App of the week: TweetCaster

Devices: Android, iPhone/iPad, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, Bada

Cost: Free (or £2.99 to go ad free)

What is it? TweetCaster has several features not available in Twitter’s own app.

How is it of use to journalists? The Android version of TweetCaster was nominated for app of the week by Richard Kendall, web editor at PeterboroughToday.co.uk, who said:

I have found it faster than Twitter native app and smoother than Tweetdeck with plenty of options for sharing/managing found links and information.

TweetCaster has several functions you won’t find in Twitter’s own app, including a much more powerful search and filter that allows you to search your own timeline, all friends’ tweets or one person’s tweets.

You can also search for a keyword in nearby (geo-located) tweets, something that has obvious possibilities for journalists out on a breaking news story.

It also comes with Facebook integration, allows you to see who has re-tweeted a tweet and has a “zip it” function to allow you to mute a keyword, Twitter user or a trending hashtag.

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.

• Tool of the week for journalists – TimeKiwi, to create social media timelines
• Ten technical Twitter tips for journalists
• App of the week for journalists: Social Searcher, for searching Facebook
• Tool of the week for journalists – Formulists (use it before it disappears)
• Tool of the week for journalists – Topsy, real-time search for the social web

Image by art makes me smile on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

This week’s jpod looks at how different publishing platforms in the news industry are approaching curation and aggregation of news, from sources across the web including news outlets, bloggers and social media platforms.

Journalism.co.uk’s news editor Rachel McAthy speaks to:

• Burt Herman, co-founder of Storify
• Mark Johnson, chief executive of Zite
• Rory Brown, co-founder of BriefingMedia, publisher of TheMediaBriefing.com

In the spirit of curation, here is a list of some related reading and resources on this topic:

• Aggregation guidelines: Link, attribute, add value – Steve Buttry pulls together some standards journalists should bear in mind when aggregating news
• Five curation tools all journalists should know about – some recommended tools suggested by Journalism.co.uk
• New curation tool Bundlr sets sights on ‘untangling the web’ – Journalism.co.uk article on Bundlr
• Meet the curators – The Economist follows up on a tweet which caused much discussion during the SXSW conference
• Social media: what’s the difference between curation and journalism? – The BBC follows up on another Twitter debate
• 5 opportunities for dynamic curation tools – 10,000 Words suggests five ways to put curation into practice
• Are aggregation and curation journalism? Wrong question – GigaOm highlights the importance of putting the audience at the heart of the debate
• This Week in Review: A push for aggregation standards, and the end of an era for print – The Nieman Journalism Lab highlights recent efforts to set aggregation standards

You can hear future podcasts by signing up to the Journalism.co.uk iTunes podcast feed.

• New curation tool Bundlr sets sights on ‘untangling the web’
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – social media filtering
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – social media kitbag
• Curation tool Bundlr goes public
• ReadWriteWeb: Wikipedia as a breaking news source

Tool of the week: Geofeedia

What is it? A tool that allows you to search for a location and find geolocated tweets, photos and videos.

How is it of use to journalists? This tool offers potential for journalists faced with verifying a breaking news story. Search for a postcode, country, school or sporting stadium and you can see geolocated social media content posted on Twitter, Instagram, Picasa, Flickr and YouTube.

Imagine hearing reports of a fire. With Geofeedia you could enter the address and see what images, videos and tweets are being shared on social media.

Hat tip: Poynter, which has reported that Geofeedia came out of private beta earlier this week.

Find out more about verification by reading this Journalism.co.uk guide.

• Tool of the week for journalists – Rippla, for tracking the social ‘ripples’ of news stories
• Tool of the week for journalists – Trendsmap, for tracking conversations in your area
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – use Topsy to search the social web
• App of the week for journalists: Greplin
• Tool of the week for journalists – Topsy, real-time search for the social web

Image by shawncampbell on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Twitter announced on its blog this week that it had launched the ability for users to set up a “weekly email digest”, offering “the most relevant Tweets and stories shared by the people you’re connected to on Twitter” to your inbox.

Find out more on Twitter’s blog.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

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.

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – safety advice from women journalists on the frontline
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – journalism hashtags
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – how to use forums effectively
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – analysing Twitter accounts
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – driving online engagement from offline activity

Director of community engagement & social media of Digital First Media Steve Buttry has compiled a list of “helpful things that others have written about Pinterest”, which include journalists themselves sharing how Pinterest is being used by newsrooms and other advice on using the platform, such as tracking the source of images.

He also helpfully links to his own advice on how journalists and newsrooms can use Pinterest.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

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.

• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – making more of Flickr
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – how to get more pins on Pinterest
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – using curation tools
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – create a Pinterest board to thank pinners
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – maps in newspapers

The Storify below outlines the story so far after journalist Brian Whelan, who it’s understood helped break the news over the weekend that the government was considering a missile site on the roof of his apartment building to protect the Olympics, tweeted that he was being “forced” to leave his apartment. His landlord has said she has served notice because of a disagreement relating to the renewal of the tenancy, and that the decision was not related to the missile situation in any way.

• Apartment Therapy: NYTimes calls off take down notice for blog network
• Spot the difference: AFP withdraws ‘digitally altered’ missile shot
• BBC and Sky News abstain from DEC Gaza appeal; Al Jazeera and Number 10 site show support
• John Yates resignation statement
• Reuters: Athletes can tweet at 2012 as long as not in manner of journalists

App of the week: Storyful

Phones: iPhone

Cost: Free

What is it? An iPhone app from social newswire Storyful to deliver the top stories from social media.

How is it of use to journalists? Want an easy way to track the top news stories on social media? Storyful’s new iPhone apps helps you search by top keywords (currently Cairo, Egypt and Obama), regions and date.

You are then presented with the stories as curated by the Storyful editorial team.

It can also link to StoryfulPro, the social newswire’s premium product which allows journalists to “find the most authentic voices and valuable content on the social web”.

Hat tip: Natasha Tynes, International Journalists’ Network

• Storify stories now on news reader app Pulse
• Memeburn: Could Intel’s tech news site start a corporate media trend?
• Media release: PR Newswire launches tailored site for bloggers
• Flipboard goes French with latest update
• Social Media Journalist: ‘USG is the most overrated social media ‘news’ craze’ Jack Lail, Knoxville News Sentinel

Tweetbot, a Twitter client app for iOS and a previous Journalism.co.uk app of the week, has added Storify integration.

Users of the iPhone and iPad Tweetbot app can now easily Storify a conversation they spot on Twitter.

There is no need to move away from Tweetbot to Storify, a tool to allow the curation of social media content, all is done with a swipe and three taps within the app.

Just swipe right on a tweet that is part of a conversation, tweet the conversation and it is automatically Storified.

If you don’t have a Storify account one will be created.

The 2.3 update was released yesterday. Those with the app can update, new users can download from the App Store for £1.99.

Here is a Storify explaining how it works.

• App of the week for journalists: Tweetbot
• Storify stories now on news reader app Pulse
• Breaking News becomes a Storify source
• Storify adds slideshow view for blog posts, presentations and broadcasts
• Simple ways to embed a tweet in a news story

Online noticeboard n0tice has launched a Facebook sharing app, allowing users to “amplify activity” and spread posts virally.

The Guardian set up n0tice as a platform to utilise developments in social, local and mobile. It allows hyperlocals to brand their own noticeboard and keep 85 per cent of the revenue generated by charging for small ads.

A blog post published today states that n0tice’s new Facebook app allows users to automatically post content to their Facebook activity stream.

n0tice will automatically update your Facebook page when you follow people and noticeboards, star things you find interesting, or post reports, events or offers to n0tice.  The app does not share passive actions to your Facebook page such as what you are reading on n0tice.com, only explicit actions that you trigger such as following, posting, reposting, and voting.

The n0tice app for Facebook will help spread things you are doing on n0tice further around the world and help others to discover what’s happening.

• Guardian’s n0tice launches advertising platform
• Hyperlocals can now create noticeboards using the Guardian’s n0tice
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – try creating a crowdmap with n0tice
• Guardian hyperlocal platform n0tice now open to all
• New Guardian community platform n0tice invites more users

More than one in 10 Google UK search results includes at least one journalist photo and bio byline, according to a study by search and social analytics company Searchmetrics.

The study looked at the top 100 search results from 1 million keywords and found that 13 per cent included journalist bios and pictures for the author of articles.

Getting a photo and bio displayed in search results requires a journalist to have a Google+ account and their profile to be linked with news stories (instructions on how to do this are here).

UK writers in the top 20 include Charles Arthur, the Guardian’s technology editor, and Edward Chester, reviews editor at TrustedReviews.com.

US journalists dominate the top 20, “meaning UK journalists and publications are missing out on increased visibility, traffic and potential advertising revenue”, according to a release from Searchmetrics.

The author profile feature, known as authorship markup, is something that Google has been rolling out since the end of last year. It includes author profile information with a thumbnail image and links.

The release states:

Journalists and bloggers who write about technology, medical and food topics are among those that are most visible in author profile integrations according to the study by search and social analytics company, Searchmetrics, which analysed Google UK search results relating to one million popular keywords.

Marcus Tober, founder and chief technology officer of Searchmetrics said in a statement:

More writers from US-based sites are appearing in the top 20 because authors generally need to have a profile on the Google+ social network to be displayed in author integrations – and we assume more writers for US sites are on Google+ and also Google has possibly encouraged some US sites to set up their articles for author integrations.

It was surprising to see more than one in ten of the results tested are showing author integrations because this is still a new feature – it’s much higher than I expected.

Searchmetrics top 20 authors with picture and bio bylines

Author, Writes for (includes), Topic, Page 1 integrations*, Total integrations**

1. Elaine Lemm , NYT, About.com, Food, 581, 1,989
2. Dr. Melissa Stöppler, WebMDNetwork, Medical, 545, 1,412
3. Diana Rattray, About.com, Food, 530, 1,529
4. Tim Fisher, About.com, Technology, 472, 1,897
5. Alison Doyle, About.com, Job search, 438, 1,442
6. Dr. William Shiel, WebMDNetwork, Medical,  403, 866
7. Dr. Ben Wedro, MDDirect.org, Medical, 328, 877
8. Dr. John Cunha, WebMDNetwork, Medical, 328, 790
9. Bradley Mitchell, About.com, Technology, 321, 1,363
10. Cathy Wong, About.com, Alt Medicine,  316, 839
11. Stephanie Jaworski, JoyofBaking.com, Food, 307, 1,005
12. Laura Porter, Visit Britain, About.com, Travel, 281, 1,929
13. Edward Chester, TrustedReviews.com, Technology, 264, 733
14. Luke Westaway, CNET UK, Technology, 254, 1,292
15. Gordon Laing, Cameralabs.com, Photography, 248 , 1,200
16. Charles Arthur, Guardian, Technology, 218, 1,271
17. Laura K. Lawless, French, About.com, Languages, 218, 705
18. Hubertus Keil, Alicante-Spain.com, Travel, 214, 1,070
19. Adam Pash, Lifehacker, Lifestyle/Tech, 204, 1,311
20. Richard Trenholm, CNET UK, Technology, 200, 1,931

*The number of times a writer appears in author profile integrations displayed on the first page of Google.co.uk search results in Searchmetrics’s study
**The total number of times a writer appears in author profile integrations displayed in Google.co.uk search results in Searchmetrics’s study

• Journalists get a photo byline in Google News (but only those on Google+)
• Google announces new Chrome extension to block ‘content farms’
• Reporters to get author pages with Google’s new authorship markup
• Media release: StumbleUpon is most important content sharing site for Mail Online
• TechCrunch: Google Realtime Search adds Facebook

Image by shawncampbell on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

This week’s jpod looks at how Al Jazeera English programme The Stream, the new ITV News website and NME.com are embracing social media contributions.

Journalism.co.uk hears examples of how the social media community can set the news agenda, participate in the story, and how news organisations are using the passion and enthusiasm of the audience to shape output.

There are also examples of how a reader comment can turn into a headline and how the outlets are harnessing live activity streams.

Journalism.co.uk technology correspondent Sarah Marshall speaks to:

• Malika Bilal, digital producer and co-host of The Stream
• Jason Mills, editor of web development at ITV News
• Luke Lewis, editor of NME.com

You can hear future podcasts by signing up to the Journalism.co.uk iTunes podcast feed.

• #jpod – Celebrating Local Newspaper Week: Innovations in digital at the regionals
• #jpod: How journalists are embracing Facebook subscribe
• #jpod: How journalists and publishers can best use Foursquare
• #jpod: How journalists can best use LinkedIn
• #jpod: Lessons in digital storytelling from Storify and the Guardian

Earlier this month Foursquare published a blog post advising users of the location check-in network to follow various (US) newspapers in order to get restaurant reviews, recommendations and “local tidbits”.

It is worth checking out what “local papers like Metro Focus in the tri-state area, the Baltimore Sun, the Austin American Statesman, and the New York Daily News” are doing to inspire ideas for using Foursquare as a news organisation.

Foursquare’s blog post is at this link.

For more ideas listen to this podcast from September on how journalists and publishers can best use Foursquare.

Tipster: Sarah Marshall

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.

• #jpod: How journalists and publishers can best use Foursquare
• Eastern Daily Press providing content through Foursquare
• News sites can now create a branded page on Foursquare
• Location-based restaurant reviews
• #Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – Foursquare for journalists

By Guillaume Paumier on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

“The results were like the elephant in the room” – that’s what one journalist told Journalism.co.uk after users were said to have taken to Twitter to try and get around a ban on the discussion of predicted results in the French presidential election.

The law, which dates from 1977, bans the reporting of results, projections and exit polls on the day before and day of the election until the closure of the last polling stations.

The ban will also apply to the run-off between Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande on Sunday 6 May and is expected to remain in place, after Jean-Francois Pillon, the head of France’s polling commission, reportedly said he would call on state prosecutors to bring charges against media organisations and individuals who had allegedly defied the ban.

The last polling stations closed at 8pm on Sunday, but before this deadline the hashtag #radiolondres, a reference to resistance broadcasts made in the Second World War, was being used to discuss the projected results, with the candidates being given code-names to try and circumvent the ban.

French tweeters are evading the blackout on reporting poll numbers before 1800GMT with coded messages #radiolondres #france2012

— Tristan Redman (@TristanAJE) April 22, 2012

Nicola Hebden, a freelance journalist covering the election, told Journalism.co.uk the events highlighted the issue of attempting to ban information spreading on Twitter:

While we were broadcasting, the results were like the elephant in the room – we all knew them – the news team, the viewers – but we weren’t allowed to talk about them on air.

• An experiment with UK newspapers’ coverage of political polls
• Journalism in Africa: Kenyan news organisations cleared of fuelling post-election violence
• YouTube and PBS partner to broadcast election day action
• Social and mainstream media join forces to cover Afghanistan election
• NYTimes.com launches Polling Place Photo Project and asks users to submit

Curated storytelling tool Storify has partnered with news reader app Pulse.

The move marks Storify’s first syndication deal and sees curated stories by Storify users such as Al Jazeera’s the Stream, the Washington Post and the White House communications team available on the social newsreader app.

Pulse, which is available for the iPad, iPhone, Android, Kindle Fire and Nook, allows readers to chose to add their favourite news providers and feeds giving a personalised reading experience.

A Storified blog post by the company explains how to add your Storify creations to your personalised Pulse app.

You can also see your stories – or any account’s stories – on Pulse by subscribing to the RSS feed at the top of Storify profile pages. Then call the feeds up from Google Reader on Pulse. You’ll be able to see all those accounts’ stories on Pulse from then on.

• Storify gets a new look and promises ‘to revise the entire reader experience’
• App of the week for journalists – Flud, an RSS and news reader
• Mashable: Why CNN has acquired iPad magazine Zite
• Five stories to inspire you to try Storify – which anyone can now join
• Storify adds slideshow view for blog posts, presentations and broadcasts

Over on Ideas Tap Stevie Martin has collected some key pointers from visiting professor at City University London Paul Bradsaw, TheMediaBriefing’s editor Patrick Smith and founder of fashion blog Frassy Audrey Rogers, on blogging. Tips range from choosing a subject you’re passionate about, keeping updates fairly regular and networking with other bloggers.

Read more here.

Tipster: Rachel McAthy

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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