RSS feeds, etc.

Today we are going to be talking about RSS feeds. And other ways of keeping on top of the topic you are covering in your blog. Here are some sites we are going to look at.

Bloglines

Feedster

And we're off....

Our class of 21 students is setting up their blogs this week - lots of sports topics ... also fashion, food, humor, tv, film, etc. This is a journalism class, so we have some ground rules, which I will post. Sticking to journalistic standards while also experimenting a bit - getting a chance to do some opinion writing, write reviews, etc. I'm starting to add the links to student blogs off to the right. I'm impressed with how some people are already loading up their own photos, making their own graphics, tweaking the code to customize their blog, etc. I'm hoping this semester to play around with a bit of podcasting - loading up some audio to the blogs. Today we looked at CommandN - this great tech news Web TV program based in Toronto-a good example of what you can do with a blog and some multi-media tools.

By the end of the weekend, I should have everyone's blog linked up from here.

Same blog, new colors

I thought the blog needed a new look for the new semester ... hence, the new look.

Houston Chronicle is looking for bloggers

Too bad we don't live in Houston ...

Just a taste ...

Online Journalism - A sampling of blogs

Directory of blogs
Technorati
http://www.technorati.com

Blogwise
http://www.blogwise.com/


Politics/Law
Daily Kos
http://dailykos.com/

Instapudit
http://instapundit.com/


Sports
Over the Monster (Red Sox)
http://www.overthemonster.com/

Women’s Hoops Blog
http://www.womenshoops.blogspot.com/



Gossip/Misc
Gawker
http://www.gawker.com/

Defamer
http://www.defamer.com/

Post Secret
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

Fashion
I am fashion
http://iamfashion.blogspot.com/

Blogdorf Goodman
http://blogdorfgoodman.blogspot.com/

Military
Blackfive
http://www.blackfive.net/

Froggy Ruminations
http://froggyruminations.blogspot.com/

Technology
BoingBoing
http://www.boingboing.net/

Gizmodo, the gadget blog
http://www.gizmodo.com/

Welcome Spring Semester!

Round 2. It's now Spring semester - and we have a new group of students for Online Journalism. Hopefully some of the kinks we had last semester with our inaugural effort will be smoothed out this time around. First up, a piece in New York Magazine about Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist. Please read to discuss next week. Also if you are not famliar with Craigslist, spend some time exploring it. Craiglist is a threat to newspaper classifieds - the bread and butter of newspaper revenue.

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