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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – how to create a live Flickr and tweet map

Sarah Marshall — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 12:51:10 +0000

10,000 Words has a great guide for journalists to explain how to create a real-time geotagged Flickr map to show photos and the locations they were taken on a Google Map.

You can follow the same principle to allow you to add geolocated tweets.

A Flickr map has numerous applications from creating a report on a marathon, to covering demonstrations and protests, to showing parades and carnivals.

One beauty of this method is it allows reporters or readers to post photos by email rather than via apps.

This guide explains how it works: by checking your settings to allow email submissions, tagging photos and taking a geoFeed from your Flickr photostream page or your Flickr group page.

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.Similar Posts:

Five stories to inspire you to try Storify – which anyone can now join

Sarah Marshall — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:47:27 +0000

Anyone can now join multimedia storytelling platform Storify.

The site, which allows users to drag and drop elements such as tweets, audioboo recordings, photographs from Flickr and YouTube videos to tell a dynamic story, which can then be embedded on a news website or blog, was previously in private beta and an invitation was required. As of this week Storify is now in public beta.

Since its launch in September, private beta users have created more than 21,000 stories, according to this post.

Storify stories have been viewed more than 13 million times, 4.2 million views were in March. The stories generated have been embedded on more than 5,000 sites, including news sites from the New York Times, to the Guardian and BBC.

Here are five stories to inspire you to have a go:

1. The Stream, the daily television show powered by social media and citizen journalism on Al Jazeera English, has created this Storify story on Blogging from “Between the Bars”.

[View the story Blogging from "Between the Bars" on Storify]

2. The Wall Street Journal embedded this Storify story which asks where should New York place QR codes?
[View the story QR codes in New York City on Storify]

3. Storify received record views after March’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan.
[View the story Latest on Japan earthquake and tsunami on Storify]

4. BBC London curated the London marathon with Storify.
[View the story Your Story of Marathon 2011 on Storify]

5. And whether you love of hate the hype, the Royal Wedding will no doubt inspire more Storify stories, such as this one from ABC News.
[View the story UK gears up for royal wedding on Storify]

Do you have any useful tips for people using Storify? Please share them with Journalism.co.uk readers.

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Flickr/Getty deal brings new revenue opportunity for photographers

Judith Townend — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:29:44 +0000

The photo-sharing website Flickr has introduced a new option which allows photographers to publicly nominate their images for licensing by Getty.

When another user sees an image they would like to licence, they will be put in touch with Getty to arrange the sale.

In short, the new Flickr/Getty feature, called Request to License, lets photographers nominate their photos directly to users searching for photos to license – without first going through Getty.

Cnet News has a report with a bit of context here:

In Flickr’s initial partnership with photo licensing powerhouse Getty Images, Getty representatives cherry-picked Flickr photos and photographers they liked. Later, Flickr members could offer their own candidates for evaluation by Getty for licensing.

More detail from the Flickr blog:

When a prospective licensee sees an image marked for license, they can click on the link and be put in touch with a representative from Getty Images who will help handle details like permissions, releases and pricing. Once reviewed, the Getty Images editors will send you a FlickrMail to request to license your work, either for commercial or editorial usage. The decision to license is always yours.

Flickr recently added the 100,000th photo to the Flickr Collection on Getty Images.Similar Posts:

BJP: The Independent apologises for Flickr ‘errors’

Judith Townend — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 10:47:41 +0000

The Independent newspaper has apologised, “after it was accused of breach of copyright for publishing a Flickr stream of images which included at least one ‘All Rights Reserved’ photo of the snow,” reports the British Journal of Photography.

Full story at this link…

(The photographer, Peter Zabulis, who challenged the Independent has more detail at this link)Similar Posts:

Commenters accuse Mail of image misuse – a bigger missed opportunity for publishers?

Laura Oliver — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:12:00 +0000

Mail Online is coming under renewed criticism for its use of online images, following a story on ‘moneyfacing’ (people using banknotes to create self-portraits).

A tweet from @alisongow alerted us to the Mail’s article ‘Creasing up: Banking on a funny photo with the ‘moneyfacing’ craze sweeping the web’ on which commenters have alleged the paper has used the images central to the story without permission.

Comments include:

“As the photographs are a pretty intrinsic part of this so called feature, I’d say that asking permission to use them is the very least this so-called newspaper should’ve done.”

The creator of the images, Thom Shannon, has now reposted them to Flickr with a watermark protecting them, adding he has never felt the need to use watermarks before, but that requests to the Daily Mail to remove the photos have not been answered.

The Mail isn’t the only site making use of the images: the Sun has a 12-image slideshow and Telegraph.co.uk features just one image, though it does give accreditation for this to a website (something Shannon has disputed).

This is not the first time the Mail’s use of online images has been challenged, but issues of copyright aside, Kevin Anderson suggests that there is a bigger opportunity being missed by newspapers at large (scroll down to the comments):

“[T]his is another example of the news industry missing an opportunity to build community around what they do. When I use Creative Commons photos from sites like Flickr, firstly, I honour the terms of the licence. Secondly, I drop the Flickr user a note letting them know that I’ve used a photo on our site. It’s not only a way to use nice photos, but it’s also a way to build goodwill to what we’re doing and do a little soft touch promotion of our coverage. It takes a minutes out of my day to create that email, but instead of a backlash, I often get a thank you. They let their friends know that the Guardian has used their picture. It’s brilliant for everyone. There are benefits to being good neighbours online, rather than viewing the internet as a vast repository of free content.”

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NPR using Flickr to verify photos

Laura Oliver — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:53:16 +0000

(Via Cybersoc) National Public Radio is calling on its Flickr followers to identify individuals in a series of photos from a US senate meeting.

The idea reminded Journalism.co.uk of regional newspaper-style calls for information about old photos of sports teams etc in print. A clever way to get your community to help you out using a free tool too.Similar Posts:

Andy Piper: Chasing the Daily Mail for Flickr attribution

Judith Townend — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:12:40 +0000

Maybe not an unlikely crime, but its one that could be increasingly common as more newspapers turn to Flickr for content.

Andy Piper writes on his blog:

“The Daily Mail posted a story on their website about my friend Andy Stanford-Clark, and used a crop from one of my photos to illustrate it. As it happens, I would have been perfectly happy for them to use it (and even to crop it) if they’d asked for permission. At the time I post this, they are not following the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND licence…”

“….it’s a national newspaper displaying what would appear to be significant ignorance about the morality of using user-created content.”

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

JEEcamp: Kyle Macrae on Scoopt: We’re all entrepreneurs now

Laura Oliver — Mon, 11 May 2009 18:38:14 +0000

They don’t make ‘em like Kyle Macrae, the founder of citizen journalism photography site Scoopt, any more – but maybe they should?

Speaking at Friday’s journalism and enterprise ‘unconference’, JEEcamp, Macrae posited that the only option for journalists at the moment is to be entreprenuerial.

Macrae sold Scoopt to Getty Images in March 2007, before the photography giant shuttered the site in February this year.

Macrae outlined some of the issues with the idea behind Scoopt:

every mainstream media organisation that bought into the idea of user-generated content e.g. send us your pictures of snow – took away from Scoopt’s business
Scoopt needed a default route to market for all valuable content e.g. a partnership with Flickr was discussed, where users posting potentially valuable images could click to sell
there isn’t an unlimited market for editorial photography
Scoopt wasn’t sticky enough – “People would register on site and then wait the rest of their lives for something to happen”

It was impossible to scale the business on a regional level

But, says, Macrae, selling the site was always his ‘exit strategy’ – something all entrepreneurs should have from the start and there were some very valuable nuggets of advice for budding independents in his presentation:

try to step outside of the journalism sector before starting a journalism business – you’ll spot more opportunities this way
similarly, get someone to sanity check your business – preferably someone outside the industry
pay less attention to what the ‘usual commentators’ are saying when considering if you’re idea is good
in an ideal world, you’d have the funding in place first, but start as you mean to go on – think about where the money is going to come from from the very beginnning

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Bitter wallet: BBC offers £75 for ‘accidental’ use of Flickr image

Laura Oliver — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:27:43 +0000

A Flickr image of Birmingham’s city skyline was mistakenly used as a backdrop for a BBC news bulletin, the corporation has said, offering £75 usage fee to the photographer.

Full post at this link…Similar Posts:

Flickr and geotagging: Part of the newsgathering model?

Laura Oliver — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:00:26 +0000

After speaking with Matthieu Stefani from cit-j platform Citizenside about how the site mobilises its users to cover local news events, a Flickr development came to mind as a useful tool for tracking/aggregating content around breaking news.

Using Flickr’s map function, you can search by keyword and location. A quick search for bushfire and Australia, for example, brings up a host of images from Flickr users:

A great resource for news organisations looking for new images and on-the-ground witnesses and contributors (just remember to respect Creative Commons licencing and attribution principles).

Flickr announced last week that it has passed the 100 million mark for geotagged images and the site has also introduced a feature, as part of the geotagging process, called ‘nearby’, which allows users to search for other geotagged images located with a 1km radius of their photo.Similar Posts:

MediaShift: Cheap, fresh content using social media

John Thompson — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:32:07 +0000

Roland Legrand suggests seven ways “to keep costs low, content fresh using social media”. He also adds: “Never give up on training”.

Full blog post at this link…Similar Posts:

Theage.com.au: Social media among the Australian bushfires

John Thompson — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:27:46 +0000

Asher Moses of The Age looks at the role of social media such as Twitter, Flickr and Facebook have played during the fatal bushfires that have raged through Victoria in Australia

Full story at this link…Similar Posts:

CnetNews: Flickr users invited by Getty to join collection

Judith Townend — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 09:15:29 +0000

This week certain Flickr users began receiving invitations from the photo agency Getty, as part of a new partnership between the agency and Yahoo. A special Flickr-branded Getty collection will be launcing in March. Full story…Similar Posts:

Feeds feast for FT: new corporate RSS and FriendFeed experiment

Laura Oliver — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 16:08:12 +0000

(Try saying that headline 10 times fast)

First up, the Financial Times has announced a new RSS service for corporate users – an add-on for those paying subscribers who signed up for the site’s direct licence system introduced in April last year.

The customisable RSS feed will be available to corporate customers, who under the licence arrangement are entitled unlimited access to FT content on FT.com and third-party services, and can be tailored by specific search terms, a press release from the title said.

Not full-fat feeds as yet – users will click through to read articles on the main website.

Elsewhere, technology journalists at the FT’s San Francisco bureau have been experimenting with FriendFeed to create a single source of their links, articles and blog posts (it can also be used for Twitter and Flickr updates):

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Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – making the most of your newsgathering

Laura Oliver — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 10:21:34 +0000

Multimedia: make the most of interview recordings and images by publishing them, either on site, as part of an article or blog, or to a third party site like Flickr. Don’t throw away work you’ve already done that provides background or context. Tipster: Laura Oliver.

To submit a tip to Journalism.co.uk, use this link – we will pay a fiver for the best ones published.Similar Posts: