journalism

Rob Curley is shaking up journalism, and doing it with open source

It's great to see Rob Curley just some of the attention he deserves. Rob, VP of Product Development at washingtonpost.com/Newsweek Interactive delivered a keynote at OSBC 2007 and made my day. Now Fast Company has a special feature on him.

In light of a dying newspaper industry...

...along comes Curley, unburdened by pieties about "how we've always done it." Unlike previous ink-stained generations, he and his mostly young charges practice journalism with software code, video, podcasts, audio, slide shows, blogs--whatever works. Multimedia storytelling comes as naturally to him as satire did to Mencken. Likewise, … Read more

Mistakes in Wall Street Journal editorial

Today, July 10th, the web site of The Wall Street Journal is free, sponsored by Dell. Normally the vast majority of the site is available only to paying customers - of either the web site or the hard copy paper.

I mention this to draw attention to an editorial that appeared in the paper on July 3, 2007 entitled Google v. Microsoft.

Background

Windows Vista includes desktop search functionality out of the box and Google offers a free desktop search application that anyone can download from their web site and install. Google complained to Microsoft's antitrust regulators at the … Read more

Smartpens and dotpaper

As a student, I struggled to keep my notes organized and I have only faired better as a journalist through my abandonment of pen and paper. Over the years I've encountered many other people who have also struggled to keep their notes organized and for many of us a notebook computer has been the only solution. Or is it?

Livescribe, an Oakland based company, has recently introduced a suite of high-tech products which will likely put a whole new spin on the low-tech world of pen and paper. According to Livescribe, the smartpen will be available for less than $200 and the specialized electronic paper products will supposedly be comparable to paper of the old-school variety. They have three video demonstrations of the product in action, and given what I've seen I'm quite excited to actually get my hands on a Smartpen soon and see for myself. According to Livescribe the pen will be available in the fourth quarter of this year.

… Read more

A four hour flu at the Wall Street Journal?

Every morning reporters from across the country file into work at their local office of the Wall Street Journal and begin the task of tracking leads, writing copy, and sorting through the plethora of press releases that came in the night before. This morning was a different story. According to a recent post on Poynter, the news staff at the Journal took part in a sick-out in protest over recent contract disputes and the threat of Dow Jones being sold to the highest bidder.

It's unclear whether the strike will have any impact at the journal, and it seems … Read more

Time for blogosphere to get real about church and state

As they are wont to say back where I grew up, Chas Edwards is a stand-up guy. Full disclosure: Chas is a former CNET colleague who left the company more than a year ago to become the publisher of Federated Media, which has become ground zero in the storm over "conversational media."

So it is that Chas has now published his thoughts on the affair under the heading "Does relevant advertising mean selling out?"

But first a brief recap: On Friday, Valleywag reported about a site tied to a Microsoft ad campaign where several online publishers and venture capitalists lent their support to Microsoft's "People-Ready" advertising slogan.

That triggered an outpouring of conflicting opinions in the blogosphere. My Friday afternoon post asked why these guys would inexplicably pimp a Microsoft catchphrase. In a similar vein, Jeff Jarvis had it right when he headlined his comment on the situation "Buying their voices."

"So ultimately, this is a cautionary tale for all bloggers who take ads: You must set your own boundaries and not let them be pushed. When you do--whatever those boundaries are--that is the very definition of selling out."

I think Jarvis' is a cogent summary of the problem. It won't make a difference whether we're talking about "new media" or "old media." Without boundaries, there's going to be trouble in River City.

Uber-blogger Robert Scoble didn't agree and asked why it's OK for Leo LaPorte to endorse products for radio commercials but not Michael Arrington. Leo responded shortly thereafter, saying he wasn't crazy about doing ads on radio.

… Read more

The New York Observer on the New York Times on News Corp.

There's something kind of funny about a blog entry around a recent article in one outlet indicating that another newspaper is working on an expose about yet another media outlet, but that really is what this post is about. According to Michael Calderone at the New York Observer, "The New York Times is currently undertaking a major news investigation, led by managing editor Jill Abramson, into News Corp.'s business dealings throughout the world, according to a source with knowledge of the project."

Amidst the heavily hyped negotiations between Murdoch's minions and the Bancroft family who currently own the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times has apparently decided to mount their own investigation in an effort to examine what should be expected from the possible merger. While there is no clear indication what spin the Times will put on the story, it seems unlikely that the paper will conclude that Rupert Murdoch is the patron saint of news media. The New York times is one of the last major independent media outlets (along with the Wall Street Journal - for now), and it's altogether possible that News Corp. may eventually set it's sites on the Times, so I think it is safe to anticipate that this article won't be a puff piece.

… Read more

Rumor: Annalee Newitz to helm new Gawker sci-fi blog?

Trekkies rejoice (or beware): The rumors are getting stronger that New York-based blog network Gawker Media will be launching a science fiction themed title in the near future, and we're hearing that Wired blogger and freelance writer Annalee Newitz has been chosen for the top post at the new blog. The original rumor, as reported last week by the Huffington Post hinted that Gawker Media had nabbed a writer for its new, yet-to-be-named blog from Wired; a source confirmed to CNET News.com that the title will indeed be launching soon and that an editor has been hired.

A … Read more

Humpty Dumpty won't get put back together

Earlier this week I ran into a colleague who had moved out of town a few months ago. After swapping the usual gossip, the conversation swung around to the recent layoffs sweeping the news business. Here in Northern California, both the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Jose Mercury News recently announced major cuts in staff. Then earlier this week, tech publisher CMP laid off some 200 employees in a bloodletting that included several of the company's best known reporters and editors.

These are rough times for the news business. The present is unsettling and the future appears grim. … Read more

Facebook adding third-party integration

The Wall Street Journal has a scoopy story about Facebook's forthcoming announcement on Thursday. The report says Facebook will be opening itself up for other companies to add their wares in the form of branded pages and services made available to Facebook users on different networks.

Previously, Facebook's strategy for adding this content was in the form of specialty groups, which Facebook members had to join in order to access or gain benefit from. According to the WSJ, these services will now be integrated as standalone portions of the service and will be available without leaving the social … Read more