Are Podcasts Dead?
April 7, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
In case you didn’t know, I’ll be in Las Vegas Sunday-Wednesday for the NAB conference (National Association of Broadcasters). The Reynolds Journalism Institute at the Missouri School of Journalism is sponsoring my trip so that I can present Contributr to the masses. (Let’s hope Contributr is ready, more on that tomorrow!)
As I was looking through the available sessions trying to schedule myself into some I noticed a recurring theme, podcasting. Now I hate to rain on anybody’s parade but aren’t podcasts dead? Haven’t they been deemed not conversational enough?
I mean sure, we all are subscribed to a few in iTunes, but how often do you actually listen to one? Let alone actively look for more? I know I don’t. I’ve moved on, I’ve moved on to try to create and examine the semantic web. And podcasts just don’t fit into that strategy very well. They may not be static in location but they are certainly static in content. One you publish an episode to a podcast it just sits there… and people listen to it… but what else? What’s the extra step? … Well I just can’t seem to find it.
So you might imagine my disappointment when I am going through the NAB sessions schedule and see multiple sessions on podcasting each day, and only 2 or 3 sessions on ‘blogging’ total for the entire conference.
Is this where journalism is? Is this what the journalism folks think is hot? Haven’t they found Twitter, haven’t they found Facebook, haven’t they found that conversations are the latest and greatest things to hit the web?
Apparently not, and in my conversations with Jen Reeves it seems that the ‘industry’ is doomed to be 5-years behind as she puts it. Here I am creating wikis, blogging daily, coming up with user generated content solutions, enhancing new-media workflows, and creating conversations around my own life and here is the Journalism Industry just now trying to figure out podcasting.
There’s disconnect somewhere. That disconnect is what is holding back journalism and the news media in general, they’re not in touch with what consumers are using technology for.
As all of my recent blog posts do, I’ll link this one to my current job-search. There are quite a few journalism web content editor and producer jobs out there. Frankly, they’re almost a dime a dozen, news organizations realize they need to staff “the web” so staff “the web” they do. But where is the innovation? Where is the commitment?
Part of the struggle I have faced in my job search is that there’s plenty of work to be had out there, but very few newsrooms and very few news people “get it”. It takes more than just repurposing content from your printed newspaper or broadcast TV show onto the web anymore, that’s just not enough. People want to have conversations, they want to change, edit, manipulate, share, and copy your precious content. Are you willing to see what your public can do for you?
That’s the future of journalism. Don’t just talk to the public, let the public talk to you. If you “get it” email, call, IM, or @jdcoffman me. I’m listening, are you?
What Radio Stations Can Do NOW To Gain Listenership
March 21, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
I’ll start by saying that radio is not my native tongue. I’ve done some editing and producing work for a local NPR affiliate but not much else. That doesn’t mean that my comments should be discounted, just that some of these may already be out there and I’m just not aware of it yet.
Here are some ideas on how radio can gain listenership NOW.
- Less crazy-talking DJs, more content (be it music, news, or other)
- More local and hyper-local content. Broadcast from places where your listeners are. It’s not that difficult to stream back to the station via microwave, satellite, or web. Join the rest of the world in the trenches.
- Stream your content on the web, all of it. I may be able to have headphones connected to my laptop at work easier than I can have a radio sitting on my desk.
- Indie Radio. Need I say more? No offense to Cumulus, etc, but geez, a little local ownership every once in a while never hurt anyone too badly.
- Discussion boards and blogs on your site, your listeners are likely all interested in some of the same things, so play to hose interests and let them talk amongst themselves. You may be surprised at how articulate they really are.
What ideas do YOU have? Share them in the comments.
What Newspapers Can Do NOW To Gain Readership
March 20, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Newspapers have a bad reputation of being reactionary (although much of the American media is quite reactionary in nature) but here are some things I think newspapers should do NOW to gain readership and credibility in the communities they serve.
- Update your website more than 3 or 4 times a day, information is always becoming more clear as stories develop, let that be reflected on the web. I would even suggest time-stamping updates to stories so that your readers know that you are WORKING for them.
- Don’t ignore stories after they’ve been reported once. Make sure your reporters know how to edit and change web stories, have them post followups and additional information even after they’ve moved on to other stories.
- Open comments on your web site, in order to gain any credibility you need to allow and embrace commenting on stories, sources, and reporters by the public. Let the public have a voice. While it may seem very scary, it’s more necessary than you think right now.
- Let the public report on their own stories. No one else knows more about what the public wants than the public itself. Allow them to contribute news, information, text, images, video, and more to your news organization… Then publicize it and let them see their own work.
- Editors and filters don’t have to be out of the picture with user generated content, but stringent rules and regulations and fears of the public do need to be out of the picture.
Those are just a few of the many ideas I have about what the newspaper industry need to do in order to gain readership and respect in this new age. It is in no way exhaustive, and there are many other steps, tools, and advice I can give on those subjects.
Here’s the real lesson: Transparency, Participation, Conversation, and Trust.
Removing the Newspaper Moniker
March 18, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
A more recent than not change in the newspaper world is the lack us the word “newspaper” to describe the business. This is as much public fluff and PR as it is anything else.
It’s all great and good to move forward and evolve a little, but its another thing altogether to wake up and not be a “newspaper” anymore. Quite contrary, there’s a lot to be said about semantics and the way people perceive words, but I fear that these newspapers aren’t doing anything more than fooling themselves.
There’s a lot more to being an “information source” or “data center” than meets the ear. To truly evolve into a product that people want to interact with (yes I said interact, just reading text and viewing images and video isn’t enough anymore) newspapers need more than just a new motto or mission statement.
Sure changing those things I’m sure is a shock to some people in these newsrooms but what they’re not saying as much about it the dramatic change in culture that is required of a shift from one focus (a printed product with an online product as a second class citizen) to another.
What I’m trying to say is that it’s going to take more than these semantic changes to “save” the newspaper industry. It takes more than just information to hold an audience. It takes conversations, transparency, and interaction to have ANY effect on people.
There needs to be a massive shift in culture and personnel before newspapers can truly change into information centers and local resources in the online world. This can be achieved in many ways, but its going to take more than just removing the newspaper moniker from the vocabulary of the newsroom.
The Final Stretch!
January 28, 2008 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
What a surprise we got today, we finally heard from the Reynolds Institute that we have to submit the final AIR application to Adobe for a technical review by Friday at 5pm CST. I see some late nights ahead of us this week!We’ve got a great little application with a TON of potential, let’s just hope everyone else loves it as much as we do 
There seems to be a great demand for such an application, all of the news type people I’ve told about Contributr just think it’s a great idea, now we all know it’s a great idea, but let’s hope our implementation makes people just as happy!Have a great week, and I’ll post as we progress through the final days before the judging of our application.
CaspioVote Post- Additional thoughts
November 14, 2007 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
My post earlier today regarding my initial impressions of the CaspioVote election guide has unfortunately caused a little stir.
I have emailed Caspio asking for clarification and a demo of the product. I will wait to respond further until I have some documentation from them to either counter or confirm the information I was able to find regarding their latest web application.
It has come to my attention that they are unhappy with what was written and feel that it was an unfair assessment of their application.
All I can say at this point is that I took what information was available in the publicly accessible portions of their website, including links, their press release published today, and a quick 5-minute review of the source page of the one example I was able to find on a live site and my observations were made from that research.
Obviously there is not much out there at this point, which I think is why it’s important to take an early look for an initial evaluation and it very well may change my outlook once we’ve setup a time for a demo.
One of my primary interest areas is new-media and content delivery. Web applications that make that delivery easier and more accessible to more people are constantly on my radar. Fortunately for me, I’m in a position where I can try out and sample many applications and share the knowledge gained in a conversation with a community.
CaspioVote is something that interests me personally and professionally which is why I took the time to look at how it can be used and how it works.
If you’re interested in more information about Caspio in general and other conversations that have taken place check out these links:
http://www.customerthink.com/news/caspio_named_finalist_in_cnet_webware_100
http://commonsensej.blogspot.com/2007/10/caspio-dustup.html
http://www.bloggingstocks.com/2007/06/10/hyper-local-apps-to-save-the-newspaper-biz/
http://www.jacobian.org/writing/2007/sep/12/db-journalism/
http://www.thescoop.org/archives/2007/09/07/outsourcing-database-development-or-the-caspio-issue
http://www.thescoop.org/archives/2007/09/12/on-trials-software-and-otherwise/
CaspioVote - Turnkey Election Guide - A Review
November 14, 2007 by Jonathan · 2 Comments
CaspioVote is being marketed as an easy-to-use election guide type drill-down, database driven tool for media companies to plug-in to their sites and have an insta-election guide.
I’ve read all pages of the site related to this particular application, and visited the only live client page I was able to find through their press release and have given my opinions, good and bad about the information that’s currently available on this just-released system.
Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:
Pros:
- It’s turnkey, pay the money and it’s an instant election guide
- No coding or other knowledge needed other than sticking a a code-snippit into your existing site
- Relatively inexpensive, which it typically the case with turnkey solutions.
- No additional staffing needed
Cons:
- It’s turnkey, this means you have little control because all the work has been done for you.
- It’s does not appear to be search engine friendly, not having a URL hierarchy is going to limit if not exclude you from the free traffic that your news organization will get because of the lack of search engine friendliness.
- No additional staffing needed, this is a great solution when you’ve got a one or two person web crew in your newsrooms and neither of which is a database or web application developer.
Some other thoughts – Here the CaspioVote Features page and my response to those items, the Features page has the bulk of the public information about the application which is why I’ve concentrated on the details provided there.
- Fully-hosted and operated by Caspio, requiring no support from IT.
- They have control over your site, if their servers crash or the software breaks, you’ve got to wait for them to fix the issue, much like if you use GoogleDocs instead of MS Office, it’s great until Google’s servers go down for a few minutes and you haven’t saved what you’re working on. You’re completely at the mercy and experience of the Caspio staff and their datacenter (having not seen a license agreement for the application, is there an SLA to provide accountability and retribution for extended down-time?)
- Seamlessly integrates with your site.
- By seamless, they mean they give you a snippit of code that happens to be a javascript call to display the information, this method isn’t search engine friendly, and tends to have difficulties in cross-platform and cross-browser compatibility.
- Covers all race levels (local, county, state and federal) and ballot issues.
- This hierarchy should be easy enough for basic web users to understand and use. Does it provide enough flexibility for those who want more information and detail?
- Visitors see local election details and candidate profiles on your site and print their customized ballot
- Print their custom ballot as seen on the only live-site sample running this application is simply a button that prints the web page that they’re on, complete with the original site navigation, images, and the Caspio frame.
- No limits on the number of counties, state and federal districts, townships, parishes, municipalities, or school districts.
- Well I would hope there wouldn’t be!
- Unlimited page views included in the annual license.
- This is only important because each time someone visits your election guide, it’s really their website that’s coming up inside yours, frankly, it’s not unlimited, what they have is tiered pricing based on your market-size, having a bigger market means you’re likely to have more web views, which in fact makes the price higher. So yes it’s unlimited page views, but at the same time, you’re still paying more for your size. This does seem to be a fair way of pricing and is quite common when working with media companies.
- Mass-email feature to help you invite candidates to complete their profiles and answer your questions
- No interference with your advertising and analytics systems so you enjoy all the traffic and ad revenues.
- It seems like this could be problematic depending on how they have the site implemented within your own.
If I were an Internet person with a limited budget at a newsroom that wouldn’t otherwise have a very comprehensive election guide of information on their site without this application, then I would be very interested in what CaspioVote has to offer.
If a newsroom were to buy into the CaspioVote program, they are getting what appears to be a basic content manager of information directly related to a specific election. I’m basing my review on the only live example site available at the time of this posting.
Caspio provides a great entry into the very basic information that every news organization should have on the web anyway, however it is greatly restricted in functionality and usability because of the single- form of navigation and the limited information provided on each page as shown by the live site using the application. The literature available on the web says that they can implement extended functionality for a fee.
On the same front as usability and functionality, by looking at how the page loads and how the hierarchy is built, I would imagine that this setup would not be very ‘functional’ for those viewers who have disabilities and use software and other assistive devices.
For one, screen readers don’t always pick up on those java calls at all, I’m not an accessibility expert by any means, but I do hear complaints from people trying to use the web with assistive technologies and struggling so I’m curious to see what testing has been completed.
There’s my first impressions of the application, what are yours? Comments are open below.
[EDIT 1- added bullets to make the post easier to read]
[EDIT 2- Edited for grammar]
A New Media Mindset
November 10, 2007 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
As I progress and increase my knowledge and interest in new-media ventures and the people who work with them I realize more and more about the organizational and staffing problems of companies, especially news organizations who feel threatened by new-media.
I’ve worked with new and emerging media for five years now, and I don’t claim to be the most knowledgeable about any of the technologies that I support, however I do have strongly-held beliefs as to what news organizations should be doing to embrace and take advantage of the tools and resources available to them.
The most common problem that I encounter in trying to support and innovate news-products with the newsrooms that I work with is the culture of fear, not in the traditional sense, but a culture of fear, of technology.
I’m constantly surrounded by editors, producers, writers, reporters, and management who don’t understand the technology resources they have and are scared to even try something new.
This self-destruction and fear does nothing to help their news organization emerge as a winner in a new-media landscape. Thank goodness there are news organizations who feel otherwise, but at least of the newsrooms I work with (one TV station and the other a small-market daily newspaper) feel compelled to constantly lag behind the industry, and innovation.
Both of the perps have people within their walls who not only aren’t afraid of technology, but actively seek new and innovative ways to present news and information, it’s those people, or people like them who need to be guiding the news media into the present and the future.
One key example is the TV station, They launched a new website 3 years ago using a huge content management system hosted in-house. The problem is, they’ve gone through one major redesign of the site (which was a very good thing) but that redesign took a year or more to complete, and other than that, they have done little to no new innovative things with their web site.
I’ve offered numerous opportunities to try new and exciting things that have been tested successfully elsewhere, but they are afraid to move forward.
They actually have someone who was supposed to make it a ‘priority’ to offer on their site podcasts of news stories etc. This may have been a good idea a couple years ago, but we can now see that podcasts aren’t as strong as we all thought they would be, and the adoption of RSS feeds to the general public is moving a lot slower than many of us thought.
Despite that, they continue to work on it, in the meantime not accomplishing anything nor moving forward with anything new that is indeed spreading much faster than podcasting.
The use of new-media tools like Flash streaming video, Twitter, Facebook, Widgets, and dare I say it, RIAs, are the things these news organizations need to be looking at to generate new revenue streams, but instead their stuck eternally in the late 90s with little to no progress.
I’m off to a meeting later today with 4 people who are working on a big converged media election project, we were making great progress for a week and a half on this project, only to have it run off the rails in the last 3 days. Now there’s discussion of using a different CMS, starting over, and other drastic, and unneeded changes.
Not only that, but the committee which has a hard enough time making decisions (as they often do) keeps growing, now I completely understand the importance of decision by committee and bringing in external viewpoints, but doing so in a fashion which alienates key players is not a recommendation I would make.
I’ll post again soon about this election project as it is consuming a lot of my time right now, and there are some very interesting implications of this project and how it is eventually developed and promoted.
Macs rule in university classrooms - Lost Remote TV Blog
October 15, 2007 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Macs rule in university classrooms - Lost Remote TV Blog
I’m slightly offended by the negative comments regarding the Missouri School of Journalism’s deal with Apple Inc. Yes, the faculty all get Apple laptops every couple of years, and the newsrooms get free gadgets to test and use for journalism purposes… but honestly, is it such a bad thing to make sure your students have the tools and resources they need to succeed in an ever-more competitive journalism marketplace?
There are still hundreds of college students graduating from the Jschool’s print program, many of which don’t understand nor have a desire to learn how the web is going to impact their lives and their jobs… This is not a good thing.
The Missouri School of Journalism is considered the world’s first and finest school of journalism in the world, and they’re taking big steps to make sure their students are prepared… part of being prepared means they need the tools to be able to create journalism in new and exciting ways, is it their fault that Apple already has those solutions readily available and accessible? I think not.
New Media Mind - A New Blog 4u
October 14, 2007 by Jonathan · Leave a Comment
Sharing my new media thoughts to the world. — New Media Mind
I’m sharing this new and exciting blog with you today because it’s worth it. The author of New Media Mind is Jen Reeves, my boss at KOMU, and friend. We’ve worked together for 3 or 4 years now on various projects and we’ve accomplished a lot! Not nearly enough, but we’ve done a lot.
I first met and started working with her as she launched the new komu.com 3 years ago, I wasn’t involved in the planning, but I was one of the original content generators and editors for her. Since then, I’ve posted, edited, written, or had my hand in over 1,400 stories on komu.com and it grows each week. It’s truly been an amazing experience working on such a project.
Unfortunately we have a list a mile-long of tools and technology that we’d like to introduce but there is currently a spending freeze on this fabulous site… Which honestly, is quite a backwards view of the web and journalism in this day and age. The web is such a powerful and important tool it’s a shame that it’s being neglected in such a manner.
All that to say, Jen is fabulous and you should check out her emerging blog.
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