Monday, November 19, 2007
Imagining the Future of Newspapers
The Newspaper Association of America has asked 22 people on the cutting edge of journalism to imagine what the future of newspapers will be like. Their answers -- some of which imagine "newspapers" will exist in the future -- are in a blog on the site. It's very thought-provoking reading about the future you are likely to inhabit.
Labels: newspapers
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Photos of the Year
Editor and Publisher magazine offers a gallery of the winning entries in its latest Photo of the Year competition. If you want to see what strong photojournalism looks like, spend some time with these.
Labels: photos
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
2007 Online Journalism Award Winners
I've been meaning to post a list of the 2007 OJA winners. It's here, but unfortunately, no links are included.
The good news is that links were included in the list of finalists.
The good news is that links were included in the list of finalists.
Labels: online journalism awards
From CNN: Tips for better audio, video and photos
CNN offers several tips and links to resources for people who want to submit work to the cable giant. But the same tips can help you become a better multimedia journalist.
Labels: audio, photography, video
Great way to add audio to your modules and podcasts
Want to easily add a professional-looking audio player to an online project? Head to
BooMP3.
It's free audio hosting. Once you upload the audio, the site gives you the code to insert a link and a player into your blog, which looks like this: http://ravensfanatic.blogspot.com/
(Thanks to Stacy Spaulding for the tip!)
BooMP3.
It's free audio hosting. Once you upload the audio, the site gives you the code to insert a link and a player into your blog, which looks like this: http://ravensfanatic.blogspot.com/
(Thanks to Stacy Spaulding for the tip!)
Labels: audio podcast playher
Laptop thefts and data backups
During the fall 2007 semester, two students in my Writing for New Media class had their laptops stolen, one from a dorm room and the other from Cook Library. Make sure that if you use a laptop, yours is not the next to go: Don't leave it lying around anywhere out of your sight.
In the second case, the student's only backup was a flash drive that was in the laptop. That points to a critical lesson I was taught some time ago. For anything important that you are doing, you should keep your work in at least three places, one of which should be physical media (CD or DVD). I would recommend backing up your work at least once a day to CD or DVD or uploading it to Tiger or another FTP site (if you use Comcast or Verizon at home, you get free storage through them; otherwise, there are more than 100 online file storage services available, most for free).
Lessons for the day: NEVER leave your laptop out of your sight and ALWAYS keep a backup of important files somewhere other than with your laptop.
In the second case, the student's only backup was a flash drive that was in the laptop. That points to a critical lesson I was taught some time ago. For anything important that you are doing, you should keep your work in at least three places, one of which should be physical media (CD or DVD). I would recommend backing up your work at least once a day to CD or DVD or uploading it to Tiger or another FTP site (if you use Comcast or Verizon at home, you get free storage through them; otherwise, there are more than 100 online file storage services available, most for free).
Lessons for the day: NEVER leave your laptop out of your sight and ALWAYS keep a backup of important files somewhere other than with your laptop.
Labels: backup, laptop, security
Monday, November 05, 2007
Fighting back against copyright infringement claims
It's not news that the big media companies are cracking down on copyrighted material being posted to YouTube and other online sites. But what is news is that some people are calling the media companies on their actions. An interesting Washington Post article reports on an increase in challenges against so-called "takedown notices.
Get some attention for your blog
In "Be More Than a Blip in the Blogosphere," Washington Post writer Dan Zak offers 10 tips for building an audience for your blog. All are good, and No. 1 might just sound familiar:
So what are you waiting for? You're doing the work; you might as well get the readers.
TELL STORIES RATHER THAN STICKING SOLELY TO LINKS OR PHOTOS. "Unless you're Perez Hilton or the peeps at TMZ or the Superficial, [links and photos] won't keep people coming back," says North Bethesda resident Melissa Jordan, 42, of Church of the Big Sky ( http://www.merujo.blogspot.com). Make stories compelling and, most of all, relatable.
So what are you waiting for? You're doing the work; you might as well get the readers.
