At the beginning of my multimedia journalism career, I used the phrase "click here" to direct users to different components of a multimedia project or web page. I never had a real reason, I just did it. Later, a mentor from the New York Times told me to eliminate click here in favor of more natural wording. She instead used a few words from a complete sentence as her link text. I used this same technique until I arrived at the Los Angeles Times where "click here" was absolutely necessary element of Flash projects and links were better if they blinked or were a very different color.

So who is right? A quick, unscientific Google search of the nation's 10 largest newspapers revealed that "click is here" is getting some major play.


Click heres per site

1. USA Today - 86,600
2. The Wall Street Journal - 462,000
3. New York Times - 11,300,000
4. L.A. Times - 7,140
5. Denver Post/Rocky Mountain News - 231,000
6. Chicago Tribune - 47,900
7. The Washington Post - 29,900
8. New York Daily News - 5,290
9. New York Post - 25,700
10. Houston Chronicle - 4,530

USA Today ranks highest amongst major news sites in Google Search for its use of the phrase. CNN and Fox News follow close behind.

A recent study shows that "click here" does indeed make users click here...or there. Another study found that "click to continue" works much better than "continue to article" or "read more." Do you use "click here?" If not, why?

Labels: flash, site management

I never was a big fan of podcasts. It seems like a lot of journalists got a hold of the buzzword and ran with it, with mixed success. Now that Yahoo is closing the doors of its podcasting site, I wonder if this will have a domino effect in multimedia journalism.

Yet podcasts still reign on many news sites and internet users still download them in droves. If you still haven't jumped on the bandwagon, sites like Hipcast, which calls podcasting "all the rage," have you covered. Hipcast allows anyone to create podcasts (as well as other content) using their computer or telephone. The site is not free, but does offer a 7 day trial.


On the flip side, Podlinez lets podcast fans listen to their favorites on the telephone. Simply enter the podcast feed url and Podlinez produces a number to call and listen. The site already has a existing cache of podcasts/phone numbers, but any podcast can be assigned a phone number in minutes.

TalkShoe reimagines the one way conversation of a podcast and turns into a talk show that anyone can join. Site visitors, other podcasters or sources can join in on the podcast via phone or computer while it is being recorded. The conversation can then be store and played for other listeners.

If you're looking to turn your podcast into a readable document, CastingWords offers podcast transcription for a small fee. Impressively, the service is done by actual humans so you don't receive an illegible mess. The transcripts can be incorporated into the text areas of a site and are especially useful to those who cannot listen to audio, including users who are reading the site at work.

Labels: audio

Apple is on track to selling its 1 millionth iPhone which means its time for news sites to start thinking about bringing content to the handheld device. While building a site around a specific browser shouldn't be a high priority, it couldn't hurt to cater to the growing market of iPhone owners.


Many major sites have already been optimized for iPhone including Facebook and several media sites are jumping on the bandwagon including AltWeeklies.com and Texterity.

The iPhone is 320x480 pixels which is a third to a fourth the size of the average computer screen. iPhone users can surf any website, but the touch screen makes it harder to navigate normal websites. MacWorld explains the differences between surfing in a regular web browser vs. the iPhone and why e-commerce sites should make way for the new device. Furbo demonsrates how one line of code will optimize your site for the iPhone, but if you need more in depth help, check out Works on iPhone or Winksite.

Labels: mobile

Many of the web editors I've spoken to will cite the sports section as the hands down most popular section of their news site. Because of the power of the internet, sports can be a lot more than box scores and comments sections.


The Dallas Morning News' Cowboys Blog is a shining example of everything a blog should be. It's in depth coverage is complemented by stellar photographs, RSS feeds, and up to the minute scores. A handy calendar in the rail makes the blog searchable by date and visitors can receive Cowboys updates on their mobile device.

RUWT? (Are you watching this?) cuts through the 50 million sports channels and alerts you know when your game is getting good. Games are ranked Guarded, Elevated, High and Severe, which indicates a soon to be classic sports moment.

Totally Scored keeps track of the entire football/baseball/hockey/soccer/basketball game through RSS feeds. Users can select a feed dedicated to a sport or to a particular team. There a hundreds of teams to choose from which would satisfy any sports fan.

CollegeFanz puts sports into an interactive environment, which includes a virtual stadium and a customizable "dorm room." The site looks great and has some great features but those features aren't integrated into the site very well. Read a full review at Mashable.

I never was a big racing fan (okay lets face it, I couldn't stand it) until I lived and worked in NASCAR hotspot Daytona Beach, home of the International Speedway. As such, I get a real kick out of the Formula One Grand Prix Circuit map that shows satellite images of racetracks around the world. Include an aerial image of your local stadium and the fans will love you for it.

Labels: blogging, maps, rss

Thumbnails, those tiny images that usually link to a smaller images are the workhorse of any news website. In addition to making a page more visually interesting, thumbnails encourage the reader to click through to inside pages. Usually these thumbnails are created in Photoshop (which plans to launch an online version soon) or some other imaging program, but there are free, online applications that will resize your images quickly (and did I mention for free?)

    

Quick Thumbnail resizes images from your hard drive or from the internet to any size or scale you choose. It even adds filters like grayscale, sepia, or embossing upon request. PicResize also offers quick scaling and filters, but also has options to rotate the image or resize multiple images. It even has a nifty ruler to see how large the original image is. PicResize is a little more user-friendly and the quality of the end result is much better than its counterpart.

To create a screenshot of an entire page like this thumbnail of 10,000 words, use thumbalizr, a quick tool for which you only have to enter the web address. The site will then spit out a thumbnail which you can download at various sizes.

Labels: photos, site management

Time-lapse photography is a very visual way of illustrating change over long periods of time in a matter of minutes. Still photos taken at predetermined intervals create the illusion of something happening more rapidly than it actually is. Time-lapse can be used to show the change in a neighborhood or the evolution of a work of art. The technique, however, is rarely used in journalism because of the time commitment. But if you've got a spare camera, the internet is making it easier to learn how to become a time-lapse master.

EzineArticles has a tutorial on how to create a time-lapse video with your digital camera and Kinsman Physics Productions has a complete rundown of how the technology works. If you already have a set of photographs that you'd like to convert into a time-lapse video, try JPGVideo, which can also be used to string together any series of photos.

Here are a few more examples of how time-lapse photography can be applied to journalism:

The following video shows the construction of a single building over the course of a year


This video uses time lapse photography to document the change made to the Virginia Tech massacre Wikipedia article in the first 12 hours after the event.

Labels: photos, video

I recently covered some elections-related sites that will aid in following the 2008 presidential candidates and as the Internet is ever changing here are a few more:


Many candidates are courting the young vote even more so than 2004's Vote or Die campaign. Mitt Romney has invited Jumpcut users to create his official campaign TV ad. So far the Romney camp has received more than 100 submissions, some of which are pretty good like this one and this one.

It seems like every candidate has a MySpace or Facebook page but kudos to Barack Obama for his presence on LinkedIn, the more professional social network. You can also find out who in your network supports Obama.

Yahoo! has partnered up with the Huffington Post and Slate to create a make-your-own debate that lets the user choose the candidates that they want to see go head to head on a particular issue. The site also incorporates Yahoo! Answers technology to let users post and answer election-related questions.

And because inspiration is knows no boundaries, check out Google's Australian election coverage which includes a Google map embedded with photos and other political content as well as the YouTube channels of various Australian political parties and RSS feeds.

Labels: maps, rss, social networking, video

I was in Starbucks the other day, grooving while Amy Winehouse's Rehab played over the speakers. I noticed a small screen in the corner was showing what was playing and, in the corner, what had played before it. There are many websites that keep track of the stories you've read and display them somewhere on the page.


But this can be taken a step further. As I was walking out of the coffee shop, latte in hand, I recalled Amazon's built-in recommendations engine that tracks both the items you've bought and perused and recommends other items you may like. This same technology can be applied to news sites. Your site can track what stories the user has read and based on this data recommend stories he or she may also enjoy. This can also be displayed in the form of a custom start page. I, and I'm sure many others, hate registering for a site unless it is absolutely necessary, but a custom news homepage would be worth the extra few minutes.

Labels: site management

Gizmodo is my go to source for new, useful and sometimes wacky gadgets, some of which have practical uses for capturing multimedia in the field and on the go:


Field reporters who don't want to carry a bulky tripod will fall in love with the XShot. The device attaches to the mount on the bottom of your digital camera or video recorder and allows for freedom of movement, unlike a tripod for which you must stay in one place. Xshot extends from 9 inches to 3 feet and is a steal at 24.95.








The Riproar Creation Station takes the green screen out of the TV station and puts it wherever you are. The kit comes with a camera, a mic, 2 green screens, a tripod and editing software. At $129.99, the Creation Station is great for creating online newscasts in newsrooms that don't have the more expensive equipment.

Whether you're trekking through Baghdad or climbing the Rockies to get a great story, the Trackstick II should be in your pocket. The device tracks your every move at 5 second to 15 minute intervals which can be uploaded into Google Earth using the built-in USB port. Let your readers know exactly where you've been by uploading your location into an map or an interactive graphic.




Your source may be a bit bewildered if you pull out the mi VDO FX DV Cam, so its best to use it as a cheap alternative to a heavy camcorder for internet-only video. The pocket camera has a 1.5" monitor, built in mic and speakers, and most importantly enables you to edit video on he fly. The price? About 100 bucks.

Labels: video

By now most online news websites allow readers to leave comments on stories, commentary, etc. This interaction allows site visitors to have an interactive discussion with others who are passionate about the story and makes most commenters feel like their voice is being heard. The problem is their voices aren't literally being heard.


However, using a phone service that users can call and speak their mind brings a new dynamic to online interaction. The audio files can be used for podcasts, interactive galleries, you name it. Think of it as a radio call in show that doesn't have to be manned. Sites like Ring Central and Access Direct make it easy for anyone to setup an 800 number that can be made public. A phone services is also a great way to get feedback from computer phobes or those who may not have immediate access to the internet. Apple recently used the technology get feedback from iPhone users.

WordPress users also have the option of installing an Evoca widget that lets site visitors use their computer mic rather than a telephone to leave comments. The audio files are stored on Evoca's servers and can be linked to with a bit of HTML code.

Labels: audio

I've always wanted to write a book on multimedia but I haven't for two reasons. 1. I think Dan Gillmor has already done a great job with his book We the Media and 2. Multimedia changes so fast the book would be obsolete by the time it hit the shelves (thus the creation of 10,000 words). Web 2.0 is so yesterday and a new crop of multimedia technologies is cropping up. Read/WriteWeb looks to the future for its "10 Future Web Trends" which include mobile apps and internet TV as well as artificial intelligence (scary!) These may be the next phase of multimedia journalism, but according to a new study magazines (and may I add the majority of media outlets) haven't embraced the current Web 2.0 trends. I get asked a lot why I don't feature current multimedia projects from newspapers, radio stations, etc. but I always respond that journalism is so far behind whats being done on the web that I look elsewhere for inspiration.

Labels: news on the news

If there ever is a reality show about multimedia journalism (Who Wants Be A Multimedia Producer? Project Multimedia?) one of the challenges has to be creating an icon. One of the hardest things I've ever had to do as a multimedia designer was to create a set of icons for use on a newspaper site. It's relatively easy to create vast multimedia projects when you've got a great canvas to start with but creating something in a 16 pixel wide space, dot by dot, is excruciating. An icon must be universally recognizable and eye-catching, something that is very hard to do.

Luckily, Intersmash provides a little bit of inspiration with their collection of icons that designate things like comments, mail and shopping. Iconfinder has an intuitive search function that allows anyone to download and use a variety of icons under Creative Commons and other licenses. The icons range in size from 12x12 to 128x128 px.


If you become overwhelmed with frustration during your icon selection, try iStockPhoto which has a large collection of vector icons that come in batches and can be downloaded immediately.

Labels: site management

There are a lot of bad, spyware-ridden toolbars out there, but a useful toolbar is priceless. I am a big fan of the Google Toolbar, which has integrates search into the browser window and the StumbleUpon toolbar that access random web pages that you may be interested in based on search terms you define. These toolbars are a constant reminder to users that they can quickly access content without visiting the actual homepage.

Conduit allows anyone to incorporate RSS feeds, streaming audio/podcasts, drop down menus, integrated search, news tickers, weather, chat and a logo into a custom toolbar that your site visitors can then download. Here is what my custom toolbar would look like if I had one:



Your toolbar could include up to date at the top of the users computer screen or could incorporate your latest broadcasts or even stream your live radio content. Sports fans would appreciate a localized toolbar that had stats or a schedule built into a news ticker. If you already have a significant number of subscribers to your RSS feed (You do have an RSS feed, right?) you already have potential installers of your toolbar.

Labels: site management

It's not to early to start pumping out 2008 election coverage. There are a number of sites cropping up all over the web that can be used as both inspiration and as a resource. The PrezVid blog picks up the slack where the YouTube debates left off by collecting videos of the candidates' speeches and public appearances. 2decide's interactive table makes finding a candidate's position on a variety of issues a little more simple, even if the candidates haven't quite figured it out themselves.


What would election coverage be without a few great maps? Map the Candidates tracks the location of presidential wannabes from both sides of the aisle. The site is comprehensive and frequently updated. This Google Map shows where Democratic candidate John Edwards' campaign spots are airing around the country and contains embedded YouTube videos.

TechPresident keeps tabs on election-related issues, but more importantly keeps a running tally on Democratic and Republican candidates' Facebook supporters, MySpace friends and YouTube views. In case you're curious, Senator Obama leads the pack in all three categories with Senator Clinton coming in a close second.

The Hitwise Election 2008 Data Center takes this methodology a step further by calculating the top Democratic and Republican websites (Obama and Ron Paul respectively). The site also gauges the top political websites and search terms.

According to a Read/Write Web post, Web 2.0 tools like Facebook and Digg favor Democratic candidates. Democrats outnumber Republicans 5-to-1 on Facebook and 3-to-1 on MySpace, according to the site. Speaking of which, be sure to catch the now delayed Republican YouTube debates November 28. Should be informative if not entertaining.

Labels: citizen journalism, maps, social networking, video

I am not a big fan of reinventing the wheel especially when it comes to recreating popular Web 2.0 sites, but some media companies have done so with moderate success. Some great media-related social networks include myNBC, myColts.net for fans of the Indianoplis football team, Sports Illustrated's FanNation, and the recently announced Hulu, NBC and News Corp.'s answer to YouTube.


Danah Boyd of UC Berkeley has a pretty comprehensive explanation of the history of social networks which of course have millions of members worldwide.

But how do you start your own social network? Crowdvine is one of the simplest ways to get your social network up and running in minutes. Customize the design, pick some questions and you're ready to go. Check out the Graduates of O'Reilly and Atlanta Web Enteprenuers networks for exmaples. Other social network building sites include the easy to use Ning and KickApps, which is targeted more toward web developers. See this TechCrunch post for a comprehensive list of social networking tools.

Not ready to take on such an enormous undertaking? Start small and integrate with an existing social network. Start with a MySpace presence or Facebook application and keep it regularly updated with fresh content.