Not completing a bio

The cardinal sin of most new Twitter users is not filling out the small but important section that says a bit about who they are. It could be a simple as a name (or a clever alias for the secret agents or painfully shy) or even just a sentence or two. If your goal is to get the conversation going — which is the point of Twitter after all — a bio can be the icebreaker.


Protecting updates, but complaining about no followers

There are a few reasons to keep your updates private: not wanting to share your personal business with the world, thwarting spammers, etc. But many twitterers forget that by blocking updates from public view, they are also blocking potential followers. It's a give and take situation, so you gotta give a little to get something back.





No updates, but complaining about no followers

It's one thing to protect your updates, it's another to not have any updates at all. Complaining about not having followers in this instance is like walking into a party, not speaking to anyone, and then complaining about how terrible the party is.


Carrying on long conversations between two users

The temptation to use Twitter like an IM service is there, but to fill a timeline with replies to a single person in a short span of time is aggravating enough to make other followers reach for the unfollow button. If you sense your convo will drag on, use direct messages, or better yet, just call the person on the phone.



Making the text unreadable

Because Twitter allows users to create their own color scheme, some make quirky, cute, or even garish color choices. Most are okay, except for those who choose dark text on a dark background, making potential followers strain to read the page. Remember, it's no use completing a bio if no one can read it.



Going into RSS/Twitterfeed overload

While it is true that some people are starting to use Twitter in lieu of an RSS reader, the sure way to garner complaints and/or unfollows is to make your Twitter feed identical to your RSS feed. Your blog/site may be awesome, but the point of Twitter is to stimulate conversation.


No avatar


Nothing says "I'm a new Twitter user who hasn't quite figured this thing out" like a default Twitter avatar. An avatar is a brief glimpse into the person behind the tweets, so be sure to make it special.


Also on 10,000 Words

• Twitter is...
• How to analyze your Twitter followers and friends
• 10 Journalists you should follow on Twitter

Labels: blogging

After radio was invented way back in the 19th century, few likely imagined they would eventually listen to the innovation on a computer (whats that?) or from the other popular invention, the telephone. Radio has evolved from sitting in front of a large wooden box to listening to what you want, when you want, wherever you want. These are the technical innovations that are pushing the medium into the 21st century.


Online

Thanks to the internet, radio lovers are no longer confined to the stations in their area. Sites like TUN3R.com and RadioBeta let users choose from radio stations all over the world and listen to a variety of genres and styles. RadioBeta wins out for its sheer ease of use, allowing the user to control any of the selected radio stations in a player at the top of the page, as well as bookmark favorite stations.



Seattle's KEXP 90.3 FM has been ushered into the new millenium with KEXP Music Explorer, a site that aims to help listeners find out more about the music they are listening to. Like most radio stations, KEXPlorer lists the song currently playing, but also lists recently played and the most spun songs and encourages users to tag songs they like or don't like. And of course, anyone can listen to the station live from their browser.

The interns have taken over National Public Radio! Considering interns can be some of the most creative members of the newsroom, it definitely makes NPR Intern Edition a must-listen. Aside from traditional news stories, the interns have also put together photo slideshows and maintain both a blog and a Twitter account.

If you prefer your NPR on the go, use NPR Road Trip to get travel directions and find out which NPR stations you can listen to on the way. For example on a trip from Manhattan to Hackensack, New Jersey one will be in the range of 13 member stations on the way. NPR Road Trip is limited to travelers in the United States.


Mobile


With the iPhone came thousands of applications and with them the ability to listen to the radio on a mobile phone. Music radio applications like Pandora remain popular, but for those who prefer to listen to actual stations, the AOL Radio app has you covered. The free application gives users access to hundreds of music, news and talk radio stations from their handheld iPhone. News radio fans will also love Stitcher (previously covered here), which makes radio stories available on demand.

Radio fans/iPhone owners should also check out College Radio Tuner, an application that puts college radio stations from across the U.S. in the palm of your hand, and stay tuned for news of an iPhone app from satellite radio giant Sirius.

Other mobile phone users aren't out of luck. Blackberry, Palm, Nokia and Windows Mobile users can download Mundu Radio, an application for listening to the music on the go.




Twitter

Thanks to sites like Blip.fm, Twitter users have turned the microblogging service into their own personal radio station. An easy sign-up process lets anyone share their favorite tunes with their Twitter friends and followers.



Because there are so many tweeps sharing music, it was only a matter of time until Twisten.FM was created. The site tracks the music people are listening on Twitter and makes each song available for listening, all on one page.

Twadio takes the music sharing concept to an unforeseen level. Instead of sharing a song on Twitter, the @tweejay simply tweets a popular song and if you're familiar with it, the song is supposed to start playing in your head. Of course, if you forget how it goes, you can also listen to the song in the sidebar of the site. Best of all, Twadio is interactive and list the tweets of people who either love or hate the song.

Of course, Twitter can be used for more professional and educational purposes. There are ton of radio stations on Twitter and many public radio stations are listed in this handy wiki. Thanks to Twitter you no longer have to call in to tell the DJ to play your song, especially if that DJ is thousands of miles away.

For more on the future of radio, check out Radio 2020 and radiocreativeland.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• 6 Sites that are changing the way you follow the news
• Set up your own online call-in radio show in minutes
• Where to find free sound effects and royalty-free music
• 10 Essential iPhone apps for bloggers and reporters
• How to create, edit and embed audio for free

Labels: blogging, radio

 
What is Twitter? Here's what the Twitterverse/ blogosphere has to say:


"Twitter is just compensation for the human fear that the world doesn't exist when you aren't looking at it." — Joshua via Twitter Blog


"Twitter is transforming from gimmicky messaging tool to marketing powerhouse." — Caroline McCarthy, WebWare


"Twitter is chat for *adults*. But without the guilt." — @SnowVandemore


"Twitter is a narcissists paradise" — @murrad23


"Twitter is way overhyped. Fun to communicate and market here and there, but its just a tool. Like a mini screwdriver." — @jephkelley


"Twitter is like exercising. It's gotta be made into a habit." — @oktechmachine


"Twitter is not a shallow popularity contest, it is about forging interesting connections and conversations with other people." — Atherton Bartelby, Mashable


"Twitter is NOT a dating service, you know?" — @happygrrrl


"Twitter is paying my rent" — Marshall Kirkpatrick


"Twitter is destroying our English. You'll recognize fellow Twitters as people who instinctively shorten their words & grammar in daily life." — @iStylesMK


"Twitter is stupid to mainstream writers because you are not suppose to waste time you could be using to read their crap." — @Bill_Lenner


"Twitter is scary in that I have begun thinking of my friends all having an @ in front of their names." — @teamawesome


"Twitter is for terrorists" — Revision3


"Twitter is like a perpetual chatroom except no one asks for your a/s/l" — @10000Words


"Twitter is for twits... such useless drivel." — @hkvoigt


"Twitter is like a sauna: we are all in the same space, we show everything, but are not really looking at each other." — @boris


"Twitter is entirely populated by people from the music industry and 15-year-old girls. Brilliant." — @readplatform


"Twitter is a wonderland" — PR Squared


"Twitter is journalism's Obama." — Alana Taylor, MediaShift


"Twitter is an awesome invention, high-tech haiku proving that even in this web of flash and film well written text still has a place." — Luke, TechCult


"Twitter is a place to flush the brain - like dropping thoughts off at the pool." — @kim1989


"Twitter IS the new email chain letter" — @10000Words


"TWITTER IS MY LIFE" — @Freyland

Labels: blogging, social networking

Site analytics and subscriber counters can give a good idea of how many people are reading your content, but every good blogger knows that readers are more than just numbers.

In order to get a better picture of the diverse people and personalities that read 10,000 Words, I turned to Twitter where the hundreds of people who follow @10000Words provide bios that give more insight into each person's unique personality. After some thorough analysis, I now know more about everyone and can tailor the blog to cater to each persons interest.

Before we get into who is following 10,000 Words on Twitter, I first wanted to analyze what I've been tweeting. And here it is, presented in a word cloud:



Every tweet ever posted by @10000Words was copied at one time using the Greasemonkey script Endless Tweets, which automatically loads older tweets when scrolling on the Twitter timeline (Find out more about the Greasemonkey extension here). The word cloud was created using Wordle; click the image to view a larger version.

Because I also tweet a lot of links, I wanted to visualize the type of content I have been linking to:



The text from this word cloud comes from the link names and descriptions listed by Twitturly, an online service that tracks Twitter users' outgoing links. The site can also be used for tracking what everyone is talking about on Twitter in real time.

Now on to analyzing Twitter followers. I was especially curious about where everyone was from, especially because of those pesky time zone problems. According to this map, many are from the US, but many more are from Canada and Europe. The map was created using Yahoo Pipes and was amended from this existing Pipe. The original version required a Twitter username and password, but it was changed to pull from a single self-created XML file. Also, because the Twitter-generated XML file only lists about 100 followers per page, it was necessary to view each page and merge the XML files using simple copy and paste.

By extracting from the combined XML file the "description" tag that Twitter appends to each user, I was also able to gather the text of each person's bio. That text was run through Wordle and here are the results:




If XML isn't your cup of tea, TwitterSheep produces a similar word cloud of your followers' bios (Twitter username and password required). Greasemonkey fans can use Twitter Friends' Bio at a Glance to display each follower or friend's bio and link when viewing them as a list. Also, check out the Twitter Mosaic creator for viewing your followers' avatars all in one place.



A big thank you to everyone following 10,000 Words on Twitter! If you aren't doing so already, check out @10000Words for useful tips and links you won't see on the blog. Also, be sure to subscribe to the 10,000 Words RSS feed so you never miss a post.


Also on 10,000 Words:
• 10 Journalists you should follow on Twitter
• 25 Tools for getting more out of Twitter
• How to design for a computer other than your own
• 10,000 Words Year-end wrap-up and word cloud

Labels: blogging, site management

10,000 Words has had an interesting year filled with a variety of posts on technology, journalism and new media. Here are the ones that you clicked on the most.


10. 15 Ways to follow the 2008 election online

The 2008 US presidential election was such a hot topic this year and there were a number of sites that were using the web to aggregate political content and make it accessible to the public. I was most impressed by perspectv and FiveThirtyEight.com which used visual tools to explain the election in a way that television pundits could not.


9. 6 (More) Notable Maps

The second notable post was a sequel to "9 Notable Maps," which presented maps that were useful and could be replicated by journalists. Every possible 10,000 Words post is cataloged in a Google Doc and when the list of interesting maps runs long, it is time for another map-themed post.


8. 10 Essential iPhone apps for bloggers and reporters

As an iPhone owner, I know that the iPhone will revolutionize journalism. Unfortunately when it comes to finding useful apps among the more than 10,000 now available, it can be a little tough. Therefore some of the highest rated apps were reviewed and presented in this one post.


7. Time-lapse of The New York Times' election coverage

When I discovered Iterasi, the online tool for capturing scheduled screenshots, I knew I would illustrate something happening online over the course of time, but it wasn't until two months later and another three months before election night that I knew I would chronicle the New York Times' site. Unfortunately, Iterasi was terrible at archiving Flash content, which led to whole chunks of the screenshots disappearing, so I turned to Webpage Thumbnailer which served the same purpose, but with better results.


6. 15 Journalists' outstanding personal sites

To illustrate the importance of an online portfolio to a journalist, a massive hunt began for well-put-together sites that showcased the work of a journalist. What turned up instead was a large number of sites that were poorly designed, poorly executed and just a hot mess. The search turned into a three-day hunt, the results of which are worth emulating.


5. 21 Free online photo editing tools

There already were a number of lists of photo editing tools but they either a) included sites with features no self-respecting photographer/image editor would use or b) there was no write-up explaining the differences between each site. Thus this post was born and illustrated with screenshots of each site so readers could decide for themselves. The article remains the most searched for 10,000 Words post.


4. Word cloud analysis of 2008 DNC Speeches

Anyone who has been reading 10,000 Words for a while knows that this blog makes great use of the word cloud generator Wordle to visualize large amounts of text. As election night approached, I recalled this post and decided to create word clouds of the speeches of each of the major players at the convention.

To get a jump on whomever might have the same idea, pre-written copies of the speeches as prepared for delivery were pulled from the Huffington Post and quickly run through Wordle. Incidentally, the same thing was done for the Republican National Convention, but that post didn't even crack the top 50.


3. 30 Amazing photoblogs (and a few tips for creating one)

This highly-Dugg post was conceptualized three months earlier when photographer Mark Dodge Medlin won the Find Your Inspiration contest. A link to his photoblog, along with a note to check out other photoblogs was added to the aforementioned Google Doc and voila! 29 more amazing photoblogs.


2. 7 Fonts that should die

This post is the proverbial thorn in my side. After a particular frustration with designers that lazily use Trajan, Papyrus and Copperplate, I pounded out a quick post (on a Friday no less, one of the worst days for traffic) and went to sleep. When I woke up the next morning, the post had hit the front page of Digg, crashed my server, and had a host of comments eviscerating the post and 10,000 Words itself.

The strong reaction led me to redesign the entire site in a few hours and to chronicle the ordeal in this animated video. The experience was the catalyst for a new era of 10,000 Words: one that is more detailed and less of a thrown-together hobby. And for the record, I intentionally left Comic Sans off the list.


1. Wise words from a wise man

The top post on 10,000 Words, the one that has been viewed almost 200,000 times...was written in 20 minutes. Many posts you see here take days, if not weeks to put together, but the top post was written on a fluke. "Wise words" was inspired by reading a few quotes by the great Albert Einstein, whose non-relativity theories remain relevant today. The post remains a huge hit with StumbleUpon and is consistently the day's most viewed post.


Thank you for reading and be sure to keep checking back for more great posts!

Labels: blogging

As a police reporter at the Daytona Beach News-Journal, I gradually became accustomed to local evening news anchors reading my well-researched reports verbatim with no credit. When I made the transition to interactive journalism, copyright infringement became less of a problem as whole multimedia stories are a little harder to lift.

The familiar frustration was brought back in an instant when I discovered, via Technorati, that someone had plagiarized an entire post and its images. While the offending post has since been removed, it did call to question what writers, bloggers and photographers should do when they discover someone else is presenting content as their own.

My initial reaction was to turn to the Twitterverse because, as this post suggests, Twitter is great for asking questions. While waiting for responses, a quick Google search turned up this post on what to do when someone steals your content.

Tweeps @ryansholin, @jenconnic, @jgrad09, @editorialiste and @dblacombe (whose own encounter with a plagiarizer was helpful) collectively suggested writing a cease and desist letter. Their immediate help speaks to the power of crowdsourcing and social networks like Twitter.

Technology is enriching our lives by providing a space where we can share our craft with others, but it's hard not to feel the sting when something like this occurs. I still have immense faith in the web, despite its obvious deficiencies. For more on copyright law and protecting your content, check out this previous post.

Labels: blogging

Not too long ago, five ways to learn a new language and five blogs in languages other than English were presented in the hope that blog lovers would expand their online reading. If you haven't yet begun learning a new language, there are a few ways to make reading blogs in foreign languages much easier.


Mloovi will translate any RSS feed into any of more than 30 available languages including Croatian, Filipino and Swedish. The results, like Google Translate or Yahoo! Babel Fish, a little spotty and shouldn't be quoted, but it is a definite help.

On the other hand, if you want readers of your blog to be able to read it in another language, ConveyThis offers a button that will translate your content with one click. The site requires registration, which only take a couple seconds, and a button like the one below are available instantly.



On a smaller scale, Twanslate will translate tweets (or anything under 140 characters) into Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Japanese, Italian and Russian. Simply follow @twanslate and follow the instructions to send a direct message and received the translated reply in seconds.

Labels: blogging, rss

You've written an outstanding story or blog post with insightful commentary, pointed analogies, and flowery prose that would make Shakespeare cry. But if your writing is full of spelling and grammar errors, you might as well have just passed gas in public.


Inside every good writer should be a good editor. Luckily, the web is full of tips for keeping your writing in check. The first stop for any writer should be the the American Copy Editors Society's collection of links that includes writing headlines, avoiding clichés and of course, copy editing tips.

Daily Writing Tips is another must-read for any writer looking to improve his or her craft. After reading posts like 8 Proofreading Tips And Techniques, How to Revise, Edit and Proofread Your Writing, and English Grammar 101: All You Need to Know, you will have immediately improved your writing know-how.

Patricia T. O'Conner, a former editor at The New York Times Book Review, author and blogger at Grammarphobia.com, also has a few quick tips for correct punctuation, including proper comma placement and when to use the overused apostrophe.

Smashing Magazine has a great list of the top ten web typography sins, including using hyphens instead of em dashes and including extra spaces in copy. Even better is Copyblogger's list of five grammatical errors that make you look dumb, including the dreaded its vs. it's (hint: if you mean "it is" or "it has," use an apostrophe).

If copy editing is a consistent problem and you are a glutton for punishment, GooseGrade, upon its release, will let users correct the mistakes in your writing. Readers are readying their red pens as we speak.

A perfectly written story doesn't mean jack if the headline sucks. Especially now that SEO and keywords and all that has come into play, creating an attention-grabbing headline has become even more difficult. Never fear, though. Condomunity has a stellar and detailed post about how a well-written headline makes all the difference and how to create a good one.

Even more headline writing advice can be found at Copyblogger and in this previous post on writing better headlines.

Once you've got your own wordplay under wraps, it's time to laugh at the mistakes of others. Start by checking out the posts at Regret the Error, especially the gaffe committed by the New Hampshire-based Valley News, which misspelled its own name in its masthead. Logophiles will also enjoy the English Fail Blog, a series of photos of bad grammar captioned in the style of I Can Has Cheezburger?

And, of course, feel free to laugh and point should there be any glaring errors in this post. See? You're a better writer already!

Labels: blogging

Because having a blog is not enough.

Labels: blogging

"Blog posts are written, not defecated. They show some level of craft, thinking, and continuity beyond the word count mandated by the Owner of Your Plantation. If a blog has fixed limits on post minimums and maximums? It's not a blog: it's a website that hires writers. Which is fine. But, it's not really a blog."

— What Makes for a Good Blog?


"Stats are a good barometer for some things. Especially if you have a clear-thinking mind. Or if you're approaching your blog experimentally and viewing your stats with a marketer's mindset. But if you're mindlessly checking stats all the time, looking at your affiliate earnings every hour, then it's time to step AWAY from the computer. Go play with your dog."

— 18 Stupid Mistakes Bloggers Make in their First Year


"Instead of writing entire posts, write down titles. If time permits put down your initial thoughts and build on it later, from wherever you are. Face it you will check your email at least once a day, if you have your title and initial write up ready your blog post can be done in a few minutes."

— No Hurries, No Worries - Your Blog Will Survive


"There are only a handful of default Blogger templates available to use. Since Blogger has millions of active users around the world, you can be sure that hundreds (at least) will be using these same templates as the visual basis of their blogs. To make sure your blog stands out from the crowd, you need to ensure your design is in some way unique."

— 7 Reader Friendly Methods of Improving your Blogger Blog


"While the functionality of tag clouds is arguable helpful, unfortunately most tag clouds appear as nothing more than a jumbled mess. So messy in some cases that they are actually too hard to disassemble in a reasonable amount of time, and are just avoided by users."

— The Seven Most Commonly Made Bad Blog Design Choices


"Writing a home-run post on a Saturday afternoon will probably happen from time to time. However, does your blog have good traffic on Saturdays? Analyzing your blog's stats to determine when it naturally has the most traffic can get more eyes on a great post, which will translate to more social votes and more links. If you have created the post of your life, wait for a good day to publish - it will cost you about 1 minute on a later date to put it up."

— 10 Ways to Improve Blog Traffic in 30 Minutes or Less


"The lack of an "About Me" page-- or a simple name to attach to the author's writing -- is unforgivable. But it's still a problem today. Every time a reader encounters a blog with no name in the byline, no background on the author, and no simple way to click through to find out anything about the author, it strains credulity to the breaking point. It devalues not only the author's writing, but the credibility of blogging in general."

— Thirteen Blog Clichés


"Time is valuable for blogging, if you don't have it your blog can suffer. Time management is a huge key for a lot of bloggers. If you stretch yourself, your time, and resources too thin you may come up with many unfinished projects. Several of my blogs could do a lot better, I just don't have the time to dedicate to them."

— 23 Things I've Learned Blogging


"If you shut off commenting because you were drowning in a sea of comment spam, using Akismet and Bad Behavior for Wordpress will allow you to turn it back on by eliminating 99% of your spam for free. If you're simply afraid that people will say something that might detract from your totally awesome post, then maybe your post isn't that awesome after all. Come out from under your bed in that giant ivory tower and let people love or hate your posts. Eliminate barriers. Get some feedback. Make a couple of friends. Communicate."

— How To Piss Me Off With Your Blog


"Terrible things are happening in one of the following: the world, the web or a television show you really like. Make a blog post about it! People will comment about how much they agree with you. Then they'll make their own blog posts about the subject, and other people will comment about how much they agree with them. If we all work together we'll learn that we can make a real impact on our pageviews."

— Secrets of the 7 Basic Blog Posts

Labels: blogging

I rarely ever blog on weekends to ensure I enjoy life outside of the internet, but today is no ordinary day. It's BlogDay, a time when bloggers all over the intertubes recommend blogs "that are different from their own culture, point of view and attitude." A full list of some of the best multimedia journalism blogs can be found in the sidebar, but in honor of the day here are 5 blogs that I personally enjoy.

1. Neatorama

I like cool stuff. And whether that's a cow with its head stuck in a washing machine or tips how to personalize your pancakes, I can always count on Neatorama to blog something that piques my curiosity.

2. geeksugar

Geeksugar was created with women in mind, but I think its posts on technology as it relates to personal life is something everyone can identify with. The site is a part of the Sugar network of blogs and is an ingenious cross between Gizmodo and Perez Hilton.

3. Inspiredology

If I could pin down my design aesthetic, it would be bold colors, unique fonts and nontraditional layouts. That said, Inspiredology totally gets me and my aesthetic. The blog showcases web and graphic design that is eye-popping and memorable and gives me something to aspire to.

4. fourfour

I first started reading fourfour for its skewering of the TV show America's Next Top Model, but stuck around when I realized everything that comes from blogger Rich Juzwiak's brain is genius. Whether its a thoughtful dissertation on modern R&B or a passing observation of Winston the cat, I can always count on reading each post from beginning to end. I also credit Rich, along with Fresh at Crunk & Disorderly for keeping me in the loop of pop culture and making me a better entertainment reporter.

5. The Consumerist

It's no secret that I am a fan of The Consumerist. It is my all-time favorite blog 1) because it exhibits a standard of community journalism that mainstream media should take note of and 2) its advice on consumer rights is helpful to everyone... and I do mean everyone. The Consumerist is one of a handful of blogs that is not lumped into a category in my Google Reader, simply because it defies categorization.

Labels: blogging

A video chronicling what happens after you make the front page of Digg. How it was created after the jump....





•The video was created in roughly three days and is based on real experiences after this post hit the front page of Digg.

•The copy was storyboarded, along with sketches of the emotions, on a 7x9 notebook.

•The audio was recorded with a $20 microphone in a bedroom closet and mixed using Adobe Audition (and sounds much better in its original, pre-YouTube form).

•The character was created stop-motion style in Photoshop and animated in Flash using motion tweens and paths.

•Finding a free 40's/50's style font was one of the most-time consuming portions of the project. Analysis of the lettering of a retro ad using font analyzer WhatTheFont returned the pricey font "Sonora Pro." The totally free "Honey Script" was used instead.

•The final product was converted from SWF to MPEG using SWF to Video Scout, which has a 45-day trial period.

Feel free to ask any questions or share any comments.

Labels: blogging

There have been a number of technological advances in journalism in the four years since the last Summer Olympic Games so this year promises to be a breakthrough in how the Olympics are covered. News organizations, citizen journalists and corporations have been gearing up for some time now to present the best in multimedia, print and online coverage as well as advertising and social networking. Here is some of the best of what to expect:


Blogs

One of my biggest dreams is to attend the Olympics games, but I opted out this year for two reasons 1) I was concerned about the restrictions on journalists and 2) I have a strong aversion to Chinese food. That said, I'll see you in London in 2012. In the meantime, there are a number of other media and interested parties that will be covering the Olympic Games:

• The New York Times Olympics blog
• Los Angeles Times: Ticket to Beijing
• BBC Sport Olympics 2008
• ESPN Olympics Blog
• Indian Olympic Blog
• San Jose Mercury News Olympic Games Blog
• Beijing Olympics Fan
• Reuters
• FanNation Beijing Olympics Blog
• Reuters
• Times Online: Barnes in Beijing

Google also has an interesting way of keeping tabs on the Games. Just enter the name of the event you are interested in plus the word 'olympics' in the search field and Google will return a schedule of upcoming events. You can also get updates from a number of Twitter users.



For those journalists reading from Beijing, PopPhoto has some advice for navigating around China and the Olympic atmosphere.


Video


In addition to offering more than extensive coverage of the Olympic Games in the US, NBC will make an additional 2,200 hours of streaming video available online at NBCOlympics.com. On the other side of the world, CCTV.com and Adobe have partnered up to offer more than 5,000 hours of streaming video to mainland China and Macau via CCTVOlympics.com

In countries where NBC doesn't have exclusive rights to Olympic video, the games will be broadcast online on YouTube. This includes 77 territories in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

US residents who are unable to watch the Games either on television or online have the option of downloading Olympics on the Go, a Tivo-like service that will download selected events straight to their computer. Best of all, the service is free.


Multimedia

The New York Times, that stalwart exemplar of multimedia, has some pretty comprehensive coverage, including two awesome Flash-based interactive projects: Olympic Medal Count Map, which uses expanding circles to illustrate the number of medals won over the years by various countries, and Passing the Torch, a visual history of the Olympic torch.




The Chicago Tribune's photo gallery "Olympic athletes you can root for" is a compelling look at Olympians who may not be household names. Some of the venues where the athletes compete and visitors will tour, including the Olympic Sports Centre and Tiananmen Square can be viewed in 3D by clicking here.


Print

Text is the foundation of journalism and there have already been a number of feature stories published online that are worth a read.

From BBC News: The Olympic torch's shadowy past

From Sportingo: The top ten greatest Olympic moments

From mental_floss: What happens to Olympic facilities after the games are over?

From WebUrbanist: 8 Pivotal Olympic Villages And Venues Then And Now


Widgets

    

    

Left to right: USA Today, NBC , Google Gadgets, Widgetbox


Mobile


When you just got can't make to the television in time to catch your favorite Olympic event, be sure to turn to any of the following mobile sites offering Olympic coverage:

Yahoo!

Sky

NBC

New York Times

Sports Illustrated/SI.com

USA Today

Times Online


Advertising


Coca-Cola wasn't yet invented at the first Olympic Games, but the beverage corporation and a number of other companies are making up for lost time by plastering their image all over Beijing and the web.

Lenovo, a similarly ubiquitous sponsor of the Olympiad, has put together Voices of the Olympic Games, an online site in which real Olympic athletes share their stories and experiences. Olympians like Peter Lopez, a member of the Peruvian taekwondo team, seem genuinely excited to blog about Beijing, and — good news here — he and others are blogging in their native language.

As Panasonic will gladly tell you, the electronics giant has been sponsoring the Olympic Games for 20 years. This year is, of course, no different. It's Japanese site offers Olympic-themed video/ads and other goodies like desktop wallpaper. In the U.S., the Panasonic Mobile Tour is already underway. A huge rig equipped with the latest in television technology is traveling around the country to show off the Olympic Games in high definition.

McDonald's will be feeding many visitors to Beijing in the Olympic Village, and, in some selected countries, will offer its "China Menu" which includes a burger topped with sesame seeds, chop suey and ginger sauce. And finally you can catch Olympians in all their glory in a visually arresting set of ads for Powerade by clicking here (SFW).



You can check out my personal contribution to Olympic fever at Entertainment Weekly. How are you covering the Olympic Games? Or, if you are a fan, how will you be following them? Share your plans in the comments.

Labels: blogging, citizen journalism, maps, mobile, social networking, video, widgets

The recent launch of Apple's App Store means millions of iPhone users will have hundreds of handy applications available at their fingertips. Many of these apps make it easier bloggers and reporters to work on the go. For those that don't have an iPhone, perhaps it's time to considering purchasing one.

1. SpeakEasy Voice Recorder

Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: $4.99

From the developer: Record and playback notes, reminders, or just about anything from your iPhone's built-in microphone. SpeakEasy gives you a recording studio that fits into your pocket. Intuitive and fun, SpeakEasy is the premier voice recorder for your iPhone.

• Record voice memos, reminders, lectures, meetings, or anything you wish.
• Add a title, comments, or even a photo from your photo library or camera while recording.
• Group and organize your recordings by category.
• Interruption protection lets you pick up and continue your recording after a phone call interruption.
• Pause and continue recording with a single touch.
• Playback and quickly scan your recordings with the touch slider.

2. Writing Pad

Average Rating: 4 Stars Price: Free

From the developer: Store notes and send email using ShapeWriter on your iPhone. ShapeWriter is a revolutionary text input technology that enables you to enter text into the iPhone by tracing word shapes rather than typing letters. Each shape traced on the soft keyboard with your finger is recognized as a word. Error correction is fast and easy. For rare names and acronyms, type only once and you will be able to shape write the next time. Shape writing is many times more efficient than letter-based handwriting recognition.

3. WordPress

Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free

From the developer: Robust but simple to use, the WordPress for iPhone Open Source application allows you to create and edit content on your WordPress blog(s) with support for offline use. The app includes the following features:

• Support for WordPress.com blogs and self-installed WordPress blogs (version 2.5.1 and higher)
• Embedded Safari for true previews of posts
• Full support for tags and categories
• Photo support for both camera pics and library photos
• Support for multiple blogs
• Ability to password protect a post, save as draft, or mark for later review
• Auto-recovery feature recovers posts interrupted by phone calls

4. TypePad

Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: $4.99

From the developer: Update your blog and share pictures with the world from wherever you are with TypePad. Built to connect with the award-winning TypePad blogging service, TypePad for iPhone and iPod touch enables you to...

• Write new posts for your blog in just a few seconds.
• Post photos to your blog from your iPhone's camera or photo albums.
• Alert your friends when you post to your blog by automatically updating Twitter.

With TypePad on your iPhone or iPod touch, you can share your ideas and photos as they happen, from wherever you are. And since it integrates with TypePad on your desktop, you get all the great features of the world's premier blogging service.

5. Twitterific

Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free

From the developer: A fun application that lets you read and publish posts (called "tweets") on the Twitter social network. Stay connected with friends, family, and co-workers through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

6. Kyte Producer

Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free

From the developer: Use your iPhone to instantly share photos and slideshows with your friends on Myspace, Facebook, or any website, blog or mobile phone.
Instantly broadcast pictures as you take them, or create slideshows from your iPhone's picture gallery. You can even chat with your audience in real-time!

7. EverNote

Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free

From the developer: Evernote helps you remember everything from your real and digital life using whatever device or platform you find most convenient.

Evernote for iPhone is part of the Evernote service. With it, you can take notes, snap photos, create to-do lists. and record audio. Everything is seamlessly synchronized with the web, and made available across all the devices and platforms you use, including iPhone, Evernote for Mac, Evernote Web, and Evernote for Windows.
Snap photos of any thing from whiteboards to business cards to wine labels, and Evemote will make the text within those images searchable.

Need something from last week or last year? Evernote instantly connects to the Evernote web service so you can get what you need. Find what you're looking for by searching or filtering by tag, date, location. and more.

8. NetNewsWire

Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free

From the developer: NetNewsWire is an RSS reader for iPhone — you can read news from the millions of weblogs and sites that publish RSS feeds.
Because NetNewsWire syncs with all of NewsGator's free RSS readers, if you read an item on your iPhone, you don't have to read it again on your Macintosh or other computer. It's automatically marked as read everywhere.
You can also save items for later via the Clippings feature, and any item you clip is available on your other computers. It's an easy way to save something to read when you have more time.

9. Jott for iPhone

Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free

From the developer: Jott for iPhone is the ultimate mobile notepad that turns your voice into notes. Capture your to-dos as quickly as you can say" Get strawberries for dessert. "We transcribe your voice into text and place the resulting notes in your lists. When you complete items, just cross them off with a swipe of your finger.

All of your lists are backed up on Jott.com, where you can manage them when you are at your computer. For existing Jott customers, your lists and notes will load after you've downloaded the app (may take a minute if you have a lot).

10. Lonely Planet

Average Rating: 2½ Stars (Spanish) to 4½ Stars (Vietnamese) Price: $4.99

From the developer: Want to never be at a loss for words, no matter where you are in the world? With your iPhone, and a little help from Lonely Planet, you'll have the local lingo licked.

Lonely Planet, the world's leading travel company, now offers its 10 most popular phrasebooks in downloadable audio format, specially tailored to make the most of your iPhone. Don't just skim the surface on your next trip; with 530 spoken (and phonetically written) phrases in each guide, you can shop, socialise and shout like a native.





And a few worth copying by other news organizations...

Fox News UReport

Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free

From the developer: FOX News wants you to report the news. The uReport Application for iPhone allows you to do just that. You can easily take or select pictures of news happening around you and send them directly to FOX News Channel from your iPhone. If we determine your submission is newsworthy, your photo could appear online or even on air!

MLB.com At Bat

Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: $4.99


From the developer: MLB.com At Bat from MLB.com, the official site of Major League Baseball, delivers real-time scores and in-game video highlights of every game directly to your iPhone.

You'll get each highlight moments after the play happens so you never miss the important action. The application will automatically detect your network and play video encoded for either EDGE/3G or Wi-Fi bitrates. MLB.com At Bat will provide this breakthrough service for the remainder of the 2008 season - including playoffs and World Series. It's a whole new ballgame!

Now Local

Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: Free

From the developer: NowLocal is the best way to find news that's happening around you. Using the iPhone's location services, NowLocal automatically delivers you news from the best local sources, wherever you are. So as you move from place to place, it's easy to quickly check what's going on around you.




For more news iPhone news apps, click over to Mindy McAdams.

Labels: audio, blogging, mobile, photos, rss, social networking

The rest of the web knows how to link: if you get information from another site, common courtesy indicates you should link back to the original source.

But many online journalists haven't quite adopted that reasoning. There is still a prevailing theory among many journalists that the blogs we ransack for leads or story ideas are not actual news sources and do not merit attribution. Add to that a resistance to linking to any outside site for fear that visitors will be led away from the page and the result is a slew of professional journalists who are linkphobic.

Back in February, Robert Niles wrote a helpful primer on how, and where, to hyperlink a news story. Clearly, some people never read it. Recently, there has been an outcry from bloggers who are seeing mainstream publications source their original content without attribution.

The SEO Company has an informative table that shows which online media powerhouses are linking to sites outside of their own. Interestingly, many sites only link in their blog posts and not in their main stories. SEO makes a good point about linking out:

We believe that linking to useful websites doesn't "leak" traffic - quite the opposite in fact. Offering useful links actually makes visitors more likely to return to see what other interesting websites they might find in the future[...] Mainstream media websites are, with the exception of the BBC, business entities with shareholders and an obligation to maximise profits. It's understandable that they are reluctant to send valuable page views elsewhere.

Here is the cardinal rule of internet journalism: A link should be added to any story if the information is based on that from another site, even if it is from a blog. Anything else is plagiarism and just wrong.

Web journalists should also link to sites that readers may find useful. For example, if a theatrical production is being reviewed, a link to purchasing tickets may be helpful. Or if a Crime Stoppers-like organization has more detailed information on a crime suspect, provide a link for readers to follow.

Hyperlinking can be a form of journalism itself. Two excellent blogs, Journerdism and shiner.clay, both provide collections of links to stories that may be interesting to readers.

To those who are still apprehensive about the whole linking thing, do not be afraid that readers will leave your site. If you continue to provide, well-written, one-of-a-kind content, readers will keep coming back.

Labels: blogging, news on the news, site management

I will be in Chicago next week at the UNITY: Journalists of Color conference where I will speak on multimedia storytelling. All next week, I will be either liveblogging and/or video blogging the conference and as many multimedia journalism-related sessions as possible. I will also be Twittering about UNITY starting July 21 (Follow 10,000 Words here!). I promise to leave no new media stone unturned.

I've written about liveblogging before and am considering using either CoverItLive or ScribbleLive which I have yet to test. If time permits, I will also post a conference day wrap up on YouTube and embed the video here. All in all, it promises to be an action packed week.

Labels: blogging

Last month a poster on social network blogcatalog asked fellow users how they chose the name for their blog. Some were specifically chosen, others were randomly picked and many others were just dumb luck. Picking a blog name can go either way for journalists who either blog under a company name or blog independently.


Whether the names were pre-chosen or not, there are many mainstream news outlets with great names for their blogs. They include Fox News' The Bourbon Room, USA Today's Pop Candy, Time Magazine's Curious Capitalist, The Guardian's Media Monkey, Carpetbagger, The New York Time's fashion blog, Dishing, Boston.com's food blog and the truly original The Fastest Blog on 2 Feet, a lacrosse blog by Washington Post writer Christian Swezey.

If you're a pun person, there is What's Bruin, the LA Times' blog covering UCLA sports teams, Booster Shots, a health blog also from the LA Times, BaltAmour, a dating blog from the Baltimore Sun, and Foam on the Range, the Denver Post's beer blog.

As far as independent bloggers go, I've always been partial to Will Sullivan's choice of Journerdism, a portmanteau of journalism and nerd that perfectly describes the heart of every hardcore multimedia journalist.

As for 10,000 Words, the name came after some heavy deliberation. I initially wanted to call it Prometheus, after the Greek legend who stole fire from the gods and brought it to the people. But sensing that the name was a little heavy, I opted for 10,000 Words which, as the about page points out, is a likely answer to how many words a multimedia story is worth.

Now it's your turn. What is your blog's name? Did you choose it yourself or was it chosen for you? Leave a link to your blog in the comments and feel free to share the story behind it.

Labels: blogging

Many journalists begin blogging without prompt and a great many more are instructed to do so by editors and producers trying to keep up with the times. For both groups, staying interested in the daily grind of blogging can be tough or even feel like a second job. But don't give up just yet. Here are some ways to keep that spark going and not lose your motivation:


Write fewer posts

Like exercise, it's easy to get stressed out from blogging if you do it too much. If blogging is becoming a brain drain, try lightening your writing schedule. For example, if you are writing two to three posts a day, try writing one really good post each day. If your blog is updated once daily, consider writing only a few posts a week. Writing a few good entries is better than writing a lot of bad ones.

Pre-post

Some bloggers have a set schedule of when to write and publish, but this doesn't work for everyone. It is better to write when inspiration strikes, whether it be first thing in the morning or right before bed. If enough pre-posts are accumulated (assuming you're not covering breaking news), then you could take the time you would be writing and enjoy a nice smoothie or up of coffee. In fact, this very post was written some time last week to have ready for what I knew would be a busy day. Many blogging platforms allow users to save posts and even publish them on a predetermined date and time.

Forget the stats

For years, newspaper reporters, and to a lesser degree broadcast journalists, performed their duties without a real idea of how many people had read/watched/listened to their story. But now that the internet has made user stats available with a click and the number of comments visible on each post, it is easy to be disappointed when those numbers are just a scattered few. Instead of agonizing over numbers, focus on building great content and eventually those numbers will grow. Hitting refresh won't make those numbers go any higher.

Write for yourself

In blogging, it is easy to fall in the trap of writing exclusively what you think the readers will want to read. Often this leads to losing the focus of the blog or worse being forced to write something that isn't of particular interest to you. Writing posts that interest you means you will write more fervently about the subject, which will in turn attract like-minded readers.

Take a day off

If you truly don't feel like writing one day, don't. Forcing yourself to write makes blogging a seemingly more arduous task and guess what? The blog will still be there the next day.

Shift your focus

If none of the above suggestions work for you, then it's time to shift the focus of your blog. Company mandated bloggers can still write about the same topic, but tackle a different subject. For example, travel bloggers can shift their focus from covering airline prices to covering travel destinations for families. A political blogger, instead of covering the minutiae of the upcoming presidential election, could cover the more local impact of the race. It all depends on the leniency of your supervisor. You may alienate some readers in the process, but you will likely gain a different audience. The point is to focus on what you care about, because if you don't care about the subject of your blog, no one else will.

Labels: blogging

Nothing brings the world together like the Olympic Games. The same goes for multimedia journalism, so the two are a match made in heaven. Media outlets around the world are gearing up for the 2008 Games in Beijing. In addition to airing 1,200 hours of Olympics coverage on five different channels, NBC plans to broadcast 1,000 more hours of video on the web. That means all the badminton, taekwondo and Greco-Roman wrestling you can handle.

The Beijing Guide, a website run by the China International Travel Service, has photos and 360° views of popular Beijing attractions including the Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square and The Gate of Heavenly Peace.



The upcoming Olympic Games aren't without their share of controversy as evidenced by the efforts of Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch (which has a well-designed and resourceful site), and the many protesters around the world.

BBC News has an eye-opening take on the history of the Olympic torch, which has incited protests almost everywhere it goes. Track the progress of the Olympic torch, or perhaps the site of the next protest, using Google's Torch Relay map. The map has detailed information on past and future locations of the torch, whenever available, and includes photos of each location.

The International Olympic Committee recently approved blogging as a means of coverage because blogging is "a legitimate form of personal expression and not a form of journalism." Right. And don't expect any multimedia elements: bloggers are banned from posting any video or audio. Olympics bloggers must adhere to strict standards and must write about their experiences rather than news stories.

There are a number of blogs already covering the progress of the Olympics including Beijing Olympics Fan, Reuters' Countdown to Beijing blog, Beijing Olympics Blog on FanNation and this now defunct blog on the architecture of Olympic arenas in Beijing (with includes stunning photos).

Labels: blogging, video

November 4 is right around the corner, so if you haven't had a meeting or two about elections coverage, now's as good a time as any. If you're already on the ball or if you need to get rolling, here are some online sites that are infusing new media into traditional political journalism and powered by citizen journalists.

For the average citizen, presidential primaries can be a confusing and complicated process. Regular guy/techie Jim Edlin presents an alternative to the existing process of electing a president with the site OnlinePrimary. Visitors are asked to rank the presidential candidates and the results are posted on the front page.



One part of the political process that is a head scratcher for the average person is the Democratic Party's use of superdelegates. The Superdelegate Transparency Project aims to remove a little bit of the mystery behind these all-important politicos by examining who they are and who they plan to vote for (right now, the count is in favor of Hillary Clinton). The site also provides in-depth, yet easy to read information on how the delegate process works.

In a play for the Naked News crowd (link semi-NSFW), SexyPolitics is encouraging political awareness by adding a little incentive. It's simple: take a quiz on political candidates, issues or general political knowledge and the more questions you get right, the more articles of clothing the "stripper" removes. The questions can get admittedly difficult so you're going to have to work hard to get that sexy prisoner to disrobe. If you're only interested in taking the quizzes, there is an option to skip the strip. On the plus side, the site is making politics and a whole lot more interesting and, ahem, sexier.



YouBama, a portmanteau of video sharing site YouTube and presidential candidate Barack Obama, is exactly what its name suggests: a site for sharing videos of the presidential candidate. Users have uploaded roughly 600 videos of campaign ads, attacks on the competition, news clips and poems(?).

Can you really tell a lot about a candidate based on his or her website? Dustin Brewer thinks so. The freelance web designer judges the candidates' web presence from a purely technical standpoint, examining the lines of code and overall design. Barack Obama comes out on top for his site's clean and modern look and cross-browser compatibility, while John McCain and Mike Huckabee fall to the bottom for their lack of effort and faulty coding.

Every political candidate has their own website, faulty or no, but 23-year-old Meghan McCain is getting serious mileage out of the web by blogging her experiences while on the road with her father, newly minted Republican presidential nominee John McCain. The site is like a journal/family photo album and makes the elder McCain seem less staid as he and some other candidates can appear to be when making the rounds on television.

Speaking of blogs, a recent Harris poll showed that "only" 22 percent of Americans of read political blogs regularly, but I'd like to flip that notion on its head. Considering there are roughly 303 million people living in America and blogs really became mainstream in the last few years, I'd say that's quite a lot of people reading political blogs.

Consider also that the public's reliance on newspapers and television as a source of political news is slipping (but you knew that already), according to the Pew Research Center. That means its time to beef up online political news and perhaps look to the average Janes and Joes for a little inspiration.

For more politics, check out previous posts on tracking the presidential candidates online and unusual political news coverage.

Labels: blogging, citizen journalism, video

Just like the old school eclectic journalist who reads a variety of newspapers and magazines, every journalist, regardless of media, should be reading a variety of blogs -- and not just mining them for story ideas, but to get a fresh perspective on the news we cover.


As an entertainment journalist living in Los Angeles, I have a wide number of blogs to choose from that keep me updated on what's happening around me. The L.A.-focused blogs I subscribe to include The Los Angeles Eastside Scene, Franklin Avenue, elevatedla.com, Caroline on Crack and LAist. There are a number of cities in the "-ist" series, including Toronto, Shanghai and Philadelphia — perhaps also covering a city near you?

The L.A. blog that started it all for me was Metroblogging Los Angeles, which covers almost everything about the City of Angels, including crime, food, politics, the arts and more, and is admirably interactive with its readers. The best part is the blog is also part of a multi-city series. Metroblogging covers more than 50 cities, from Atlanta and Auckland to Vancouver and Vienna.

Together, the Los Angeles blogs help me stay connected to the city I live in and more or less cover. More often than not the L.A. blogs overlap with my beat -- entertainment journalism. But for entertainment-focused news coverage I stay tuned to BuzzSugar, Best Week Ever, TiFaux, the previously mentioned ShowHype, the.LIFE Files, and my personal favorite fourfour.

Most blogs that I add to my long reading list I discover through either Google Reader's discover function (which is all the more reason to read blogs through RSS) or through StumbleUpon.

What blogs do you read to stay in touch with what's happening in your beat? How did you find out about them? Share your recommendations in the comments!

Labels: blogging

So you're tweeting. Now what? It's time to take a look at sites that are making the most out of Twitter's ability to instantly transmit the news.

Instead of waiting for traffic updates online or via radio, some internet users are turning to Commuter Feed. The site lets Twitter users send updates about local traffic around the country directly to the site, where the feeds are searchable by city or metropolitan area.



Politweets tracks the political discussion happening in the Twitterverse by aggregating tweets about political candidates. The most recent tweets about Democratic candidates are on the left and Republicans are on the right. In the middle is a list of candidates positioned by how much they are being discussed (Barack Obama is currently at the top of the pile).

Because the web is all about citizen journalism, truemors is made up of news submitted by the average Joes and Janes of Twitter. It's kind of like a micro social news networking site that aggregates the content that people care about from a variety of news sources. Twemes is also a great way of indexing what people are talking about online. The site is useful for searching tagged tweets on any subject, like, for example, John McCain.

Twitterers are already discussing major news events, including Super Tuesday and Sunday's Academy Awards; it's just a matter of major news organizations grabbing the opportunity and creating their own news hubs.

Did you know Twitter isn't just for sending text? TwitPic and Twixtr both allow users to send photos either online or via mobile phone through Twitter. So instead of simply including links to new stories, anyone can add photos to accompany their tweets (and we know photos are a great visual attraction).

Twittervision combines Twitter and Google Maps to create a real-time visual idea of where tweets are coming from. The only requirement to appear on the site is a location and an image defined in your Twitter post. The 3D version is also worth a look, if only for the coolness factor.



Twittermap creates a visual display of geotagged tweets and can also be used to find Twitterers by location. Those familiar with data mashup editor Yahoo! Pipes can use geo twitter to get a geotagged feed of your Twitter posts, which can be displayed on a Yahoo or Google map.

There are a lot of interesting and useful sites based on Twitter and with the Twitter API up for grabs, there is no reason that journalists can't be a part of the next evolution in news.


Also on 10,000 Words

• The top 7 mistakes new Twitter users make
• Twitter is...
• How to analyze your Twitter followers and friends
• 10 Journalists you should follow on Twitter

Labels: blogging, maps, photos, social networking, widgets

Twitter is changing the way news is delivered and read. For the uninitiated, Twitter is an online application that lets users send short messages of 140 characters or less called "tweets" through instant message, cell phone or its website. Many journalists are already using it as a microblogging platform or, alternatively, as a way to keep friends and colleagues updated on their daily lives.

ReadWriteWeb has encapsulated the reasons why Twitter and journalism go hand in hand:

Unlike TV or newspaper, Twitter allows for a conversation. Like its new media brethren, blogs, Twitter encourages discourse and feedback. For reporters that aren't afraid to get down and dirty, Twitter is a golden opportunity to build a rapport with readers and gauge public opinion. It also makes readers feel more connected to the news when they can participate in a discussion about it as it happens, often times with the people reporting it first hand.

Twitter is built for the new news cycle. "Traditional news operated on a 24-hour cycle. Blogs shortened this to minutes and hours. Twitter shortens it further to seconds," [Patrick Ruffini of TechPresident] writes. "It's not right for every piece of information. It's certainly not well suited for longer analysis. But when it comes to instantly assembling raw data from several sources that then go into fully baked news stories, nothing beats it."

CNN's Rick Sanchez (@ricksanchezcnn) is a great example of how a mainstream news organization is using Twitter to deliver news. In addition to providing links to CNN's news content, Rick also engages in conversation with many of his thousands of online followers.



Other traditional news media making use of Twitter are BBC News, CBC News (Canada), Le Monde - World, the New York Times, CNN Breaking News, The Oregonian, Orlando Sentinel, ESPN, and a host of others indexed here. It's about time your news organization was added to the list, right?

Creating links to news stories on Twitter and redirecting them to your site is a great way to generate additional traffic or to notify Twitter users of breaking news. The site is also useful for liveblogging or tracking reaction to local stories.

Twitter is used more often for personal discourse, but journalists should approach twittering of their personal lives with caution. Tech blogger extraordinaire Tiffany B. Brown explains why she tweets and why having the public following your public life may not be such a good idea. Nevertheless, Twitter has quickly become the essential tool in every newsroom's and journalist's arsenal.


Also on 10,000 Words

• The top 7 mistakes new Twitter users make
• Twitter is...
• How to analyze your Twitter followers and friends
• 10 Journalists you should follow on Twitter

Labels: blogging, rss, social networking

Are you plan on covering an event that will captivate a large audience. Sure you could write a traditional encapsulation of the goings-on, but why not liveblog it?

Liveblogging can provide up to the minute coverage of any interesting event for online readers to follow, including award shows, political events, natural disasters, court proceedings, sports events, you name it.

Whether the blog is presented in chronological or reverse chronological order is up to you, but depends largely on how many live visitors you are expecting. If a great number of readers follow the liveblog as it is updated, it is best to put updates at the top, so they can be seen quickly without the need to scroll to the bottom of the page. It may seem disappointing if there aren't a large number visitors aren't reading the liveblog as its being posted, but keep in mind most users read liveblogs well after the event as a recap of what they have (or haven't seen).

CoverItLive also provides an instant message-like approach to liveblogging and allows the blogger to include real time photos, video and audio clips along with the text. Read extensive reviews of the service at ReadWriteWeb and Webware.

If you don't have a laptop handy (or even if you do), its easy to send updates from your cell phone or text messaging doodad via microblogging tool Twitter. Find out more about the journalistic applications of Twitter at Poynter's E-Media Tidbits.

For those who are covering a live event and need a little extra help with their lines, CuePrompter is like having on your own teleprompter in the field. If you have a laptop handy, simply type in your copy into the space provided and select the speed at which you read. Place the laptop near the camera and you're ready to read.

Labels: blogging

Many of web editors 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. Its 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.

NASCAR fans will get a real kick out of the Formula One Grand Prix Circuit map that shows satellite images of racetracks around the world.

Labels: blogging, maps, rss

Many newspapers, television programs, radio broadcasts and other media outlets by now have associated blogs, but there are a lot that can use some help. Here are some tips for making the most of the online space:


1. Include exclusive content
The internet is a great place to include content that, in the interest of space/time, didn't make the broadcast/newspaper/magazine. Exclusive interview and candid outtakes are a great addition to any blog and can be touted in the original story.

2. Ask open-ended questions
The best way to encourage reader participation is to ask questions that will get the audience talking. This works well with commentary or opinion posts where the reader is itching to share their own view. This can be as easy as asking readers for their input at the end of each post. When readers do comment, respond. It is important that the blog feels like a community and that readers feel like they are a part of that community.

3. Make your blog pop
Are you still using a stock template or does your blog have a unique design that stands out? Even if your blog is gritty, hard-news investigative journalism it could still use a little bit of color. Find a designer to give your blog a makeover or find a unique template that suits your topic.

4. Create eye-catching headlines
Your headline can be the difference between a visitor taking the time to read a post or clicking on something else. A great headline is not only eye catching, but should include relevant keywords that tell the reader what to expect from the post. Headlines — and the entire post for that matter — should be optimized for search engines to ensure the highest number of visitors possible.

5. Be concise
Many journalists and professional writers, when given the opportunity, will ramble. Blogs are not the place to publish that 50,000-word article that got canned. Keep your posts short and to the point. Break up long blocks of text into shorter ones and include headers when necessary.

6. Make use of your RSS feed
Most blogs include an RSS feed that users can subscribe to via a feed reader or email. Make the link to your feed obvious: include an RSS icon somewhere on the page and encourage readers to subscribe to your content. Page views are important so include the first paragraph or two in your RSS feed and a link back to your blog to read the rest.

7. Be a social bookmarker
Social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us, Twitter, Reddit, Digg allow readers to share your posts with others who may not otherwise see your content. For example, check out the "Share This" or "Twit This" button at th end of each 10,000 Words post.

8. Interact with other bloggers
With the millions of bloggers out there, chances there are other bloggers that are that covering similar issues. Find out who these bloggers are and send them links to some of your posts that they may find interesting. There are many local bloggers who are eager to trade links with an established media organization and may be doing so already.

9. Post consistently...
...and not just when news breaks. Having a inconsistent blogging schedule dissuades readers from coming back. If you build it, they will come!

Some examples of great blogs include Dallas Morning News' Cowboy Blog, Ted Allen's Top Chef blog (Bravo) and VH1's Best Week Ever blog. Have a media-affiliated blog that you love? Share it in the comments.

Labels: blogging

Currently, the only way to have your own radio show is to a) be a part of an existing radio station b) podcast c) set up an antenna and some tin foil. Blog Talk Radio is changing the radio game and is revolutionizing how bloggers interact with their readers.

Blog Talk Radio lets anyone with a telephone and an internet connection to set up their own streaming online talk radio show. The best part is listeners can call a dedicated number to talk with the on-air personality live. A lot of newspapers have set up online chats between sources and readers, but this allows readers to actually hear the person as they talk. Media outlets who podcast can now make them interactive using the service.



Registration takes only a few minutes and hosts are given a number to call to start their own show. Listeners can either call a US telephone number to tune in or listen from the embedded audio player on the site. During the show, up to five others can participate as guests or call-in responders. Once the show is finished, it is archived online and automatically made available as a podcast and RSS feed.

Media companies, bloggers and other businesses can join the ranks of The Huffington Post and The Star-Ledger and set up branded channels with shows hosted by in-house personalities. Check out an example of a Blog Talk Radio show in the embedded player below.

Labels: blogging, radio

It's officially been 10 years since blogs have existed and its amazing to look back on the progress blogs have made within the scope of journalism. Blogs started off universally reviled as a "second-class" journalism relegated to people with too much time on their hands. Then the wave of citizen journalism came and now nearly every newspaper has a blog. Some blogs like Drudge Report are now venerated in the journalism community. So what do the next ten years hold?

As blogs become essential components of online news sites, media organizations will incorporate more bloggers from outside the newsroom. Great media blogs include SF Gate Tech Chronicles, the L.A. Times Homicide Blog and VH1's Best Week Ever blog, as well as great local blogs like Port Orange (Fla.) Images and Metroblogging L.A. While there is still a distinction between bloggers and journalists (see evidence here ), the gap is becoming less noticeable.

Labels: blogging