media models

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Storify is trying to change the way we tell stories on the web

October 12, 2010 in mashups, media models, newspapers | No comments

Is it viable? I’ll try a few to check it out. It’s a kind of ajax enabled live feed of one’s tweet feeds and and all the other big name aggregators of all kinds of media, so Flickr images and YouTube videos can be located using a handy search bar on the left, dragged into your ‘story’ and all you have to do is publish. But where do you insert your own writing? It’s just a collection of references. It’s handy don’t get me wrong but, really, even medium web savvy people can do this.

And all the info is routed through storify. All I’ve done above is paste a link to some javascript that links to storify.

It’s interesting though. I’ll explore more…

Actor network theory and online news delivery

December 16, 2008 in commenting online, maps, mashups, media models, newspapers, social change, visualization techniques | No comments

I seem to have landed in the middle of some exciting, new (to me) theories around online news and network theory.

Last week while in Montreal I met Claude G. Théoret who is part of Exvisu which offers “Strategic Network Intelligence”. What is that? They make maps of conversations occurring on the web, noting the number of links between blogs and reoccurring terms. That’s what I understand at this preliminary phase. They are offering their services to companies and politicians who want to know what the hot button issues among the people they need to please, as well why kind of language is being used to talk about issues. The outcome of this research aims to be similar to what pollsters claim to do. I imagine using both techniques together will produce the most fruitful results.

Claude lent me his copy of Linked by Albert-László Barabási – a well written explanation of how network theory developed and how it is being used by the ‘new cartographers’.

And today I came upon a Dutch site – Issuenetwork.org – that offers tools and information about issue networking on the web. I was particularly interested in this 2004 paper on the way news devlivery will be (is being) transformed by the evolution of network technology and particularly this section “six arguments against news“, a provocative sub heading in my circles, but is meant to cricise mainstream news delivery techniques.

Another article on the same site, The News about Networks 2: Making Issues into Rights - introduces a 2004 workshop where the aim is to get media activists using the Issue Crawler tools  (which in their aims seem similar to the tools used by Exvisu) being developed at the de Balie Center for Culture and Politics, Amsterdam.

Much of the workshop will revolve around using the Issue Crawler, server-side software, developed with OneWorld International (London), Aguidel (Paris) and Recognos (Cluj-Napoca) that locates, analyses and visualises networks on the Web. We also will make use of novel techniques to monitor and analyse the news through Google News and RSS readers. Textual, semantic and other data analyses may be undertaken.

They questions the were asking at the conference were:

  • What are my networks? What is my relative standing within these networks?
  • Which types of organisations, agendas and terms dominate these networks?
  • Do the organisations in these networks recognise each other’s work and issues?
  • Which parts of the networks hold together if one takes out funders? Do they hold together if one takes out other agenda-setters, be it (big) media or intergovernmental organisations?

If you love your readers you won’t paginate your stories

May 2, 2008 in media models, newspapers | No comments

Many people I know who reads online are as annoyed as I am by websites that paginate their content. We all know this decision is usually motivated by a desire to create more pageviews for advertisers rather than by any regard for the reading pleasure of their public. Salon.com has done it since early on and I often find myself leaving the article rather than clicking to continue or if i do really like the story I will simply hit the print button to real the whole story sans images and ads.

But you don’t have to take the word of a web developer with 9 years of experience, instead recognize that if people are going to the trouble to create browser plugins that recombine these pages into one there is a market for single page articles. Here is a great lifehacker article on the subject. Also check out the revealing opinions in the comment section below.

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Is it still possible to have fun on the internet even if you work in it? Ze Frank shows us how.

March 11, 2008 in media models | No comments

How to write a book… and respond to live chat while talking to an audience

March 10, 2008 in commenting online, media models | No comments

IT Consultant prepares to make a pitch to unsupecting Non-profit executive

March 10, 2008 in media models | No comments


The 5th Season of the Wire is over with contemporary journalism a focus

March 9, 2008 in media models, newspapers | No comments

The impact of the Internet is that it’s pulling the froth of commentary and debate off the top of first-generation news gathering, leaving newspapers with only a first-generation role for themselves, which is not enough for them to sustain readers, and so they’re losing young readers. By and large, excusing the fact that there are some first-generation journalists going out and acquiring new information directly for the Web, the vast majority of the Internet is reaction and debate and commentary — some of it brilliant. But I don’t run into a lot of Internet reporters at council meetings and in courthouses.

David Simon interviewed in Salon.com

Old media vrs new media models – no economic model yet?

May 30, 2007 in commenting online, media models, newspapers | No comments

Alan Rusbridger reports on a conversation between facebook, flickr, Slate creator and NY Times and MSN editors. A divide in understanding still exists:

A distinguished magazine editor finally broke through the cosy bonding by denying that we could all have “both/ and”. It was “either/or.” We couldn’t run away from the fact that there wasn’t yet a credible economic model for old media owners to be dabbling around with the new kids on the block. So choices had to be made.

Yes, well. Safer to talk about the “soft” issues of community and blogging. A blogging entrepreneur drew a useful distinction between old mainstream media (MSM) which had attention deficit disorder and the best bloggers, who were obsessive compulsive. Newspapers started out on stories or campaigns and then got bored. Bloggers never got bored of their own subjects.

Read: Davos 07: ADD vs OCD : The future of newspapers is a bit like climate change: there are now far fewer ‘old-media’ deniers.