Sunday, November 15th, 2009

Video: Clay Shirky on Twitter and the digital media revolution

This video from GRITtv featuring new media heavy-hitter Clay Shirky is worth checking out. Lots of Twitter boosting – which I know some journalists will like (though not all). And some insight into why and when such technology becomes important. Plus the whole “what is the future of journalism” meme. Things I have learned: Clay […]

Friday, August 21st, 2009

Electric Ink: the funny side of an industry in crisis

It seems the cutting edge debate between old-style inky-fingered hacks and bright new multimeeja journalists has now been turned into cosy Radio 4 situation comedy. I’ve only just caught up with Electric Ink, which is now on its third episode, but all the tension between old-skool journalism and the weberati is there in a handy […]

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Comments Unbound

For everyone who can’t get through the day without new and shiny material to look at, be reassured that there’s a lot going on here, but most of it is in the comments section, where readers and I are engaged in the savage cut and thrust of debate on matters ranging from why paid journalism […]

Friday, July 17th, 2009

8 reasons why journalists love Twitter…

…much more than real people do For some reason journalists have grabbed hold of Twitter as a starving man does a ham sandwich. But why? What is it about this slightly clunky, limited, and frankly difficult to negotiate web tool that we love so much? Here are a few thoughts… You can build up a […]

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Teenagers reject Twitter shock

Much media kerfuffle about the news that teenagers aren’t interested in Twitter. Well – crucially, that they’re not interested in using it from their mobile phone, which costs money. The piece in question, from the Financial Times, reports on a research note from Morgan Stanley written by 15-year-old intern Matthew Robson. (The note is available […]

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

Does journalism need a new crowdsourcing tool?

It strikes me there’s a kind of assumption around journalism that it somehow needs bespoke tools to do its job in the new digital media world. But actually I think it should stick to its existing strengths. In the spirit of research, I’ve just visited the Royal College of Art summer graduation show to check out […]

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Twitterfeed update

So – no sign of the post I was expecting on my Twitter account, but Twitterfeed managed to pull out my previous post about the Yemeni air crash. Something’s working – I’m just not sure what it is. [Twitterfeed update UPDATE: Of course, this post has made it in. Which looks silly…]

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

RSS is dead – long live Twitterfeed

The Online Journalism Blog says RSS is dead and newspapers should abandon their useless RSS news feeds for Twitter. As the OJB is such an authority, when it says “jump”, I obviously ask “how high?”. And then, sheeplike, I swap my no-doubt useless RSS feed for a link to my Twitter account. How easy will this be? […]

Sunday, March 15th, 2009

Connectivity, not content

Or, why the web can sometimes seem so very meta I noted recently that “people don’t care half as much about news as people in old media think they do. What they care about is entertainment and connectivity”.  Though it’s the sort of thing that has old-style news journalists weeping and tearing their hair out (well, […]

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2009

Seven steps to switch from print to web journalism

A challenge from Twitter Just up on the online journalism Twitter feed from Kari Rippetoe:  What advice would you give a print journalism vet to transition into web content editing? Pls twt your advice & feel free to blog about it. It’s an interesting question, and one I’m pretty much in the middle of, so OK […]