Crossing the finish line

The end is here. Hopefully, some of you will keep your blogs going, but obviously you are not obligated once the semester ends. I hope you found the experiment interesting and useful. For the next week, concentrate on posting daily – many took a hiatus over the holiday and that’s fine. I also want you to write one final essay that should be posted by Sunday (12/4/05) about your blogging experience – what did you get out of it, if anything. What would you do differently? What did you enjoy? Dislike? Do you think you will continue your blog? Were there any surprises? What do you think of blogs in general? Did you share your blog with family and friends and what did they think? I will type up comments and issue a final grade for everyone’s blog to hand out next Tuesday -- our last class.

There's gold in them Websites ...

For those of us who worked on news Websites in the ancient period of the mid to late'90s, when many in the business didn't "get" what the Web was all about - it's fun to see these articles about how now the business gets it - the Web is the future for print. Here's a piece from the San Diego Union Tribune.

Must-read blogs

The Wall Street Journal has come up with their list of must-read blogs. Maybe some day yours will be among them!

The Arts and blogging

We've touched on the subject a bit about how many people would love to be a music critic or a movie critic or a food critic, but those jobs are hard to get and the people who have them don't leave 'til they die -but the Internet is opening up a whole new world in this area (think Pitchfork), here's an article in the Wall Street Journal that talks about "artbloggers"

Newsvine - a wikipedia version of the news

Here's a story from the Seattle Post about a new company called Newsvine - it's going to be an online news site that will let readers write and edit the news - it's a media development project under Walt Disney.

Audio Slide Show

This week we will be starting to work on learning the tools to make our Flash audio slide shows and on today's New York Times Website there is an inspriring one of 28 disabledAmerican soldiers (many fought in Iraq) who ran the NY City marathon over the weekend - all 28 finished. Either go to the homepage today where it's linked or try the indexed page - try to view before class, if not, we will look at in class. It's called "Among the Finishers"

Another piece on teens and blogs

The New York Times had a piece yesterday (similar to the one USAToday had) on teenagers airing their all on blogs, online sites, etc. Many stories have been focused on the privacy issues and parents concern about what info is out there and who is reading it, but I like how this story also points out how these kids are creating their own multi-media packages - using music, video, spoken voice, words, photos - they are adept at using various media equipment. These are the future consumers of news and they are going to want more than the products the current media organiztions are offering. The innovation in the business will come from these young minds (including my students) as they move out into the workforce.

The law and the Internet

Here are a few links to sites I will be talking about in class today ....

Electronic Frontier Foundation's Legal Guide for Bloggers

Brad Templeton's 10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained

Cuts and more cuts ... jobs in journalism

Interesting thoughts by Jeff Jarvis today (he writes the Buzz Machine blog, which I read pretty regulary) on the future of journalism - particulary newspapers with all the doom and gloom announcements there have been lately on lay-offs, etc. He also excerpts others who have interesting things to say. Yes, there is doom and gloom, but there are also a lot of people who have hope that the profession has a lot of opportunities in the future - it's just going to be different - not the media business your parents or grandparents once knew.

Copyright violations

Lauren B. wrote this post about a recent WSJ piece on photo agencies scanning Web for illegal use of their photos - we're going to talk about copyright violations in class on Friday. Please read this article before then.

Free speech issues at schools

Here's a piece about Tri-State University's (Fort Wayne, Indiana) new policy that faculty and students can't speak with the press without the university's permission. Usually this is standard fare for employees of a school, like faculty, but very unusual to include students in this mix.

On her blog, Jennifer wrote a post about a high school in New Jersey that has ordered (or risk suspension) its students to take down any online journals or profiles they have on the Internet.

Photo manipulation

This goes back a few lectures when we discussed how easy it is to alter photos with software programs such as Photoshop. Here is an article on on USA Today altered a photo of Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice - it was an AP photo and they touched up the eyes for the Web version. Pics are included with the article - read it here

Following your blog topic in the news

A great feature that Google provides is News Alerts. These make it easy to follow your topic in the news without checking out numerous separate Websites everyday. For example, for my Keeping Score blog, I have a news alert that sends me an e-mail with all the news stories that have the key words - "women, LPGA, golfers." Once a day, Google sends me an e-mail and I can scan the headlines and look at the stories that look like they might be something I want to put on my blog. You can set up as many news alerts as you would like - I have several. The trick is to have enough key words so you don't get flooded with a ton of links but not so narrow that you miss out on things. Google also provides links to blogs that match your key words also - so this can lead you to fellow bloggers in your topic area.

State of the Media

We will be talking about this report in class - State of the Media 2005 put out by the Project for Excellence in Journalism

The media biz is freaking out over your news habits

The Chicago Tribune also has a piece on where young people are getting the news. In addition to commenting on the New York Times piece, (see this post) you may want to add a sentence or two about this piece, along with it.

Something light ...

I took the What Kind of Food Are You? test that Taryn links to from her blog and here I am ...

You Are Thai Food

Trendy yet complex. People seek you out - though they're not sure why.

What Kind of Food Are You?

I want my news for free

This week's blog assignment is to go off your blog topic and write an essay in response to this article in the New York Times "Why Should You Pay to Read This Newspaper". Post your response on your own blog. Write about your own news habits - how do you get your news? Also, talk about other kinds of content you use - music, movies, books, magazines, - what are you willing to pay for? How much a month roughly do you spend on media content? What do you get for free? How have your habits changed over the past few years? What technology has enabled some of these changes? Examine other questions - is the news worth paying for? What is the future of paid news content? How are these news organizations going to stay in business if no one is buying the product? What does this mean for your future as a journalist or other profession? Your essay should be posted on your blog by next Tuesday (November 1).

Promoting your blog

Where is everybody? It can be a bit discouraging, when you are writing post after post on your blog, but don’t see anyone commenting on your prolific witty and knowledgeable writings. I think there are many blogs out there that got off to an enthusiastic start, but slowly fizzled because the writer wasn’t sure if anyone was reading and gives up. The best course is to just to keep plugging away. Write and write and write. It’s good discipline and you will grow as a writer, even if no one, but your best friends or parents, are reading you. If you feel you are starting to find a voice, and you are writing regularly, you might want to think about getting your blog “out there” a bit more. There are a few ways to plug in to the blogosphere. One is to link to other blogs on your site and then read them on a regular basis. When you click on the link from your blog into theirs, they may notice you if they are following their referrer links (some blogging programs allow bloggers to see how much traffic they have and where it is coming from). Some of these blogs, may in turn, put up a link back to you, driving their readers over to your site for a visit. To be more involved, start commenting on these other blogs to join the conversation. To find other blogs in your topic area, see below **

Another option is Google. Share your url address with Google and they may add it to their vast index. This means when people type in certain words during a search, your blog may turn up as one of the links. Go to this page to learn more about this: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl. You can also submit your blog address to Blogwise – here is their page on how do to it.

** Finding other blogs. There are a few blog directory/search engines out there. Google has one, there is Blogwise, and Tecnhnorati

J-students and $$ - Part II

Jeff Jarvis -- who writes the BuzzMachine blog and is heading over to head up a new media program at CUNY -- has a counterpoint post to that Cleveland Plain Dealer piece on j-students and jobs and $$$. Read it here.

Also the Dealer columnist responds to critics about the piece's lack of attribution, slam against PR people, etc - read it here

Professors who blog

There is a story in the Chicago Tribune about a professor with a popular political blog who was recently denied tenure - the article looks at if it was his blog that doomed him - "Did blogging doom prof's shot at tenure?" You can read the prof's post of his "pretty bad day" here along with all the comments from his readers.