#Podcast: How technology is spurring citizen journalism in Kenya

By kiwanja on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

To coincide with the 50th anniversary of the African Union, this week’s podcast looks at the influence of mobile phones and social media on journalism in Kenya.

We speak to:

• Musa Haron, broadcast journalist and blogger, Nairobi
• Njenga Hakeenah, Earth Journalism Network fellow and radio journalist, Hope FM
  
• Alice Klein, freelance journalist and co-founder, Radar, which carries out media development

Podcast: Download

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

These interviewees will be joined by more Kenyan journalists in the full write-up on the topic next week.

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Magazine app developer praises Windows 8, abandons Android

Digital media developer Daniel Sharp has praised the next version of the Windows operating system for its ease of use when programming.

Writing for the Kernel, the Stonewash co-founder states the advantages of developing digital media products for Microsoft’s as-yet-unreleased operating system over Google’s Android OS:

I’ve just come from another testing meeting. Seven of us around a table looking at an Android app that’s in the mid-stages of development. We’ve found unique issues on each device, every device on the table was running a different version of Android, with different resolutions, capabilities and specifications. Getting this right is going to be time consuming…

Meanwhile, for the past seven weeks we’ve also been working on a super-secret project building magazine apps for the Windows 8 launch. In those seven weeks, we’ve managed to create a solid first version, that works across all resolutions, laptops, desktops and tablets, whether they use a touch screen, pen or mouse. Development was easy.

He continues:

The fact that you can develop native applications for Windows using HTML and JavaScript is huge: in our case, it meant that every single engineer in our company already knew how to develop for Windows.

If you’re looking at a smartphone application then Windows 8 isn’t for you; it’s not for smartphones. But if you’re looking at a tablet application, take a good hard look at Android and the figures. I took one look at them and I’m not convinced.

And that’s why I have paused all our Android development in favour of Windows 8.

Earlier this week the Financial Times revealed that it is working on an app for Windows 8, ahead of the autumn tablet release.

Stonewash develop frameworks for news and magazine publishers to create bespoke tablet applications. Their clients include lifestyle magazine Lusso, Investment & Pensions Europe and the Henley Standard newspaper.

Read the full article in the Kernel here

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – iPad app development

This ‘how to’ on Poynter gives some useful insight into the considerations of a number of news organisations in the development and planning of their iPad apps. The article features the responses of CNN, the News & Record and Better Homes and Gardens, to six questions about their first apps for the platform. 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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BBC Editors blog: Developments for the BBC News website

Over on the BBC’s The Editors blog, BBC News site editor Steve Herrmann has outlined some of the developments planned in the near future.

They include the addition of comments to stories, improving the share tools on article pages and developing its ‘Live Page’ format.

It’s a format which has proved effective, and popular, during major developing stories such as those of recent weeks. Expect further development and improvement of these pages, as we make them an even better vehicle for reporting all the biggest stories.

Other changes will also include a new format for correspondent blogs, to bring together their other work from news articles and TV packages to Tweets, as well as increasing links to external sites and  bringing in a new system to measure how online content is being consumed.

Full post on the The Editors blog at this link.

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