You can now add SoundCloud recordings to Storify

Storify and SoundCloud have joined forces, enabling those curating social media to add recordings posted on the audio platform.

Users of Storify, which allows you to drag and drop content from social media, including Twitter, Flickr and YouTube into stories, were already able to add AudioBoo recordings.

The addition of SoundCloud adds possibilities for journalists and those curating stories using Storify. Although the audio platform started out as a music sharing and commenting site, SoundCloud is increasingly used for spoken word.

The integration of SoundCloud in Storify provides a tactile experience in digital news consumption, particularly when using a tablet, and allows users to read and listen to stories, utilising SoundCloud’s visual commenting system to jump to a particular point in the interview or audio.

Journalism.co.uk added SoundCloud recordings in this Storify of news:rewired created on the day the audio platform was first enabled as a source. Both platforms were present at the conference, where Storify co-founder Xavier Damman (pictured above) suggested “journalists should be re-branded as information engineers” as they make sense of the noise of social media by filtering it into stories.

In order to add SoundCloud go to Storify / Settings (below your name icon in the top right hand corner) / Sources.

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Guardian to launch ‘reflective’ iPad app at £9.99 per month

After taking its time in development the Guardian has finally announced an iPad app, which is coming “any day now” apparently. According to editor Alan Rusbridger, the app will not focus on breaking news but be a “more reflective” read.

We’re not going to be scrambling to update it every minute or every hour. We will do that on the browser, the browser is a place to go for liveblogging and to go searching for material, but this is going to be a different kind of read, it’s going to be more reflective.

It seems like the thinking behind the app will take it away from the web browser experience and closer to what Guardian has in mind for its print edition. Although producing a static, print-like app may seem a little strange for a “digital-first” news organisation (especially one that creates a promo video for its app criticising the idea of “recreating the newspaper on the iPad”), it’s a move that makes sense in many ways. It looks at the tablet as more of a lean-back device for evenings, which research by Bit.ly and others has shown is a popular time for iPad use, something to supplement breaking news on Guardian.co.uk and via the iPhone app.

The app will be free for the first three months after launch thanks to a sponsorship deal with Channel 4, after which it will cost £9.99 per month. Six- and seven-day print subscribers will get access to the app bundled with their deal, although the app won’t include content from the Observer.

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The top 10 most-read stories on Journalism.co.uk, 1-7 October

1. Daily Mail criticised over Amanda Knox guilty story

2. How to: become a roaming reporter

3. ‘If this then that’: ten recipes for journalists

4. Irish Post to be revived by Loot publisher

5. ‘Tenacious’ journalists win press freedom awards

6. Tool of the week for journalists – Topsy, real-time search for the social web

7. BBC to cut nearly 2,000 jobs

8. Free speech groups call for release of Vietnamese blogger

9. Bectu considers legal action over BBC Wales job cuts

10. Phone hacking: Mosley bankrolling Prescott’s case

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• Independent: Max Mosley ‘bankrolling’ legal costs of phone hacking victims
• Solicitor Mark Lewis considering legal action against PCC
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• MediaGuardian: Clifford drops phone hacking case following £1m deal

#followjourn – @duncanhooper Duncan Hooper/managing editor

Who? Duncan Hooper

Where? Duncan is managing editor of news and sport at MSN UK

Twitter? @duncanhooper

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips, we are recommending journalists to follow online too. Recommended journalists can be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to rachel at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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• #followjourn – @NateLanxon Nate Lanxon/Editor
• #followjourn – @bydanielvictor Daniel Victor/social media editor
• #followjourn @zseward – Zach Seward/social media editor
• #followjourn – @Maid_Marianne Marianne Bouchart/editor
• #followjourn – @sookio Sue Keogh/editor

#jpod: Lessons in digital storytelling from Storify and the Guardian

How can journalists best use the latest digital storytelling tools?

In this podcast, Journalism.co.uk technology correspondent Sarah Marshall looks at current trends in integrated storytelling, hearing from multimedia producer Adam Westbrook, co-founder of Storify Xavier Damman and executive producer for Guardian.co.uk Stephen Abbott.

All three gave presentations at Journalism.co.uk’s news:rewired – connected journalism event which was held at MSN HQ, London yesterday (Thursday, 6 October).

Podcast: Download

You can sign up to our iTunes podcast feed for future audio.

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• #jpod: The top news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 18 March 2011
• #jpod: The top news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 28 February 2011
• #jpod: The top news stories from Journalism.co.uk, 11 March 2011

BBC News Android app now lets users submit stories, videos and photos

The BBC News Android app has been updated to accept user-generated content and encourage people to send in their photographs and videos of a news event, something user of the BBC News iPhone app had already been able to do.

The Android app, which has been downloaded more than two million times globally since its launch in May, has also been updated to include the addition of homescreen widgets, improved personalisation and the ability to store the app on the SD card.

A BBC Internet Blog post details the changes.

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BBC news chief calls for pressure on Iran after threats to journalists’ families

The director of BBC Global News, Peter Horrocks, has called on the government to “take all necessary means” to deter the Iranian government from attempts to “undermine free media” in Iran.

Writing on the BBC Editors’ blog, Horrocks says that the families of UK-based Iranian journalists working for the BBC have been harassed, arrested and threatened in Iran in order to encourage their relatives to stop working for the corporation.

The article states:

Iranian police and officials have been arresting, questioning and intimidating the relatives of BBC staff. We believe that the relatives and friends of around 10 BBC staff have been treated this way.

Last month a group of filmakers were arrested in Iran. Contrary to reports on state TV in Iran, they where not members of staff,  but the BBC Persian channel had bought the rights to their films and they are therefore “paying the price for an indirect connection to the BBC”, according to Horrocks’ post.

These actions and threats against the BBC have been accompanied by a dramatic increase in anti-BBC rhetoric. Iranian officials have claimed that BBC staff are employees of MI6, that named staff have been involved in crimes, including sexual crimes, and that BBC Persian is inciting designated terror groups to attack Iran.

Whilst these claims are clearly absurd, the intensity of language magnifies the fears of BBC staff for their family and friends back in Iran. Given the vulnerability of those family members we have thought hard about drawing attention to this harassment. But this public statement has the full support of all staff whose families have been intimidated.

In the statement Horrocks calls on the government for assistance.

The BBC calls on the Iranian government to repudiate the actions of its officials. And we request the British and other governments take all necessary means to deter the Iranian government from all these attempts to undermine free media.

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What journalists and publishers need to know about the iPhone 4S and iOS 5

There are a three of posts worth reading if you want to work out which features unveiled in yesterday’s Apple announcements are relevant to journalists and the industry.

Poynter has a five things journalists need to know about the new iPhone 4S and iOS 5.

Jeff Sonderman states the five benefits of the iPhone 4S and iOS5 are:

1. A price drop for older models of iPhone;

2. An 8 megapixel camera;

3. Safari reading mode, enabling single-column reading and a ‘save for later’ Instapaper-style feature;

4. NewsStand, a development of interest to newspaper and magazine publishers. The Guardian explains what NewsStand means for publishers in this article written when the feature was announced in June;

5. Twitter integration.

The Next Web last night (Tuesday, October 4) published details of Apple’s US publisher partners for NewsStand. The New York Times, GQ, Wired, National Geographic are all on board, according to this post.

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• Condé Nast launches monthly GQ iPhone app
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App of the week for journalists – Pro HDR, for better photos (without an iPhone 4S)

App of the week: Pro HDR

Operating systems: Apple (compatible with iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPod touch, and iPad 2) and Android

Cost: £1.49 in the App Store, £1.24 in the Android Market

What is it and how is it of use to journalists? If you followed the unveiling of the iPhone 4S yesterday you will have learned that it has a better camera than current models, a feature that is no doubt of benefit to journalists.

This week’s app of the week is one for anyone who has struggled with the limitations of their current iPhone or Android camera, and taken a picture on their phone and found the result has either washed out sky or dark foreground.

Pro HDR works by taking two photos, each picture focusing on a different part of the the subject, and the app then blends the two together.

For example, the below photo, which was taken on an iPhone 4 using Pro HDR, is two pictures: one exposed for the sky, the other with the focus on the foreground.

Reviews: Pro HDR gets 4.5 stars in the Apps Store and3.5 stars in the Android Market.

Have you got a favourite app that you use as a journalist? Fill in this form to nominate an app for Journalism.co.uk’s app of the week for journalists.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk: cutting out journalism clichés

“As of yet”, “final outcome”, “evolve over time”, does your writing suffer from tired turns of phrase? It might be worth keeping an eye on the Unnecessary Journalism Phrases Tumblr to help keep your copy cliché free.

Tipster: Joel Gunter

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.

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