Results tagged “socialmedia”

In his post this weekend, Rex Sorgatz points out that "mainstream media is hard". It's a truth I know firsthand -- I used to work both in the music industry and at a newspaper, and still get the chance to work directly with the people at the largest media companies in the world who are bringing them into the modern era.

The thing is, I want them to survive the changes, and to thrive. I detest that there's such an adversarial relationship; This weekend a conversation with a veteran of the book publishing industry reached something of a breakthrough when we agreed that framing the ebook conversation in terms of DRM was like picking which Barnes & Nobles to stock books in based on how much shoplifting they see at that location. It's not about stealing -- it's about making fans happy.

Similarly, news can be about making worthwhile journalism that respects both tradition and contemporary life. So I was really, really happy to see Rex and Mike Davidson announce that MSNBC has acquired Newsvine. We usually talk about big companies acquiring little ones in term of the survival of the smaller company, but this may well be one that boosts the longevity of both organizations.

And more to the point, I love the conversations that I have with (or pick up from the blogs of) Mike and Rex because, like me, they're part of a large, somewhat quiet, number of us who truly love both old and new media. It's been a failing of both parties that people still talk about giant media corporations as dinosaurs, or that the giant corporations see new media like blogs as a threat instead of an opportunity.

As Mike points out in his post, MSNBC sites like Rising From Ruin really show off the potential for companies to combine the reach of traditional media with the emotional resonance of the best of social media. I've had the privilege of getting to watch the site mature from its launch the weekend that Katrina hit (it's a TypePad blog), and seeing how human the stories are on that site, compared to, for example, the manipulative and off-putting versions of similar stories that one might see on TV was really a gratifying example of how a big company can do social news right.

I'm hoping, too, that the new relationship will somehow mean I get to finally meet either Rex or Mike. Despite traveling in the same circles for years and having avidly followed their work for more than half a decade, somehow I haven't met either of these guys yet.

Corey Spring has broken the details of a story that no one in traditional journalism had figured out yet. Wrestler Chris Benoit’s murder-suicide seemed to have been predicted by edits to his Wikipedia profile which mentioned the death of his wife.

But the edits were the work of a prankster, which Spring figured out using some fairly straightforward deductions about the IP address of the person who made the edits. This isn’t the first time that his knowledge of how the Internet works has helped Spring share a story; he posted a link to Netscape.com about the New York Times’ story on the AOL search history leak. And Spring’s earned recognition for his reporting on NewsVine before as well; he posted an interview with Dave Chappelle the day the site launched.

But what’s interesting to me here, as in a lot of the work of people who are at the intersection of tech and journalism, such as Andy Baio (more) and Adrian Holovaty (more), is not just the familiarity with how the web works.

What’s most impressive for this new style of journalism is the effortless switching between original reporting, editing, and curating content from other sources, all with the seamlessness of someone who’s a web native. Find a good story in the NY Times? Link to it on Digg or Netscape. Read an original story from the wire services that you can add something to? Start tracking down IP addresses yourself. Find something valuable enough to want to share? Post it on your blog or publish it on NewsVine and make a story out of it. And all of this at the speed that news happens, using a combination of original source material from traditional outlets and powerful tools for researching and publishing online, most of which are free or nearly so.

The most impressive part is that there’s even starting to be rewards for doing so. Sharing links on social services, publishing on the new breed of news sites, or running ads on one’s own blog can all be knitted together into steady enough income that, in a few years, there will be countless people making a living from the skills that Corey Spring is already putting to use.

There's been a lot of interesting writing about the evolution of the newspaper industry lately, especially in the face of the rising popularity of social media. Since it's a recurring fixation of mine, I am hoping to share it with you.

First, Winning Online -- A Manifesto, by Tom Mohr, former President of Knight Ridder Digital. Tom offers the following:

I believe newspapers’ social purpose — the building of civil society in cities and towns across America through the daily output of good journalism — is worth fighting for. Securing the future of the industry’s social purpose requires securing its financial future. And I have concluded that depends on an industry-wide understanding of seven key points:

• Local newspapers will not be the innovation source for top online products.
• "Local” is not, in itself, defensible online.
• The big money is not in newspaper websites, but in gaining access to top-tier product via partnerships with vertical online leaders.
• Moving newspaper websites onto common platforms will deliver improvements in quality, cost reduction, traffic and revenue.
• When networked, newspapers bring critical assets to the table that strengthen their competitive position vs. online-only players.
• The window of opportunity is closing; failure to act will compromise the future of the business.
• Ultimately, the key is leadership at the highest levels.

Closer to my geek heart is Adrian Holovaty's description of a fundamental way that newspaper websites need to change. Adrian is the best technologist working in service of journalism today, and his insights are invaluable. Having him on the team both helps explain why the Washington Post is doing such an exceptional job online, and should make other newspapers glad that they have access to his thinking. His core point? "Newspapers need to stop the story-centric worldview."

Adrian's post was inspired by Nine ways for newspapers to improve their websites, by Todd Zeigler. I fear some of Todd's points may not age very well in the future, but they're all certainly worth considering and debating today.

If you're really interested in this topic, you might also appreciate my ruminations on the impact Craigslist has had on alternative weeklies. Though it was primarily aimed at alt weeklies, there's a lot that applies to local papers in general.