The iPad, a touchscreen tablet device developed by Apple, has some observers predicting it will revolutionize journalism. While the revolution is yet to be seen, the iPad could present the viable distribution model that news media are looking for.




The iPad can present text, video, audio, and more in an interactive and mobile environment that makes the device tailor-made for traditional news media. The Associated Press, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Condé Nast, whose publications include Wired Magazine, The New Yorker, and Vanity Fair, have all expressed an interest in iPad apps and have been working to create content for the medium to debut within a few months of its release. You can view an example of how Wired Magazine plans to develop content for the iPad in the video below.



While it would seem like the iPad, which will be released in early April, is an untested medium, it is actually not. The iPhone and similar smartphones have proved that audiences are willing to pay for content that they can access on their mobile devices. Many news media have focused their iPhone apps on unique interactive content or news headlines, but the iPad provides a space and a better viewing experience for feature-length stories and long-form video, content that many newsrooms are already creating.

Unlike traditional print publications, there are no printing costs associated with the iPad, only the cost of producing quality content and a team of developers and designers to develop the content for the tablet.

The paperless platform means the iPad is also a great medium for startups and independent newsrooms who want to provide content to a measurable audience. The iPad can potentially liberate these organizations from the short-form blogging model that many have followed (usually based on their resources) and create long form stories, video content, and interactive content, the cost of which is supported by readers. And because the audience is paying for the content, they are much more likely to be invested in the stories produced by the organization, whether it is a traditional or non-traditional news outlet.

In addition to the revenue from paid subscriptions, news media can also include advertising in their iPad publications. The experience is, however, much more interactive and immersive than anything currently being done on the web or in print. Advertisements can be interactive, as shown in the video, allowing the user to experience the ad in a less intrusive way. The user can also select the ad and be directed to a web page where they can purchase the product immediately.

Designing and creating a publication for the iPad requires specialized programming skills that are usually beyond the talents of the average journalist, but the potential revenue is worth the investment of hiring a knowledgeable team of programmers familiar with the Apple SDK (Software Development Kit). You can start developing your iPad app by downloading the SDK.

News media waited to develop content for the web and missed the boat. News media waited to develop iPhone apps and are now struggling to push their content through an already crowded marketplace. Traditional media are not known for their desire to experiment, but publications should seize the distribution and revenue opportunities now instead of scrambling to catch up later...again.


Thanks to Priya Ganapati of Wired, on whose presentation this post is based


Also on 10,000 Words:

• 21 iPhone-friendly news sites and how to format your own
• 10 Essential iPhone apps for bloggers and reporters
• 5 iPhone applications that can revolutionize mobile journalism

Labels: mobile

By now you've seen or heard about the growing number of iPhone applications available from mainstream news organizations, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Sky News. The mobile apps are a step in the right direction, but disappointingly most don't offer much beyond the ability to read or share the news stories that are available elsewhere on the web.

The iPhone is a powerful tool that can elevate journalism beyond just reading stories, but also interacting with them in new and different ways. The following applications demonstrate that the possibilities for what can be done with the technology are limitless.

1. SpotCrime

For New York City iPhone owners, finding out what crimes have occurred in the neighborhood is as easy as launching the SpotCrime app and viewing crimes on a map. Users enter an address and the app plots recent crimes, including burglary, theft, assault, on a Google map. The information is also available in an easy to scan, text-based list.

SpotCrime is available online for neighborhoods all over the United States, and is similar to the many crime maps produced by news and independent organizations. Yet it is the unique mobile offering that is unrivaled by the media outlets who are often the gatekeepers of such data and statistics.

2. Kindle for iPhone

The popularity of the Kindle and its companion iPhone app are proof that users are more than willing to read long passages of text on handheld devices. This is good news for media outlets to looking make lengthy content available to mobile readers.

With hundreds of thousands of books available for reading on the iPhone and iPod Touch, there is hope for the 50,000-word news stories that have been ditched in favor of the quick, bite-sized information available on the web. The concept also introduces a possible revenue stream in which media outlets can charge for the subscription service or for the individual stories themselves, the incentive being the expanded stories/coverage are available for on-the-go reading.

3. Howcast

Several iPhone apps developed by mainstream media offer news video that has been repackaged from on-air or online broadcasts and made available for the iPhone. Howcast is no different, but instead of news stories, the site offers how to videos on a range of subjects — from how to make sushi to how to master online career networking.

It's time for newspapers to stop looking at the front page as the only source of material for iPhone applications. Many papers offer content in other sections that can be transformed into handy iPhone apps. For example, the archived recipes from the food section could be made available to the cook on the go and the entertainment listings are perfect mobile material for the last-minute thrill seeker.

4. iheart radio

There are what seems like a million radio apps available in the iTunes store that offer a variety of ways to hear music or live radio stations. iheart radio, the free application from Clear Channel radio, is no different. What is remarkable is that the app has been downloaded by more than a million users and increased the Clear Channel Radio audience by 15 percent. Such a large percentage of new listeners is enviable by anyone's standards and is all the more reason to pursue mobile applications.

iheart radio, which is also available online and for the Blackberry lets users pick a radio station by city or genre and listen directly from their mobile device.

5. HearPlanet

The HearPlanet app is a lot like having a tour guide in your pocket: audio clips that describe thousands of landmarks around the world or available with a tap of the finger. The application, which has both free and paid versions, includes interactive maps and a GPS-based function to find audio tours of nearby locations.

Like SpotCrime, there is a massive opportunity for journalism organizations to aggregate location-based/geotagged news and make it available in a mobile environment. Whereas SpotCrime is useful for time-based incidents, HearPlanet serves as a model for showcasing evergreen content that has been produced or written about a particular location. For example, if a user wanted to find out more about a park they were visiting, they could launch the figurative app and find news stories on the park's dedication, its history, previous events that had been held there and yes, even the crimes that were committed there.


Many media organizations lack the funds or resources to produce iPhone apps, but it shouldn't stop everyone from imagining or working toward the next best thing in mobile journalism. If resources are a problem, consider creating a mobile-friendly or iPhone-friendly site to capitalize on the growing crop of readers using mobile devices.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• 21 iPhone-friendly news sites and how to format your own
• 6 Ways to create a mobile version of your site
• 10 Essential iPhone apps for bloggers and reporters
• 10 Not-so-essential (but totally cool) iPhone apps

Labels: mobile

Many mainstream news organizations are jumping on the mobile bandwagon and creating versions of their sites that are streamlined for iPhone users. Since many news sites are a cacophony of links, the more simplistic design helps mobile users get the news they want, fast.

FOX News	Al Jazeera	LA Times
ESPN	CBS News	AP News
NY Times	Chicago Sun-Times	Chicago Tribune
CNN	Reuters	Time
NewsOK	The Australian	CRI
USA Today	News.com.au	Current
CBC	Newsweek	Toronto Star

...and how to create your own iPhone-formatted site


Of course you could hire a programmer or three to create your own custom mobile-friendly site, but in these tough economic times, many newsrooms lack the time or resources. There are several sites that will quickly convert your existing RSS feed into a full-fledged mobile-friendly site, two of which are Intersquash and Mippin. Both sites require a simple setup process and once you have finished, simply place a bit of code in your existing index file and iPhone/mobile users will be automatically redirected.

No matter how you create your iPhone-friendly site, a note of caution: because of the iPhone's ability to show the normal-sized internet in all its glory, many users prefer not to use a mobile version, so it is key to add a link back to the regular version of your site.

If you need more inspiration from outside the journalism sphere, check out CSSiphone.com or inspiredology's 27 Optimized iPhone Websites

Thanks to @matylda @alanreininger @danieldoyle @ksablan and @krystynt for their help in creating this post.


Also on 10,000 Words:

• How the iPhone will revolutionize journalism
• 10 Essential iPhone apps for bloggers and reporters
• 10 Not-so-essential (but totally cool) iPhone apps

Labels: design, mobile

The way we read the news is changing, so it only makes sense that the way we follow the news should change as well. Even relatively new news aggregators like Google News seem antiquated compared to these game-changing tools.

Track This Now

Track This Now is an impressive tool in which the user inputs keywords and a Google Map outputs where the phrase is being mentioned by news sources around the world. In the below screengrab it is evident that media organizations all over the world are talking about president-elect Obama, as shown by the markers on the map. The latest news on Obama or any other searched-for topic is shown in the pane on the right.

Spreed News

Spreed recognizes that many internet users want their news quick, fast and in a hurry. The free service displays news articles a few words at a time, making them easily digestable and reducing the time necessary to read each story. It's hard to tell if the service will catch on, but it will definitely be popular among those with short attention spans.

MemeTracker

MemeTracker analyzes almost a million news stories a day to determine what quotes and phrases appear most frequently over time. Memorable quotes like "Lipstick on a pig" and "The fundamentals of our economy are strong" echoed strongly across the blogosphere and as such are marked by strong peaks on the graph. The site, which was created by a team of researchers from Cornell University, has a great search function for viewing the popularity of quotes based on keywords, such as "economy" in the example below.

Stitcher

One of the latest iPhone applications lets owners of the mobile device listen to news stories on the go. Unlike other mobile news radio stations in which users tune in to a 24-hour a day broadcast, Stitcher users can listen to audio news articles from news organizations like NPR and CNN on demand, as well as pause, rewind and fast forward. Favorite news stories can bookmarked and saved for later listening.

DiggGraphr

DiggGraphr is a tree map visualization of the latest news on Digg and is reminiscent of the Marumushi newsmap (previously covered here). Each story is represented by a color-coded square. An initial visit to the page can be a little off-putting because selecting "All" will bring up headlines for spammy stories with just one or two Diggs, but by selecting a category in the drop down menu, users can filter the information into any one of Digg's relevant categories.

NewsIsFree: NewsMaps

NewsMaps tracks the latest news from a number of popular US media organizations in a similar manner as DiggGraphr, albeit in an even more scaled down way. Recent stories are grouped by source and represented by blocks of color, red signifying the most recent news. Users can filter by keywords, source or any of several other factors. The NewsMap also offers a couple of unique features including the ability to directly clip, email, blog or track the article, all without leaving the site.




Previously on 10,000 Words:
• 7 Innovative ways of visualizing the news
• The big scrolling debate: Do users care about page length?

Labels: design, mobile, news on the news

Not too long ago, 10,000 Words featured 10 Essential iPhone apps for bloggers and reporters. However, as any iPhone owner knows, the gadget isn't all business. Bloggers and reporters, in addition to photographers, writers, sound editors and logophiles, will find the following iPhone apps are worth a download.

Night Camera

Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: $.99

The iPhone camera is perfect for snapping photos in daylight under perfect weather conditions, but is relatively useless when the sun goes down. Night Camera reduces shakiness and blurriness to optimize nighttime images.

Tumblrette

Average Rating: 4 Stars Price: $1.99

Quickly post text, audio, photos and more to Tumblr via the iPhone. The application is heads above the free options floating around the iTunes store.

FourTrack

Average Rating: 4 Stars Price: $9.99

Okay so it's not exactly ProTools, but FourTrack lets users record and mix tracks on the go. The app has a lot of great features, but sadly no waveform visualization.

Stanza

Average Rating: 4½ Stars Price: Free

Turn your iPhone into an eReader with this app that gives users access to over 40,000 new and classic books. Perfect for reading Pride and Prejudice during endless meetings.

PanoLab

Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: Free

You could take a bunch of pictures on the iPhone, upload them to a stitching program and create panoramas. Or you could just use PanoLab's simple tool for creating vertical and horizontal panoramas. PanoLab Pro ($4.99) has additional image correction features.

WeDict

Average Rating: 4 Stars Price: Free

WeDict is hands down the best, and most user-friendly dictionary application. And who can argue with the price?

SpeedType

Average Rating: 2 Stars Price: Free

Using a computer keyboard is one thing, but to become an iPhone typing master takes practice. Use this app to improve your dexterity and send those text messages with lightning speed.

MyAnalytics

Average Rating: 3 Stars Price: $1.99

Admit it: You check your blog stats every few hours (if not minutes). Stats junkies can check the latest numbers from their Google Analytics accounts using this nifty app.

Coffee Finder

Average Rating: 4 Stars Price: Free

Ah, coffee. The saving grace of many a web worker. If you're craving a cup of joe, use this app to find the nearest Starbucks to get things brewing.

iNap

Average Rating: 3½ Stars Price: $.99

If you'd rather skip the coffee but absolutely need to be somewhere important, iNap uses the iPhone's GPS technology to notify you when you are approaching your destination, giving you some time to catch some Zs. Not recommended for those behind the wheel.

Labels: mobile

Now that newspapers have hired armies of developers to create mobile versions of their sites, old media is catching up to what most of the web has already known: the mobile web is where it's at. The good news is you don't need a team of developers to create a mobile-optimized version of your site or blog, just a couple minutes and one of the following free online tools:

1. MoFuse

Creating a mobile site with MoFuse couldn't be simpler. Just input your existing URL and a few registration items and a mobile version of your site is ready instantly. There are a number of other options for creating redirects, analyzing statistics, monetizing the newly created site and more.

2. Wirenode

Wirenode touts on its front page that it can create a mobile site in about five minutes, but it actually takes less than two. The other three minutes can be spent customizing the look of the mobile page, including adding images and changing the default color scheme.

3. UBIK.com

For those who want to build a mobile site from scratch, but don't want to bother with the initial coding, UBIK has a number of available editable templates created especially for mobile phones. Building a mobile site with UBIK is a little like building your first blog: You select the templates and edit this and that until you arrive at a look that suits you. The site is very novice-friendly, meaning experienced designers and coders might feel a little underwhelmed.

4. Google Reader

By appending Google Reader's mobile URL with your own RSS feed (ex: http://www.google.com/reader/m/view/feed/http://feeds.feedburner.com/10000words/wxYG), you can instantly create a mobile version of your site that contains just the headlines of your content/posts, because after all a stripped-down version of a site is what mobile users are really after.

5. Google Mobile Optimizer

Google's officially sanctioned mobile site creator will display all of your content, including full text, links and, optionally, images in a nice mobile version. Simply enter a URL and Google will output the mobile-optimized site in seconds.

6. Mippin

The online service touts its ability to make searching the web on a phone easier, but it also instantly creates a bare version of any site, much in the same way the aforementioned sites do. The difference is, Mippin's default layout looks better than any of the other online tools and the creation process is less convoluted.




Once you've created your mobile-optimized site, you will need to place a link to it on your existing site or augment your code to redirect mobile phone users to the appropriate version of your site.

Search Engine Guide and Sami Mäkeläinen both have great tips and advice for creating a mobile site. The one thing to remember is that a site should be presented in a way most beneficial to users and if those users are mobile phone owners, a mobile-optimized site will do just that.

Labels: mobile

Let's face it. No one — save for shut-ins and the Pulitzer Prize committee — wants to read a story that spreads over several pages of a newspaper. Pictures and graphics are not gonna help and putting on the net only exacerbates the problem. So what is a long-winded journalist to do? Here are some ways to make the long story more palatable:

Break it up

Newspapers ought to take a cue from DailyLit, a forward-thinking site that makes classic literature like Dickens and Dumas, as well as newly released books, available for online reading through installments. Users can select a book they want to read and receive daily chunks of it either through email or RSS.

RSS itself is a great way to encourage readers to follow a long with a particular story. Instead of making an excessively long story available online in one piece, deliver different sections of the story through RSS over the course of a few days to ensure the reader digests more of the story.

The same idea could be applied to Twitter: instead of sending a portion of the story through RSS, simply send a link to Twitter followers/readers.

Let the story stand alone

GOOD Magazine, which, along with the Las Vegas Sun, is at the forefront of new media innovation, makes a free 6x6 inch, mini-newspaper available in select Starbucks locations that concentrates on a single story. This week's story is on carbon emissions and is made up of a large and detailed graph of how greenhouse gases affect the world. The first fold-out page is a full-sized ad that the reader sees before reading the story (ad revenue!). Not only is this a genius way of putting a story in front of readers who will likely have a few minutes to spare, it is also a great way to promote brand identity.

More pics: Front cover, Inside ad, Full-page story

Go mobile

Now that more Kindles are finding their way into consumers' hands and the iPhone and BlackBerry have made reading on a cell phone less of a chore, it's time to adapt long investigative pieces or feature stories for reading on mobile devices. If people are willing to read books on a Kindle, they are likely willing to read the newspaper. And now that news sites are being optimized for the web, it's time to optimize the stories themselves.


Whichever way the story is presented, it must reflect the growing segment of the population who don't have time to read long pages of text. After all, what good is a story if no one reads it?

Labels: mobile, news on the news, rss, site management

The power of the net to provide more innovative political coverage than what is possible in traditional forms of media has never been more evidenced than in this political season. Major news organizations and citizen journalists alike have harnessed the power of the web to provide the most comprehensive coverage of the US presidential election than has ever been possible. Here are some of the best ways to follow the political landscape online:

1. perspctv

If there weren't 14 other sites on this list then perspctv would be the one stop for any election news seeker. The site culls the latest news, blog posts and tweets and provides insightful charts and maps as well as an embeddable widget for keeping track of it all.

2. Patchwork Nation

We know the candidates are campaigning all over the country, but who are they campaigning in front of? The Christian Science Monitor has the answer. The site's analysis shows both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama spent a good chunk of their time in wealthy suburbs and big cities.

3. Election '08 Twitter Chatter

Everyone knows Twitter is abuzz with political views, skews and insights, including the observations of Twitter stars FakeSarahPalin and CNN's Rick Sanchez. Twitter Chatter is one way to wrangle these conversations as well as to see on a map where they are coming from.

4. FiveThirtyEight.com

FiveThirtyEight.com is the dream of any political statistics hound. The site has the latest polls, the latest news, the latest charts, graphs, statistics, hypotheticals...the latest everything. It's like a political rabbit hole...check it out only if you have time to spare.

5. Map of 2008 Presidential Contributions

"Show me the money!" Okay it's 2008, not 1996, but if you're curious to know where the campaign money is coming from, Political Base has you covered with a well-designed Google map as well as a list of big name contributors and a handy search form.

6. Tube the Vote!

Tube the Vote strives to provide a balanced view of issues that are affecting this year's presidential election by scouring the web for video, blog posts, Flickr photos and more that celebrate or repudiate either side.

7. Candidates' life journeys

Get to know the presidential and vice presidential candidates a little better by following the milestones of their lives on a Google Map. Anyone can follow the journey of John McCain, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin or Joe Biden.

8. PolitiFact's The Attack Files

Voters tired of the spin and searching for the truth will appreciate PolitiFact's analysis of recent campaign assertions. Was Sen. Obama referring to Sarah Palin when he mentioned "lipstick on a pig?" No way, says PolitiFact. Does Sen. McCain support tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas? Not that simple, according to the site.

9. Election 08

iPhone users will be glad to know that they don't have to be at a computer to track the latest on the 2008 presidential race. The iPhone application is a great source for tracking the latest polls as long as you don't check to often — Election 08 is sometimes behind in its updates.

10. McCainPedia/Obamapedia

To say these two wikis are unbiased would be a big misstatement — the former is run by the DNC, the other is populated by Obama fans. Still, using modern technology to encourage citizen participation is never a bad thing.

11. What Would You Say to the President?

This genius bit of citizen participation encourages everyone to not only speak their mind to President Bush, but to presidential hopefuls John McCain and Barack Obama as well. Recent responses — which are themselves wholly interesting and telling — are displayed on each page.

12. Google Maps (campaign trail)

This Google map knows where the candidates will be and when and makes that information at the click of a button. Campaign appearances for both candidates are listed in reverse chronological order as well as marked on a map.

13. Google Maps (video)

Video of campaign speeches from both Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain are tracked and mapped on these map mashups that incorporate video from YouTube.

14. Everymoment Now

Everymoment Now uses a unique graph to chart the number of times a candidate was mentioned on any particular day since August of this year. Clicking on a bar in the chart reveals news stories that were published that day as well as more detailed charts and graphs.

15. ABC News' Match-o-Matic

If you plan on voting in the upcoming US election, but still don't know which candidate to vote for, the Match-o-Matic is sure to help. The humorous, interactive quiz gives the user two quotes — one from Sen. Obama and one from Sen. McCain — and the user selects which one they agree with most without knowing who said it. The final tally reveals which presidential candidate's platform the user is more likely to side with.

Labels: citizen journalism, database, maps, mobile, photos, social networking, video, widgets, wiki