured the concept in writing.

The media have, of course, always been "social". Any form of human communication (where there are messages sent by senders and processed by receivers) is social. The Internet is a disruptive technology that accelerates certain properties of everything social, in particular human communication, including what we call "the media". In other words, to some extent "social media" is a pleonasm.

Also the Internet has always been a social space.

For homework I Googled the term. The Wikipedia entry, Robert Scoble's entry, and some other references I found seem to position "social media" mainly as something that has more "capacity" than "traditional media": online means faster and more immediate, easier to interact with, easy to copy and share, unlimited space...

Quantitative or qualitative?

Are we really talking about quantitative differences only? Or should we make some qualitative distinctions as well?

The Cluetrain Manifesto on the rebirth of conversations

IMHO, the Cluetrain Manifesto is still the most visionary book, indeed a feast of recognition, of how the Internet is accelerating the shift from broadcast to search, from push to pull, from controlled messaging to open conversation.

From where I stand, the three most relevant themes in the Cluetrain are:

1. The significance of conversations, and how the Internet is bringing them back.
2. Why and how businesses need to change as a result.
3. The power of storytelling.

Below is my collection of references from the book, with an emphasis on the first theme, the rebirth of conversations.

[UPDATE, July 29, 2007: Doc Searls refers to my excerpts from the cluetrain on The Doc Searls Weblog:  Saturday, July 28, 2007. In response, I submit that we should combine the teachings of the Cluetrain and the Long Tail theory to be able to engage in the conversations that matter most to us.]

Jay Rosen: blogs reverse the rational-emotional news paradigm

As kentbye reported on the Echo Chamber Project site, in a session on journalism at the BloggerCon III conference back in November, 2004, which was podcast by ITconsersations, Jay Rosen talked about how people start with the emotional passion of opinions and then go and research the facts -- as opposed to the traditional paradigm of facts -> analysis -> opinion.

Indeed an interesting observation when comparing blogging and traditional news reporting. It's worth capturing Jay's quote as recorded by kentbye:

"(...)JAY ROSEN: I want to put one idea in people's heads. The great thing about blogs for journalists is that it is "denaturalizing" their world. It's making their assumptions clear for the first time.

So in the mainstream journalism world, it is natural -- it is obvious -- that the first thing you need is reliable information -- news. And from that we can have analysis. And then further down in the transaction, there's opinion.

And so a well-rounded information diet begins with facts and news, moves to analysis, and later on opinion -- which is also the stages a journalist goes through in their career. You start off being a reporter. Maybe we'll let you do some analysis pieces later on. And eventually you become a columnist.

What blogging is doing is showing that that's just a convention. It's just a convenient way of dividing up the world. And while it may be true that people get their facts first, and then they kind of want some analysis, and then they move onto opinion. It also works in the reverse.

Lots of people get engaged first through argument. And it's argument that causes them to look for information. And to me this is one of the most valuable things about blogging. It's denaturalizing the journalist's view of how the world works. Because a lot of people want to enter into the public world through the eyes and the arguments and the ideas of bloggers. And it's from there that they go in search of news stories and information.

And not only is that just as good a way of getting the news, but it even might be more natural. (...)"

Technorati Tags: Jay Rosen, journalism, blogging, news, facts, analysis, opinion

Dan Gillmor speaks at Harvard

Dan Gillmor speaks at Harvard University this evening. In summary:

"(...) As technology collides with journalism, democratizing the tools of media creation and distribution, news is evolving from a lecture into a conversation. As individuals become more engaged with the news and its creation, they will be taking steps beyond simply being better informed -- a journey toward enhanced civic activism as well. This talk, the first in a series of four, explains recent developments in grassroots media and why they are so important to the notion of an informed citizenry. (...)"

Since this is so spot-on, Dan, can we please hear it as a podcast?

Somewhat related on www.josschuurmans.com:

• Editorial codes from Wikipedia (December 21, 2005)
• Still looking for the Truth, anyone? (December 6, 2005)
• PressThink: the ideas that journalists work within (October 25, 2005)

Editorial codes from Wikipedia

Wikipedia's entry on Journalism ethics and standards is an excellent starting point in collecting the building blocks of a professional code for an editorial team that runs intra-organizational, online news and information channels.

A corporate communications team does not serve the general public. It does not represent the Fourth Estate, journalism as a pillar of democracy. Instead, its success is measured by how well it manages to bring across relevant news and information to employees, how well it facilitates engagement and dialogue, how well it stimulates online discourse, information sharing and collaboration. Ultimately, it reports to top management, who in turn are accountable to owners and investors.

Independent public media focus on what their readers, viewers and listeners expect and appreciate. They publish with the interests of the audience in mind, rather than the interests of their sources. Wich is not to say that public media wouldn't need to treat their sources with respect.

Internal communications professionals constantly need to weigh the interests of their sources against those of their audience. Both sources and audience are their customers.

Call for best-practice codes of internal communications

I'm planning to draft an editorial code for intra-organizational, online communications channels. While taking inspiration from journalism, I wonder if there are any examples of corporate editorial codes around that emphasize the importance of credibility through objectivity and transparency.

Thesis: Redactiestatuten van de Vlaamse Dagbladen

Zoals ik in een eerdere entry aangaf, ben ik op zoek naar inspirerende redactiestatuten (Zie ook: Gevraagd: best-practice redactiestuten voor interne bedrijfscommunicatie).

Een zoekaktie met Google levert onder andere de afdstudeer-thesis "Redactiestatuten van de Vlaamse Dagbladen" van Tom De Voeght op.

"(...) er bestaat in Vlaanderen nog wel een lijn tussen het dagblad als bedrijf en het dagblad als objectieve waarnemer. Maar die lijn is erg dun en lijkt sterk te eroderen (...)", concludeert Tom.

Hij haalt in zijn werk ook Het Nederlandse Model-Redactiestatuut aan:

"(...) Sinds 1977 legt de CAO voor dagbladjournalisten de verplichting tot een redactiestatuut op. Alle dagbladuitgeverijen kennen een statuut voor hoofdredactie en redactie, dat de doelstellingen en de identiteit van de krant omschrijft, en de onderlinge verhoudingen regelt tussen hoofdredactie, redacteuren en directie. Dit statuut maakt ook deel uit van de arbeidscontracten van alle journalisten in vaste dienst. (...)"

Maar zelfs een verplicht redactiestatuut biedt uiteindelijk ook in Nederland weinig garanties voor redactionele onafhankelijkheid:

Aanzet tot een best-practice redaktiestatuut voor interne communicatie

Ik ben op zoek naar voorbeelden van redaktiestatuten, die kunnen dienen als inspiratie voor een nieuwsredactie op een afdeling interne bedrijfscommunicatie. Zowel redaktiestatuten uit de journalistiek alsook redaktiestatuten uit de intra-organisatorische communicatie zijn interessant.

VillaMeida.nl, de website van de Nederlandse Vereniging van Journalisten, biedt een aantal voorbeelden van redactiestatuten.

De BBC heeft een Royal Charter. Dat is niet het meest praktische voorbeeld voor ons doel.

Hierbij een aanzet:

Still looking for the Truth, anyone?

Journalism is facing big-time challenges these days. Since the end of the bi-polar world order, and with the advent of the new global economy, commercial interests seems to have caught up with political interests as the main source of pressure that journalists are struggling to resist.

I just hope Online Journalism Review is not only preaching to the converted when it states:

We believe that standards used in traditional media can and should be applied online. Journalism ethics, developed over centuries, help keep a line between commercial and editorial functions -- to help maintain a publication’s credibility and trustworthiness. An individual or organization that lacks veracity loses its role as a reliable truth teller, whether on the Web, in print or on the airwaves.

At the same time we also believe that traditional journalists can learn from online writers and publishers. Journalism must engage the communities it serves, soliciting information from readers while reporting it back to them. The Internet provides an unmatched forum to enable such interactivity and we welcome honest attempts to use it in the pursuit, and publication, of the truth.

(...)

We want to identify who is best serving the public on the Web and who, hiding in the cloak of journalism, belongs in different garb. We want to support the truth tellers, label the entertainers and expose those who would let excess commercial interests sway their judgment. We analyze new technology and assess how it affects journalism -- who is using it best, who is perverting its intent.

Addressing journalism ethics, as well as offering help in hands-on reporting practice, this site may prove a good source for established journalist, grassroots reporters and media consumers alike.

Technorati links to this entry

del.icio.us bookmarks for this entry

Useful writing advice on Peg Boyle's 'Waking Up Writing'

Peg Boyle's blog, 'Waking Up Writing', offers useful references, reviews, insights, tips and tricks to do with writing for the web. Some of her entries are really stuff that matters.

For example:

Tools for writers (November 7, 2005)
Narrative voice: Tell a story (November 3, 2005)
Blog usability rules (October 27, 2005)
General guidelines for Web writers (June 7, 2005)
Create white space (May 23, 2005)

This all reminds me of Ann Wylie's workshops on "Storytelling" and "Writing for the Web" that I have had the privilege to attend. Ann sends around a catchy newsletter and her workshops are truly engaging.

However, it's very refreshing to see Peg offering virtually the same quality content, and more of it, on her blog. And it's free for all.

Steve Crescenzo's worst corporate BS headlines

Painful anecdotical evidence of corporate excrement of adult male cattle on Steve Crescenzo's 'Corporate Hallucinations' blog: 'The worst of the worst of the worst' (headlines).

"In my C.R.A.P. (Corporate Rhetoric Awards Program) Column for Ragan’s Corporate Writer and Editor this month, I asked readers to vote for the worst corporate headline of all time," Steve writes. His blog visitors can now offload their own.

8 steps to better researched blog entries

Summary: Here's a simple methodology for creating well-researched blog entries, following the eight steps of: (1) topic definition, (2) source selection, (3) research, (4) writing, (5) context, (6) publishing, (7) marketing, (8) learnings.

There is a body of opinion stating that "blogging is not journalism". Well, I'd go as far as to say that "not all blogging is journalism", but some of it is.

Equally, not all MSM (mainstream media) content is journalism, either. Even though some of it is labeled and presented as such. Yet, all blogging and all MSM content is publishing.

"Journalism" is rather a qualification to published content. Published content that is a result of "journalism" meets certain quality criteria. Certain functional, editorial and ethical standards. Wether it is packaged and distributed through newspapers, cable tv, blogs or podcasts is secundary.

One very practical issue I've had to be aware of is duplication. Conversations in the blogosphere move very fast and I've sometimes found myself starting to write a blog entry and finding out half-way that the topic I was addressing was being discussed already in the blogosphere in great detail. In other words, I hadn't done my homework.

So I figure it might be useful to establish a simple methodology for creating well-researched blog entries. Roughly, this method would consist of the following eight steps:

PressThink: the ideas that journalists work within

"I am a press critic, an observer of journalism's habits, and also a writer trying to make sense of the world," Jay Rosen, Associate Professor and former chairman (1999-2005) of New York University's Department of Journalism, writes in an introduction to his blog, PressThink.

"(...) I am interested in the ideas about journalism that journalists work within, and those they feel they can work without. I try to discover the consequences in the world that result from having the kind of press we do.
(...)
"The supremacy of the "one to many" media system has ended, and vastly different patterns are emerging.
(...)
"Today we say media instead of "the press." But I don't recommend it. I think it was a mistake when we began to do that-- call the people who were the press something else, more modern, abstract, inclusive, elastic, and of course more commercial, The Media. This is a habit we imported into our national language, but nations can get that kind of thing wrong.
(...)
"The institution dates from the age when printing was all there was of the "mass" media. Press comprehended all of media then, but that of course was centuries ago. Today, it echoes with "freedom of the press," which is connected to free speech, which is basic to free citizens.
(...)
"So the press is a backward glancing term. To me that's what's great about it. It points back to the history of struggle for press liberty, to the long rise of public opinion, and of course to the Constitution, a source from which The Media try to draw legitimacy. But the First Amendment actually speaks of the press. It doesn't mention media. Anyone could, but then almost no one does, uphold "freedom of the media" as a great right-- worth defending and even dying for. (...)"

PressThink seems as good a place as any to start listening to "the conversation" about journalism in the third millennium.

Somewhat related on www.josschuurmans.com:

• Meg Hourihan: "We want to regurgitate!" (June 07, 2005)
• 10 answers to "Why blog?" (June 05, 2005)
• "The fundamentals of journalism... do not disappear in cyberspace" (May 11, 2001)

The Finns, a nation of shoplifters

Today, Helsingin Sanomat (paper version, page A16) ran a remarkable little story which claimed that the Finns, together with the Brits, are the most "efficient" shoplifters in Europe.

It's a real pity that the term "efficient" was not further elaborated on.

Finns happen to view themselves generally as an honest and uncorruptable people, the latter being recently re-affirmed by the Word Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report (See previous entry: 'Finland again most competitive').

What could "efficient" possibly mean? Is it measured by the accumulated value of shoplifted bounty? Is it expressed by the number of shoplifters per capita? The average age at which a proud Finnish boy or girl starts getting serious about shoplifting? The failure ratio of shoplifting attempts?

According to the article, the most honest shoppers are the Swiss, while the Brits have shoplifted worth of 5.27 billion euros last year.

If this piece of "news" was to bear any substance, and the Finns would now be collectively "caught in the act", what a scoop that would be! And what an uproar it would cause.

No first-hand source mentioned; distributed via STT and Reuters.

Volkskrantblogger is aanklager, rechter en beul

'De blogger is koning' kopt Geert-Jan Bogaerts van de Volkskrant op het Volkskrantblog (en in de papieren Volkskrant van 30 september).

Hij legt uit hoe de Volkskrant bepaalde journalistiek-ethische dilemma's niet uit de weg gaat, in casu door bloggers toe te staan de naam en toenaam van verdachten te publiceren en te linken naar hun foto's. Stoer hoor!

Ontwijken van journalistieke verantwoordelijkheid ten behoeve van page views? Ook het Volkskrantblog is en blijft een uitgave van de Volkskrant.

Typisch geval van eat your cake and have it.

Gerelateerde posts op www.josschuurmans.com:

• Time is a blogger's ultimate filter (October 3, 2005)
• Meg Hourihan: "We want to regurgitate!" (June 7, 2005)
• 10 answers to "Why blog?" (June 5, 2005)

The unfulfilled needs that Memeorandum addresses

Robert Scoble mentioned it in his interview with ITconversations. And, of course, on his blog. And on my quest for the "right" blogroll, I ran into it again: Memeorandum.

Gabe Rivera wanted Memeorandum to address some unfulfilled needs in online news, he wrote.

"(...) They are:

1. Recognize the web as editor: There's this notion that blogs collectively function as news editor. No, not every last blog on Earth. Tapping the thoughts of all of humanity uniformly would predictably lead to trivial, even spammy "news". But today there are rather large communities of knowledgeable, sophisticated commentators, (and yes) even reporters writing on the web, signaling in real time what's worthy of wider discussion. I want memeorandum to tap this signal.
2. Rapidly uncover new sources: Sometimes breaking news is posted to a blog created just to relate that news. Sometimes the author of the most insightful analysis piece at 2PM was a relative unknown at 1PM. It happens. I want memeorandum to highlight such work, without delay.
3. Relate the conversation: Communication on the web naturally tends toward conversation. It follows from human nature plus the Internet's immediacy. Blog posts react to news articles, essays reference editorials. And links abound. Yet most news sites do very little to relate the form of conversations unfolding in real time. Some seem to deny that a conversation is even occurring. I want memeorandum to be a clear exception.

(...)"

Related posts on www.josschuurmans.com:

• Emily Robbins figures out how to blog (September  20, 2005)
• Google Blog Search - The Algorithm Has Landed (September 15, 2005)
• Technorati tracks the books conversation (August 4, 2005)

cluetrain more relevant than ever

I wonder when exactly the cluetrain manifesto was first published. A colleague of mine referred to it again during a seminar on blogging that I intended the other week. The cluetrain and its central theme of "conversation" just seems to become more and more compelling, even six years down the road.

Meg Hourihan: "We want to regurgitate!"

Commuting home the other day I really enjoyed listening to Halley Suitt's one-hour podcast interview with Blogger's co-founder Meg Hourihan in IT Conversations' Memory Lane series.

Hearing how Meg was submerged in computer technology at an early age, Halley suggests she should write a book tltled 'My Mom was a Geek'.

Together with Evan Williams, Meg Hourihan founded Pyra Labs, the company who started Blogger.com, which struggled for survival during the Dot Com Boom, but was eventually bought by Google around Valentine's Day 2003. "In retrospect for a long time I thought we should've taken a little bit more money because I think we would have had a little more input from the investors." (34:00 minutes)

10 answers to "Why blog?"

Although I love the number, 8 reasons to blog are not enough. Two additional drivers kept me awake last night: fun and innovation. I realised that, at least to me, these are fairly strong motivations, too. So I inserted them right at the top and now the list goes: (1) fun, (2) innovation, (3) capturing, (4) structure, (5) credibility, (6) intelligence, (7) networking, (8) community, (9) sharing and (10) collaboration.

Deep Throat was F.B.I.'s second-in-command

"In a V.F. exclusive, W. Mark Felt, 91 years old and formerly second-in-command at the F.B.I., says that he is the confidential Watergate source who assisted Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein - and helped bring down President Richard Nixon."

That's how "I'm the Guy They Called Deep Throat", John D. O'Connor's scoop on Vanity Fair, starts. Admittedly, not so hot on its heels, I just had to capture the original source for future reference.

BusinessWeek: 'Blogs Will Change Your Business'

SUMMARY: BusinessWeek introduced its own blog about blogging, Blogspotting.net, by way of its May 2 cover story, 'Blogs Will Change Your Business', by Stephen Baker and Heather Green. If there's one thing we should take home from this article, it's the notion of "conversation".

What I often do with articles and books I find interesting, is to highlight the most relevant parts and turn them into a summary for future reference. So I worked this piece down to 1323 words, or 30 percent of the original text of 4450 words, and then I thought, why not share the summary?

(I seem to love disclaimers, so here we go again: I don't know where the legal limits of quotation lie, so if there's a lawyer out there who can tell me, or if someone knows a good online reference to this aspect, please drop us a line).

Katja Pantzar's Ten Commandments of Good Writing

Freelance journalist Katja Pantzar once put together a checklist, "The Ten Commandments of Good Writing".

I've found them very accurate and to-the-point and would like to encourage anyone whose task it is to produce written copy, to take them to heart.

Internet journalist seeks Nordic partners

[I first published this entry on one of my earlier blogs, 'JosSchuurmans.com', powered by Blogger.com, on December 12, 2001]

Nick Denton: 'The atrocity through the eyes of weblogs'

[I first published this entry on one of my earlier blogs, 'Journalism in the Electronic Information Age', powered by Blogger.com, on October 1, 2001]

Record number of Scandinavian entries at European Online Journalism Awards

[I first published this entry on one of my earlier blogs, 'JosSchuurmans.com', powered by Blogger.com, on August 2, 2001]

Edmund Burke's 'Fourth Estate'

[I first published this entry on one of my earlier blogs, 'Journalism in the Electronic Information Age', powered by Blogger.com, on June 7, 2001]

[UPDATE, February 29, 2008:

Fourth Estate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"(...) The term Fourth Estate refers to the press, both in its explicit capacity of advocacy and in its implicit ability to frame political issues. The term goes back at least to Thomas Carlyle in the first half of the 19th century. (...)"]

Pressed for time, I didn't find a very authoritative source to link to, but this Trivia page on Geocities describes how the coinage of The Fourth Estate (with its present meaning of the public press, the mass media) has been attributed to the British politician Edmund Burke (1729 - 1797).

It says that it comes from the following quote in Thomas Carlyle's book, "Heros and Hero Worship in History" (1841): "Burke said that there were three Estates in Parliament, but in the Reporters Gallery yonder, there sat a fourth Estate more important far than they all."

The three estates in the quote would refer to the British parliament, the Lords Temporal, the Lords Spiritual and the Commons. The Lords Temporal and the Lords Spiritual combined being The House of Lords, the upper House of parliament, while the Commons is The House of Commons or the British lower House.

"The fundamentals of journalism... do not disappear in cyberspace"

[I first published this entry on one of my earlier blogs, 'JosSchuurmans.com', powered by Blogger.com, on May 11, 2001]