jtm2008

Wrap-up of Student Blogging

We were so lucky to have ASU journalism students attend the NewsTools conference. You can check out there work at the Startup Media Blog. Below are posts that came directly from the NewsTools conference.

• Pics from NewsTools2008, Day 3

• Top 10 Twitter Tweets at NewsTools2008 Conference

• If I Really Wanted Traffic, I'd Post Porn

• Deadline: Talking to Tony Kuttner

• Personalization and  localization through geo-technology

• Some Links Collected from the NewsTools 2008 Conference

• Disruptive Technologies: Social, Civic, News and Gaming Networks

• Geeks and Journalists Unite!

Video Interviews from NewsTools2008

If you have a video that should be included in this playlist (12 videos in total), let us know in the comments.

Interview Bill Densmore

Okay , I know it's a little late to start posting video interviews of when people were first showing up at NewsTools2008, but what do you expect? I've been running around, sharing ideas, shaking hands and brainstorming for the last 3-4 days. Only now am I able to take a moment to take a deep breath and collect myself.

I did a bunch of videos which, starting Monday, I'll post here one a day until they are all posted.

If you really wanted traffic

Arizona State journalism student Annalyn Censky posted thoughts on StartupMedia.org about NewsTools2008.org. Here's an interesting bit:

Perhaps that's why I overheard one blogger at NewsTools 2008 say the following:
“If I really wanted traffic, I’d post porn.”

Vanity Fair had one of it’s biggest days, hits-wise, when the juicy story about childstar Miley Cyrus (character: Hannah Montana) broke last week. The 15-year-old Disney actress and pop singer, posed nude with a bed sheet in the June issue of the magazine. So the masses read that story the most – they didn’t turn to election coverage, local news, or even sports stories as much as they turned to a naked 15-year-old.

Talking with Tony Kuttner about Deadline

Deadline is a fun game. It's actually really fun, and at the same time, it's about the news. Well, it's not just about the news, it is the news. It's just delivered differently.

Deadline is a game played through facebook that tests the player's knowledge of the news. The first time I encountered it, I was knee deep in school work. Yet, this facebook app managed to steal over an hour of my time. It was a fair trade though as I found myself thoroughly caught up on recent events when I finally managed to quit.

At NewsTools2008 yesterday, I had the opportunity to sit down with Tony Kuttner of NewzWag.com. He's on the team that created Deadline and shared his thoughts on

Here are the highlights:

-Other news quiz applications have relied on the player knowing trivia (what was the general's name that...) rather than knowing about the story. Someone who just quotes trivia when talking makes for a dull conversationalist. Delivering more of the story and what's interesting about that story makes for better conversations and therefore a better game.

-Regular, new content is key. They aim to get 15-20 new stories up every weekday and 10 each day on weekends.

-Aesthetics were important to the team. It had to look good. It's hard to test exactly how much of an effect this has on whether people play, but it seems important. (Anecdotaly, I think the design makes me more prone to stick around.)

-Including interesting, sometimes offbeat, stories and making it easy to share with your friends is important to the community aspect.

-The application was created as part of a team that included 3 developers. None were game developers, but some members of the team were avid gamers. (Avid gaming seems important as they get a lot of little things right).

AUDIO: Excerpt of Richard Anderson's VillageSoup talk

A 12-minute audio excerpt of Richard Anderson's talk about VillageSoup at NewsTools2008 on May 1, 2008 in Sunnyvale, Calif.

From Paul Lamb's talk on geocoding the news

Arizona State journalism student Jocelyn Buras posted thoughts from Lamb's talk on geocoding the news:

This idea is that people will be able to connect as a community to disseminate knowledge surrounding a specific geographic location. In most cases it would be up to members of the community to contribute information and keep the project rolling. An example of this citizen mashup would be in Michigan where drivers mapped out current potholes and recently patched potholes. Lack of moderation does raise a question of trustworthiness, but for the most part it's assumed that someone taking the time to contribute to the community really does care about the project being created.

The affect this has on journalism is that news no longer has to live and die in one day, after being interpreted by one group of people. Instead it is able to continually grow as time passes with people contributing to its evolution. This is a process where news and information can live in a physical, geographic location. Lamb had an example of where the Berlin Wall formally stood. People can rent GPS devices that detect where the wall used to stand. As someone passes across the barrier they can hear speeches from the former Chancellor, or biographical stories of those affected by the wall. The story lives on and evolves in a physical place.

Richard Anderson describes the VillageSoup service

At NewsTools2008, VillageSoup.com founder Richard Anderson described via a PowerPoint presentation his open-source platform for learning, sharing, shopping -- a way to foster community:

Download soupslidessunnyvale.ppt

Thoughts: Map and Disruptive Technologies

This morning we're sharing thoughts from the emerging news ecology map and the disruptive technology sessions.

What's missing from the map (pdf):
-Where are the artists?
-Need more on funding
-Couldn't find a bridge to officials, civic life, anything journalism was supposed to follow
-Students and grass roots
-How are we educating the community on communicating with us?

Using the map:
-How would you find hem on the fly? How would you know they were who they said they were? How would you find a way to transact with them on the fly?

Thoughts from disruptive technoloy sessions:
-How do we see ourselves as public and private entities? Many of us have strong feelings on privacy, while an entire generation doesn't hesitate to put their whole lives online
-What legal problems need to be discussed? (What new ways can we get sued?)

Disruptive Technologies: Social, Civic, News and Gaming Networks

Sat in on session last night about gaming principles applied to news. Jim Moore co-facilitated (with Dave Mathison) and described how a massively multiplayer game designer he had talked to really seemed to understand engaging people in a way the news tends to miss. He said he was surprised how much social psychology was being applied in game communities, but not in political communities and even less in the news.

Moore outlined three gaming principles that could be applied to the news:
1. Games allow the player to take on a glamorous role.
2. Games dole out points for positive behaviors in their worlds.
3. Games are fun to play.

Gabriel Coan from KQED mentioned a story bringing together all of these that was done by WNYC in New York. The goal was to use the crowd to cover price gouging in the city. Listeners were asked to go to upload local shop prices for milk, lettuce and beer. The result was a map mashup of gougy businesses and a citizen force that felt like part of the WNYC team.

The session included other cool ideas like a real life game that gave points to students for getting involved in community coverage of local gentrification and geocache games to get people to explore parts of their community they wouldn't otherwise go.

Sidenote: Gabriel, someone found your name badge outside the room.