The Beginner's Guide to RSS
Monday, November 02, 2009
Do you want to keep tabs on your favorite blogs or websites but don't have time to go clicking around the internet to keep up with new content? It's probably time for you to try RSS.
RSS, short for "Really Simple Syndication," is a valuable tool for web users, but especially for journalists who use RSS feeds to streamline their online reading and newsgathering process. RSS makes it easy to keep track of many different blogs at once and to be notified of breaking news in your beat.
What is RSS and how does it work?
Most online news sites and blogs have one or several RSS "feeds" that you can subscribe to and be notified of new posts and articles. Reading these RSS feeds requires an RSS reader. There are many different kinds of RSS readers, but the easiest and most intuitive is Google Reader. If you don't have a Google account, just complete the short registration process by clicking the "Create an account" button. From there you can start adding your favorite news feeds.
Sounds great. How do I do it?
Visit any site or blog that you want to subscribe to and look for an orange RSS icon or use Cmd-F (Mac) or Ctrl-F (PC) to find the word "RSS" on the page. Click on the link and you should be taken to a page that gives you the option of adding the feed to Google. Select this option.
If you can't find the RSS feed or just want to add your feeds within Google Reader itself, click the "Add a subscription" button located in the top left area of Google Reader and enter the URL/web address of the site you want to add. If the site has an RSS feed, Google Reader will automatically add it to your list.
What if I don't know which blogs I should add?
If you aren't sure which blogs you should be following, you can also enter keywords such as "education" or "health" in the same box. Google will recommend blog feeds based on your search terms. After you begin adding blogs, Google Reader will recommend similar blogs that you should be reading. These blogs are found in the "Recommended sources" menu in the left sidebar.
I've added feeds to my RSS reader. What now?
RSS works a lot like email. You will get notifications of new posts and articles in what looks like an inbox. Take a look at the Google Reader layout. On the left, you'll see a list of the blogs and sites you've subscribed to. The number next to it indicates the number of "unread" items. The space on the right is the actual blog post or article.
But wait, I only see a headline or a paragraph.
Some sites make excerpts or headlines available in their RSS feeds to encourage you to read the story on their site. To read the rest of an abbreviated article, click on the headline. A new tab or window should pop up with the full article.
Wait, I'm still totally lost.
Click here for a detailed explanation of RSS or check out this video guide to RSS in plain English.
Also on 10,000 Words:
• The 20 Essential RSS Feeds for Multimedia Journalists
• Beyond Twitterfeed: Innovative uses of Twitter in the newsroom
• What is...? A handy guide for the new media novice
RSS, short for "Really Simple Syndication," is a valuable tool for web users, but especially for journalists who use RSS feeds to streamline their online reading and newsgathering process. RSS makes it easy to keep track of many different blogs at once and to be notified of breaking news in your beat.
What is RSS and how does it work?
Most online news sites and blogs have one or several RSS "feeds" that you can subscribe to and be notified of new posts and articles. Reading these RSS feeds requires an RSS reader. There are many different kinds of RSS readers, but the easiest and most intuitive is Google Reader. If you don't have a Google account, just complete the short registration process by clicking the "Create an account" button. From there you can start adding your favorite news feeds.
Sounds great. How do I do it?
Visit any site or blog that you want to subscribe to and look for an orange RSS icon or use Cmd-F (Mac) or Ctrl-F (PC) to find the word "RSS" on the page. Click on the link and you should be taken to a page that gives you the option of adding the feed to Google. Select this option. If you can't find the RSS feed or just want to add your feeds within Google Reader itself, click the "Add a subscription" button located in the top left area of Google Reader and enter the URL/web address of the site you want to add. If the site has an RSS feed, Google Reader will automatically add it to your list.
What if I don't know which blogs I should add?
If you aren't sure which blogs you should be following, you can also enter keywords such as "education" or "health" in the same box. Google will recommend blog feeds based on your search terms. After you begin adding blogs, Google Reader will recommend similar blogs that you should be reading. These blogs are found in the "Recommended sources" menu in the left sidebar.
I've added feeds to my RSS reader. What now?
RSS works a lot like email. You will get notifications of new posts and articles in what looks like an inbox. Take a look at the Google Reader layout. On the left, you'll see a list of the blogs and sites you've subscribed to. The number next to it indicates the number of "unread" items. The space on the right is the actual blog post or article.
But wait, I only see a headline or a paragraph.
Some sites make excerpts or headlines available in their RSS feeds to encourage you to read the story on their site. To read the rest of an abbreviated article, click on the headline. A new tab or window should pop up with the full article.
Wait, I'm still totally lost.
Click here for a detailed explanation of RSS or check out this video guide to RSS in plain English.
Also on 10,000 Words:
• The 20 Essential RSS Feeds for Multimedia Journalists
• Beyond Twitterfeed: Innovative uses of Twitter in the newsroom
• What is...? A handy guide for the new media novice
Labels: rss
Quickly translate whole blogs, tweets, RSS feeds
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
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.
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.
The 20 Essential RSS Feeds for Multimedia Journalists
Monday, October 13, 2008
Recent Posts:
- Improve Your Mixes With This Critical Listening Exercise
- 7 Unexpected Moments of Guitar Awesomeness
- How to Quantize Audio in Pro Tools Using Beat Detective and Elastic Audio
Recent Posts:
- Successful Self-Promotion for Photographers [Book Review]
- Amod GPS Photo Data Logger Review
- This Week in the Digital Photography School Forums
Recent Posts:
- Our Updated Endorsement Chart: Obama Leads 28-11.
- TRAIL MIX: Race Heats up the Campaign, While McCain May Face the Music on Letterman
- A Talk with Nobel Winner Krugman When He Was E&P's Columnist of the Year
E-Media Tidbits
Recent Posts:
- 40,000 Hits: Why News Sites Should Run More Cartoons and Infographics
- Journalism and the Business of Staying Relevant (and Honest)
- Why Journos Should Learn Yahoo Pipes
Recent Posts:
- New Zealand Politician Tracker
- Anton Corbijn Music Videos on Google Maps
- Present Your Vacation on Google Maps
Recent Posts:
- Belarus Association of Journalists urges international press not to forget journalists' plight
- 'Rogues gallery' brings traffic success to News & Star website
- Mainstream media's power shifting to new media, says FT's Lionel Barber
"An aggregation of journalists who blog (mostly) about journalism."
"All the Journerdism news links and commentary you can handle in your RSS reader."
Recent Posts:
- Stickam Adds Mobile Video Streaming to Compete With Qik, Flixwagon
- Woices: Echoes From a Location
- Mashable's Guide to Upcoming Conferences and Events
Recent Posts:
Recent Posts:
- Gannett Pushes for More Tech Hires, Data Centers, Niche Sites
- Welcome to the Redesigned, Revamped MediaShift
- Journalists Consider Risks, Conflicts of Running Personal Blogs
Recent Posts:
- Recording phone calls: For reporters
- The Hearst Awards for student journalists
- Sharing the passion of journalism
Recent Posts:
Recent Posts:
- 40,000 hits: why news websites should make more of cartoons (and infographics)
- Lessons in community from community editors: #1 Shane Richmond
- Wiki journalism comes to the UK
Recent Posts:
- The secret to a successful online guerrilla marketing campaign?
- Focus on 'what,' not 'where,' in planning your journalism career
- Steven Smith departs and the question arises: Who should lead newspapers' online transformation?
Recent Posts:
- How to Get Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog
- Keys to Success - Jerry Seinfeld Style
- If you have a spare 55 minutes and 33 seconds this weekend....
Recent Posts:
- MyThings Raises $5 Million to Help you Organize Your Stuff
- SourceForge Announces Hosted Applications
- Hey Businesses! The Majority Of Social Media Users Want Your Attention
Recent Posts:
- BBC reaches out to join online conversations
- Glaring omission in NYTimes piece on linking
- US newspapers lag behind in use of multimedia
Romenesko
Recent Posts:
- Newsday has been losing money for at least three years
- Atrios recalls when Slate's publisher dissed Krugman
- Additional items for October 13, 2008
Recent Posts:
- 50 Beautiful Movie Posters
- 8 Strategies For Successful Relations With Clients
- Finance and Applications: A Free Icon Set
Was your favorite feed left out? Share your essential RSS feeds in the comments. And of course, be sure to subscribe to the 10,000 Words RSS feed.
Labels: rss
3 Ways to save the 10,000-word story
Thursday, September 18, 2008
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:
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.
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
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?
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
10 Essential iPhone apps for bloggers and reporters
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
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.
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.
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.
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:
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...
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.
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?
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!
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.
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.
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).
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...
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!
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!
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.
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
Happy RSS Awareness Day!
Thursday, May 01, 2008
Today is RSS Awareness Day. Are you aware of RSS? Were you aware that RSS Awareness Day existed? And I'm totally not asking because I think you should subscribe to the 10,000 Words RSS feed. While RSS is popular in many tech circles, your average internet users hasn't quite caught on.
In the spirit of the day, here are some of the possibilities of RSS:
1. Get sports scores
2. Check the weather
3. Create a custom newspaper
4. Get constant updates on the latest in multimedia and technology news and commentary
In the spirit of the day, here are some of the possibilities of RSS:
1. Get sports scores
2. Check the weather
3. Create a custom newspaper
4. Get constant updates on the latest in multimedia and technology news and commentary
Labels: rss, site management
Sports fans are the new citizen journalists
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Sports journalism has an intrinsic fan base, so it only makes sense to parlay that readership into online sports communities.
Takkle, an offshoot of Sports Illustrated, is hooking them while they're young. The site has an active network of high school athletes and fans who can submit photos and video of their favorite teams or participate in throwdowns on just about any topic.
Impressively, the site ranks the top 25 basketball players and top 100 football players from high schools across the country. Takkle users can rate each player as over or underrated, view stats and debate the player's cred in the comments section.
Elsewhere on the site, SI.com's College Football's Greatest Rivalries video series is well-packaged and is sure to get football fans talking. All the greats are there including University of Florida v Florida State, USC v UCLA and Army v Navy. The opportunity to debate the prowess of one's home team exists elsewhere on the site at FanNation, but it would have been nice to have a comment section or direct link to each rivalry's discussion board to make the debate more immediate.
Bleacher Report is perhaps the best citizen journalism sports site not tied to a mainstream media outlet. In the vein of Associated Content, users can register and write their own sports-related articles, which, when posted, can be reviewed and rated by other users. Writers are free to speak their minds and throw unbiasedness out the window (especially today's front page story "ESPN: The Ultimate Hypocrite". Totally valid argument, but wow what a headline.) Bleacher Report covers most of the major sports, including football, basketball and soccer and its thriving community is making it one of the best on the web.
And because no post is complete without a good map, soccermap.net takes soccer league tables and plots them on a user-friendly map. The site is Europe-centric, but is very comprehensive and is RSS-enabled for news on any specific league. The site's stats can even be embedded as a widget on any webpage.
Read more about tackling the online sports section in this previous post.
Takkle, an offshoot of Sports Illustrated, is hooking them while they're young. The site has an active network of high school athletes and fans who can submit photos and video of their favorite teams or participate in throwdowns on just about any topic.
Impressively, the site ranks the top 25 basketball players and top 100 football players from high schools across the country. Takkle users can rate each player as over or underrated, view stats and debate the player's cred in the comments section.
Elsewhere on the site, SI.com's College Football's Greatest Rivalries video series is well-packaged and is sure to get football fans talking. All the greats are there including University of Florida v Florida State, USC v UCLA and Army v Navy. The opportunity to debate the prowess of one's home team exists elsewhere on the site at FanNation, but it would have been nice to have a comment section or direct link to each rivalry's discussion board to make the debate more immediate.
Bleacher Report is perhaps the best citizen journalism sports site not tied to a mainstream media outlet. In the vein of Associated Content, users can register and write their own sports-related articles, which, when posted, can be reviewed and rated by other users. Writers are free to speak their minds and throw unbiasedness out the window (especially today's front page story "ESPN: The Ultimate Hypocrite". Totally valid argument, but wow what a headline.) Bleacher Report covers most of the major sports, including football, basketball and soccer and its thriving community is making it one of the best on the web.
And because no post is complete without a good map, soccermap.net takes soccer league tables and plots them on a user-friendly map. The site is Europe-centric, but is very comprehensive and is RSS-enabled for news on any specific league. The site's stats can even be embedded as a widget on any webpage.
Read more about tackling the online sports section in this previous post.
Labels: citizen journalism, maps, rss, social networking, video
Twitter for journalists: What you need to know
Monday, February 25, 2008
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:
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
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
Weather 2.0: Interactive online tools for keeping tabs on Mother Nature
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Poor weather. The size of the weather page is shrinking in newspapers across the country and the meteorological report is almost always at the end of the television newscast. Many radio stations still read the weather at the top of the hour, but that's been happening since Marconi pushed the on button. However, there are a group of online sites that are bringing a new twist to an old phenomenon.
Old standby The Weather Channel/weather.com is also a vibrant social network. Users can post photos and video of good and bad weather happening around them and discuss local climates on the site's message boards. In addition to its hour by hour, weekend, 10-day and monthly forecasts, Weather.com boasts interactive maps, a bookmark-worthy blog written by weather experts and meteorologists and other weather-related tidbits that are too numerous to mention.
By now you're familiar with the broadcast TV weather map that has the temperature of an area overlaid on a map of that area (i.e. 75° in Miami, 32° in Seattle). Weather Bonk has scaled that map down and made it available with just a click. Regional temperatures across the globe are plotted on an interactive Google Map, along with storm warnings and embedded webcams.
WunderCam and EarthCam also take advantage of webcams stationed around the country to display local weather condition. While the sites' individual coverage doesn't exactly blanket the United States, there are many webcams to choose from.
Do you love a good sunset? Wish the natural splendor of the sun setting on the horizon would last forever? Well, Eternal Sunset took this idea and ran with it. The site is collection of 266 webcams around the world, all facing west to capture the sun set in 48 different countries. Eternal Sunset also has two maps that assist in determining where the sun is setting at any given moment.
Sunset at 9 am PST, 6 pm Central European Time. From left, Carro, France, Santa Ponsa, Spain, Riederalp, Switzerland
Eternal Sunset Realtime Global Map
Several sites, including WeatherBug, RSS Weather and the aforementioned Weather Channel, are taking advantage of RSS technology to make up-to-the-minute weather alerts available through RSS feeds. Distributing something as useful as weather predictions through RSS is a great way to encourage users to subscribe to your content and is also a great branding tool.
Old standby The Weather Channel/weather.com is also a vibrant social network. Users can post photos and video of good and bad weather happening around them and discuss local climates on the site's message boards. In addition to its hour by hour, weekend, 10-day and monthly forecasts, Weather.com boasts interactive maps, a bookmark-worthy blog written by weather experts and meteorologists and other weather-related tidbits that are too numerous to mention.
By now you're familiar with the broadcast TV weather map that has the temperature of an area overlaid on a map of that area (i.e. 75° in Miami, 32° in Seattle). Weather Bonk has scaled that map down and made it available with just a click. Regional temperatures across the globe are plotted on an interactive Google Map, along with storm warnings and embedded webcams.
WunderCam and EarthCam also take advantage of webcams stationed around the country to display local weather condition. While the sites' individual coverage doesn't exactly blanket the United States, there are many webcams to choose from.
Do you love a good sunset? Wish the natural splendor of the sun setting on the horizon would last forever? Well, Eternal Sunset took this idea and ran with it. The site is collection of 266 webcams around the world, all facing west to capture the sun set in 48 different countries. Eternal Sunset also has two maps that assist in determining where the sun is setting at any given moment.
Sunset at 9 am PST, 6 pm Central European Time. From left, Carro, France, Santa Ponsa, Spain, Riederalp, Switzerland
Eternal Sunset Realtime Global Map
Several sites, including WeatherBug, RSS Weather and the aforementioned Weather Channel, are taking advantage of RSS technology to make up-to-the-minute weather alerts available through RSS feeds. Distributing something as useful as weather predictions through RSS is a great way to encourage users to subscribe to your content and is also a great branding tool.
How to tackle the online sports section
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
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.
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.
Elections 2.0: Tracking the Presidential candidates (Part 2)
Monday, September 17, 2007
Many candidates are courting the young vote even more so than 2004's Vote or Die campaign. Mitt Romney has invited Jumpcut users to create his official campaign TV ad. So far the Romney camp has received more than 100 submissions, some of which are pretty good like this one and this one.
It seems like every candidate has a MySpace or Facebook page but kudos to Barack Obama for his presence on LinkedIn, the more professional social network. You can also find out who in your network supports Obama.
Yahoo! has partnered up with the Huffington Post and Slate to create a make-your-own debate that lets the user choose the candidates that they want to see go head to head on a particular issue. The site also incorporates Yahoo! Answers technology to let users post and answer election-related questions.
And because inspiration is knows no boundaries, check out Google's Australian election coverage which includes a Google map embedded with photos and other political content as well as the YouTube channels of various Australian political parties and RSS feeds.
Labels: maps, rss, social networking, video
Should PDFs be a necessary part of a news site?
Monday, August 06, 2007
The advantage of reading news on the net is that anyone can read exactly what they want without leafing through huge newspaper pages or sitting through long broadcasts. A PDF version of a newspaper is a great way to bridge the gap between the print and online product and gives readers the news they want in a compact format.
A PDF or Portable Document Format is a file format developed by Adobe that packs text, graphics and fonts into a single file. A PDF document is somewhat similar to HTML and may contain hyperlinks and multimedia elements and can be downloaded and printed or saved for later reading.
Metro Newspapers offers PDFs of its Silicon Valley, Santa Cruz, and North Bay California papers. The UK-based Telegraph has archived PDF versions of its afternoon paper Telegraph pm as does the Santa Monica Daily Press. Find more magazine PDFs here.
So how do you do it? A talented copy editor can layout selected stories and images and, depending on the program being used, export the file to Adobe PDF. The file can be uploaded to your site and made available as a link.
If you don't have a copy editor to spare, xFruits offers a unique tool that converts your RSS feeds into a handy, though not as visually appealing, interactive document in a few minutes. Imagine offering users a sports section dedicated exclusively to their favorite team, based on an existing RSS feed. In order to work properly, the RSS feed must include content, not just a link to the article. Check out the xFruits-created 10,000 words PDF here.
A PDF or Portable Document Format is a file format developed by Adobe that packs text, graphics and fonts into a single file. A PDF document is somewhat similar to HTML and may contain hyperlinks and multimedia elements and can be downloaded and printed or saved for later reading.
Metro Newspapers offers PDFs of its Silicon Valley, Santa Cruz, and North Bay California papers. The UK-based Telegraph has archived PDF versions of its afternoon paper Telegraph pm as does the Santa Monica Daily Press. Find more magazine PDFs here.
So how do you do it? A talented copy editor can layout selected stories and images and, depending on the program being used, export the file to Adobe PDF. The file can be uploaded to your site and made available as a link.
If you don't have a copy editor to spare, xFruits offers a unique tool that converts your RSS feeds into a handy, though not as visually appealing, interactive document in a few minutes. Imagine offering users a sports section dedicated exclusively to their favorite team, based on an existing RSS feed. In order to work properly, the RSS feed must include content, not just a link to the article. Check out the xFruits-created 10,000 words PDF here.
