Friday's launch of the iPhone 3G means that millions more people will change how they interact with their cell phones. The iPhone represents a growing opportunity for news organizations to take on the mobile web and to recoup tech savvy consumers who have shunned old forms of media.


Gone are the days of waiting for the evening paper or the 7 o'clock news to find out about the day's events. The iPhone provides instant information at the tap of a finger which gives users the ability to pull up any factoid in a matter of seconds.

This means even shorter deadlines for reporters, and even quicker turn around on blurbs that can be posted to the web immediately. It also means consumers will be more receptive to mobile video which, on the iPhone's predecessors, had to be viewed on a screen the size of a postage stamp. The phone currently has built-in YouTube access for those videos hosted on the video sharing site, but it puts a greater demand on Apple to create Flash compatibility on the phone so news sites can provide video in a central location.

If consumers continue to favor smartphones for newspapers, it spells the demise of the 100,000 word story that, let's be honest, no one but the Pulitzer Prize committee is reading anyway. Flowery language and intro paragraphs will eventually give way to succinct stories that can be read and digested quickly.

The iPhone's increasing popularity also means a definite increase in citizen journalism. Ordinary citizens can use the phone's built-in camera to take photos of news as it happens and email it to their local or national news outlet. Or, as more users become familiar with the phone's unique typing interface, they will post their own news in whatever manner they want.

Flickr is already seeing a rise in photographs submitted from iPhones, and several Twitter applications are making it easier to send news directly from the phone.

Many media companies, like the Los Angeles Times, CNN, and NPR have already acknowledged the technical capabilities of the phone by creating mobile-friendly sites. This is tame compared to the possibilities the iPhone holds.

The GPS-enabled phone is an untapped space for news organizations to provide extremely hyperlocal news directly to the reader by mapping news events happening directly around them. Imagine being able to access a map and know that a fire is happening right down the street from you.

The great barrier to mass adoption of new technology is often price. But now that the cost of the iPhone has dropped significantly (and perhaps even more in the future?), the number of iPhone and other smartphone users is likely to grow dramatically.

As technologically advanced as the iPhone is, it still lacks obvious features that still haven't been addressed in its latest iteration. But as the phone and other similar technologies grow and develop, the opportunities for new and innovative journalism will arise.

One can only hope that these developments will occur in the near future, but, as has been shown in the past, the field of journalism is slow to catch up to available technology. Journalism shouldn't be catching up to technology; it should be at the forefront of its creation.


For a list of iPhone development resources, visit Positive Space.

Labels: mobile, news on the news

The Brooklyn Museum is as traditional a museum as museums go (though one could argue that the work of artist Takashi Murakami currently on display is far from traditional). But much like journalism, another age-old institution, this museum is embracing the mobile phone and other new technology to heighten the experience of its visitors.

In the past one could meander haplessly through the halls, gawking at art and artifacts with no more understanding of each work than what was written on a tiny placard. Now, some of those placards have a cell phone icon and a number to dial that provides even more information about a particular exhibit.


At the Brooklyn Museum, visitors can call (718) 352-9589 and enter the item number displayed near the artwork (e.g. 12 corresponds to the intricate work "Flower Matango") and listen to either the artist (in this case Murakami) or a curator discuss the piece. The best part is museum guests are allowed to leave comments on the phone system as they navigate through its halls.

It is true that other museums have special listening devices, but most can only be used in that particular location. Making the audio available by phone means that any of the billions of cell phone users worldwide can access the additional information. The theory is similar to creating a multimedia project that only works in Firefox. Sure, a large percentage of users can access the content, but those that can't aren't exactly willing to download a new browser just to view the one site.


Other multimedia features of the museum include video incorporated into the exhibits through the use of high definition televisions and computers strategically placed around the museum for visitors to leave comments. At last check, one computer had 474 comments, an impressive number for any institution, whether it be a museum or online news site.

Labels: audio, mobile

The news happens fast and if you have equally fast fingers that news can be shared with the blogosphere immediately. Blogging from a mobile phone, or moblogging, is a great way to create news updates while working in the field or perhaps anywhere a bulky laptop wouldn't be practical or permitted. There are a number of ways to make blogging on those tiny little keys a little easier.

Utterz lets users send any combination of text, photos, audio or video from a mobile phone and, using Utterz Connections, post to WordPress, Blogger, YouTube, TypePad, Twitter, MovableType and more. The site is an excellent way to send mobile messages or "utterz" to your blog or to yourself as a repository for notes. Messages can also easily edited and published directly from your mobile phone via m.utterz.com.

Blogger users can post blog items by email which can be published automatically or saved for later. Simply setup a unique email address on the Blogger site and the email subject will become the title of the post, the text body will become the post and image attachments will be tacked to the end. The end point of the post should be designated with #end so Blogger recognizes when the content ends. This is to ensure that the signature some email programs add to the end of outgoing emails doesn't show up in the post. You can also send messages to go@blogger.com which, through a quick setup process, will post directly to your blog.

Tech-savvy journalists or web administrators can setup WordPress so that blog posts can be sent by email. The instructions to set up mobile blogging are available here. By using the WPhone plugin, WordPress bloggers can access the site on a mobile phone. Users can also set up a mobile-friendly version of their WordPress blog by using a plugin that will automatically detect if the visitor is a mobile phone.

iPhone/iPod Touch owners can use Typepad's mobile interface for blogging on the go. A similar system is available for users of Movable Type.

Finally, if you don't plan on or don't want to write full blog posts from your phone, you can also use Twitter as a way of sending short messages to the masses. There are a number of tools for integrating tweets into your blog like this one for Blogger and this one for WordPress.

Labels: mobile

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

Mobile news has been in its developing stages for a while, but as phone plans get cheaper, cell phones get fancier and the iPhone becomes popular the demand for news to go is steadily increasing. Most PDAs and iPhones are capable of viewing the internet as it would appear on a computer screen. However, most news sites are not compatible with phones with smaller screens.

Ideally, there should be one site for regular viewers and another, more scaled-down version for mobile phone users (i.e. www.facebook.com and m.facebook.com). Mobile news for the average cell phone means less text, little to no images, more links and an easy to use navigation system. Think Vitamin offers detailed tips on making your site more mobile friendly. In addition, xFruits offers, among other services, an RSS to mobile feed that scales down news to its most basic format.

Labels: mobile