Using search tools to inform news-gathering: Some data and examples

Back in October I wrote a guest blog post for Glyn Mottishead's online and mobile journalism blog for his students, about how site searches could be a useful tool for journalists, I found the draft post again in my Google Docs the other day and thought, since some things had moved on since that was written, it merited a repost.
So, with apologies to Glyn for repeating myself, here's an updated version:

The power of saying yes: The Register Citizen Open Newsroom project

I am fascinated by what's going on at the Register Citizen Open Newsroom Project - I genuinely can't stop thinking about it. I'll read one of the team's blog posts, look at some videos of opening day, and then go about my usual daily whatevers. Then, a while later, I find myself back reading another blog post by or about the project, looking at some more videos or photos, and still I am fascinated/impressed/jealous/desperate to steal their idea and do it too.

Links for 19/12/10 (bookmarking in a post-Delicious world)

My world shifted on its axis last week with the news Delicious was closing. That state of affairs has now moved to to Delicious is not closing, it's simply breaking up with Yahoo, and has won custody of the dog, or something,

Whatever. The upshot is that my trust in Delicious as the guardian of my social bookmarks has been irrevocably damaged and I'm not getting into that kind of exclusive relationship again. Yup, I'm going to be a social bookmark butterfly. I will still use Delicious, but its not my sole site. 

"A new kind of thinking is required..."

Image via CrunchBaseI read Judy Sims' excoriating blog post on (some) newspaper execs today; it struck a chord with me in the light of my last post on five things I thought newspapers should do next year as she also has an issue with the iPad goldrush:

"So along come the steering committees, working committees, pay walls and subscription models and the dream that consumers will be willing to pay for their rarified opinions despite the countless free alternatives.  And along come the $30 million iPad apps that attempt to recreate scarcity by rolling back the clock to when news was a once-a-day occurrence and the public didn’t expect to comment, contribute or find links"

 You can read the full article here. If you happen to be a newspaper executive, I suggest you move anything breakable off your desk first...

Related articles

• Five things regional newspapers should aim for in 2011 (headlinesanddedlines.blogspot.com)
• iPad to kill more newspaper print subscriptions in 2011 (newstatesman.com)
• Buy iPad, cancel newspaper (tech.fortune.cnn.com)
• Is The iPad Meant To Save Newspapers Or Kill Them Quicker? (gizmodo.com.au)

Five things regional newspapers should aim for in 2011

How do you answer this question...

What do regional newspapers need to do in 2011?

...in less than 100 words?
It taxed my brain sorely last week when Peter Sands asked me for a few pars in response to include in his annual newsletter; I eventually sent back this:

Don’t waste time and energy wondering how to charge for news online; readers won’t pay for commodity news, and unique content has a half-life of 30 seconds. Instead, build thriving, engaged communities that can be commercialised by marketing and advertising teams, growing relationships across all platforms through data-capture, collaborative reporting, contextual and behavioural ads, crowdsourcing, linking and conversation.

"I want to write for the New York Times..."

I think this little Xtranormal skit has gone around the world twice now but it did make me Laugh Out Loud twice.

Much as I like Xtranormal, I hadn't used it in a while because it was pretty limited but when I logged in again today I see there are a host of new character types added in. It would be nice to upload audio though - the text-to-voice is distracting for all the wrong reasons.

Related articles

• Funniest library related movies made using Xtranormal (musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com)
• Hilarious DIY Cartoons [Daniel-Flavius Lucica] (ecademy.com)
• Five Sites for Making Animated Movies (quazen.com)
• "Text-to-movie" site for total in-browser robo-cartoon making (makezine.com)