Tag Archives: social media

Social Media Journalist: “BBC journalists are increasingly using Del.icio.us to collaborate and turn research into content” Robin Hamman, BBC Senior Broadcast Journalist

Journalism.co.uk talks to journalists across the globe about social media and how they see it changing their industry. This week, Robin Hamman of the BBC.

1) Who are you and what do you do?
Robin Hamman, I’m a Senior Broadcast Journalist at the BBC where I spend much of my time showing people how to use social media and blogging as part of their ordinary programme and content making processes.

2) Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?
Most of them! My day starts with a visit to my web-based RSS reader that pulls in all the new content from around 90 blogs and other sources I subscribe to.

Some of those feeds are also things like Technorati, Icerocket and Google blog searches on various keywords. This means I very rarely have to proactively seek out content on the web anymore.

As I read through my RSS feeds I use Del.icio.us to bookmark and share the interesting content I find. This, in turn, publishes into my blog automatically at lunchtime – again, creating content out of something I’d do anyway.

If I’m out and about I’ll use Zonetag on my mobile to tag, location stamp and upload photos to Flickr. I also use Twitter to stay in touch with my friends and contacts, something via mobile, other times online.

If I’m planning to go out of town for work or a conference I put the details into Dopplr so I can see if any of my contacts are also going to be in town. I’m also a big user of Facebook – it, along with Twitter, has pretty much taken the place of email for me recently. I’m also experimenting with a few other social media tools such as qik, which broadcasts live video from my phone to the web, and some RSS aggregation tools like Yahoo Pipes.

3) Of the thousands of social media tools available could you single one out as having the most potential for news either as a publishing or news-gathering tool?
If the question had been simply about online tools, then RSS would be my choice, but as you’ve asked about social tools, Del.icio.us is the one I’d highlight as having a lot of potential.

Get over to the CommonCraft video about it and you’ll soon understand. BBC Journalists and production teams are increasingly discovering and using this great tool to collaborate more easily whilst researching and to turn their research process into content.

4) And the most overrated in your opinion?
Anything to do with video online – I just don’t get it. The only reason I shoot and post video online, aside from when I’m demonstrating how to do it, is to save my hands from having to transcribe a conference presentation that I’m live blogging.

DNA 2008: Guardian to use Pluck to monitor users online

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The Guardian is working on a project to monitor user interaction with their website more closely.

This ‘attention data’ will then be reflected in content and community areas of the site, Tom Turcan, general manager and head of digital media development at the Guardian, told Journalism.co.uk.

Turcan would not be drawn on specifics of the plan, but said the project would involve social media firm Pluck – whose SiteLife technology is to be introduced to the community areas of Guardian.co.uk later this year.

“The principle of tracking how people use things and then reflecting it back on the site is a way to build community,” he said.

Most recommended/most e-mailed lists are basic examples of how the analysis may be used, said Turcan, but emphasis will be placed on representing ‘crowd wisdom’ in a ‘bespoke’ form.

Turcan was speaking on a panel discussing news on social networks, during which he announced the following figures for Guardian.co.uk (they are all per month):

2 million podcasts downloaded

0.5 – 1 million videos viewed

2 million RSS clicks

50,000 blog posts

Social Media Journalist: ‘You have to be selective, keeping across all sites dilutes the value of the good ones’ Vicky Taylor, editor BBC Interactivity

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Journalism.co.uk talks to journalists across the globe about social media and how they see it changing their industry.

1. Who are you and what do you do?
Vicky Taylor, editor of Interactivity for BBC News. I run the team which produces the Have Your Say section of the website and the UGC hub which takes all the fantastic content the public send us and passes it on to all other BBC programmes and sites – internationally and in UK.

2. Which web or mobile-based social media tools do you use on a daily basis and why?
Apart from Have You Say on BBC news website (on my pc but also on my phone as read only) I get news email alerts on my phone and on my PC about upcoming BBC programmes.

I’m also on Facebook, but use that mainly to contact old friends now in Australia (not from BBC of course), and LinkedIn, which is more useful for business contacts.

Your net worth is your network as the guy who set it up said recently! I started off using del.icio.us to bookmark interesting articles but never have enough time to do it justice. As a team we look at Youtube, Shozu, Seesmic, MySpace and some team members are on twitter so we monitor that too.

3. Of the thousands social media tools available could you single one out as having the most potential for news, either as a publishing or newsgathering tool?
Facebook has been fantastically helpful to our team in finding people with specialist interest.

When the Burma uprising was happening, a colleague found the Friends of Burma group and through them got in touch with many who had recently left the country and had amazing tales to tell.

Journalists now have to know how to seek out information and contact from all sorts of sources and social network sites are key to this.

4. And the most overrated?
I wouldn’t pick out one as overrated as they all have different uses for different audiences. I think though you have to be fairly selective, as keeping across all the sites and emails you may get if you go into everything is just not possible and dilutes the value of the really good ones.

Social Media Journalist: ‘social search seems like a solution in search of a problem’ Howard Owens, Gatehouse Media, US

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Journalism.co.uk talks to journalists across the globe about social media and how they see it changing their industry.

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Innovations in Journalism – Seesmic.com

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1) Who are you and what’s it all about?

I’m Cathy Brooks, Seesmic executive producer.

Seesmic is a platform for global conversation. We take all the best of blogging, IM, Twitter and social networks and bring them together, creating a rich environment for debate and discourse using video as the medium.

2) Why would this be useful to a journalist?

Think of it as having access to a global pool of expert sources.

With 4,000 people from 25 countries currently in the system Seesmic provides journalists with eyes and ears in virtually every major part of the world.

When Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, the Seesmic community almost exploded with discussion, revealing a deep, rich pool of commentators whose backgrounds and geography would have made them invaluable to a reporter.

Seesmic also can serve as a sounding board for story ideas and topics, often resulting in finding experts whose knowledge can support a journalist’s efforts.

3) Is this it, or is there more to come?

This is just the beginning. Seesmic opened its doors in September 2007. We have been in a closed, alpha stage with invite only access to the platform since late 2007 and will be opening more widely to the public in 2008.

We will be building out our community substantially as we open to a more widespread audience. We also will develop and produce both original and sponsored programming as well as create an array of channels for conversations.

4) Why are you doing this?

Because in the massive echo-chamber that is the world of social media there are myriad ways to broadcast thoughts and messages to either one, a few or many people, and there are even some ways to have group discussions, but there is a distinct lack of resources allowing people to truly communicate and converse in a meaningful, rich way.

By leveraging video as the conduit, Seesmic provides a truly personal and human connection.

5) What does it cost to use it?

There is presently no cost to the user and we will always provide a free service. There may, in the future, be subscription level “professional” versions with additional features and functionality but that is still in the future. Find out argos opening times and events

6) How will you make it pay?

Presently we are building our community and our technology. We have several potential options for revenue – from contextual advertising and sponsored channels/programming to subscription level services that provide additional features and no advertising.

Sky News development competition and its royalty free use ‘in perpetuity’ of finalist’s work

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Earlier this month Sky News launched a competition offering £10,000 in prize money for developers to come up with new and novel uses of its RSS feeds.

Text, images and video are all covered in RSS and hoping for a innovative use of its feeds the news provider has put no limit on what developers can potentially come up with.

The competition closes this Friday and those with the best ideas will be asked to attend a ‘Dragons’ Den-style Judgment Day at the Sky News studios on Thursday 20th December.’

According to the terms and conditions of the competition:

“Sky will select approximately ten contributions whose applications show the most potential, from the points of view of design, usability, innovation and originality, to be deployed into a live environment, and could most successfully distribute Sky News content via new methods, web or otherwise.”

Aside from reward of actually developing a useful application for these feeds, Sky News plans to give at least £1,000 to the winner and at least £200 to each finalist.

However, in return Sky News will take quite a bit:

“Sky will keep details of, and retain a licence to use the Contribution of each Finalist, whether or not that Finalist is selected to be the Winner or a Runner-Up. Sky will require each Finalist, and, if a Finalist is under 18, a parent or guardian, to sign a separate agreement confirming Sky’s rights to use the Contribution.

3.2 All Finalists agree that the copyright (if any) and all other rights, title and interest, in and in respect of their Contribution, will be licensed by the Finalist to Sky as follows:
(a) Sky shall have an exclusive royalty free worldwide license in all media in the Finalist’s Contribution for a period of 3 months from the date of the submission of the Contribution by the Finalist;
(b) after that 3 month period, Sky shall have a non-exclusive royalty free worldwide license in perpetuity in all media in the Finalist’s Contribution.
All Finalists must agree that no payment (other than Prizes where awarded) shall be due to them nor shall they make a claim for any further payment against Sky or its licensees or assigns in respect of the license of such rights.”

Nothing particularly new in this, the approach is fairly typical of other commercial/creative competitions, Channel 4 is pretty much setting the same conditions for its own RSS widget competition.

So the position is a news company owned by a billionaire is asking for someone else to design it a cutting edge technological development, for it to use for free, forever.

But Dragon’s Den is all about entrepreneurs striking deals to make long-term money with their ideas, isn’t it?

Has Sky not missed a trick to apply the ethos of the competition to the prize?

If it really wants to be seen as a cutting edge company could Sky News have experimented with a little ad-share from traffic to the site from these new applications (if it’s possible to work this out)?

The same with Channel 4?

Collaborative production is the founding ethos of social media – YouTube and Flickr are nothing without their communities.

Similarly Facebook, for which the technological contributions of its members and partners is paramount. But at the moment, on the whole it’s done for free.

So why not also share about the cash created by these partnerships? After all, if you had a bit of video Sky News wanted, they would pay you for it. Why not for the delivery mechanism too?

For disaster reporting – change your site template and turn on social media mode

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The wildfires that are raging through California and have caused half-a-million people to be ordered from their homes have encouraged news providers to ditch their normal website formats and go into wholly innovative crisis-reporting mode.

Having a design format for breaking news that’s significantly different from the usual run of breaking news helps draw attention to the scale and importance of the story.

Cluttered websites like 10news.com and KNBC.com – Cory Bergman at Lost Remote points out – have failed to get over the magnitude of the events.

Adopting a unique layout for the home page – Corry adds – can also allow more content to surface:

“If you build a breaking news layout ahead of time, it’s not that much work to execute it when the story breaks. Just flick the switch. TV sites should own breaking news, and a flexible, content-driven design plays a big part.”

It’s something BBC News also does for big stories. It abandons the usual format of running a lead and to sub-lead stories, replacing them with a single large image to direct attention to a specific story.

Sites like the LA Times and MSNBC have adopted a similar approach for the fires. The Times has a photo gallery on its front page, along with links to its interactive maps, evacuation info and quick stats on the carnage the fires are causing.

Homepage design aside, devices for reporting the breaking news On The Fly have caused some news providers to ditch the usual tools and wing it with social media.

As we posted yesterday, radio station KPBS is using Twitter to do ‘Real-Time Updates’ on its website and to direct readers to local authority announcements, its Google Map of the fires, traffic updates and addresses for evacuation centres.

News 8, a CBS affiliate in San Diego, has even (thanks to Martin Stabe @ the Press Gazette for the point) taken down its normal website and replaced it with a rolling news blog, with links to YouTube videos and necessary/emergency information.

One of those uploaded videos is from journalist Larry Himmel, who reports on his own house being destroyed:

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKGF2bbxQ6E]

‘Facebook Effect’ developing widgets boosts your site traffic

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Facebook, Facebook, Facebook, it’s all I ever hear. But could research from Quantcast finally have made the tangible link between the social site and others that news publishers were waiting to hear?

It claims that developing widgets for the site results in increasing site traffic for those developing the apps – ‘The Facebook Effect’
“Quantcast found a common dramatic increase in traffic for those publishers that have built and deployed widgets (“applications”) on the Facebook platform.”

“Just six weeks into Facebook’s open platform initiative, we are seeing striking results,” said Konrad Feldman, co-founder and CEO, Quantcast Corporation. “The Facebook platform is driving substantial incremental traffic to application publishers’ Web sites, as consumers find new routes to exploring their wares.”

The Quantcast charts below (figures 1 and 2) reveal the relative growth in daily uniques to three leading widget publishers, each with multiple applications running on the Facebook platform. Since Facebook’s open platform initiative began on May 25th of this year:

Slide, the leading personal media network, has more than tripled its global reach in Web site traffic.
- Slide grew domestic U.S. daily unique visitors from approximately 312,000 to more than 1.1 million, an increase of 265 percent.
- Slide grew global daily unique visitors from approximately 753,000 to more than 2.3 million, an increase of 207 percent.

HOTorNOT, an early leader in social media, has doubled its global reach in Web site traffic.
- HOTorNOT grew domestic U.S. daily unique visitors from approximately 182,000 to more than 350,000, an increase of 98 percent.
- HOTorNOT grew global daily unique visitors from approximately 289,000 to more than 722,000, an increase of 152 percent.

RockYou, creator and distributor some of the most popular self-expression widgets on the Web, has more than tripled its global reach in Web site traffic.
- RockYou grew domestic U.S. daily unique visitors from approximately 145,000 to more than 521,000, an increase of 228 percent.
- RockYou tripled its global reach, increasing global unique visitors from approximately 286,000 to more than 1.3 million, an increase of 339 percent.

Figures 1 and 2 reveal the relative growth in daily unique visitors for domestic U.S. and Global audiences, respectively:

Now, just ’cause it worked for these few, doesn’t say to me that it will work for others. Yet it shows that those talking Facebook on its own terms are most likely to reap the benefits.