Next, a fine round-up of relatively inexpensive multimedia equipment from Adam Westbrook. Great for those starting out or adding to their repertoire.

Hyperlocal alert! Will Perrin has a very nice slideshow, which provides an action plan for free and effective local journalism based on local authority data. Pay particular attention to the final slide (slide 18).

Excellent post from Advancing the Story called the ’10 laws of multimedia’. Quick, relevant and to the point. A must read.

There has been plenty of discussion about this article in the New York Times on reporter burnout – but here’s the link just in case you missed it.

Finally an amusing link from 10,000 words on journalists learning programming skills.

Festival bound with Clockwork Noise, have a good weekend,
B

Once installed, the plugin enables WordPress bloggers to access and re-publish articles, video, audio, cartoons, polls, tables, quizzes, crosswords and interactive media from guardian.co.uk. In exchange for the content, Guardian serves up an advert and brands the material.

Bloggers must be registered with Open Platform and have an API key to partake in the beta.

When using content, bloggers must agree not to alter it in any way. (Here’s one good example of it being used)

I think this is a very smart move by GNM. Instead of fighting an endless battle trying to prevent bloggers from using content (like the AP has) it is finding a way to get new sources of revenue and readership.

It’s a very clever use of the web and considering it is already making this content available online for free it just adds another spoke leading back to the GNM hub.

This is effectively mass syndication of content by GNM – can’t wait to see how it plays out,

-B

Pew gives a breakdown of ‘non-voice’ cellphone application usage. Interestingly, the percentage of cellphone users accessing the internet on their devices has increased from 25% to 38%. However, in the 18-29 age group that internet access figure jumps to 65%.

Plus more than half of all cellphone internet users access the internet every day from their devices, according to the research.

Read the full report also eweek has some good coverage, which focuses on the ethnic breakdown of cellphone usage.

Next up,  Apple’s advertising platform iAd has debuted and the results, according to this article, are initially looking good. The article by thenextweb.com says click-through rates are five times higher.

Turning to video, YouTube said yesterday that it is serving up 100m videos a day on its mobile website, which it re-launched at m.youtube.com, according to Janko Roettgers at newteevee.com.

Finally, in this blog post, Adrian Hon says the iPhone 4 may be the ‘last major advance in mobile phones we’ll ever see’, which is a fairly bold statement. After reading quite a lot of coverage about its faults, it’s an interesting big picture perspective.

Seems to me the mobile space is getting more and more interesting.

If I were running a news organisation, I’d be spending on my mobile website and apps,

B

The one-day events coincides with the publication of a new paper from Polis and the London School of Economics – ‘The Value of Networked Journalism’.

According to the organisers, the event will examine the following questions:

- What can new forms of journalism offer the digital society?

- Can blogging, social media and mobile deliver quality, accuracy and universal access?

- What impact will this have on politics and political reporting?

- How will journalism be funded?

From what I gather Publish2 will provide a market place for newspapers to share their own content or use/buy content from publications, journalists, bloggers and other sources.

CEO Scott Karp outlines his vision:

Publish2 News Exchange solves the problems that have prevented newspapers from creating an efficient, scalable alternative to the AP. We bridge the gap between print publishing and Web publishing by connecting natively to outdated newspaper print publishing systems. We support the standard formats used by the AP and the technologies that newspapers already use to move content between print and Web systems. Our self-serve permissioning system enables newspapers and other publishers to distribute content to whomever they choose on whatever terms they choose.

Publish2 explains more about its offering here and Director, News Innovation, Ryan Sholin gives his views.

I understand the dilemma both newspapers and the AP are experiencing, but I’m not convinced this is the solution (here’s one small reason why: newspapers know they can trust the AP, part of the reason they pay so much for it, while Publish2′s editorial standards are a little lighter. How is it going to guarantee quality?).

Is Publish2 not getting ahead of itself believing it can replace the AP? Does it have to be a rival product?

I’m still thinking over Publish2, but in a comment on TechCrunch’s article, Topix’s Chris Tolles makes a very good point – the newspaper industry owns the AP. Another commenter points to a similar offering from the AP itself.

Think I’ll have to take the tour,

B

Things have become more complicated recently. These days organisations, through trial and error, are attempting to come up with new ways to fund journalism.

Today, the new ready-for-a-paywall Times and Sunday Times websites launched. Later this year the New York Times will try out a metered pay model.

However, Silicon Valley Watcher’s Tom Foremski has another less-straighforward suggestion dubbed the ‘Heinz 57′ model, which I think is very interesting.

I’m sometimes asked what the new business model for media will be. My answer is that it will be a “Heinz 57″ model. The Heinz food brand often has “57 varieties” in its promotions. And that’s a good metaphor for the emerging media business model.

He highlights the case of Australia’s Fairfax Media, which media consultant Frédéric Filloux looked at in February.

Filloux says Fairfax Digital (the part of Fairfax Media that runs hundreds of publications, websites and more than a dozen radio stations) has ‘no less than 15 revenue streams’ and it has an ‘entire team devoted to strategic advertising’ to react fast to changes and maximise ad money.

Filloux lists seven lessons to take from Fairfax Digital, which he expands in his post.

1. Accept the coming digital domination
2. Focus on reader engagement
3. Be an online company. Period.
4. Bet on multiple business resources
5. Capture readers and users one group after the other
6. Control your advertising innovation
7. Stay awake

The launch of the two News International sites today has put a spotlight on how news is funded and it’s going to be fascinating to see whether it can work. But I think there’s something in what Foremski and Filloux are highlighting.

Organisations must be flexible going forward. There will not be another simple equation, no answer to the 64-million-dollar question. A multiple-revenue model may be more complicated but it would hedge the bets, however organisations, no matter how big or small, need to be limber and able to react fast like Fairfax does.

Lots to think about,

B

First off, some interesting analysis of research carried out by Pew on the types of stories consumed on various new media platforms versus ‘traditional’ media.

It seems to me that news organisations will have to take a different strategy with each platform if they are going to succeed on it. You can’t adopt a one-size-fits-all approach, which is bad news for budgets and resources. If new platforms continue to emerge how can news organisations adopt a successful platform-neutral approach?

Next up, here’s a nice post from Kimberly Wilson (follow her on Twitter @kimberly_wilson) about crowd-sourced websites. She has reviewed six examples  (from Washington DC, Chicago, Minnesota, Canada, Grand Rapids, and Sonora and Tuolumne County).

Yesterday, Peter Preston had a piece in The Observer about the iPad and newspapers. His thesis is that iPads won’t be the saviour as some have enthusiastically predicted, more just one small revenue stream. He uses numbers and anecdotal evidence to support this theory and asks some good questions along the way.

Finally, Brian Stelter has an article in the New York Times about the decreasing number of journalists travelling with the US president when he goes on trips. The obvious downside mentioned is that news when he’s outside of Washington DC is now coming from fewer and fewer sources.

Have you seen any interesting articles about the industry?

B

Unlike the Ventura County Star, there’s no breaking news  in this gallery – more flora and fauna than bears in trees – something light for Friday!

Dalkey/Killiney Hill:

Have a great weekend,

B

News organisations have been using material gathered on mobile phones for some time now, but mostly it has been photos or videos shot by ‘citizen’ journalists.

However more organisations are equipping their staff journalists with better phones to capture material from the field quickly.

In this interesting article over at Poynter, Damon Kiesow talks to Ventura County Star’s Visuals Editor Ray Meese about using the iPhone to break news.

The paper last year purchased six iPhone 3Gs for the staff and trained much of the newsroom in basic video and audio capture, editing and transmission. Meese said the best approach to making this work is simply to lead by example. “Just go out and do it. If you do that one or two times people see the result and see (the video) on the website 30 minutes after the event happens.” That’s what gets people to buy-in to the concept, he says.

Meese elaborates on the kit being used alongside the iPhone:

Hardware
-Two different battery boosters (the Mophie Juice Pack Air and the Griffin PowerBlock Reserve)
- The Owle Bubo, which lets you attach an external microphone, a cold shoe, a tripod or an interchangeable lense
-Xshot case, which has a tripod adapter

Software (apps)
-PhotoGene for still photos
-ReelDirector for editing video
-ITimelapse for editing video
-Pixelpipe for transferring content (currently unavailable)

So you might need big pockets in many ways for that lot, but as Meese points out smart phones are being improved all the time and many of the items you have to add on or need for improved performance may be integrated into future models.

He goes as far as saying that it is feasible that a smart phone could eventually replace a still camera, video camera and audio recorder. I agree with that.

Now for the results.

Here are some videos recently shot by journalists at the Ventura County Star. They don’t indicate on their site, which videos are shot using an iPhone but after watching a few I’d say these two probably were:

‘Bear rescued from tree in Oxnard’ Video by Staff Reporter Adam Foxman (great part at about 1.40 – easy to see why this has good ratings)

‘Two people injured in Oxnard house fire’ Video by Staff Reporter Adam Foxman

What strikes me about both of these videos is even though the quality is akin to that of any footage taken on a good mobile phone these were produced with a journalist’s eye.

I think the Ventura County Star shows the opportunities that lie in pairing journalists with new technology.

Visual Editor Meese will be taking part in a webinar next month (17 June) called ‘Tools for Mobile Journalists’.

Putting the 17 June in my diary and downloading new apps,
B

Some Irish users could complain about the time it takes to load these large images. But bear in mind most people in the US have faster connections. (Must return to examine how slow connections could be holding back certain forms of storytelling in Ireland).

The New York Times featured a great infographic showing the inter-linking of European debt. To explain this in  written form would have been taxing for the reader but this, quite simple, graphic tells the story so well.

Third example comes from The Guardian’s web coverage of the elections. It has a nice feature where it’s asking voters to tweet when they have voted and tag their tweet with their postcode so that it can be represented on a map to illustrate voter turnout. Good interactive way to tell the story even though it’s limited to Twitter users. (When I checked it out it didn’t seem to include Northern Ireland)

Have you seen any good storytelling this week?

B